WRITINGS FROM A LIFE OF WISDOM, HEARTACHE & LOVE

“A Family’s Inherited Death Wish” The Suicidal Thoughts in My DNA

2011-10-09T17:46:00.017-04:00

[all the names herein are changed to protect the privacy of the living.]

An Original Collection of Provocative and Powerful Essay's by New York Writer, R. B. STUART. Her Work Begins and Ends at the Crux of Truth, Sorrow and Humor---Capable of Slicing Through Your Psyche and Piercing Your Heart.

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Nine

In April 2007 shortly after my move from New York City to the outer tip of Long Island, I experienced an isolation and desperation that brought my thoughts back to suicide. Which hadn’t occurred for 20 years since the age of 26. Now that I was living in my future the hopelessness over my place in life and achievements fell short of the expectations I had for myself as a young girl with dreams of a bright future. After the death of both parents---an orphan for the first time---I witnessed my joy replaced by sadness---and youth traded in for jaded age. It became difficult to see my accomplishments and replicate the beauty cast over me by my mother’s eyes. The vanishing of everything I felt to be true created voids in corners of my life, becoming a vortex of pain that had reached the crux of….that spring day.

When I left the bank, I could feel the emotion snake up my throat---I didn’t expect to still be struggling at 46 the way I did at 26. I asked the teller Laura if any portion of the check cleared. I felt shame and sadness as I withdrew money from my account. Over the past two years I deposited yet another credit card convenience check to pay my rent and bills. Suspending the tears when she asked how I was doing, “Not well. Say a prayer for me,” I responded trying to hold down the emotions that were beginning to regurgitate. Her soft, compassionate blue eyes had a wisp of sadness in them, as if she knew the hardships I was undergoing. Reflected in numerous withdrawals that dipped my account to the $10 minimum.

I couldn’t turn my face to walk out the door fast enough before the pain and sorrow imploded from my heart, melting from my eyes. Orchestrated by a high-pitched whale I wept, ‘They say God doesn’t give you anymore than you can handle…it’s a lie. If it were true then people wouldn’t commit suicide.’ It seems God doesn’t ration the mounting pressure one experiences in life. In times of sorrow, sadness, desperation and hopelessness…. nothing changes. You cry yourself through it and wake to the same toil the next day.

Abandoning the thoughts in my head, I was lost in the grief of my heart. I reached my car door, opened it and sat in the seat of my pain. My apricot miniature Poodle, Sunday lept onto my lap and sniffed the emotions escaping from my mouth. He probably wondered what happened while I was in “that place.” He stayed quiet as I started the car and we left.

I decided to take him to the woods for a walk on the trails at Laural Lake. As we drove down the steep, mottled, dirt entrance I thought, ‘Should I tie him up to the exhaust pipe the way Daddy did with litters of kittens we couldn’t afford to keep.’ In the 60’s my father would have us kids go in the house while Mum turned up the radio. Then he’d place the unwanted litter in a bag, turn on the car and asphyxiate them. On the outskirts of the woods under mounds of dirt and dried leaves he’d bury the remains in a pit. The decaying animals would rest….living out their memories with us on the grounds in which we played.

I plotted, ‘If I didn’t have to worry about my dog, then I could kill myself. What if I killed myself and my dog survived, who would take him? If I killed him first I would surely want to die. I couldn’t bare life without him. Maybe a family member would parent him.’ I parked, he yelped and scratched at the door with pleasure having just arrived at one of his favorite spots. He hopped out, prancing as though life was grand, unaware I was premeditating his murder.

Tucked in the woods we meandered around the dirt trails when I noticed broken chunks and shards of glass from shattered beer bottles. I didn’t want him stepping on broken glass and cutting his paws so I was always cautious where we walked. I began picking up the brown chunks, green chips and clear slivers. I carried them in the palm of my hand, they reflected in the sun. He explored while I contemplated using the glass to cut my arms.

My thoughts raced, ‘What if I took the glass shards and sliced upwards from my wrist to forearm, the way suicide victims do killing themselves in a tub of water. If I sat down on the old cement foundation in the middle of the woods, and slit my wrists I would eventually bleed to death. Would Sunday howl or lick the blood off my arm? How many hours would it take before I died? Would I make it through the night alone in the woods? Whoever found my car would eventually find me. When opening my car door they’d see I had just come from the bank and was on my way to pay bills. The errand and food list wedged on the dashboard. Ready for execution.’

In my family, talking about death and dying was as common as discussing life. My thoughts drifted to my father Irwin, a 1st Division Calvary Specialist in WWII, an Army Master SGT who survived the invasion of Normandy but always wished he died with his war buddies. In 1966 he died at 46 from lung cancer. And as he wished, his ashes were scattered across the ocean…finally finding a resting place with his buddies at sea. My father left behind seven children and a 37-year old wife, my mother, Patricia.

Over a decade ago my mother told us that when my father relocated her from Boston to the 88-acre family farm in the country hills of Sterling, Massachusetts. It was the mid 1950’s, she was around 27, and they were newlyweds. She gave birth to her first two children, my brother Frank and sister Pearl. Desperate to get away from the seclusion of farm living, she went out to the barn and picked up my fathers shotgun. With one hand holding the cold metal barrel she sat with the tip in her mouth. The head pressing against her inner cheek, she tried stretching her other arm down the butt of the rifle. Unable to maneuver both, she fumbled to pull the trigger. In her attempt my father walked in. He ran over and snatched the gun out of her hands and thundered, “What the hell are you doing! Don’t you ever try that again!”

A city girl used to living a comfortable life, she was ejected into a meager existence as a housewife, and reasoned, “I hate it here! I don’t want to live in the country on a farm.” Desperate to be taken out of the surroundings that on one hand, brought her happiness with her children and husband, and on the other, torment and despair. The poverty, daily chores and tending to the farm animals wasn’t what she thought her life would be. She prevailed throughout the years, and after several strokes she died in 2002 at 73 from Congestive Heart Failure.

My brother Frank, the first-born and only boy, said at the age of 18 he thought about slitting his wrists with razors. Having felt caught between the stages of boyhood and not wanting to be the same type of man as our father. Which to him represented the negative connotations of being a man. Frank experienced violent physical abuse by my father’s hand. As a result he didn’t want to grow up and be the monster he saw our father to be. So instead he turned to drug use; marijuana, hashish and acid and developed a slicing sense of humor.

Four decades later, our fathers brother shared Dad knew Frank was homosexual and tried to beat it out of him---thinking he could beat his son into being a man. Frank had experienced bouts of depression since, but no longer suicidal thoughts. Now, in his mid 50’s, he’s drug free, but thick with the past. As a health facilitator he lives happily with his long-term partner.

Born in 1952 my older sister Pearl, who was a toddler on the farm when my mother attempted to kill herself, has had death thoughts since the age of six. Because of the role my mother gave her as junior Mum caring for her four younger siblings. Rather than be a mother to us, Pearl longed to forfeit her birthright of childhood---to die.

She’s the only one in the family to be clinically diagnosed with depression. Her desires to die were more silent than the other siblings. It resurfaced over the last five years partly because she feels stuck in her life, and being involved with a verbally abusive alcoholic for over a decade beat her down. Her self-inflicted punishment casts an anchor of guilt around her neck fearing he’ll have nowhere to go if she throws him out. So instead, each day he extracts a piece of her while she slowly dies inside.

Her seclusion, hopelessness, weight gain, loss of her son and resentments are at most times too much to bear. Pearl confessed to feeling jealous when hearing on the news of people who have accidentally died, “God why take them….I’ll gladly go.” Seeking relief from the pain, she attached a hose to the tailpipe of her car in a failed attempt to asphyxiate herself. It was divine intervention that the car wouldn’t start.

Pearl remains trapped in a life she loathes, childhood wounds still raw, her lackluster commitment to life saddled with the psychological and emotional loneliness of aging makes merely getting out of bed a challenge. As she disappears, she struggles to keep her grasp on living. Fortunately, a brief stint in a mental facility scared her sane. She finally kicked out her abuser, and life and love seems hopeful, as she’s in control of her life again.

In 1957 my sister Karen’s birth was shaky from the start having survived a ruptured appendix at age three. After the death of our father, and the remarriage of our mother to gold digging-child molesters, who over a three year period single handedly drained my mother financially, while desecrating everything that was once my fathers---including his children, especially the younger daughters.

Karen, the prettiest girl in the family, began experimenting with drugs and sex at 16. By her late 20’s she had tasted as many men and women, as drugs, and seemed to be the most seduced by hard drugs; barbiturates, narcotics, amphetamines, shooting up the latter and heroine.

Influenced by her as an older sister, with her guidance, I began an escapade with drugs. In 1981 at 21, Mum gave me my first journal. Karen and I had rented an apartment together in the North End of Boston. As young women, we hadn’t lived together since we were children, and wanted to experience freedom from abusive, controlling relationships. So we spent nearly a year partying together in the safe havens of Boston’s gay clubs. The drug use created erratic behavior and depression, and an uncertainty in my life. At that tine I needed the comfort and guidance of my father. So the first few pages of my journal were about depression and being caught in between life and death---success and failure.

Within months Karen had a boyfriend, a pharmacist and drug addict, whom I detested and she eventually married. She decided they would cohabitate so she moved out. Shortly thereafter they broke-up, and impulsively reunited, got another apartment, moved and separated again.

In the late 1980’s at the age of 28, Karen started complaining of pain on the back of her neck. She compared it to being hit on the back of her head with a brick. At that same time she began a mantra. The first time I heard it we were sitting in the back of a Boston cab going to her apartment in the North End, “I wish I’d get AIDS and die. I wish I’d get AIDS and die,” she chanted. I reasoned with her to stop saying that.

By January 1987, she wanted to reconcile with her husband who’d been bounced out of pharmacies around Boston for stealing drugs. He moved South, finding a drug store in Florida where he charmed his way back into the pharmaceutical business. Karen made plans to be in Florida with him by Valentines Day. Once there, within weeks she became exhausted, had a shortness of breath and developed the flu. By mid April she was diagnosed with AIDS. Three weeks later she died alone in a Florida hospital at the age of 29.

The death of my childhood chum, the beauty who shared bunk beds with me, the kid that tormented me, the girl that combed, cut and braided my hair, the friend who shared laughter and scars, my dance partner, the only one who knew my fears and collective memories, she was the black raspberry to my pistachio ice cream, the one who sang Jennifer Holiday’s “Dreamgirls” with me….the only person who corralled those moments in time, in our lifetime, had vanished. Into the ethers her spirit went---sailing the sea with my Daddy.

I was 27 when she died. My psyche was ripped from the core. My heart bled a constant river of tears and grief. As I mourned, I stopped smoking, no longer drank or did drugs, became celibate and read self-help books. Learned Transcendental Meditation and affirmations, became one with the earth and saw the face of Mother Nature for the first time. I searched the heavens endlessly for the meaning of her death…and to my life. Grappling with my own desires to die.

In the darkened hours of the night, in the mist of heartache and sorrow, I begged God, “Please take me I want to die. I don’t want to live anymore.” My head waved side to side against the pillow that cradled my inner torment. A flush of tears soaking the sides of my face as I repeated my pleas. My stomach ached from the heaves of anguish. I pleaded to take me from this misery. Exhausted, hopeless and feeling abandoned….I began to fall asleep….until I felt my feet being tugged off the bed.

A miniature casket was suspended in the left corner of the room where the ceiling meets the wall. There where two lights blinking, one red to stop, one green to go. As it began to move toward the bed the tugging at my feet continued. Like magnets, I was being pulled towards the casket. I looked at the foot of the bed and saw a three-foot high ugly brown troll, with a big animal like face and pointed ears tugging at my feet.

Frantically I pulled my feet back, using my legs to push myself back up to the headboard. I was horrified and whaled, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.” Instantly the spell was broken. I leaned over to turn on the light. My forehead felt afire, was it my third eye and a mystical episode I wondered. I was panting and called by brother to tell him what happened. That’s the night I made the conscious choice to live---and would never wish to die again. Until 20 years later….

Karen’s death transformed everyone in the family in different ways. My younger sister Nita decided the Lord was calling her and in 1989 became a missionary for the New Tribes Mission. Giving herself to the Lord she became celibate, refrained from alcohol and smoking, and learned how to preach fire and brimstone. For eight years she lived across the country learning and preparing for the ultimate goal of doing missionary work, bringing Christianity and Jesus to third world countries. She built houses by hand, cut off the heads of chickens, prayed, asked for donations, sang in choirs, learned linguists; Cherokee and Pigeon English so she could speak with the natives. With training complete and her life in crates, she and the other missionaries moved to the New Tribes Mission camp in Papua New Guinea. Where she’d do her life’s work.

It wasn’t long after she arrived did she meet a tanned and salty scuba diving instructor from Australia, who not only taught her about diving, but rekindled a few of the seven deadly sins. Within a month she was reprimanded and told to stop seeing him or else she would be expelled from New Tribes. The affections from her illicit love was stronger than Jesus, and so she opted out. Leaving with him for a torrid seven-day sojourn in Australia.

Knowing it was time to depart from her fantasy romance she reluctantly abandoned her heart. Aware that her life over the last eight years had dissolved, she flew to California and stayed with our brother and reverted to secular life. The smoking and drinking reemerged as Nita felt God had forsaken her by allowing a weakness for the flesh to return. For weeks she pondered at the crossroads, then moved to Florida. Overtime the doubts began to surface and by 1997 at 34 she uttered repeatedly, “I wish I’d die. I wish I’d get cancer and die.” She hasn’t died. At 43 she lives successfully….with those thoughts, and has recently begun journaling, writing “goodbye” letters to family and friends.

In 2006 my baby sister Ella, a 41-year old Army Captain Chaplain with the 101st Airborne returned two years post Iraq with stage IV Dygerminoma cancer. Although the dance of life and death has been one woven throughout all of our lives…when faced with an unwelcomed death sentence with a rare stage IV she whaled, “I don’t want to die. I’m only 40 years old. I’m too young to meet my maker. I don’t have enough memories yet.”

With all the prayers, a great medical team at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the rotation of family support in D. C. After 35 rounds of Chemo, two major surgeries, one to remove a volleyball size tumor from her abdomen, the other to remove her creative organs. As of November 2006 she’s in clinical remission and celebrating her rebirth.

As my yearlong dedication to her began to wane, I had to resuscitate the life I put on hold. During that period I allowed my already fragile writing career to disintegrate. Willingly, I sacrificed the focus of me, my life and doggy, to be certain Ella would live. I made sure not to make the same errors in judgment as with Karen’s death. The remission eradicated her mindset from the death sentence, giving her permission to take her life back, and in the midst forgetting she didn’t do it alone.

By January 2007 after several telephone arguments, the gratitude and sacrifice of the conjoined family efforts had vanished from her mind. As she reverted back to being the same person before the cancer, with the same sibling conflicts and issues. The near hint of death hadn’t yet transformed, or even awakened her. As a result, our servitude had evaporated from her thoughts.

This was the catalyst to my emotional devastation, compounded by my fragile financial outlook, and lack of work. Having spent a majority of the nine months with her in D. C., my credit card debts were mounting. Edging their way to swallow me whole. I turned from her to me, and what I found was feelings of forsaken. Being isolated in a new town, with work that was sparse. The burdens of my own and Ella’s, was too much to carry, crushing my last bit of hope. I couldn’t see around the corner---was anything even there? Or was there more loss, pain, suffering and abandon.

My daily and hourly prayers were marred by doubt. A blanket of confusion of what to do to twist out of the spiral of defeat was taking hold. I felt disconnected from the family, mostly misunderstood, and judged for not having a “normal” life. And slighted for following my fruitless dreams was only compounded by not having a steady income. It gave them the ammunition they needed. Would I abandon them---or my dreams?

As the work ended my hope diminished. I detached from Nita and Ella breaking the emotional bonds. It was a vortex of heartache that produced thoughts of death once again. Nearly 20 years, 1987 and now 2007. Karen’s death was the catalyst the first time. This time a blend of family and career; fear, scarcity, loneliness and loss.

I took Sunday for a walk and within blocks my mind was flooded with words, thoughts and visions of how I could die. I wept with each step pleading to God why has he forsaken me. The sorrow dripped from my eyes as I fell in a trance of grief. My dog oblivious to my howls of anguish meandered along the frozen edge of the country roads. The feelings of being misunderstood were apparent, as was the lack of respect for the life experiences I had tucked within my history. I pled to the spirit of Karen, my Mother and Father for help. My mind and heart became one---lost in a bounty of aloneness and suffering.

As I approached the homes along the bay the negative tape in my head began to silence. The vision of myself along the rocky shores of the beach started to emerge---I became still inside. Like Virginia Woolf’s suicide, I envisioned myself collecting rocks and putting them into my jacket pockets, into my sports bra, into my underwear, my socks, boots and tying Sunday’s leash to my arm. As we’d wade out into the calm winter water, he’d become cautious as I walked slowly through the graveled shore, clutching him against my breast.

The smooth, faceless cold rocks pressing against my flesh---the weight taking hold, the waves knocking me off balance until I surrendered to the salty foam. The warmth of the water against the crisp air would cover me like a blanket. The life-filled world of Technicolor would become grey, still, and lifeless as my feet became heavy in the sand. I relinquished my will to the vast oceans of death that came before me. Sunday would frantically submit to his masters wish, staying tethered to my arm as our ship of life went down.

This reel in my mind had silenced my cries---as I was suspended by the vision. We floated back home along the tarred road. I thrust my body onto the bed and whaled for my dark thoughts. Sunday was confused and sat by my side. With no one except the spirits to hear my lowly inner turmoil, my journal became the caring caress I needed. It stood firm, spine erect, arms wide open, steadfast. In silent strength the pages took all I could expel. The unfettered paper marred by tears, pain and confusion absorbed the strife eating away my psyche. Only after I exhausted the power of death did the wave of emptiness rock me peacefully to sleep.

The next day brought a feeling of renew, and three weeks of unexpected part time work brought my optimism back. It made me feel self-sufficient and strong. I decided to see a tarot card reader in NYC. I needed to know what was ahead. The trees in the forest were closing in. She provided the hope that abandoned me. She spoke of success, riches, powerful men and love. I only had a few weeks and months to wait before all the cards fell into place. She affirmed my terrible life experiences with lady luck nowhere in sight, but all that would change. The depression would lift, and everything I’d worked for in my life would finally meet---with that elusive four-leaf clover.

I spun like a top with excitement. Nothing could penetrate my star filled eyes. The future was finally mine. Three weeks came, then five weeks, then nine, and….no powerful man, no money, no luck, and was out $50 dollars. I regressed back to the darkness on that crisp, bright spring day when I took Sunday for a walk through the woods at Laural Lake. With each step pieces of my family history sprouted in my head like jewels---suspending the visions of cutting my arms with the glass sparkling in my palm. Their events began to link themselves together. My family’s own personal demons, our own struggles, and fight with life and death I noticed had a similar thread. Like a patchwork quilt their stories surfaced and revealed themselves. Maybe we don’t own those thoughts---they belong to our parents, our ancestors. Their desires to die were passed down to us.

Woven through my parents and siblings is the fragile balance of doubt and hope, weakness and strength, confusion and clarity, sadness and joy. And if tipped one way for a long period of time desperation emerged wrapped in the package of despair, wishes of dying, or death.

While I was able to uncoil the intricate emotional longings that have replicated and connected us over the generations….the memories, the words, the sentences. It painted a picture for me of my family, and I thought, ‘Maybe the death wish isn’t mine after all.’

Just then, as I rejected death, I was possessed by generations of understanding. Their spirits gave me permission to be cradled by the muse and in euphoric excitement I grabbed a pen and paper from my pocket and this story began to unfold. The phrase I penned brought enlightenment, “my death wish was inherited in my DNA, it doesn’t belong to me.” And by unlocking the originators….I felt peace with my demons and was somehow set free. My soul, no longer lost in the woods of darkness---the spell was broken, and in my clarity I found the freedom to finally---live.

© COPYRIGHT 2007, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“Fashion Crash: When Clothes, Loss and Car Collide”

2011-04-08T16:57:00.014-04:00

An Original Collection of Provocative and Powerful Essay's by New York Writer, R. B. STUART. Her Work Begins and Ends at the Crux of Truth, Sorrow and Humor----Capable of Slicing Through Your Psyche and Piercing Your Heart.

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Eight

Several years ago my mother suffered her second stroke, then in 2002 the 73 year-old widow had a third relapse. It rattled my existence and I began to ponder my 13 years in New York City, my childhood, and the possible loss of my mother. I reached an understanding; that in order for me to have a quality and healthy life---I'd have to rescue my mother, my own life, and leave New York. I knew I could always have NY but would never have another mother, so I'd forfeit my life in the city as I knew it, and move in with her where she spent the last thirty years of her life in New Hampshire.

In taking care of her disintegrating body I'd assist her as she made the transition to death. All the while I still bartered with God that she'd recover from this one as she did the other two. My heart and mind were split as I listened to her yearn for the days as a teenager drinking bottles of Pepsi-Cola and eating Devil Dogs through puffs of oxygen.

Reminiscing about her long swims in the cool ocean waters of Gun Rock Beach in Hull, Massachusetts. Mentally I knew she'd eventually die from refusing food, but in my heart I couldn't fathom the loss of my one and only---Mother. Yet, there was still so much I hadn't achieved in my life that I needed her to be around for. After all, I owed her the happiness of seeing me marry a wonderful man, that is after I found one, become a successful author, and buy a beach house where she would live with me while I write---a German Shepard patiently curled by my feet.

But in the six weeks that followed she died. As her life had unexpectedly ended---mine began. I bought my first car a 1992 Volvo and planned my mothers Memorial service. Within months I anticipated my move from NH where I restlessly left as a child three decades before. But during that mourning period I'd experience waves of grief along with periods of acceptance and a sense of well being. With emotions and their unpredictable manner, I felt consumed by the darkest moments. At midnight driving quietly along still country roads listening to a Dean Martin cassette, remembering the old songs that she loved. I pictured her sitting beside me in the car she’d never seen, swaying to the music and singing in unison.

That vision had put me into a tailspin of sorrow and grief. I missed her so. Riding down the blackened, barren roads howling in pain like a lone fox caught in a trap--no one to rescue her in the deep of the night out of the cold, dark woods. Suffering---the ache tightly gripped my head. The forceful well of tears burst from my heart---draining months of sorrow from my eyes. Sleep was the only remedy. It takes me back to Mum, and our family as it should be…

When I resuscitate myself from the tidal wave of pain, my memory ponders the last three years of her life….. The second stroke left her with left side paralysis and wheelchair bound, spending her final five years in a seated position. It reduced her sense of fashion and delight of shopping to elastic waist – wide legged pants sufficient for her leg brace. She wore clothes we thought would look good on her, as apposed to her choosing her own wardrobe.

The wheelchair made her extremely self-conscious producing a homebound shame that crippled her self-esteem. Her social life had diminished, her comfort came from a "pet" bowl of ice cream or chocolates. It took several years of cajoling when I'd come home for a visit just to attend family gatherings. She'd defy me and whimper with self-pity, "No one wants to see an old lady in a wheelchair." I'd reason, "No one is looking at you in your wheelchair. Do you stare and talk about people you see in a wheelchair?" “No,” she'd answer, pouting in defeat as she'd pivot from her recliner into her mobile metal chair.

Finally after four years of my drill sergeant methods to get her out of the house, she sulked when the transport service van drove us to Physical Therapy because afterwards we’d go on foot to the mall. She hadn't been in a store since the stroke, relying heavily on home health aids and family to shop.

After her PT I wheeled her 5'10 frame down the hill. Because of her pride she never attached the foot rests, it would only amplify her disability to herself and the world, so her long basketball legs were stretched out before her, her metal knee brace peeking out from under her left pant leg. We rolled along the emergency lane of the bypass, trudging up another hill when it began to sprinkle. She laughed and held her face up to the sky as the raindrops kissed her cheeks. It had been so long since she was out in the rain---like the tin man her caution gave way to ecstasy---filled with glee she shouted repeatedly, "Honey, what an ad-vent--cha!"

I tugged, pushed and pulled her around every bend until Kmart was only a roll away. Out of breath, her legs in cramps, both of us damp from the rain, the automatic doors opened and I let go of the wheelchair. Her feet clad in brown orthopedic Frankenstein shoes dropped to the floor and with her heels pulled herself over to the first rack of clothes she could find. The drunken excitement shown over her face. Childlike awe glazed over her protruding hazel eyes as she marveled and caressed each fabric like it was a babies head. She'd gasp in adoration as each rack of clothes were better than the last. A simple pop into a department store for me---was a life changing event for her. After that landmark day her desire for life began to blossom again.

But as she became psychically disjointed by the silver metal frame with hoola-hoop sized black rubber wheels that flanked her, I eventually felt socially crippled by the car that had been bought to give me freedom. Even though after her death I moved back to the Empire State and lived closer to the beach, the three-ton metal box with four rubber wheels would begin to erode my self-esteem.

It began to cloak my public self, as if putting on an overcoat. I’d adorn my chariot and duck in and out of stores, shielding my lack of make-up behind Armani sunglasses. The rear view mirror the size of a blackboard eraser would reflect the only portion of my body I didn’t mind looking at; my eyes. My lips no longer kissed by a coat of Chanel Star Red lipstick.

When living in NYC walking along the city streets is like strutting on the catwalk of life. Paved with cement sidewalks that glisten like diamonds---you’re on display for the world to see. Your gait, your posture, how you feel about yourself is neatly packaged by your Manalo shoes, Hermes red Birkin bag, 4-ply Burberry cashmere sweater and Chanel scarf---all strategically placed---dripping from your neck, shoulders and arm.

The absence of being on street-display, saddled with using the car to hide…a whiplash of weight gain emerged. While I forfeited walking---the lack of caring for myself trailed behind. Gaining seven pounds a year over the last six years (although not in that order), the newly packed 40 pounds of girth cushioned the blow of feeling unattractive, and the thicker the insulation---the more secluded I became. The outside world mirrored a shame and inadequacy that cloaked me like new lingerie. My stunted sexuality protected by the metal four-door box in which my social persona lives. No longer do I stand erect along the city streets, but seated in a guarded wheeled cage that effectively protects my pride…while I ride.

When you abandon city living---you’re no longer center stage of the style capital---instead your artillery of fashion accessories become abandoned in a darkened closet. The garments are symbolic of the passage of time when they lived amongst the yellow taxi cabs, salty steam of manhole covers, clap of pigeons, hot dog carts and cat calls that make NYC. Like a ghost I’m haunted by a walk in Central Park, my collection of silk scarves rattle the closet doors to be taken out for a wisp of city air. The boxes of Gucci loafers edge themselves further out on the shelves….craving the pavement underfoot. The arm of my Ellen Tracy raincoat longs to drape my shoulders, as my Louis Vuitton tote reaches out to hold my hand.

I push back my thoughts of fashion as it’s been replaced by country roads, farmland, vineyards and an automobile---which I have adorned as my armor for the last six years, shielding me away from society. Hiding within the metal comfort of 250 horsepower it replaces the pulse of the city streets, sweeping away the stimulation and culture. Eventually separating me from the world….as I’m no longer bejeweled by my clothes, but a car.

While the echo from the city wafts through my senses once again, she begins to tip the scales, like a magnet she draws me away from the seclusion, and reawakens the desire of a women to beatify oneself---through fashion---and accessories are but a drive away…

Arianna Huffington - The Greek Tycoon: “Greed Is Good”

2011-02-15T15:20:00.015-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Seven

As a Huffington Post contributor, I was invited [self, above] on FOX Business News on Valentines Day to Interview live with David Asman on Nightly Scoreboard, to discuss the recent acquisition of The Huffington Post by AOL. Even the media is dumbfounded to learn that while Arianna Huffington has been building her website and reputation over the past five years----she has never paid any of her writers.

I don’t know who Arianna has been consulting as of late, or how many times she’s watched “Wall Street,” but it’s obvious her new mantra is, “Greed Is Good.”

This sale of The Huffington Post to AOL last week for $315 million, has caused a backlash throughout journalism, because she, without conscience, profited off the backs of her free labor. The 6,000 dedicated, progressive, professional writers, who over the past five years were responsible for transforming the former wife of a U. S. Senator----into a Greek Tycoon.

The sale, coming off the heels of her latest book about America becoming a Third World country is ironic, as she treated her devoted writers no better than a boiler room operation in Taiwan.

These are the very writers whose quality of content has brought credibility to The Huffington Post. This year Harvard University has accepted the publication as a viable web news source, including its credentials among the categories of national newspaper and magazines for its Investigative Journalism award; The Worth Bingham Prize, in which I’ve submitted my series of soldiers diagnosed with Cancer post-Iraq.

It’s unthinkable that her father, a newspaper publisher himself, would have instilled in his daughter that when she builds her own publishing empire---to be sure she stick her Manolo Blahnik heels into the back of her writers---as she climbs her way to the top.

In good faith, Arianna Huffington should have included in her February 7th “contributors” E-mail, that out of the $315 million sale, she would be cutting each of the 6,000 free laborers a check of $1,000, as a thank you [still an insult, but at least it would have been an effort of gratitude]. It would have totaled to $6 million dollars---and still would have had $309 million left.

The writers are what made the publication what it is today, and what made her a valuable commodity. So to think she’ll stuff her mattress with $300 million in cash, while her own stable of writers lay their head on a pillow of poverty is unfathomable and ruthless.

And to assume that selling her lot of slaves aboard “The Grecca” AKA The Huffington Post, to the conservative billion dollar corporation AOL, where they would continue to provide content for free----puts her in the category of Wall Street execs shafting the middle class. And it is the ultimate act of betrayal and exploitation to her servants of news.

This buy-out may have been a shrewd business move in the boardrooms of corporate America---but it has solidified the new tier in the landscape of America’s Workforce---two levels below interning and volunteer work is now exploitation and free labor. The former six levels, will now be seven. Beginning at the bottom; exploitation/free labor, volunteer work, internships, minimum wage, high school diploma, college degree and Masters. This hierarchy of the American work force and age discrimination will saturate journalism with inexperienced mediocrity, and abolish the strife our colleagues suffered at picket lines over a half-century ago when they demanded better wages and working conditions. Their steadfastness and courage for bettering the value of our craft has been usurped by this deal.

The only light on the horizon I see is moving to Asia where I can finally be paid by American corporations for the labor I provide. And I will do so willingly as a true American patriot, only marred by the Made in China tattoo stamped on the back of my hand.

"Arianna Huffington Sells Lot of Slaves for $315 Million"

2011-02-07T17:42:00.024-05:00

Arianna Huffington, Courtosy AP 10-10

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Six

As a contributor for The Huffington Post since 2008, I have posted 25 original content articles valued over $25,000 for free. So eager to have the platform for my soldiers stories, of U. S. soldiers returning from Iraq with Cancer ---I didn't ask for payment---merely handed over the 20 - 30 hours of reporting of each piece for gratis.

Over that period I had asked Arianna Huffington several times for financial support with this work, but after being referred to the D.C. based Huffington Post Investigative Fund as a candidate for payment---I was turned down, as well as by executive editor, Roy Sekoff.

I become incensed to learn that in December The Huffington Post hired away two New York Times editors for well over $100,000 each.

Then to receive an E-mail today from Arianna and Roy about their "Exciting News" of the AOL take over---I was less than enthusiastic. Do they really think 6,000 slave writers will continue to write for free for an international conglomerate like AOL (who pays their web-writers, even if it is meager) without pay?

The deal was made between AOL and Arianna Huffington while they courted her over the weekend at the Super Bowl. Not only did they buy out The Huffington Post for $315 million, but $300 million is in cash.

Essentially, the 6,000 writers Arianna lured with coveted bylines, then exploited their content while the site raked in ad revenue in the millions---has now sold us without our permission, under the guise we'd continue to write for AOL for free---it is presumptuous and arrogant to say the least.

The only way to turn this downward spiral for writers providing original content for the web for meager wages, or in this instance, for not even a slap on the back---is to withdraw. We have grumbled over the years that our craft has lost its value with technical advancement. Web-writing will never compare to print---in respect nor payment---unless we change it. Since the Internet is unregulated when it comes to rights for writers and photographers and collecting fees, then my fellow scribers, this should be a turning point were we no longer write for free. How can one person sell another’s work, without their permission, unless they are slave labor without laws protecting them?

We might not have had rights contributing for The Huffington Post. But it is OUR right now---whether or not to write for free for AOL--- the new owners of The Huffington Post.

This may be an exciting payday for the masthead....but for the thousands of writers that have kept the site in business and lucrative for five years with incentives for advertisers---for AOL to assume it's business as usual without pay---then the executives brokering the deal need to think again. As writing for free for an international corp like AOL---is another beast altogether.

To think the award winning, much admired and regarded Arianna, sold her soul as well as The Grecca ship of slaves---is not only corrupt---but unthinkable. And in my opinion this act of greed and exploitation may be the beginning of her demise.

And I may not be the only contributor to need a glass of water to wash the bitter taste from their mouth....

End of The Line: “When a Branch of Your Family Tree Breaks”

2011-01-15T15:20:00.004-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Five

Studies show that when a woman is shown images of babies their pupils dilate. I have never experienced that sensation but know when I see furry images of a floppy-faced, innocent eyed puppy, my mouth breaks into an immediate smile and my heart is filled with joy. Like when The Grinch is converted by the unconditional love and compassion of little girl Who?, in the town Whosville he’s taken Christmas away. An x-ray of his heart shows it expanding and beginning to pulsate with love and joy, while the sparkle in his eyes give way to half mooned grin. That’s how I feel when I see dogs.

Was that the prediction that I would never bear children? Or was it because me and three other sisters were molested for a three-year period all under the age of 12 by our ex-stepfather and his 16 year-old pedophile son?

When that psychic scar penetrates your entire life---with a secret that distorts all your romantic relationships. If by your 30’s you don’t allow it to surface into the rage it’s festered---then we turn on ourselves.

As my older sister Karen did with hard drugs introduced to them at 16 by a street hustler twice her age. He infiltrated her life preying upon that protection she craved since the death of our father when we where six and nine. The drugs numbed out the childhood pain, and glazed over the domination, exploitation and beatings he’d give her to keep her submissive and fearful of leaving him.

In her 20’s her love for heroin was stronger than the addiction she once had for him. And she parlayed that for a new life for herself with other functioning addicts that didn’t abuse her. But it was only time before the drugs would call her home….

At 28, while she was going through a period of sobriety she said to me she longed to be someone’s wife, at the same time her demons clawed at her and wished she’d contract AIDS and die. She married a pharmacist with a drug habit and access to pharmaceuticals….and with all her fortitude attempted to salvage her once reckless life. But the mantras of death had already begun to weave their web and she developed full-blown AIDS Easter of 1987. She died that May at the age of 29.

Tormented by sexual abuse of my ex-step fathers hand, Karen partied hard and lived recklessly until her body couldn’t withstand the violation it absorbed when she was 12. I watched as she psychically willed herself to death.

It left four sisters and a brother to grant my mothers wish of grandchildren. The latter would be removed from carrying on the name since he was gay. The future rested in the wombs of the four remaining.

When she died I was 27 and the loss shook the foundation of my holy trinity as she would never reach her 30th birthday and I would ultimately outlive her. Her life was frozen mid-stream---her image burnt into the Kodak paper in my mind. Like a caveman in search of a fossil---I clung to her personal effects as remnants of a life half lived, but had evaporated into the ethers. Her remaining belongings reduced to a few cardboard boxes were sifted through by the family---like wiping the dust from the rubble of a gold mine---in search of the one nugget of artifact that extracted the totality of her life. That would essentially invoke an image, thought or feeling of her.

Now only I was the locket of our shared childhood of bumps and bruises, lies and betrayals, jealously and envy, love and empathy. I inherited what was and had the power to change what would be for my own life.

I stopped drinking, getting high, partying, quit smoking and became celibate. I lost the support of my intoxicated weekend friends and turned inwards for the first time in search of myself, my pain, my God.

As the calendar months flipped by, so did the decades. As I celebrated the milestones of 30, 35, 40---I marked the loss of what could have been for her. Having come from a family of five girls and one boy, after our fathers death in 1966, our innocence was sacrificed for the pleasures of out ex-step brother, as three of us had suffered sexual abuse by him. It would permeate every facet of our life, and forever stain our ability to love, trust and experience intimacy with a man.

So damaged, I observed each of us girls become abstinent and relinquish our maternal clocks. While I feel the pricking of turning 50 in a few months I am acutely aware I am childless. Having lost my mother in 2002 at the age of 72 I am now parentless---officially an orphan. Being emotionally maimed by abusive relationships until I was in my mid 30’s---I find myself spouseless. The psychological injuries obtained stunting my ability to love again---trust again. As I’ve resolved it’s too late for me.

My family jests my apartment is so over run with memorabilia and collectables---that when I die they dread having to dismantle my tangible life. Threatening me and my objects of affection with a garage sale or much worse the dump. As I scan each intricately placed photograph, shelved Norman Mailer books and an assortment of his framed letters of encouragement and sketches to me, souvenirs from my world travels and longings for Italy hang side by side, religious artifacts, and wall of achievements---my eye rests on a Bible sized, Italian leather bound coffee table book, with a cover etched with a trio of naked female figures.

Within the parchment pages is my New England Family Tree dating back to 1834 and 1844 in Naples, Italy, 1616 Scotland, 1711 Belfast and 1847 County Cork, Ireland. My fathers and mothers lineage ends with me and my siblings.

Having four childless and spouseless sisters prepares us for a life of spinsterhood. But even more jarring is there’s no one to tell the family stories to, no one to leave the genealogy with, and no other generation who’s interested in my baubles, much cared for chronological photo albums of 25 years---all of which will one day lay on a wobbly aluminum table in a dusty thrift shop. Being picked over by the pelicans of the future.

Like those before me who beloved trinkets line flea market tables or antique shops because their family found no attachment or they had no one living that would carry on their memory. No one to leave their every hope and dream, shared laugh and tear, no one to mark the life they had lived.

It brings sadness to my heart, as I mourn the life I’ll leave behind. The life that will ultimately vanish into the incinerator of death. The only value of my achievements will be in the money I leave behind. There will be plenty of takers for that…. But my grandmothers cameo pendent and engagement ring, my grandfathers communion ring, my fathers WWII dog tags, my mothers Mother’s ring and ruby, the jewelry from the chapters of my own life---will they lay encased in a darkened, antique store marked with white price tags? Will they strike a strangers fancy and find a home ‘round their finger or neck….their history forever dormant.

Or do I have all those keepsakes buried with me, or thrown into the crematory with me? Is it vulgar to ponder adopting a teenage boy and girl to selfishly carry on my Family Tree, and who will mourn my passing by cherishing my volumes of poetry, journals, books, manuscripts and other possessions? Or do I spend the last segment of my life distributing what I’ve amassed over the years to my friends? What will come of my mothers belongings that I horded after her death? The white chest stacked with magical memories and doo-dads laced with her fragrance of “White Shoulders”….the contents and their past only sentimental to a loved one. Will it be impersonally bulldozed into a landfill for seagulls to nest?

After her death is when I became more entrenched in her lineage---the parts she kept secret or long ago forgot. I uncovered generations of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins she intentionally detached from decades ago when she was a young bride in her 20’s. The reasons were hazy. Her estrangements made us, her six children suffer, as we knew no one else except each other.

The floodgates of her private heritage opened up with merely a brief tug. My desire to know who she was, and who I am, brought forth a domino of living great aunts, great uncles, cousins, and childhood chums who happily resurrected her life by recalling moments with her. Within two years I’d been introduced to branches of my mothers side back three generations to Italy, and three to Ireland. As I became engulfed in the family history I longed for while she was alive. I saw a pattern in the Irish genealogy beginning with the seven children born in early 1800’s---none ever married.

I noticed every generation from then on, whether in a family of two or seven siblings; one, two, three, five or six of them within that family never married. Including my own. And I wondered had their families fallen victim to abuse or dysfunction? Just as I noticed numerous drowning from boat or water accidents over the centuries in my lineage, should I beware of the water? Is it better if a family not reproduce and die-off---rather than perpetuate the dysfunction? Was our need not to procreate a good thing for our lineage? As the torment on my mothers side will end with us. Could it be our mission, our destiny is fulfilled, our spiritual work complete? Or had it been in our bloodline----a prophecy effecting certain family branches like mine?

The answers I may never uncover, and it may just be a destiny that no matter how I play tic-tack-toe with my life----the end result is the same for my family: no heirs. At some point I have to come to peace with my inability to pass along all that is precious to me. So along your journey if you come across a bauble, a trinket, old pictures or a journal along the way and find my name etched somewhere----please buy it and give it life----knowing that it came from a girl without a tree.

© COPYRIGHT October 2009, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“Celibate in The City” - When Abstinence Becomes Celibacy…and You’re Not Clergy

2010-10-19T19:40:00.009-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Four

They tell you as a writer to write what you know. It’s not that I set out on a path of vaginal cobwebs---it just happened that way---by choosing emotionally retarded or sexually deviant men over the years, paralleled with idealistic notions of love and romance portrayed in 1940’s films. My travails into premature spinsterhood was emphasized by broken promises, disappointments and misunderstandings. Compounded by my own emotional vocabulary comparable to the board game level of four letters (Scrabble). My trust issues percolated just below the surface with fear of intimacy and abandonment.

Since my late teens I went from abusive relationships with men 10 to 20 years my senior to intoxicated sex with the rare gay male friend, parlayed into fantasy relationships in my early 30’s upon moving to New York City. Which at the height of AIDS graduated to abstinence and later celibacy. My last casual relationship was with an impotent man (unless silicone was omni present) who still lived at home (fully aroused when watching the Playboy channel). When I caught him one day masturbating to their televised, artificially enhanced, shiny naked bodies---our fragile year long relationship ended, and so did my self-esteem as it was marred in cellulite. That finale edged me towards abstinence and into fantasy relationships.

My aptitude for fantasy affairs was born when I was 5 years old twirling around a silver clothes line pole holding the imaginary hand of my “man.” We'd end the dance with a kiss---my innocent tongue reached out to lick the salty, cold metal, as my blue plastic Cat glasses clanked the pipe. Immediately, my notions of men became eschewed as they took on an air of an inanimate, lifeless object. [photo above at six years old]

Likened to a romance novel unfolding, my imaginary ideal of love resurrected itself a quarter of a century later with a handful of fantasy relationships. They were rich with sexual gratification (in my own mind). Literally carrying on a romantic conversation with my latest conquest that escalated to sexual encounters. They were fueled by suppressed longings and an inability to communicate my attraction in real life (unleashing imaginary escapades).

The last fantasy relationship I had was with Ken, a young George Clooney type who worked at World Gym in Lincoln Center. In time, the disinterest and endless rejection from my object of affection, would eventually slap me back to reality. That is after I realized my lovely wasn't able to wake-up and smell the obsession. The hope of my affections being returned would ultimately go unfulfilled and the heartwrenching discovery became apparent, that once again, I latched onto unrequited love.

Ken interest wasn’t in me---but rather a heavily painted, faux bronzed gym tart with implants. I wasn’t dissuaded. To me he was strong and solid like a rock---unmovable. But unknowingly, internally, he was shaking in his Nike’s. His silent strength emerged when he was still, quietly listening to me, and for the first time I felt understood and accepted. I thought during those seven months we had a special, equal, honest connection. Unfortunately, I was so excited by it, (becoming an exuberant puppy with men I’m attracted to) I couldn't contain myself and wanted to share with him every aspect of my life (without peeing on his foot). And in turn he became overwhelmed.

I felt that I had so much to offer and searched years for a man that could handle it, that my unexpressed emotions poured into him. The only way for me to stop the overflow was to step-back and give him and myself---space. Only a few days after we stopped talking did I realize that I appeared "needy." Maybe I was needing to be heard by someone familiar who would just listen. To be understood, accepted, and liked for who I was---by a man.

But a week later the abandonment set in and I crumbled. In an attempt to cloak my emotional collapse, I grappled with small talk, but Ken was swiftly doing sets, and the more he pretended I was invisible, the more desperate I became. I couldn’t bare the hurricane swirling within and it being Easter weekend---searched for the nearest church.

Barely able to contain my psychological and emotional convergence, I scurried down Ninth Avenue and leapt up the stairs of a church at 55th Street. I found myself weeping at the foot of another man----a priest, begging him for clarification. With sorrow spilling from my heart, I cried uncontrollably and in between heaves and puffs of breath asked, “Father, every time I find a man it’s unrequited love---no man ever loves me?” With a halo of candles burning behind him, he replied matter-of-factly, “You have to love yourself first.”

Those detached words of wisdom didn’t bring comfort or understanding, and I staggered drunk with sorrow to the M11 bus home (where I would rekindle a late night rendezvous with a Trinitron sized David Letterman).

Except, Ken’s rejection was so severe, it sent me to the cold white tiles of my bathroom floor. Symbolically, the bathroom where one cleanses, the primal pain of lovelessness throughout my lifetime surfaced as I sat hunched on the floor in the shadows of a night light. Trying to muffle my howls (from the other tenants), I cradled myself behind the closed door. The portal of pain became uncontrollable sucking me into a trance of one question to God, “Why doesn’t anyone love me?” That mantra reverberated through me as I rocked myself looking desperately for answers.

The emotional breaks of past loves (post abusers); Stephen, Michael, George, Marcello, Leonard, and imagined ones; Roy, Blaire and Ken---had ruptured. Looking at pictures of myself in a variety of ages and stages spanning my life---no longer a young, taunt filly. I realized I spent my youth wildly---and wept for the girl I used to be.

Is that me? Such a beautiful, young creature. Why didn't I see it then and love her more. Have I lost my youth? I didn't know what it looked like when I had it. Now I see--it was me. How could I have wasted so many years wondering what's wrong with me?

Believing I was too fat, too homely, too crooked, too loud. Now I see her as thinner, prettier, and all the crooked lines have disappeared. What a fool I was to spend her so recklessly.

While laying in the hammock of my loneliness I cried uncontrollably for quiet some time. I reached for my journal to write what was unearthing. I wrote about the loneliness I felt. It was then I observed my own mind, it wasn't cluttered with the obsessive thoughts of a man. The fantasy obsessions were for many years a distraction for the lack of a man----the void of love in my life. Without the daily pining over a man whom didn't want me, my dejected spirit, negative feelings of self-worth and unattractiveness became intertwined. I was finally alone with the emptiness of my own heart and mind. The more I scribed and reflected, I began to put the pieces of my emotional and psychological puzzle together.

I had many fictional relationships begin and end in my mind. Each ending was as traumatic as in real life. Aware of my regrets and mistakes, with each termination learning more about myself. I'd jest with my siblings that I was the only person to have a relationship, and cause infliction upon myself without ever touching or involving the other person. The fantasies protected me from a partner with unsuspecting sexual dysfunction's or diseases, feared pregnancy or the dreaded, awkward confrontation of clearing out your clothes or his (and asking for the return of apartment keys). It was less messy. Only one partner was hurt. One side of the story (literally). And after I woke from my hypnotic obsession, I'd wonder what I ever saw in him anyway.

As a writer I found the paper helped clear the dead wood hanging around the attic of my heart and mind. An emotional eruption gained momentum with each memory unleashed and re-lived. In order to write about it I had to re-experience it. During a moment of being stuck in a deep fog of emotional pain from the past. I came to realize while walking through the fire---that somewhere along the way I stopped needing people. The endings of important relationships, the loss, the deaths stacked upon one another until I closed my heart and stopped needing and loving others. In the interim it was safer to fantasize relationships. Ending a fictional relationship was still hurtful for my young heart, but less permanent. The obsession was created as a need to not feel any more pain or loss---I was already filled to capacity and needed to empty.

The vessel I searched my lifetime for, to pour my love and adoration into, wasn't a man after all. I mislead my heart in a continual quest for "the one" who could handle such powerful love and devotion. The prose tumbled around my soul while I waited for him. I had so much to share with this creature, where was he?

The years of suppressed emotions saddled with the inability to communicate laid dormant no longer. As I hovered over my laptop rewriting the past, the sorrow and pain surfaced. A cluster of tears dripped from my eyes and through them I found my way clearly. All the experiences and words I absorbed until that point imploded onto the page. The paper morphed into my vessel. I poured all the love, sorrow, regrets and heartache into those pages; strong enough to handle the abundance of painful words. In its silence---effortlessly absorbing the overflow of what I could no longer contain. Unconditionally accepting everything I offered.

But the more I wrote….the more detached I became from men and relationships---as the work became my lover---the memories and experiences became my muse. The reams of white cotton 24 lb. Strathmore paper parlayed my way to celibacy.

Trying to quell my sexual desires the first year of abstinence was the most difficult. The second, somewhat challenging but fulfilled by conjuring up liaisons. Years three to five were satisfied by porno….

And what I notice now after living without the warmth of a mans hand, is that the more I’m in my head as a writer---the less I feel my body below. A disconnect emerged. The less physical touch I experience---the less time I invest in (presumed) dysfunctional friendships or relationships, it severs my connection with other humans. I’m not sure if there’s a way of going back. As I still sense the trappings of inadequacies, the older I become, the more beautiful younger women appear (affirming that without enhanced procedures my days are numbered).

So instead my thoughts drift off to prayer and God (the ultimate in imaginary figures), imagining a better life, and what I want to accomplish. I ponder how iconic religious figures, whether Jesus, the Pope, Dalai Lama or Buddha dealt with the lack of intimacy that comes with celibacy. In 2007, new Mother Teresa journals surfaced, one inscription read, “….I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness, coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. (If I am) The Child of Your Love….you have thrown (me) away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no one to answer — no one on whom I can cling — no one. — Alone…”

Is it harder to walk this life alone, independent, and seemingly self-contained---then committing to the pain and sorrow brought by exploring and loving another? Or will we as humans always crave the love and closeness of another, whether we are celibate or not.

“Loving The Alien: But What If They’re Illegal”

2010-07-21T14:51:00.018-04:00

MEXICO: The Mayan Ruins

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Three

Living in an International atmosphere like New York City you are exposed to the United Nations of culture, daily. I welcome and enjoy the diversity of a city that epitomizes a multitude of ethnicities from food, music, clothes and the arts. It’s common place to be saturated in foreign languages, styles and traditions. And when it comes to a lover….a foreigner is always best, even after a few Red Stripes then washing down the sex with a burrito and nachos. To possess a few coveted items across the pond, I’d consider renting my womb to own an Italian Villa. Would likely have no qualms donating my teeth to an orthodontic school for dentures if it meant a red Hermes Birkin bag in return. And with a penchant for foreign motorcars, there’s nothing like driving 120 MPH on the Autobahn with a Chanel loafer underfoot.

But with all things foreign, as an American I have less acceptance with illegal aliens who intentionally exploit our legal loopholes and our leniency by fraudulently making a home in our country by producing “anchor babies.” It guarantees their right to citizenship because they have procreated on our soil, and not just one child, but many children, solidifying there claim to not be sent home, therefore anchoring them in the U.S. To me being able to get knocked-up in America doesn’t constitute a reason for entitlement whether government assistance money, food, housing or medical care.

Being an American and immigrating to “the land of opportunity” should include a list of expectations, one being to speak English, to respect our environment and not litter or pollute, to not undercut our workforce by accepting our jobs at lower wages [gratis of Clinton’s NAFTA], and refrain from criminal activity. The latter we have enough American made criminals spanning from street drug traffickers, petty thieves, to the upscale robbers of Wall Street. If you want to contribute to our society then be a productive member----since we’re already filled to the brim with psycho’s, scammers, environmental slayers and financial rapists.

The issue is with illegal immigrants, not those immigrating here with a heart of hope, a skill, pre-born children, and a basket of good intentions. As many did three and four centuries ago through Ellis Island. My Italian grandparents immigrated here three generations ago, and my Scottish grandfather was sent to New England seven generations ago against his will as a POW. A soldier, Duncan Stewart was one of 2,000 Scot slaves captured after King Charles’ II, Battle of Worcester in 1651. Some not only lost their lives…but lost the right to their homeland. They were sent by ship to the U. S. in the port of Massachusetts. They reincarnated their birthplace by naming the Western Massachusetts towns Worcester, Leominster and Sterling, the namesakes of their abandoned beloved Scottish Highlands.

They worked hard, eventually bought up land, cultivated farms and contributed to the American way of life. They infused into their children a respect for the earth, how to care for animals, and be self-sufficient. Even if they were poor, with dirt floors, an out-house in lieu of plumbing using a nearby tree leaf to wipe, and at nighttime wrapping hot bricks in newspaper and placed at the foot of the bed to keep you warm through the night. These humble means built character and built Americans. Without sending home their U.S. wages weekly, they contributed to this economy.

No doubt there are still poor American’s living in the United States….but to an outsider looking in, the perception is askew. I’ve met natives from Mexico, Jamaica and Nigeria who believe “all Americans” are rich, and it is that notion that foreigners pack their suitcases and head for our shores----hoping that the preconceived riches will be theirs too. They board boats in the blinding night heading towards Florida where they are met with the law of a “wet foot or dry foot policy.” If they are caught in the water they are deported back to their country, but if their foot touches U.S. soil, they are sent to Crown Detention Center in Miami where they are detained and allowed the opportunity to enter the U.S. legally.

In Mexico with meager or no possessions they run with their life towards our boarders for the promise of the American dream. They scale walls, crawl on their bellies, hide in brush or are transported illegally by a carrier. Their network of families and friends already here house and guide them along the way. But why leave the poppy fields of Oz for a land of crusty, old whities who only want your cheap labor and homemade salsa.

The Mexican aliens work hard for miniscule pay in all areas where English isn’t necessary. They may bring a tireless work ethic, but they also bring the environmental disrespect they have learned in their own country. The dirty water, lack of sanitation and poor living conditions in Mexico are translated when they arrive in the U. S. as they begin “trashing” our country.

Dawn Nita, American born, formerly lived in Papua New Guinea where she spent a year like the natives living off the land. She’s lived in Southern Florida for 15 years and has witnessed a decline in her community. “Living in South Florida is a great cultural experience and I love it here. Over the years I have noticed not only does the influence of the South American cultures impact us in a positive way with the uniqueness of their culture, but if you will, I have also noticed an increase in their “cultural garbage.”

She explains, “As these cultures spread-out over south Florida up from Miami so has the amount of litter that lines the sides of the highways, roads, and parking lots. It has increased significantly even in the communities where I do now, and have lived. When I walk my dog I see fast food bags, bottles, cans and even household items that are thrown without a second thought out of car windows or as people walk down the street.”

“Seeing this brings me back to the days growing up in America and the education and habits that were instilled in us as children.” Nita vividly remembers the PSA’s, “Don’t Be A Litterbug,” “Give a Hoot---Don’t Pollute,” to a single tear rolling down the cheek of an American Indian who witnesses our carelessness with mother nature, as a bag of fast food trash is thrown at his feet. As well as the street signs that started appearing warning of fines for littering. “These messages were ingrained into my generation resulting in as adults we are conscious of recycling and not littering.”

“Now that there has been an influx of Third World immigrants---they haven’t learned the respect of what it means to live here with our standards of living. The cultures that now populate our towns and cities didn’t have the same influence to “Keep American Clean.” They find it natural to throw their trash anywhere they please, even if the garbage can is only a few feet away. It saddens me to see this, and I witness it every day. Leaving their waste for someone else like myself to collect and properly discard,” Nita expressed. “I consider myself a keeper of the planet, but without fail the next day more trash has replaced what was removed.”

“It would serve America well if we made an effort to re-run the PSA’s in many languages teaching our new residents and citizens the same respect we were taught growing up in this beautiful land of America,” she ended.

Those striking images and messages at a young age impresses upon us to care for our environment by not polluting our air or littering our water, and land. But those public messages aren’t developed nor brought with those illegal Third World aliens. Without that initial respect for the land, sea and air, their ignorance smacks us everyday as we contend with their abuse.

Strewn plastic water bottles, broken glass beer bottles are the gifts from our new “grateful” residents, who with their thoughtlessness have made America truly feel like home. By disposing of their refuse in the streets, beaches and parks, maybe intentionally out of defiance, in retribution for low wages and for the U. S. not being all they’d expected---turning our environment into theirs. As we become the minority in our own land with bed bugs crawling under our covers, garbage lodged in between the daffodils, and where the McDonalds French fries and waxed paper are a seagulls delight, while pigeon’s peck in a frenzy at the shiny glass soaked pavement---we have been stamped with the escalating appearance of a Third-World.

So if Arizona believes the many years of illegal Mexican infiltration and cultural garbage has crippled their quality of life---then it’s our way or the highway, and let them enter legally and respectfully---learning the rules of the land and what it takes to actually “be” an American.

But what if we are the intruders of their land? Gary Frank, an American and twenty-year resident of Los Angeles admits the Mexican’s do the work Californian’s won’t do, but we are the aliens. “Essentially, we [American’s] stole the land from the Mexican’s like we did to the Indians. Originally back in the 1600 to 1800’s California, Arizona, New Mexico and the boarder of Texas were all part of Mexico. They are just taking back what is rightfully theirs.”

The Mexican/American wars of those era’s were depicted as a “murderous plunder” only benefiting the U. S. The bloodbath feuds over the centuries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia have been steeped in religious conflict between Christians, Jews, Muslims, Catholic and Protestants, but here in the U. S. our acts of violence, oppression and slavery have taken on a different tone, one of skin color, beginning with the American Indian, then Mexican and Blacks. During our history religion had less to do with our prejudice---but if you were darker than white and owned some land, particularly mineral rich land with natural resources---we took pride in our need to dominate, control, and without conscience take anything you had of value, especially if you were of a darker pigment.

“I find racism deplorable,” Frank underlines. “But each State has its right to do as they please...after all we were not founded as a democracy but Republic for and by the People. This being said...California has many, many lovely Mexican National legal and illegal residents.”

But Frank wonders if we grant them citizenship does it solve the problem? “Why are there no Jobs in Mexico…surely the Gulf Disaster can use some day laborers to clean up for the next 30 years.”

“Living in L.A. we also have general overpopulation with gang and drug issues, including homelessness and destitute people of all races to contend with---so it’s far from the “California Dreamin” fame of the 60's.” Frank’s personal concern about immigration is the crime. “People who reside on Arizona's border have a right to protect themselves and property. There are the safety issues from the have not's robbing the haves which resulted in L.A. and San Diego putting bars on many home windows. Because of the drug trade helicopters hover above all neighborhoods at all hours, and shootings occur at random restaurants.”

“Compounded by our State crying broke to provide social services, there is much work to be done in America,” he concludes. “We were founded on caring for the huddled masses yearning for freedom...now there are so many people our freedoms are dissolving into history one by one.”

If the Mexican people want to leave the home in which they grew up in and migrate to the land that was once theirs, a place where the new American owners have painstakingly developed and beautified over the centuries transforming it into the oasis they sought. Then they should respect the country we have built and partake in making it even better by contributing environmentally and economically, by not sending their resources back to a country that has long ago self-destructed, with the inability to accommodate their basic needs, and failed to become the Eden in which they hoped.

“DIVORCE: Reality Style”

2010-05-15T15:11:00.001-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Two

Since the consumption of Reality TV in 2000, a genre that at times is forgettable, America’s fascination is quenched by the dirty laundry and beatification of the average couple next door---all dressed in professional make-up, designer clothes and lights. They may be anointed celebrities because of their media exposure and real-life drama----but they don’t have the staying power and public adoration of the Hollywood made television or film star’s that have, or will become, legends in the entertainment industry for not only their natural glamour, but gift of craft. [Unrelated to Divorce or Reality TV are two Hollywood stars pictured herein, the multi talented since a mere babe, Brooke Shields, and newcomer Mandy Moore.]

Lasting notoriety, celebrity and stardom is earned, not donned like a badge on a Girl Scout uniform. And maybe that’s the culprit why so many of the reality show couples, who started out on the small screen in a loving marriage---become hostile and combative with one another, ultimately ending in divorce. The final act is punishment by The God’s for selling out on something sacred, pure and honest---the love and partnership of another---in exchange for money and [fleeting] fame.

With the exception of the already famous Celeb’s who signed on for reality shows and eventually settled in divorce court upon wrapping their series: “Being Bobby Brown” with rapper Bobby Brown and iconic songstress Whitney Houston, “Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica” with popster Jessica Simpson and boy band husband Nick Lachey, “Hogan Knows Best” with pro wrestler Hulk Hogan and stay at home bombshell mom, Linda, “The Osbourne’s” with metal head banger Ozzy Osbourne and wife turned reality judge, Sharon.

Others who attained infamy and termination of marriage; “The Real Housewives of New York” [Countess once removed] LuAnn and extra marital affair European hubby, Count Alex de Lesseps, “John & Kate Plus Eight” with [another double dipper] John and Kate Gosselin, and as of late “Housewives of Orange County” Tamra and controlling but faithful spouse, Simon Barney.

The non-performer and ordinary reality Mom, Kate Gosselin depicted just how painful it is to watch a non-professional in a professional role, as in “Dancing With The Stars.” Her Frankenstein dance steps and inability to “turn on” that extroverted aspect of her personality who craves the camera lights and applause---shows the stark contrast of real actors/celebrity’s capability to effortlessly call on the performer within to entertain.

If we asked Dr. Drew Pinsky, the celebrity psychotherapist with his own VH1 reality show that addresses celebrity drug addiction “Celebrity Rehab.” These married couples who’ve acquired immediate false stardom through a reality show, by putting each argument and neurosis under the magnification of a camera lense, eventually exposing themselves to public scrutiny. How does that “celebrity” effect their relationship?

Why does marriage become more fragile when public scrutiny is thrown n the mix? After seeing the inner-workings of the marriage on television---how does seeing oneself 360 degrees effect who we are? And that self-awareness and observations of the spouse is so severe it’s capable of breaking a committed relationship?

Is it because they are able to witness for themselves their own shortcomings, or their partners flaws---their differences too painfully apparent when seen on television. With a focus so intense it replicates an experiment, a case study in ones home, who’s subjects have gone awry. Was the relationship doomed from the start?

Since the veil of ignorance was lifted on their own and their partners behaviors, as well as them as a unit, then is the reality check of a divorce the only recourse---as they can’t go back to who they once were---and now that the conflicts and differences have surfaced, are they too apparent to ignore, too great to work on, too ill matched to continue a relationship?

Because reality show couples are foreign to celebrity and unaware how detrimental it can be to their privacy. They make the grave mistake of taking “the show on the road.” Whereas celebrity that has been achieved and warranted through years of hard work and success from the craft of an actor whether television or film---they are familiar with the pitfalls of fame and its attempt to snake itself into personal aspects of their private life and relationships, making them more capable of maintaining boundaries and savvy at side stepping [if desired] journalists and paparazzi.

So without having the experience of the media, as an accredited actor does, and allowing the world into your marriage, and being seduced by, and ill-prepared to handle all the instant trappings of the faux TV land fame. Than it has the ability of contaminating your relationship.

It is that decade or longer learning curve of show-biz steps one acquires being a professional in the entertainment industry before the taste of celebrity ever kisses their lips. And it is that preparation that reality show marriages are devoid of and the reason for the dissolution of their union.

COPYRIGHT 2010, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

"The Flooding: Is the Moon’s Feud with NASA”

2010-04-12T16:13:00.009-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-One

In February NASA came forward, not to discuss their erroneous decision to lob a Centaur rocket at the moon on October 9, 2009---but to share their probe into ice on Saturn. In October, in search of water, the mega ton missile blasted a hole in the moons lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet.

Now I don’t know who else isn’t paying attention, but their hair-brain idea to attack the moon has caused a weather calamity on earth. Within one week after their mission of “boring a hole in the moon looking for water,” snow fell on New Jersey---and it wasn’t even Halloween yet.

Since then no officials have stepped forward with the findings that what they have done, is alter the moons natural rhythms in association with water i.e. the tides umm.....floods. I believe NASA is to blame for the enormous changes we've seen with flooding throughout the U. S. since their test last fall. They have downplayed their moon-water venture by stating the moon can handle their assault, adding it was infitessimal in the grand scheme of outer space explosions.

If the moon was able to handle her timing being "off" by the manipulation of an unnatural collision of a man-made weapon on her surface. Then why has the water NASA was searching for on the moon, all of a sudden fallen to earth 100 fold in the form of snow or rain? And in behemoth proportions.

But the U.S. isn’t the only obnoxious super power to challenge the ball of light in the nights sky, as Japan’s Kaguya impacters collided with the moon in June 2009 seeking aqua. And Hello Kitty---the tit for tat for that crash---has impacted Toyota worldwide.

The evidence of NASA’s nonsensical actions is record high snowfalls and floods in areas that don’t normally experience snow i.e. Texas. Thus far, for the U. S. 1,180 snowfall records have been broken across 49 of the 50 states. Even in Washington, D.C. where Mother Nature’s offenders reside at NASA Headquarters, they’ve been pummeled with 54.9 inches this winter breaking their 1898 record.

Philadelphia admitted they haven’t seen this much snow in 14 years at 65.5 inches in one winter. This season has surpassed that number by five inches----and it’s still snowing here in NYC as I pen this.

The sideway falling snow on Thursday caused such havoc in New York City that a 42 year old-man was killed when walking through Central Park when a snow laden tree toppled onto him. Just strolling through the park---is like the NY lottery of death, ‘hey’ you never know.’ Throughout the city trees were bending, breaking and being uprooted by the maddening storm. In a city that’s withstood the raping by Wall St., the westward angle of the rapidly falling-frozen-white-flakes---caused the Big Apple to buckle under the strain of yet another, snowy concrete landscape.

The heck with El Niño---it’s more like the El’ Ninny’s at NASA for believing they can interfere with piercing the moon with a fuel soaked, school bus sized titanium rocket, and not expect her wrath and retribution for searching her private crevices for water. It is arrogant, egotistical and self-indulgent---and mostly unnecessary since we have an abundance of water here---that the earth has provided for free. Oh yes, but it needs care and cleaning-up after the centuries of corporate exploitation and industry abuse---so I guess it’s more economical and easier to search for clean water on a planet suspended in space light miles away.

No matter how minor they claim the assault of the moon was---it is apparent the slightest interference in its surface has most certainly affected its role in regulating not only the oceans ebb and flow throughout the earth, but its precipitation; whether rain, snow, sleet or hail.

When will the “powers that be” realize that Mother Nature is fragile and wields more power than any nuclear weapon, any money printer at the Federal Reserve, any White House Presidential seat, or any Deregulation to the laws of the moon, the earth….and with one fell swoop she can cause a catastrophe in one fragment of a country called Haiti, send in waves to wash away people on a California beach, or bury us in 70 feet of snow. This extreme weather is a mere smack in the face since with one backhand, she can slap us into extinction, and will ultimately have the last word….you don’t mess with Mother Nature.

COPYRIGHT February 2010, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“Her Irish Eyes Are Smilin’ ”

2010-03-12T15:50:00.008-05:00

By R. B. STUART

Now I know why Mum used to sit in the yard watching us play,
Because she knew time was slowly slipping away.
Now that I’m older---
Life without her has grown colder.

My yearn to leave her to explore the world,
Brought me right back with tales of my journey and trinkets of foreign pearls.
She’d listen captivated by the stories from distant shores---
Her eyes would widen so she could drink in more.

But now she’s gone, no longer sitting and watching us from home,
Her face, her smile, her laugh, her love---
Now hangs suspended from the heavens above.

Her words, her gaze---
From the days we watched her…..as we played,
Brings me back to the time I was born---
And the loving clutch of a young, mothers arm.
She has left this earth far too soon---
Now I sit and watch her sing and dance, ‘round the moon.

Patricia T. Stuart 28 July 28 ~ 12 March 02

“Bill Gates and The Number 8”

2010-02-13T16:25:00.011-05:00

images provided by The NewsMarket/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty

In November, CNBC’s program BIOGRAPHY highlighted gazzilionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. William H. III has become the official gate to the buffet of money left behind by his partner in wealth, equally as lucky, rabbits foot up the wazoo, four leaf clover ingrained in the palm of his hand---Warren. So selfless are these two magical moneymen….that they can’t bare to leave any of it to their children [well not really any dough…just pittance compared to their amassed wealth], and are donating the majority to their beloved charities.

Was it simply luck of the draw in the sperm bank of life when these two men where conceived---or will the trio of Gates offspring be just as gifted in ideas made of green----as is their royal-flush holding papa. Either way I had hoped by watching the televised special on the life of Gates…that maybe somehow the divine universe would send a little-Buddha-belly-rubbing my way. But it’s been three months now and I’m still a pauper---the only green thing coming my way is chlorine-bleached hair and mold.

So I’ll press on in my fascination with his life story and explore the coincidences of the number eight that surfaced.

William H. Gates: the letter H is the 8th letter of the alphabet

Born: October 28, 1955

On his SAT’s math test he scored: 800

His first computer model: Altair 8800

Early on he merged his Altair with a company in New Mexico: address 819 Two Park Central Tower

His business relationship ended in N. M and he moved to Seattle: in 1978

The CEO of IBM wanted his operating system for a P. C.: in 1980

Gates’ revenue was up and his employee’s increased from: 1978 to 1981

Microsoft was used throughout the world: by 1983

His partner Paul Allen was diagnosed with an illness: at age 28

Gates’ face graced the cover of Time Magazine: in 1984

Windows Software was debuted in Apple: in 1986

Gates took the company public: in 1986

Future wife and staffer Melinda French: was 28 when they met

Her birthday: in August / 8th month

The senate charged Microsoft with a monopoly pursuing an antitrust trail: in 1998

Bill Gates left Microsoft to work full time at their Gates Foundation: in 2008

Since the recent release of Microsoft 7.0: next version is 8.0

In 2013: Bill will be 58 years old, and maybe he’ll release Microsoft 8.0

In numerology, the Tarot version, the number eight represents JUSTICE. Its attributes, similar to his, follow.

Number 8: You are inspiring, result-oriented, powerful, ambitious, visionary, generous, perseverant, forgiving, broad-minded, money-conscious and self-disciplined. You have the potential for enormous success and the possibility to accumulate great wealth. You are also a good judge of character a natural leader and a survivor.

Career choices:
Manager, investor, entrepreneur, business person, scientist, politician, financial expert, real estate, politician, athlete.

Weaknesses: Stubborn, intolerant, impatient, stressed, materialistic, impatient with people, arrogant and reckless. You have the power to accumulate great wealth, but you also susceptible to loosing everything. You are a gambler, you have a strong desire for luxuries and you can fall for corruption. You have to find a balance between the spiritual and the material world. Learn to use your power for benefit of mankind.

And that he has……

“The Furry Paws of God”

2010-01-04T14:47:00.019-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Nineteen

When my sister [above with my dog Sunday], Fran E. Stuart transferred from the Navy [below] to the Army in 2001 she hadn’t know that within months she’d be deployed to Iraq in 2003. As an Army Chaplain Captain on the heels of a war with Iraq she was deployed from Ft. Campbell, Ky. Enroute to Baghdad with the rest of the 101st Airborne battalion in a C130 Military Aircraft. Unaware by March 2006, she would be diagnosed with a rare Stage IV Dysgerminoma Cancer two years post her tour in Iraq.

In the year while Fran was stationed in Mosul, Iraq, within six months she built for her battalion the first ever 101st Airborne Army library, her Colonel named it “Camp Performance.” Aiding her with donations from The New York Public Library, Penguin Putnam Books, Blockbuster and others packed the shelves with religious works, collections of books, music and movies. The library was to serve as a recreation center, a place where soldiers could gather hope, and occupy their minds with something other than war.

Besides her daily prayer services and Sunday worships that accommodated all denominations and ethnic faiths [above monistary Iraq], Fran also created a Commitment Ceremony for the married soldiers to re-strengthen their bond to the spouses back home. While other soldiers she took on field trips to the sacred sites of mosques built in the desert centuries ago. Visiting the holy lands only seen by the Iraqi's themselves---until now.

Fran’s makeshift office was in an abandoned Iraqi Army Officers Base and became the center of her mission. Surrounded by protective talismans; some sent by family, others she brought. The religious artifacts, angels and saints rested on her desk, clung to the walls, hung around her neck and laid in her pockets. They were constant reminders that God was present and all would be well. Amidst the heat, gun blats, and waves of sand storms, she would continue to care for the soldiers and press on.

Fran often wondered if she’d escape the war without damage---besides the fear of her safety and psychological impact of the noise---she did. Except two years post Iraq, she was deployed to Germany for three years where she would undergo hostility from several civilian co-workers. The daily strife caused so much angst and discontent Fran knew she couldn’t cope there the three year term. Nearing the end of the first year she began praying to God, begging him, to somehow get her out of there and back home to the United States closer to her five siblings. And unknowingly---God heard every word. Her wishes were fulfilled---and prayers granted. In March 2006, at 40 years-old Fran was diagnosed with stage IV Ovarian cancer, later re-diagnosed to Dysgerminoma, a rare aggressive Germ Cell Cancer. She was instructed to get her affairs in order--for she--was going home.

The Army made arrangements to medEvac her to Walter Reed Army Medical Center [WRAMC] in D. C. Fran telephoned me in NY from Germany to tell me her worst fears. Whaling the results into my ear, she cried out, “I'm only 40 years-old, I’m too young to meet my maker. I'll be 41 on Wednesday. I need more memories. I don't have enough yet,” she bawled in horror. I could only weep, “I'm sorry honey, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” Ironically, it was almost three years to the day since she was first deployed to Iraq.

How could a young woman who had held the hands of wounded soldiers, comforted the spouses of soldiers killed in a cross fire, cradled babies dying of Leukemia and give the last rights to those in their final days….be herself on the other side of the bed? And be at war with the Cancer raging within. I asked myself, “Why her?” And then thought, “Why not her?” Fran said she asked herself, “Why me?” A voice repeated, “Why not me?” We both had unknowingly heard the same answer.

The day before Fran’s 41st birthday, March 14th, the medEvac originating in Germany laden with 30 plus soldiers from Iraq, all in need of medical attention in the U.S., headed for D.C. and Andrews Airforce Base. They carried her in a stretcher across the tarmac to the plane, she heard music blaring from the cockpit, the Rolling Stones song, Beast of Burden. The tears began to slide down the sides of her temples as she knew she was finally going home to see her family, but I didn't expect this way. The song reminded her of me, I used to sing it when we were younger. Fran loves music and has always had a special song for each of her family members.

A different person was emerging, one who shared her secrets, her joys, her pains. The Cancer was unveiling her Soul, the sorrow was opening her heart.

On St. Patrick’s Day 2006 Fran was wheeled into the WRAMC O.R. where she gave birth to a Volleyball size tumor that grew in my belly. And later, the eventual loss of her creative organs, as well as her red locques of hair. Conjoined would be the loss of faith and hope in God, as she asked why he would give her Cancer, as she was doing his work.

Months before the Cancer diagnosis she remembered envisioning a white, short haired kitty with piercing green eyes sitting on her belly. She whispered to me, “Its paws stretched out grabbing lightly at my chest. I’d stroke it with both hands and it would purr. It made me feel good when I’d see it.” Being a cat lover—I told her it was a guardian angel.

After six months and 30 rounds of chemo, the loss of who she was brought with it a fear of the future and an abandonment of hope. The family watched their baby sister revert to an infant, at the same time intertwine with the fragility and sadness of an old woman. Through the carving away of self through surgeries, unable to recognize herself anymore and finding more in common with a monster---produced a betrayal of her body as it had relinquished her life force to Cancer. The violation by another’s hands inside of your sacred body, splitting your armor apart and dissecting deep into your soul…..as they attempt to remold what God himself created, and in the process lifting the veil of boundaries of the sacred self, marred by the spoils of war.

We heard the echoes of her silent cries and inner torment as Cancer spread itself through the entire family, changing the core of who we were, as we try to balance between life and death, health and sickness, love and loss. The anger penetrates her dreams and dissolves her thirst for life as it becomes too arduous to live…and death is just a slip away.

In September 2006, for two weeks in between treatments as a way of revitalizing her, I picked Fran up at WRAMC and brought her home with me to New York. While visiting, a four-year-old male nurse appeared draped in Poodle fur, his name was Sunday. Never experiencing the sight of a bald human, nor the scent of Cancer, he steadfastly stayed by Fran’s side forfeiting his daily walks, food and water for days on end. His gaze affixed upon her, his small furry body glued to the calf of her leg. He wasn’t aware his patient was of rank, a Captain, and a higharchy of the cloth, a Chaplain. All he knew was that he must stay with her every move.

Sunday became entranced with his mission to care and bring comfort. And although Sunday was naturally a timid pup---he became a Dingo. Like a mother protecting a newborn, he turned on his owner---me. I stayed away, as he became her nurse. As she leapt from the couch to the bathroom to vomit he was by my side, head cocked as this strange odor spewed from her mouth. Fran became his master, as he listened to her every command. In turn, I became invisible.

Since I couldn’t get near him without him showing his teeth, daily Fran would clip the leash to his collar so that I could drag him off the bed and out of the house to urinate. As I tugged him towards the door, he resisted and barked in protest as if to say, “Don’t move! Don’t get up. I’m being taken away. But I’ll be back!”

Once outside he’d scamper down the stairs of the deck to the backyard, and urgently go to the bathroom next to the last step. Without thought of me---he’d race back to scratch and bark at the glass door, notifying Fran he was coming back into the house. I’d unclip him from the leash and he’d dash to the bedroom and jump onto the bed to inspect his patient; sniff her mouth, push the pajama leg up with the tip of his nose and lick the skin of her calf. He insisted she keep the skin of her legs bare at all times, besides cleaning her legs, he’d rest his head on Fran’s shin, to detect any movement or change in body odor. A possible signal to him she was in distress.

Determined to nourish him, after he shadowed her to the bathroom she quickly shut the bedroom door so that I could attempt to feed him. He scratched at the wooden door, while I laid the plate down next to him. Without taking his eyes off the door he realized how hungry he was---and in rapid speed scoffed a few bites down. In between chews he’d pick up his head to listen for movement in the room and make sure the door didn’t open. Hesitantly focusing on the food, jerking his body back to the door I could see his apprehension as he tried to do two things at once. He was caught between guarding the door and eating as fast as possible. Normally a picky eater---now within minutes he was done. I opened the door and back he went to inspect his patient, canvassing her entire body with his eyes and nose before finally laying at her feet.

I’d never seen such behavior in him. And didn’t want to interfere with what he was doing---but knew whatever it was it was important to him, and it brought comfort to Fran and waves of pleasure and laughter, as this strange creature would sacrifice, his food, water, sleep and walks---to tend to her. The ultimate sacrifice of God – Dog.

It was time to return to WRAMC and Sunday would head off to N. H. for a month. I would drive Fran back to D. C. and care for her through the final five rounds of Chemo and exploratory surgery. The darkness of the womb was calling her home, and at the same time her heart was beating stronger towards the light, towards the love cradling her back to health. The strings of her memories, the melody to her songs awakened the eye of hope, and courage was born. The goodwill and faith of others pulled her back into life as she turned a corner onto a different path. The wheel no longer in her hands, she proceeded with caution and edging herself out of the tunnel of fear, towards the rebirth of the woman she has become.

By November 2006, after 35 rounds of Chemo, and three surgeries, Fran was deemed in clinical remission. The sun returned to nourish her sprouting red locks and sparked the wisdom beaming from her eyes. As she shed the infant; the innocence no longer paints her face. And shrugged off the spine of an old woman as she walked into the future---holding the hand---of hope. The death sentence is lifted, the words remission propel her back into life as she’s once again, Fit for Duty.

God is omni present, taking Fran’s hand and walking her back to the soldiers returning from war---like her. With conviction in tact, she dons her Army uniform---black and gold crosses on her lapel, and once again, Fran the Chaplain returns to the path of comforting the military men and woman---with the furry paws of God.

Copyright August 2007, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“Where Christmas Lives”

2009-12-24T14:22:00.010-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Eighteen
[Woodstock, N.Y. Christmas 2006: Bella cozy by fire]

Recently I spoke to the woman who cuts my hair about Christmas. She has three young children under 9 years of age and told me they're each allowed ten gifts a piece. "TEN!" I exclaimed, "Isn't that a lot?" She thought it was a fair amount to show her children how much she loved and cared for them.

While driving in N.H. I was listening to WZID radio station. The DJ spoke about the delight she felt while watching a father walk his three toddlers through the Mall of NH. Their sparkling young eyes attempting to devour everything in sight. The colorful world of plastic toys enthralling them like the Kiddie Menu at McDonalds. Wanting everything they see---but after giving it to them---not wanting it at all.

What their eager hearts and captivating eyes pretend to ferociously desire---is in fact a misrepresentation of their actual needs. Their unquenchable appetite wasn't for toys after all. It was for the warm, loving and adoring eyes of their mother---the strong but gentle approving hand of their father. That is what evolves their little world of love; a commodity readily available, but sometimes forgotten.

During their childhood an adult recalls the festively wrapped gifts stacked under a fra- grant, meticulously decorated, prickly green tree. But only one toy, if any at all, remains tucked away in your mind. None---in the confines of your heart. Within those walls reside the spirit of love and sentimental memory, made from the threads only a human connection can bring.

The simple yet all consuming love bond between a parent and child---is forever held, within the Spirit of Christmas past and present for no cost at all. And its wrapping isn't one of paper; it's of a warm embrace, a sweet kiss on the cheek, a tender glance, a hand swept across your mane, a joyous laugh pealing from your loved one's lips. Right now no one understands that more than the 8,000 disjointed families that have had to let go of their loved ones for a 6 month deployment to Iraq---to fight in a misguided war. And to those especially, who have lost their beloved beauties---much too soon---to the blue heavens above.

Those are non-tangible things impossible to grasp---like a perfect white sliver of snow floating aimlessly from the sky, evaporating from the lash of your eye. Or the initial waft of a freshly cut Blue Spruce Christmas tree catapulting you to drink it, with a slow deep breath. And the warm excitement fluttering within when we go home for the holidays, when we open the front door to see our beloved mothers face aglow. That is what weaves our Spirits together---that's where Christmas lives---wrapped in the packaging of our heart.

Copyright December 2004, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“Galloping Through Life with Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld”

2009-11-17T20:47:00.001-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Seventeen
[original interview May 23, 2007]

Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld, a New York City native and East Hampton/Amagansett resident [pictured above in trademark cowboy hat] began his career in the mid 1980’s as a cinematoghaper. Some of the award winning films he’s eyed the lense for; BIG the heartfelt comedy that catapulted Tom Hanks to film stardom, When Harry Met Sally the timeless romantuc comedy with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal and Misery the Stephen King nightmare brought to life with Kathy Bates and James Caan.

In the late 80’s his abilty to paint a picture with the lense caught the eye of the dynamic duo, the Coen Brothers and Sonnenfeld signed on to film Raising Arizona with Nicholas Cage and the gangster film Millers Crossing with fedora wearing Gabriel Byrne, and John Tuturro. By the early 90’s he directed his first film with Anjelica Huston and the late Raul Julia in The Addams Family. Bringing the black and white 1964 cult classic televion series to the big screen. Where characters who once appeared strange but loveable to us in the mid 60’s, doning black lipstick and clothes, has now incoporated into our landscape by this generations version of Goth.

Last year, Sonnenfeld directed a dysfunctional family’s comedic sojourn across Colorado in RV with Robin Willaims, and this year produced the Disney film Enchanted with Susan Sarandon. In the movie business it’s directing he loves the most. “I like to be in charge of everything…since at home I have an opinated 14 year-old daughter Chole, and Susan, my strong and smart wife of 18 years who tell me what to do. So when I’m directing, I’m in charge---so that’s very exciting for me,” he mused.

Sonnenfeld who’s been involed with over a dozen blockbusters during his 20 year career in film. The most popular to span all demohgraphics of movie goers was the 1997 mega hit Men in Black where he directed the stars, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. And it was at the wrap party of the 2002 sequel, Men in Black II that the crew gave their beloved director, Sonnenfeld an unusual parting gift, a Western saddle. “When directing I put it on top of an apple box and sit on it…..it makes me feel more manly,” he jests. “I don’t ride horses---I only ride the apple box.”
And he hopes to one day ride that saddle onto a set starring George Clooney, since he was able to only produce Clooney in Out of Sight in 1998. “Some day I wouold like to direct Clooney in a film. Because he’s comically handsome and very talented,” he explained.

Sonnenfeld’s favorite 1995 film that he produced, directed and had a cameo in, Get Shorty with John Travolta took him over 6 years to get made. “I acquitred the script and every studio I pitched it to passed on the film. So it was very rewarding finally getting it made.” With Travolta not appearing in many films since the 1970’s, he hadn’t been Sonnenfeld’s first choice. Untril his wife Susan saw a rough cut of Quentin Tarrentino’s, Pulp Fiction. “Many actors passed on the Get Shorty script, from Warren Beatty to Dustin Hoffman. My wife was a big Travolta fan and told me to watch Pulp Fiction. After I did I was more thsan convinced he’d do a great job.” And the character “Chili” spun Travolta’s career back on track.

But making films has its challenges when you’re trying to bring that Hollywood magic to the screen. “It’s very difficult to convince the studio heads to green light the films you want to make,” Sonnenfeld admitted. “I have scripts I’ve owned for years and the hardest thing is trying to convince the studio to back you and make the movie.”

This spring, Sonnenfeld as director/producer ventured back into television with an ABC series Notes From the Underbelly a comedy about the politics of parenthood starring Peter Cambor and Jennifer Westfeldt, based on Risa Green's novel of the same name. With his experience in both genre’s, movies and television shows, does he have a preference. “Making films or TV shows are both rewarding for different reasons. I like directing and producing TV shows because the pace is fast. While films are a slower and a drearier experience. What else I like about TV is if you direct a bad TV show it’s, ‘no harm, no foul,’ and it will never be aired. But if I direct a bad movie…it will be in Variety the next morning,” he concedes.

Sonnenfeld’s no stranger to adapting books to screen. He took Elmore Leonard’s novels Get Shorty and Out of Sight successfully from the page to the screen. Where some readers cringe when their beloved books are adapted to film because they claim movies don’t do the book justice. Sonnenfeld has been able to sweep those grumbles under the red carpet with his praise worthy adaptations. He explained, “What makes Leonard’s work so fun to adapt is he writes great dialogue and characters, two things that are hard to find in a script. His work supplies you with both. And adapting for TV or film has the same challenges, it needs to have three elements: a good story, compelling characters and be written well.”

And this time he’s inked his own script with writer/producer Bryan Fuller for their fall ABC show, Pushing Daisies a high-concept fantasy blended with romance and crime that Sonnenfeld will direct. This love story is about a young man “Ned” played by Golden Globe nominee Lee Pace, who in order to solve crimes, has the special gift of being able to briefly bring someone dead back to life with a simple touch. Another Golden Globe nominee Swoosie Kurtz will also be part of the weekly cast of this magical and quirky series. And unlike the challenges of Hollywood studio exec’s and films, ABC has been able with foresight to harness and corner the market when it comes to quality and enjoyable programming. Do doubt this production will fall into the charmed line up of new hot fall shows.

There is longevity in films as opposed to television programming, “What’s interesting about television is more people will turn on TV in one night, like 10 million viewers will watch Pushing Daises, and that’s equivalent to $100 million dollars in movie making ticket sales,” he says.

Unpredictable humor runs through the vein of Sonnenfeld’s work, whether it’s film, television, or writing, as he scribes a monthly column, “The Digital Man” for Esquire magazine since 2003. He attributes his innate wit to his parents, “I grew up an only child in a protective family. So I spent a lot of time with adults…my parents friends, a lot of time with funny Jews,” he recalled.

Even though Sonnenfeld was a short, shy and a quiet boy when he was in school. He grew 6 inches right before his senior year. And like most people who have a knack for comedic timing whether they’re famous or not, they’ve usually spent their early childhood years in some sort of uncomfortable inner torment. Which gives birth to humor as one ages. “As you get older you become your worst trait,” Sonnenfeld observes. “I find the world surreal and amusing as it’s always been---I’ve just become more tolerant.”

Sonnenfeld an East Hampton/Amagansett resident for over 25 years has raised all 3 of his children there. And has been a generous supporter to the local school system and helped found The Hayground School in Bridgehampton, NY. In the summer he packs up his family and leaves the Hamptons for their second home in Telluride, Colorado in the area RV was filmed. Maybe he used a hint of autobiographical material….

“Dear Bill: A Politically Incorrect Correspondence”

2009-09-18T19:57:00.010-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Sixteen

A 2001 letter to Bill Maher

Dear Bill Maher,
I ran into you days before the WTC attack at a health food store on 8th Avenue and 55th Street in NYC. You were looking to buy a fan. I turned around amused and said, "I'm a fan." We chuckled as I had caught you in a double entendre. I congratulated you on your good work and left with my groceries as you searched a food store for electrical appliances (next time check a hardware store).

I wanted to write a diary of events as a volunteer behind the scenes. And for being a NY "fan" I'm sending along a FDNY T-shirt. I know you're a little fella so I hope it's not too big. The shirt is from my local company on West 43rd Street, Rescue One. This specialized unit was created as a rescue company of firemen for firemen. They're considered the Green Beret of firemen. They have lost nearly half of their men. Among the 11 missing, 6 have been found dead along with the Captain Terence Hatton. They hope to recover the other 5. So wear it well.

October 3, 2001
A Politically Incorrect New Yorker,
--R. B. Stuart

Dear Bill,

My diary of events from behind the scenes as a NYC volunteer: What disturbs me the most about this tragedy besides the obvious: Is Ian Schrager running full page condolence ad's in the Times and then a paragraph down begins hawking his luxury rooms to the people that were displaced for $3,000 a month. While Mayor Guiliani strut's around the city as if he's really done something significant besides touring politicians around the site. While begging us to spend money, he insists that we go back to normal by pretending nothing has happened, so NY doesn't go into a financial collapse. He's worried about money and camera angles---we're worried about mourning.

The Red Cross has been in hype mode for volunteers, blood and money. During the initial days and weeks of the tragedy, fifteen volunteers besides myself have watched first hand the multi-level confusion and disorganization with this agency. The miscommunication is rampant at Red Cross headquarters. From the thousands of LDV large disaster volunteers) workers whether you're a driver, food deliverer, shelter worker, telephone bank person; no one knows what's going on. The national Red Cross members continuously hand down incompetent information and instructions. As a result, this is one organization I will never depend on. My mother told me that my father (a WWII Veteran) always hated the Red Cross. I asked why. She said, "Because Daddy said the Red Cross didn't do shit for them in the war." It is apparent.

The Red Cross claims that they have never seen a disaster as monumental as this and they were unprepared. Well, what was WWI and WWII a play ground? This organization has been around since 1864, I think that's plenty of time to get their shit together. Frankly I think that they are using the WTC tragedy to restock their blood banks and fatten their bank accounts with all the financial donations pouring in. [Four weeks after this was written their financial support for the victims is in question as is the blood.]

By day three the city set up a volunteer center at the Jacob Javits Center. Within two day's thousands of people enlisted. We forked over confidential information and identification then waited on the sidewalks of 11th Avenue and 34th Street. Standing the day and through the night, waiting with a slip of paper in hand with a designated number. [I wonder what the city really did with all the data that they accumulated?]

The left side of the street was 10 deep with volunteer electricians, plumbers, steel and construction workers. The right side lined with out-of-town cops mingling with the NYPD, medical staff and us. We were being well taken care of with food and beverages by The Salvation Army and local New Yorkers walking around with trays and baskets of sandwiches, pizza, fruit, cookies, candy, water, soda, kindness and love. The unity had begun. A New World was forming. Some slept over night on the cold sidewalks; the voluntary homeless with make-shift beds out of newspaper and denim jackets, colored bandannas tied around their necks, scuffed yellow-buck work boots fastened at their ankles, pillows of blue plastic hard-hats, and rows of white candlelight looming over head.

The country that was built on the backs of these men, and were willing to break their backs again by sleeping on the grey concrete their brothers mixed and poured years before. Even still---they would wake with ease. Then at Ground Zero they'd gather the ruins that were laced with sweat and toil from their forefathers. Which was now soiled with the blood of our beloved, and our enemy. And they would do so lovingly.

Eventually you realized that your volunteer potential wasn't being utilized. Which prompted many of us to "do your own thing" by helping on the "block." The Relief Workers donation center was set up in a fenced outdoor parking lot on West 34th Street, accepting truck loads of supplies 24 hours a day. The trucks were jammed pack with newly packaged men's white socks, T-shirts, briefs, sport shirts, sweat pants, work gloves, black steel-toe work boots, masks, packaged food, bottled water, medical supplies, toiletries, paper goods, cigarettes, Canine booties, dog food and bones.

In the dark of the night we worked side by side unloading these trucks. Crews of construction workers and out-of-town cops. Women and men, shoulder to shoulder---white collar and blue. Each of us suspended in a new reality. Tied together by the red, white and blue ribbons that were pinned to our breast. While a quiet sadness filled our hearts and a peacefulness flowed from our Spirits---for once, we were all equal.

It was distressing to hear the next day that a truck was loaded from the donation center and the driver took off with the entire contents. Along with having to fend off the few meandering vultures that thought they were at a K-Mart free-for-all, as they attempted to stuff their bags with socks, T-shirts and toiletries. Only after reprimanding them with scornful dismay were they reminded of WHO the recipients were; the FDNY. Disgruntled for my spoiling their Christmas, they reluctantly walked away. One man did steal a sleeping bag, but claimed to be homeless. And a local fire company let a stranger into the firehouse to use the bathroom. He was graciously admitted since he was adorned with a FD sweatshirt. Once inside he pulled the fire alarm, and during the ruckus he wiped out the firehouse of their gear. This was not an isolated incident. At another station house someone stole a bag of protective asbestos masks ten minutes after it was logged. People were going to extremes to be allowed into Ground Zero. Although it was the NYPD that disappointed me the most.

By day four, the FDNY were still not receiving the proper gear they needed for Ground Zero. What was being sent to the stations were work boots in size 6. A size a teenage boy could wear. The firemen still without masks or sufficient footwear were wearing their own make-shift work gear taped up. The work boots that did make there way to the site were hoarded by the NYPD. Some cops refusing the firemen boots saving six pairs for their fellow officers. I know the NYPD lost men in the collapse, but isn't it the firemen who are working in the rubble along side the iron and construction workers? Shame on the NYPD for such a power play. I guess they feel their guns and badge gives them the authority to bogart anyone.

With Guiliani having the Police and Fire Commissioners in his back pocket, it's no wonder why this was allowed. I hadn't realized it until I went to a firefighters memorial service at St. Patricks. When the Mayor went to the podium to speak I intentionally didn't clap. But when he introduced the Fire Commissioner, Thomas Von Essen the applause wasn't as grand as Guiliani's. I observed many firemen not clapping for the commissioner. And found it peculiar. I wondered if there was some underlying resentments with the firefighters. After some probing I discovered there was.

Over the years, with each promotion, Von Essen moved up in union ranks at the Fire Fighter's Union. The firemen supported him every step of the way and hoped, "Finally if we have one of our own in there. Then we'll start being treated better." Each year passed and nothing changed. Von Essen gained clout and eventually was selected under Guiliani's reign as the Fire Commissioner. The firemen who stood by his side voting for him at each step---he ultimately left in the dust, and rubble. No longer one of them. He sold them out to be another Guiliani puppet.

And as of lately, Guiliani has through the media, trashed the FDNY who only recently were the cities most beloved Hero's. It seems (by anonymous FDNY sources) the fire bashing Mayor was interested in hundreds of firefighters volunteering for the relief effort only until the truck load of gold and crime scene material was located and recovered. Days after the retrieval of this "valuable dig" is when Guiliani cut back the man power needed for the WTC clean-up. Which evoked the passion and dedication in these men who have tirelessly worked around the clock for nearly two months in a cause more valuable than gold---HUMAN REMAINS.

It is sacrilegious to remove the remaining 4,000 loved ones mixed with debris by dump truck. And to scale back the man power to twenty-five men is utterly preposterous. It will take seven times longer to clean up that area if this act of degradation is allowed by the Mayor. And the excuse Guiliani's using for the cut-back is ridiculous, "It's for their safety. There are too many firefighters working at Ground Zero someone might get hurt." The firemen are the one's who are in the rescue business. They weren't in the way or unqualified on September 11th, why are they now? It can't be because they're costing the city too much in overtime, because they are doing this for free. Even eight weeks later the firefighters working at the WTC are VOLUNTEERING. How about Guiliani volunteering for the city for two months and giving his salary to them?

It is a disgrace that Guiliani is attempting to turn the public against the FDNY. As the media hops on the band wagon of this smear campaign. Reducing the quiet, humble and caring firemen to a pack of violent thugs---is a shameful slander of character made by the news stations via Guiliani's police state. Because of his District Attorney background you'll never hear him slamming the NYPD who's reputation is one of a big-blue Teflon bully. He has a Gestapo mentality and cops blood running through his DNA. But he'll never possess what is needed to be a member of the FDNY: Heart.

Meanwhile Bill, the Mayor just sits by as the residents in lower Manhattan remain displaced indefinitely, and still have to pay telephone, electricity and rent, on some apartments that aren't even salvageable. Those rents should be waved with no questions asked. With businesses closing weekly, hiring freezes due to Anthrax, the city is in a financial crisis. If he wants to help us he should roll back the rents throughout the city. A $1,500 shoe-box studio will lose its appeal when people see Manhattan ends at 8th Street and the air has been infiltrated with asbestos. But it seems his only concern is car pooling or taking Mass Transit since it will ultimately create revenue for the city.

The irony is two years ago Guilini sunk $16 million into building “the bunker" on the 23rd floor of 7 WTC. Which went up in smoke along with the Mass Transit offices. Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't a bunker a shelter below ground? Why doesn't he focus on that financial blunder for a day or two? His distraction for everyone is to shop, shop, shop, buy Broadway tickets and trinkets, eat Bon-Bon's and drink Cosmopolitans. There's atleast 10 percent of us in this city without jobs, how can we spend? Who wants to be trivial in such a tragic time.

I guess my question is really for the FBI and CIA. If there is all this file footage on television from camera men shooting video tape of bin Laden over the years. Where did it come from his P.R. people? And if he is really the master mind and such a dangerously evil man, then who is the Governmental Einstein (probably a friend of Guuliani's) that allowed them close enough to shoot film of him all around Afghanistan, but not shoot him dead. If they had access to him and knew where he was to shoot the footage, why wouldn't they know now? What was the CIA waiting for? THIS?

I must say that prior to this tragedy the word GOD was used only on Christian networks. On the 11th of September that changed. In the initial three weeks I heard news anchors, talk show hosts, and people in general talk about GOD with ease. Where people would once shirk at the mere mention of the word. Even Oprah has relinquished her New Age term "Higher Power" for the exact word of GOD. After thousands of years of spiritual bankruptcy, let New York lead the way. Maybe through financial bankruptcy our spirituality can emerge from beneath the ashes of loss and mourning. Could this be the second coming?

Maybe the two slabs of wood Jesus was nailed to now takes form in two steel towers, and the nails hammered into his flesh, was the planes thrust into the buildings. The blood from Jesus' body is akin to the blood shed of the 6,000 people. And the horror, the grief, the unbelievable sorrow is a reenactment of that day in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. The reason is the same: religion. The bottom line is the same: money. The outcome: mourning and resurrection.

A spiritual shift has occurred within the masses around the world and it is 6,000 times stronger. We just might be able to get it right this time. That's if our love and unity can overpower the hate and violence the Government is trying to jam down our throats via the media through fear. I have longed for the day to live heaven on earth---instead of in my mind and heart. Maybe now we're that much closer, and if not---then there's still time to bake anthrax cookies. If things get any worse I'll send you a dozen…..

Be well Bill, keep up the good work----and don't let the bastards get you down.
--R. B. Stuart
October 3, 2001

BRAVO's: "NYC Prep (H)"

2009-07-22T13:23:00.002-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Fifteen
All Images Curtosy BRAVO

With the diminishment of my cable channels since the DTV conversion….in desperation to be taken out of the reality of my life---I decided to watch someone else’s reality---in Bravo’s new show “NYC Prep” about the social agony of six city rich kids. The privileged lives of these teens splaying their parents cashola in upscale eateries and designer boutiques with cell phones glued to palm….almost brought up my nights supper.

I haven’t seen this many hair flips since Farrah Fawcett. While the conceited, player-in-waiting, Sebastian attempts to use the five French words he memorized in class on unsuspecting girls. His François Pig Latin begets him a cell phone number and hopes that he’ll seduce her out of the white cotton day-of the-week training bra set she’s wearing. It’s then you realize you may need a dollop of Prep H to sit through the hour of awkward flirting, manipulation and gossip by this pack of sniveling brats.

Between the neurotic twitches, arrogance and pretentious behavior---this clan of wealthy juveniles---makes the elite society look…well…boring. As each of them are too consumed with appearance, fashion and higherachy to foster a pinch of character.

If this is what growing up urban rich looks like---then I’m glad I grew up country poor. Only now do I aspire to a Chanel & Tiffany lifestyle….as I crawl my way up the ladder of success with splinters in my hands, averting the broken rungs and rats squirreling down below….do I wish I’d been born rich.

For centuries you’ve heard, whether people or puppies, females mature faster than males----well that theory is depicted here with these high - schoolers. As the Bravo reality cams shadow the teenage Manhattanites, who are already showing neurotic tendencies, and obvious “issues.” Using their parents carte blanche to access the art scene, black tie benefits, and front row fashion week seats----their privileged lives are suppose to glamorize teen life in NYC----but manages to make it look pathetic, as they whimper about meaningless hub-bub.

When most New Yorkers are transplants from somewhere else, these sex-tuplets, born and raised in the city, are the future of NY. They introduce us to what happens to a group of teens who are reared in a soulless urban environment, desensitized by concrete, money, smog and noise. Their psychological make-up has less to do with Bobbi Brown (pun intended) and more to do with neurosis.

PC, 18 (above), a Senior is the most pompus of the group. Should rename himself PT for paper towel or PJ for peanut butter & jelly. He thinks calling girls “bitches” is cool. And condescendingly addresses the others (only a year younger) as children. Attempts to use “psychological analysis” on “the children” to see how “mature” they are and if he can get them to “crack under pressure.”

See’s a therapist (needs a therapists). After he explains to the therapist he’s growing up and no longer interested in superficial partying, he interns at a photo shoot where he bares his chest and slaps a gay stylist on the ass. This behavior will be his entrée into the NYC party scene…as all jaded New Yorkers know how the city thrives on fresh, young, innocent meat. His cavalier attitude around seasoned adults----will surely set him up to be exploited.

As he begins to party with those a decade older --- and skipping school --- his desperation to be cool and hang out with what he thinks is the “cool crowd.” Will undoubtedly parley him into as lifestyle of drugs, sex and rock n’ roll---as he bankrolls their good time---he’ll learn a lesson early on. That money not only buys designer threads---but in NY---friends too.

Jessie, 17 (above), a Senior is a mini me of Mom, former girlfriend of PC and still in love with him. Is always on the fringes of anger. Has an overly developed false self-esteem, and is arrogant to female underlings. Although she does charity work, is unable to mentor. She is threatened by the attractiveness of other girls or women --- especially when PC is involved.

Sebastian, 16, a Sophomore is the most narcissistic of the bunch. He flips his hair more than a girl, plays girls against each other, while manipulating them out of their phone numbers for future dates. Uses snippets of French to lure unsuspecting teens into his web of lies. He is calculating, and pretends to “score” when talking about the dates with his boy - friends---and was actually rejected. When he could have gotten a girl to give him her panties---he blew it---because while on their date she asked to touch his hair. He was appalled and retorted off camera, “What am I a dog? Let’s pat Sebastian.” (below far left, Camille, Sebastian, foreground Taylor)

Camille, 17, a highly opinionated, articulate Junior that attends an all girls school, which Jesse threw a dig about. Most adjusted in the bunch. She’s a perfectionist, academically focused, seeks intellectual stimulation, and has a self-professed high standard for boyfriends. She admits it’s partly to blame for never having a serious boyfriend, and is succumbing to peer pressure to date. Realizes guys are “sub-par.” Although it’s refreshing to see that she is less tolerant than most girls when it comes to the boys games and B.S. Has no problem confronting PC for being inappropriate and immature. Her strength, determination and assertiveness will aid her well as her goal is Harvard.

Taylor, 15, a Sophomore is dating Cole, an outsider that attends their dreaded and frowned upon “public school.” He’s a back ground character, but the most adjusted and normal of the teens---sans pretenses or manipulations. She is soft-spoken, a vegan---and is being seduced by the ulterior motives of PC. Who if successful, will taint her purity with his evil clutches.

Kelli, 16 (above), a somewhat fragile Junior lives in the city with her brother (not too much older than she), while their fortysomething parents live the single life in the Hamptons. And briefly visit their kids once a week---I guess to make sure the apartment hasn’t burned down. Their children fend for themselves. Kelli actually interviewed singing instructors by herself. Inviting some less then desirable types into her home unsupervised. In which she was a fidgeting wreck---and rightly so. Should a 16 year old be interviewing adults? If the Bravo camera’s weren’t there I worried for her safety…as she’s a rape waiting to happen. If her parents didn’t want the responsibility of having children and parenting them in the home until they are 18---then they shouldn’t have had them at all. To me they are unfit parents. Delusional to think a young girl can live in NYC---the most unpredictable and sometimes ravaging city in the world---without an adults guidance.

So to those breeding urbanites you may rethink location---even though suburban strip malls may be an eye sore, devoid of culture and lack cosmopolitan style---rearing children in the city---may not give the fragile little seedlings the grounding and perspective needed---to become whole, healthy, well formed adults. Once you lift the veil on the raw underbelly of life in the city---there’s no recapturing that innocence---and to experience that as a teen….there’s no telling what the years of over stimulation and lack of human connectedness will produce.

Remember nature equals nurture. Animals and humans need nature under their feet to grow into the best they can be. They need to be kissed by the sun in the morning. Blanketed by the stars at night. And their joy needs to be carried away by the laughter of the wind.

Copyright July 2009, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

“OPRAH: My Soul Sister in a Parallel Universe”

2009-06-02T12:39:00.032-04:00

An Observation
By R. B. STUART
Part Fourteen

In 1998, New York City is when I first began watching The OPRAH Show. It was when ABC started airing it at 1:00 am in the Tri-State area. She announced the spiritual format, “Change Your Life,” and since I had spent over a decade reading self-help books, and many of her guests were the authors I read---I watched.

I didn’t know much about Oprah Winfrey, except she had a daily television talk show. While discovering her as a television personality I observed her camera angles and judged her self-consciousness that the camera magnified.

Around the same time, while reading an interview with her, she shared a quote from Stedman about her childhood abuses---her honesty and vulnerability was palpable, and a way of thinking that I could apply to my own life and abuses---so I took notice. And the more I learned about Oprah while watching the show---I found a kinship that unfolded over time, as there were many coincidences woven throughout our lives. Although she was born 6 years before me into a different culture---our similarities are uncanny…. I’ll share them with you below. Please let me know your thoughts. And if my imagination has carried me away…. ### RBS

OPRAH / ROBIN
Our names both 5 letters & 2 syllables.

Oprah’s father, formerly in the Army, worked as a coal miner.
My father, former Army SGT. worked in the boiler room of a company fueling the fire with coal.

Oprah lived on a farm.
I lived on a farm till I was nine.

Oprah is from Miss.
I am from Mass.

Oprah’s grandmother used to hit her as a child with a switch.
My father used to hit us as children with a belt and a horsewhip.

Oprah loves blueberries.
I picked wild blueberries on our land as a child and it is my summer favorite.

Oprah wore glasses as a child.
I started wearing glasses when I was 6.

Oprah was molested at 9 by an uncle and cousin.
I was molested at 9 by an ex-step brother.

Oprah ran away from home at 13.
I left home with a fiancé and my mothers blessing at 13.

Oprah became sexually active at 14.
I was sexually exploited at 14.

Oprah’s half brother was Gay.
My brother is Gay.

Oprah’s half brother died from AIDS in 1989.
My sister died from AIDS in 1987.

Oprah’s early dating years was with abusive men.
Till I was in my early 20’s, I had relationships with men 10 – 20 years my senior, the latter was a black man. I experienced years of mental, physical and verbal abuse.

Oprah’s film debut in “The Color Purple” was 1985.
My film debut in “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” was 1986.

Oprah loves books and is an avid reader.
When the abuse ended, I began reading and collecting books for over a 15 year period.

Oprah keeps a journal.
I began journaling at 21.

Oprah meditates.
I began meditating at 27.

Oprah loves trees.
I began hugging trees at 27. Oak is my favorite.

Oprah’s middle name is Gail.
My sister’s name is Gail.

Oprah’s fragile self – worth after several break-ups resulted in weight gain.
My self esteem and body image was shattered by my late 20’s and I packed on weight.

Oprah doesn’t wear a bathing suit in public.
I stopped wearing bathing suits in the mid 90’s.

Oprah’s top weight was 220 before she began a program.
I hit 220 lbs. in 1994 when I began working out.

Oprah’s never been married.
I was engaged once as a teen---but never married.

Oprah never had children.
I used birth control and was fearful of having children.

Oprah loves dogs, her first as an adult being a medium sized black Cocker Spaniel named “Sophie.” [6 letters, starts with S, 2 syllables]
I love dogs, my first as an adult, a medium sized white Poodle named “Sunday.” [6 letters, starts with S, 2 syllables]

Oprah moved to Chicago for her career in TV.
I moved to New York City for my career in film.

Oprah used the number 111 with an audience contestant on one of her mock game shows.
I hit the NY state and NH state lottery number 111, 5 times since 1992.

Oprah entered into publishing in April 2000 with her O magazine.
I entered into publishing when writing a memoir in February 2000.

Oprah’s 70-acre California estate is on a mountaintop.
My family home was a ranch on a 35-acre wooded hilltop.

Oprah’s astrological sign is Aquarius, an Air sign.
My astrological sign is Gemini, an Air sign.

Oprah has a large gay following.
I have more male gay friends then women.

Oprah's sister Patricia died in 2003.
My mother Patricia died in 2002.

Oprah gained back most of the weight she lost in the past 3 years.
I gained back the 20 lbs I lost plus 25 more in the past 4 years.

Oprah’s favorite junk food is potato chips.
Mine is Ruffles with sour cream.

Oprah’s switched to Blue Corn nachos.
I started eating yellow corn nachos 5 years ago.

Oprah discovered a 40-year family secret November 2010.
I discovered an 80-year family secret July 2010.

Oprah is a billionaire.
I am penniless.

Copyright May 29, 2009, R. B. Stuart. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

“Exploited by The Poetry of Pimps” - The Disintegration of Today's Culture

2009-04-15T15:54:00.012-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Thirteen

With the glamorization and mainstreaming of language from the underbelly of the street. The word whore is softened by the street pronunciation as ho’---making it not only more acceptable for the mainstream, but more acceptable for broadcast media. Whether comedy or news, Imus’ remarks would have cut him off the air instantly had he said the “square white man’s version” of the word, “Nappy Headed Whore’s.” It’s more of a derogatory and demeaning statement to all women, no matter what the hair type. Since the significance and outrage is on the word whore itself.

With societies adoption of this exploitive gutter language, he along with many others have been convinced that the terminology is cool. But it is not cool….thus the outcry by those that know better in the media and entertainment industry. The issue lies with the degradation of girls and young women in today’s culture.

I lost my childhood due to early sexual exploration and exploitation. And thought at 21 when I left the exploiter who was 20 years my senior, that I was leaving all the negative connotations and verbal abuse behind. But not so….as it has meandered from the slimy sidewalks into our living rooms. And it shouldn't take Imus’ comments for us to find outrage about the language used on our young women. Maybe it’s a blessing, for the discourse it’s created maybe we can share with the society that has welcomed it in….that ho’, whore and bitch, is unacceptable no matter what the color of a woman’s skin, as it is a direct violation against all womankind.

When I hear those words.…it turns me inside out with anger. The n word and faggot have caused equal reactions....it’s time that the softness of whore = ho' be taken as seriously offensive as its disrespectful and hurtful cousins mentioned above. And bitch, since it's not the modern day endearment of Darling, should be addressed and discarded too.

For the last eight years I’ve been trying to speak about the demeaning and exploitive language of Rap and Hip Hop music. The discomfort I’d feel daily while hearing snippets of it when flipping through channels on the television or changing the dial on the radio. As someone who knows the repercussions of this language, being assaulted with it for over seven years, I know first hand how damaging it can be psychologically and emotionally.

Most of the time this street language is used in unison with physical violence. Because there is no respect for women (ho's) in the street no matter what their race....and it is this exploitative, demeaning, abusive language used in the street as part of mind control by pimps, so as to keep the women with a low self-esteem.....afraid to leave them.

This street language and its negative attributes has infiltrated main stream not only because it's been glamorized and introduced through music, but because the self-acclaimed pimps, Snoop Dog and gangsta’ rappers have become the rappers pimping an entire culture, not the poets as Russell Simmons declares.

The young, urban fatherless boys emulates their local pimps from the 70's and 80's, as they were the black cultures version of Joe Cartright in Bonanza. And in essence began to sing what they knew...pimps and life on the street. It’s hardly poetry---but more profitable than pimping, and resulted in what we have today with Hip Hop and Rap. In 2005 I sat in angst and disbelief as I witnessed an Oscar being given to a new song, "It's Hard Out There for A Pimp" from the movie Hustle and Flow. Even the Academy has been seduced into believing it is cool to honor pimps. And I am astounded that the media rewards Snoop Dog’s exploitation with his own fatherhood reality show.

It was a struggle for me to sit idle while this verbal rape occurred on a generation of innocent women, but unfortunately the women’s magazines aren't ready to discourse the issue. When I attempted to emphasize the infiltration of language from the street and its dire consequences to editors…it fell on deaf ears. Maybe as Imus' statement slices deep as a knife into the heart and psyche of women as a whole, we can begin back peddling and correct what has been wronged.

I am not an advocate for censorship but, "Each one of us are socially responsible for the betterment of humanity." And right before our eyes we are losing a generation of young women. Because of their inherent need to be loved and accepted, they are sacrificing their self-empowerment and self-esteem---to be what men and boys want them to be. And it is through education, at home and in school, that we need to teach our children love, peace, respect, responsibility, all the healthy and positive aspects of life. Not the negatives; hatred, violence, racism, exploitation and abuse.

As adults we must be aware that children also eat with their ears and eyes---that the mental stimulation of positive music, video's and movies can teach them how to grow into healthy functioning adults. And as they digest this repeatedly---they'll emulate and learn the goodness about themselves, others and life. That will be....humanity at its finest.

"REGULATION--DEREGULATION--STRANGULATION"

2009-03-17T13:58:00.018-04:00

White Collar Crooks Pillage America
By R. B. STUART
Part Twelve

The acid reflux of the Clinton – Bush years has given us NAFTA, guised as a good trade agreement. But since it’s implementation in 1994 we’ve seen that isn’t so by the erosion of U. S. jobs. It’s left the American worker in a Mexican state of underpaid joblessness. You will soon find American workers hopping the fence to Mexico just to find work at the American companies that abandoned them. And although in 2008 Bush left us a $1.3 trillion deficit---the banking crisis we find ourselves is the culmination of President Clinton’s decision in 1993 to deregulate the banking system. And as the cleaner President Obama has come in to clean up the bad decisions and poor politics left to rot by Clinton and Bush.

I recall the very day the financial shafting began, I walked into my bank and looked at the metal stand that held the sign with removable numbers and letters. It notified the customers of the saving accounts percentage rates. The 5% or 6% rate had been replaced by the interest rate of 2%. We wouldn’t find out how much we were really losing until 2008.

Fast forward past Presidents 42 and 43 and a country riddled with Ponzi schemes. The white collar crooks would amass billions over a 15 year scam of stealing from the naive rich and unknowledgeable poor---and giving to the crooked corporate wealthy. President Clinton is the blame for the free for all attitude---President Bush for exploiting Clinton’s policy making. The deregulations Clinton enacted across the banking, telecommunications and transportation [airlines] sectors paved the way for Bushy and his cronies to step in and rape and pillage the U. S.---like a gang of Brooks Brothers wearing corporate oil thugs.

Clinton's decision to be soft on regulation initiated the financial gluttony within the first consumer driven corporations; Enron, Adelphia Communications and WorldCom to collapse under the weight of greed. By deregulating, the lack of government regulations and oversight, Clinton gave them the green light to gouge the consumer with ease. Fifteen years worth of buy-outs and takeovers, gaining financial momentum and no one to answer to---produced a greed beyond comprehension, and the financial ruin we currently find ourselves in. While consumer product and services suffer increasingly year after year, the public's only recourse is to file a grievance, which our Washington officials simply crumple up for use in interoffice putting practice.

We had our first taste of corporate greed with the CEO's at MCI WorldCom and Enron. It all began in 1996 when the first of the corporate deregulation's occurred between the Telecommunications Companies. The telephone companies involved were: NYNEX / Bell Atlantic (currently Verizon), AT&T and MCI. The deregulations were meant to assist the consumer with discounted competitive prices. But, within months additional taxes, taxes on top of taxes, surcharges and connectivity fee's were applied to the monthly bill. During the first year I observed the .75 cent connectivity charge creep to .98 cents, then $1.50, onward to $1.78.

At that point I wrote a letter to then AT&T CEO, Michael Armstrong in protest against this additional connectivity fee. For many months, I and others refuted the charge but without any support from our Governmental officials, AT&T extorted the fee. Behind the extortion was FCC honcho, Harold Furchtgott-Roth, raking in monthly from New York State residents solely (who pay the highest rates in the country) $37,763,000 (Yes, that's thirty-seven million dollars a month).

By the second year the connectivity fee went upward to $2.50, pulling in $53,000,000 million per month for Mr. Armstrong's lunch money. Allowing him in 1999 to purchase Time Warner Cable, or should I say "we" bought it for him. One month after the acquisition, cable companies were deregulated and the cable rate increases were unstoppable. By 2000 New Yorkers forked over $9.04 per month to the renamed Universal Charge (also known as The Universal Service Fund), giving Mr. Roth a nice little IRA of $191,648,000 million. Imagine $191.6 million dollars from ONE State in one month. Throughout the United States they pulled in a hefty monthly allowance of $2.5 billion from long-distance telephone users (separate from your long-distance charges).

What a profitable deal Washington, D.C. has made with the FCC. If the purpose of this Universal/ Connectivity Charge is really intended for the use of providing "affordable" telephone communications for low-income consumers, and consumers in rural areas, along with assisting schools, libraries, rural healthcare providers with Internet access and lastly disbursing funds to local telephone companies. Then with a liquid monthly income from The Universal Service Fund of $2.5 billion across the country, these recipients could have been wired ten times over. If they were truly spending the monies on the goodness they profess, then the surplus "Fund" money (PAC money) collected by American's should reach out further and wipe out poverty, hunger and homelessness in the United States, and probably could in one month.

Unfortunately for us, the Electric Companies followed suit. Hiding behind the shield of deregulation they are using the same staggered inflation practices. Electric bills were suppose to decrease $5 a month for each customer, has conveniently reverted to increasing rates. The cost of a newer form of deregulated energy.

Interestingly enough Utility Companies invested heavily in telecommunications. Allowing them to use jointly owned telephone/electricity poles they offered the consumer one-stop shopping. Telephone-television cable-electricity became "one," charging whatever they want since they bought up all the competition. This is the backlash from the 1994 Clinton administration's introduction to the "Information Superhighway."

The California Enron black-outs have shown us the repercussions of deregulation by using this strong arm control tactic: "Pay us more or you'll sit in the dark." This is a sampling of how Utility deregulation is letting the U.S. Citizens see that we have literally given our "power" away to Corporate Washington. Our water source is next. Maybe down the road even the air we breathe.

With such lucrative dealings in deregulation, acquisitions and merges---the airlines have jumped on the band-wagon. (I wonder if the board game Monopoly will add deregulation to their game?) The Airline Industry has spent the last decade dismantling competitive airlines by gobbling them up one by one without even a burp. With the fading antitrust regulations, three of the six major U.S. carriers have swallowed up other Domestic and International carriers through mergers and buy-outs---once again their reasoning: to supply the consumer with one-stop-shopping.

The new conglomerates called OneWorld Alliance, Star Alliance and Global Airlines in essence have formed an alliance against the consumer. Inflating fares on some routes from 30 - 200 %, and increasing pet fares from $75 dollars round trip to $400 for the same flight. Forcing the consumer to pay as much for Fido as for another human being and he won’t even get to sit beside you. Then after Sept.11th they all cried poverty and bankruptcy, and the Government bailed them out---repeatedly. Deregulation and bailouts---what more could a company ask for.

With the airlines in cahoots, as consumers we have to pay-up or shut-up. Shopping around with other airlines is a thing of the past. The big-three are banding together arm and arm charging the same prices. Using airport taxes, surcharges (there's that word again) and fuel costs to hide behind. And they wonder why there's air-rage. At what point must we the consumer be financially bled before we lock arms and regulate ourselves against Corporate Washington? Please, don't be mistaken---I have nothing against Big Brother. I kind of like living in the new Deregulated States of America, it gives me a warm, cozy feeling as I sit in the dark without a telephone or cable T.V., and wonder what life must have been like in the old Moscow.

Copyright 30 July 2001, revised June 2002 & March 2009, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"DOG DAY AFTERNOON"

2009-01-11T18:03:00.000-05:00

An Intimate Portrait With Man's Best Friend

By R. B. STUART

Part Eleven

On Easter Sunday morning of 2003 my sister let me sleep through the much awaited first birth from her 3 year old Poodle, Snowy. A crying bunch of Apricot beauties plopped out in the center of her bed, three boys and one girl. The father Buddy, paced nervously through the house as he couldn't comprehend who was interfering with his beloved snow-white girl, and why she was so bitchy towards him. I dangled him over the bed, when he got a look at the mass of tan shiny rats desperately sucking his Lady's breast's---he was dumbfounded. Feeling confused and betrayed he was shooed out of the room by her crazed glassy stare and snappy white fanged smile. For his life and ours---would never be the same.

The enchantment was instant. One could simply not get enough of the four inch, close-eyed Chinese egg rolls. Their sweet watermelon pink noses, tongues and bellies, made me want to lick them like lollipops. But Snowy was doing just fine without assistance from the humanoids ogling her at each waking moment. Their squeaking cries signaling her for food and warmth.

Since they were born on my sister's bed, an impractical choice which would prove to be dangerous for these squirming quadruplets. As they blindly pulled themselves along the mattress towards the warm crevices of the covers, or scent of their Mumma, eventually reaching the edge of the bed then tumble and thump to the carpeted floor. Only a three-foot fall, but as my brother-in-law said, "To them it must have seemed like a sky scraper."

I was horrified the first few times as they would hit the floor either whaling in terror or stunned silence. I realized they were resilient and kept my fingers crossed. We began laying pillows, blankets and comforters on the floor around the bed---a safety net for the four tumbling blind mice. One even managed to find a hole in the seam of the comforter and crawled in it for warmth. Which I discovered upon my morning inspection when one was missing. I began to panic, looking around the bed, on the floor, under the bed. As I moved the comforter I noticed it protruding like a hot dog in a bun, nestled quietly asleep in the filling. I proceeded to untangle its needle hook claws from the white thread. Then laying him down to sleep safely with the others. Thankfully none were injured, and as to date there has been no brain damage.

As the days wore on Snowy singled out the runt. She began carrying him in her mouth, hiding under the bed, attempting feverishly to bury him by digging a hole in the carpet. The poor minuscule, blind-squealing-bundle was tucked in her jaw like a bone. She repeatedly terrorized him in this way. I insisted Snowy was trying to kill him by because he was either sick or the smallest. I volunteered to become his surrogate mother. With the Vet's guidance I attempted to feed him new born formulas with a bottle or eye-dropper. Keeping him warm by tucking him in the collar of my shirt; laying wedged between my bosom and neck, heated by the warmth of my heart.

His pugged face and unusually wide tongue made us wonder if there were some torrid affair with the local Bull Dog. The indescribable smell of his breath was a cross between a freshly opened can of dog food and mother's milk. So intoxicating and addictive, "Chanel" could create a new men's cologne called "Puppy's Breath"---it would drive women wild. Snowy eventually accepted him. He fought his way to her teats, pressing in between the others. (Surviving his tumultuous childhood, he is now a 2 ½ year old 15 pounder named Jake.)

At three weeks old their eyes opened. It is unknown whether they could focus on these gargantuan bare skinned humanoids continuously in their faces. Although they did lock their sweet, round, milk chocolaty velvet eyes upon ours. And expressionless, listen to you banter and coo a foreign language into them. I was enamored by all of them. So much so my life took 2nd place to this litter of love.

Once they developed their sight---their need to maneuver took precedence. On nimbly legs their drunken stumble kept them from wheeling over stuffed animals, and rubber toys scattered along the play pen like an obstacle course. After weeks of learning how to roll from their backs onto their feet---vocalizing erupted. Actual chirping was heard coming from Sunday's mouth (the male I kept). Soprano notes pealed from the gums of their toothless mouths---beckoning the warm underside of their mother's belly. Unaware as to what sound was coming out of their own months---they attempted to mimic Snowy, and horrify their neglected papa, Buddy.

When the white-bone needles broke threw the skin of their gums---they took delight and fascination in the wiggle of your toes. Your bare feet with a selection of 10 knobs to chew on--- provided enough entertainment for all four.

Once they began trusting their fleshy Amazon friends. While sitting floor level they'd climb your legs, arms and chest with the goal of reaching your hair, chewing on it or suckling on your bulbous ear lobes in a fervored attempt to draw milk. While their tiny breath blew warmly inside your ear, they'd continue to crawl up behind your head and rest under the mane covering your neck. At times I expected them to meow---reminiscent of a litter of frisky kittens.

Enthralled by their presence, I'd pose them around the house so I could catalogue their growth by burning it into a roll of Kodak film. It was the beginning of "Aunty's Baby Dog Book." My addiction to their faces connected me to each one as if I'd given birth to quadruplets. Nurturing, playing, cuddling, becoming a surrogate mother took precedence over my own daily meals and baths. Their innocent eyes put a glow on my face. Being childless, I had entered a world of motherhood---an experience foreign to me. My conversations were monopolized by puppy stories. I proudly shared my puppy photo album as if it were my own new born. My friends had noticed an apparent shift in my personality. A new level of calm centeredness had permeated my being. Healing the void within by protecting and unconditionally caring for the vulnerable creatures of the earth.

At six-weeks-old the boys were biting, chewing and rough housing with one another, by ganging up on the smaller ones. Jake (the one Snowy tried to bury) and the little girl, Lilly were taking a beating---mainly her---as they began using her as a chew toy. Boring a sore into her lower back. Coupled with her inability to push through at feeding time. She began a downward spiral of dehydration, weight loss and atrophy. Unnoticble until....

One morning I woke to find her hovering under the first step of the stairs. I was horrified to see her shaking, crying uncontrollably, unable to use her hind legs, and her bum covered with feces. I rushed her to the Vet's. It preempted a two week period of one on one nursing. I dusted off my Florence Nightingale whites and committed myself to Lilly.

The Doctor was instantly smitten by her. After a bout of emergency antibiotics and IV fluids, he carefully advised me of an every two hour feeding regimen and medicine plan. Lilly needed warmth, food and a soothing of her frayed spirit. When around the boys she needed constant supervision and to be separated at night. She gazed her sweet eyes upon me as I carried her around the house tucked under my arm upon my breast. At bed time Lilly laid lovingly next to my shoulder as we went peacefully to sleep.

Within 48 hours Lilly became progressively worse. She squealed in pain at each attempt to hold, move, or pick her up. Her stomach became distended, her fever increased and every 10 minutes she whaled out in pain. I wept as I saw the look of death upon her sunken innocent face and frail body. It was a look I'd never forget, since it was the same look of death I saw upon my mothers face just a year before. I wondered, would Lilly die in my arms the way my mother had? All I knew was that I had to tell Lilly I loved her and allow her brothers to be with her one last time.

I unwrapped her from the hand towel she was bundled in and laid her on the seat of a soft cushioned chair. And one by one I brought her brothers to her. Sunday was the first out of the play pen. He appeared scared. He cautiously sniffed her face then remembered she was one of them. Lilly laid with death around her. Sunday knew she was sick because he used his nose to cover her up with the towel. He expressed empathy. I didn't know it was possible in animals, never mind in a 5-week-old puppy. Next was Jake then Bee Gee (the largest male my other sister took). They both were afraid. They sniffed at her but seemed too scared to go any further. I was content they had said goodbye.

I took her gently in my arms and went up to my bedroom. I laid with her on my bed, lit candles and prayed to God and the angels who looked over animals. My voice cracked as I called out to the Universe to send Lilly a Vetnerian spirit to heal her, take away her fever, and assist in a full recovery. Even though my pleas weren't heard for my mother. Through the sorrow I cried out in faith that the Divine Spirits would hear me and come to her aid. We fell asleep in each others arms.

I woke the next day to a spunky little girl by my side frolicking with my fingers needing to pee. A miracle I thought, wait until my sister and her husband see the revitalized Lilly. I took her to the kitchen where she ate ferociously. Then tousled around the floor with her brothers. We were all amazed. The first 72 hours being the most detrimental---Lilly made it to day three and was holding her own---on the road to a happy pup hood. I breathed easier---and thanked the Divine Power for healing her, and for guiding me on how to care for my sweet, Easter Lilly.

In the interim the Vet had their eyes on her for a Father's Day present. My sister wasn't able to keep the entire litter, so at 8-weeks she'd rest her sweet gaze on someone else's face. Lilly slept with me one last time before I left NY for a business trip. With her tiny eyes resting shut I held her in the crook of my arm and kissed her goodbye. I bid her a wonderful life in a new home with a great family. I asked her if she could---to come back one day and see me again. The tears of farewell stung my eyes as I knew when I returned---she'd be gone.

By the time I returned Sunday, Bee Gee and Jake were approaching nine weeks old. Sunday seemed to have missed me terribly. Unbeknownst to me he had chosen me to be his lifelong friend. Sunday was feeling unprotected and not really identifying himself with a master. Snowy and Buddy belonged to my sister and her husband. They were keeping Bee Gee so they doted on him. We all fawned over Jake since he was the cutest, most lovable and had the happiest wagging tail ever seen (their tails were not docked). It clocked back and forth like a pianists metronome. Therefore, Sunday was at the bottom of the puppy pole, but not any longer, since Lilly was gone he could wiggle his way into my heart.

The second night back I slept on the living room couch. Puppies scattered along every crevice of my body. Wedged beside my head, my arm, in between my legs, Snowy at my feet, Buddy under my other arm. At 7 o'clock in the morning their excitement of seeing a humanoid sleep with them, woke me. They jumped off the couch and ran all over the house. Up the stairs into the bedrooms, the bathroom and of course peeing and pooping on the rugs before I could catch them.

As I was cleaning up after Bee Gee and Jake, Sunday was in the bathroom getting ready to vomit. I ran to him while he was dry heaving and snatched him off the throw rug and placed him on the newspaper on the floor. Out from his mouth came a blonde hair ball. I thought, "Gee he must have chewed on my hair a lot, or is this burnt grass?" I bent down and with my bare fingers plucked it up to throw it in the waste basket. When I did it began to uncoil. I threw it in horror. I scrubbed my hands with soap and boiling water and looked again, this time with a tissue in hand. The closer I got I noticed the coiled Vermicelli had dark brown horizontal stripes and was moving; it was a worm.

I was frantic thinking that they laid all over me through the night and at any moment worms could of slithered out of them---into me. My skin crawled, my psyche was traumatized for days afterwards. My sister was away so I called the emergency clinic asking if it was Ring Worm. She replied, "Round Worm. All puppies have them. It's time for them to be dewormed and given their shots." My days and nights were filled with the re-enactment of the episode. I shunned the puppies for days until they were dewormed. I researched the human contraction of Round Worm and began herbs to kill the "infestation" I was convinced I had.

I questioned myself if I really wanted a puppy. I was uncovering a fear of commitment over having to care for a dog. What if he dies or we're separated like the other dogs from my childhood? All that pain and sorrow again. I really never wanted a small dog anyway---especially a Poodle. What if I move and can't have pets? As the list expanded, the fear grew. Then Sunday began following me throughout the house.

Jumping up wanting me to hold him. Shadowing my every step by laying at my feet no matter how often I moved. Convulsing with excitement and joy when he'd see me in the morning. Bouncing off my calves when I walked around the backyard, trying to grab at the hem of my sundresses. His beautiful peaches and cream face dotted with a black Licorice nose, his personality and affection---was making it extremely difficult to renege.

By week ten Jake was ready to leave the den. Five dogs had become overwhelming and my sister had to let him go. Papa Buddy had already taken over the paternal pup rearing, while Snowy was recovering from "Chewed Teat Syndrome" and was more than happy to just lounge and eat steak Bon-Bons.

During this time Bee Gee and Sunday discovered their love for water. The grateful duo frolicked in a freshly filled kiddy pool every afternoon. They learned how to fetch Buddies beloved squeaky ball, run like Greyhounds, hop and leap through the air like bunnies---flying on the wings of the thrill of the fall. Blackened by dirt from rolling in the holes they dug like two junkyard dogs and yuking it up in the mud like a couple of swine, brought me to my knees with adoration. The same loving eyes a mother has while watching her children play outside for the first time---had shone upon mine. When I placed them at the top of the lemon yellow plastic slide on the swing set---they slid down in delight---further into my heart and mind.

When Sunday and Bee Gee neared 5 months old, these two Tenors learned to howl Indian chants in the morning as a wake up call. Baiting me downstairs to release them from confinement. I ignored their seductive pleas, as I attempt to break them and me, of their separation anxiety. Their manipulative serenades wean them towards independence---while floating a furry smile up the stairs to my face. Bee Gee had grown into a sweet, dopey, big, fury blonde bear---out weighing his parents, at 12 pounds.

And Sunday well, everyone thinks my one testicle male puppy, is a girl. I believe I've acquired the first gay Poodle. He's afraid of children and strangers, basically anything that moves. The excessive barking and growling he's adopted from Snowy, which I hope to change with obedient training and socializing. His morning kisses as he tucks his nose under my chin, wiggling up my arm to hang over my shoulder. Are enough to keep me engaged with this little blonde ball of softness, this feisty spirit of puppy love---for atleast another decade.

As 5 ½ years have gone by, this 16 pound pup has filled a void in my life I didn’t know existed. His unconditional love, his extreme patience, protectiveness, dedication, obedience, understanding and joy, was a gift I was unaware that I needed…..until I finally rescinded and opened my heart to make the commitment to love and care for him, as he does for me. Only then, did the hurts and pains from my past have the ability to heal, as I was swathed in love that he so endlessly and effortlessly provides his humanoid friend---me.

"FASHION IS NO LONGER DISABLED"

2008-12-27T17:08:00.011-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Ten

Upon entering Kohl's Department Store I hadn't sensed anything other then a discount clothes store. That is until I stumbled upon a pair of female mannequins, dressed in jeans, one sitting in a wheelchair. I was struck by this rare sight, it took me back instantly to my own mother's stroke. Leaving her with left side paralysis, self-conscious and wheelchair bound, to live the last five years of her life in a seated position.

The wheelchair made her extremely self-conscious producing a homebound shame that crippled her self-esteem. Her social life had diminished, her comfort came from a "pet" bowl of ice cream or chocolates. It took several years of cajoling when I'd come home for a visit to attend gatherings. She'd defy me and whimper with self-pity, "No one wants to see an old lady in a wheelchair." I'd reason, "No one is looking at you in your wheelchair. Do you stare and talk about people you see in a wheelchair?" "No," she'd answer pouting in defeat as and pivot into her metal chair.

Finally after four years of my drill sergeant methods to get her out of the house. She sulked when the transport service drove us to Physical Therapy then on foot to the mall. She hadn't been in a store since the stroke, relying heavily on home health aids and family to shop.

I wheeled her 5'10 frame down a hill. Because of her pride she never attached the foot rests, it would only amplify her disability to herself and the world, so her long basketball legs were stretched out before her, her metal knee brace peeking out from under her left pant leg. Rolling along the emergency lane of the bypass, trudging up another hill it began to sprinkle. She laughed and held her face up to the sky as the raindrops kissed her cheeks. It had been so long since she was out in the rain---like the tin man her caution gave way to ecstasy. Filled with glee she shouted repeatedly, "Honey, what an adventure!"

I tugged, pushed and pulled her around every bend until in a distance we saw Kmart. Out of breath, her legs in cramps, both damp from the rain, I let go of the wheelchair. Her feet clad in brown orthopedic Frankenstein shoes dropped to the floor and she pulled herself over to the first rack of clothes she could find. The excitement shown over her face. Childlike awe glazed over her protruding hazel eyes as she marveled and caressed each fabric, like it was a babies face. She'd gasp in adoration as each rack of clothes were better than the last. I can only imagine how she would have felt if she saw a mannequin sitting too---in a wheelchair.

A simple pop into a department store for me, was a life changing event for her. For after that landmark day, her desire for life began to bloom again and she joined a senior day care. So the walk into Kohl's had stirred such strong emotions in me, I needed to know who was responsible for this progressive, socially aware stance for the disabled and why? And was this a trend?

Kohl's was founded in 1962 by the Kohl family of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And Larry Montgomery became CEO in 2003. I had hoped to speak directly with the man behind Kohl's, but a summer vacation took him away from the office. Thus, Vickie Shamion was elected to answer a few questions for me.

Who was consciously responsible in deciding to display a disabled mannequin? Ms. Shamion replied, "It is a total team effort. It takes a team to take a great idea that is representa- tive of customer demographics and bring it to fruition nationwide."

When was the first disabled mannequin displayed? "In 1995 and it was rolled out to a number of locations. It received a favorable consumer response and in the 589 Kohl's stores nationwide, over 90 percent feature wheelchair mannequins. Ultimately, every store will have one," she added.

I was able to interview a couple of industry insiders to see how widespread this was, their answers were much to my surprise. When I mentioned this unusual mannequin display to Alicia Hanson, associate editor at VM+SD Magazine she said, "I have never seen a mannequin in a wheelchair and I'm in charge of mannequin features and trend pieces. Although, the idea doesn't seem so unrealistic."

And Ron Rodrigues, VP of True Visual and former VP of VNY stated, "I have not seen the application of a mannequin, in a retail store, used in a wheelchair. However, I applaud Kohl's for apparently doing so. Nor have I witnessed them displayed in a wheelchair at any major industry tradeshows, and I have attended two to four a year worldwide, for twenty years."

This 9 billion dollar plus company may have gone nationwide, but they have been able to maintain the small family ideology born in Milwaukee over 40 years ago. In addition, Kohl's pioneering is bringing the disabled into mainstream society---through clothes. By acknowledging the disabled not only as active consumers, but someone's mother, father, daughter, brother or spouse. Then maybe through this simple act, the wheelchair they live life from---might become less conspicuous, and eventually disappear. If only my mother could have lived long enough to see this progressive change, I think it would have helped ease her discomfort of living life....in a seated position.

Copyright 2004. All Rights Reserved, R. B. STUART. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE"

2008-05-20T17:42:00.017-04:00

Twenty Years of Correspondence with Norman Mailer
By R. B. STUART
Part Nine

As a young girl in my early 20’s, I learned about Norman Mailer in 1980 from his controversial book, “The Executioner’s Song” chronicling the life and death of convicted Utah murderer Gary Gilmore. Mailer stirred something in me to write. My first attempts I penciled 85 pages about my own troubled childhood----but after dredging up so much emotional muck, I tucked the tablet in a manila envelope and scratched Norman Mailer’s name upon it….hoping one day as a Master writer, he’d guide me to finish the book. Six years later he’d come into my life by way of his novel, “Tough Guys Don’t Dance.”

Mailer’s dabbling in film as screenwriter and director, connected our paths in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He frequently spent the summers vacationing at his home on the tiny hook of seaside land at the end of Cape Cod. In 1986 when the 63 year-old veteran writer was scouting for locations and background talent Labor Day weekend for the film adaptation of, “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” starring Ryan O’Neal, Isabella Rossellini and Lawrence Tierney.

As a Bostonian, during a holiday the Cape was the place to be. My brother, and friends shimmied on the dance floor of a darkly lit local bar, The A House. Where the blaring and pounding rhythmic music replaced your heartbeat. On the cramped dance floor we gyrated in a frantic sweat---the bodyheat created a sauna. The shirtless male bodies thrusting against each other, passed around a miniature dark brown bottle of Popper’s that spilled between our hands. One sniff of the Amyl Nitrate sent heatwaves throughout your body, and your heart into a thumping overdrive. Casting a yellow haze over the Disco ball of lights, the short-lived euphoric laughter gave way to an aching jaw as the heaviness of reality reemerged.

It was then I noticed a man with an 8-millimeter camera on his shoulder shooting me while I danced. I figured they were with the Provincetown News taping the Labor Day festivities. He was standing on the perimeter of the dance floor panning the dancers and then focusing on me. There was another man with him, older, stalky with thick white wavy hair and protruding ears. He approached me to introduce himself. I strained to hear him over the music.

With a forceful voice thick with a Brooklyn accent announced, "Hello, I'm Norman Mailer. We're shooting some footage for a movie I'll be making. You have high energy. Is it alright if I shoot you for a party scene?" I was still trying to assimilate that he was Norman Mailer. In disbelief and wonderment, I thought is it really him? Or is this crackpot playing a hoax, but why? Apprehensively I responded, okay.

He walked away and the cameraman stepped forward and filmed me as I camped it up. The impostor returned with a white cocktail napkin and pen, handing it to me inquired, "What's your name?" I moved off the dance floor and replied. He added, "I like your energy. Would you sign your name on this napkin permitting me to use this footage?" I took the pen and napkin. I noticed there was something already scrawled on it. As I cocked my head tilting the napkin towards the light to read it, his voice barreled over the music informing me, "It states that you release to me what we taped. Your signature makes it a legal and binding document."

I listened, uncertain if he was truly Norman Mailer. I nodded then signed the cocktail napkin and handed it back to him. He thanked me, smiled and as a man on a mission---turned to make his way out of the thickening crowd. I went back to my brother who was still dancing and shouted in his ear, "Is that Norman Mailer?" He bobbed his head to look above the crowd and answered, "I think so. It looks like him. Why?"

I explained what occurred and as we moved off the dance floor he stepped on something. When he fished down for the object, he pulled up a strip of 8-millimeter film that was strewn across the floor. Cackling, "You're already on the cutting room floor!"

When the bar closed we walked up Commercial Street, Mailer was standing off the sidewalk observing the trickling by of partygoer's. I pointed him out to my brother and he affirmed yes indeed it was. Seeming somewhat vulnerable out on the street, I cautiously strutted over unaware if he was approachable.

I asked what the movie was and when he would be filming. He appeared open and replied in a husky tone from deep in his gut, "I'm making a movie from a novel I've written titled, "Tough Guys Don't Dance." Have you ever been in a movie?" he inquired. I replied no then sheepishly added, "I tried writing an autobiography once, but stopped after 85 pages. I didn't want to remember anymore." He listened curiously as I confessed the sins of my past life.

I don't know why I confided in him. It never crossed my mind if he was interested or just being polite. It was significant for me to come forth with my truths to him. Partly because I wanted him to accept me for who I was, but expected to be shunned. An aspect of me was still searching for the father I lost as a child. The unconditional understanding Mailer had for a strange, young creature, was representative of the kindness an older, wiser man possessed. Maybe his maturity and welcoming ear nurtured that wayward child within. And through him, I could glimpse what it would be like talking to my own father. Needing him to say, "It's alright my child."

In a sense he did. After I bared my soul he inquired with a half lit smile, "Would you like to be in my movie?" He stood solidly planted in the earth, his face pondered awaiting my response. Without hesitation I gleefully answered yes. He must have seen the excitement in my eyes---my face glowing with hope….

His letters, notes and doodles, encouragement and advice from over the last 21 years hang above my desk---as I am now the writer I wanted to become. I sit encased by the wall of Mailer---his strength, fearlessness, and words edge me into the abyss of the literary world. His wisdom echoes in my every step, “Don’t level off. The worse thing about leveling off in writing is when it begins to sink after a while. It could end up being tougher than anything you’ve ever done. But also, it could be the most enjoyable thing you’ve ever done.”

My paternal affection for him never waned, even after he asked me not to lipstick kiss the backs of the envelopes when I write, "Since that just causes trouble with my wife," he begged.
Norman filled the void as an elder, male figure with wisdom, authority and unconditional support, that any young fatherless girl would seek. I grew up in those letters. I emptied my longings into those pages to him....and asked for guidance as a young writer. In turn he advised me of my writing career, and reluctantly critiqued works in progress. “As understood I don’t go in for critiquing pieces---I save all that for my own stuff like the greedy bastard I am,” he quipped.

Whilst he was a literary icon.….he was also an approachable, caring, non-judgmental man. For that he will truly be missed. So on Wednesday, April 9th five months after Norman Mailer’s death at 84. Hoards of literary aficionado’s, family, friends, colleagues and readers of the controversial pen man---attended the Carnegie Hall, Random House farewell, “The Time of His Time” A Celebration of the Life of Norman Mailer.

The quiet auditorium laden with gold baroque and burgundy velvet, awaited the trail of mourners that would converge in honor of the literary giants life. Tucked neatly alone in the third row was a mysterious woman donning a wide brimmed black felt hat stuck with a gold pin. Her willowy body dressed in black from the neck, wrist and ankle---cloaked her pale skin. In an attempt to shield her from the masses who would share their condolences, his sixth wife, of 33 years, was the beautiful former model, Norris Church Mailer.

I hadn’t seen her in a decade, the once statuesque freckled-faced, red headed Texan girl, was replaced by an older frail woman. Battling not only her own illness, rumored to be colon cancer, compounded by the loss of her greatest love---seemed to have knocked the wind out of her. She sat like Greta Garbo….just wanting to be left alone.

Her contemplative solitude would be interrupted as a haze of confused reading bees parted the sea of red seats looking for their own. The lovers of Mailer stumbled upon each other as they ignored the backdrop of silent images from Mailer’s life scanning the stage wall.

As the patron dust began to settle, glimpses of the literary elite could be seen through the maze of heads; Joan Didion, Tina Brown, Don DeLillo, William Kennedy and Gina Centrello, president and publisher of Random House who’s published Mailer’s books for the past 23 years, as well as actor/director Sean Penn who said about Mailers acclaimed novel, “The Naked and the Dead,” “It influenced a generation of writers.”

A trombone softly echoed “Requiem for a Boxer” throughout the hall as over 2,000 attendees took their seats, for what would be a three-hour tribute. The Master of Ceremony, Charlie Rose, who had interviewed the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner a dozen times for his PBS show, forcefully took the reigns when he greeted the audience, “We are in Carnegie Hall celebrating a great man---so please make sure your cell phones are OFF. Get rid of them,” he instructed with parental authority.

Over the last six decades---Mailer wrote 40 books and crates of essays. His last two published in 2007, “The Castle in the Forest” was the first of an anticipated trilogy, and “On God: An Uncommon Conversation.” Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker took stage and recalled when she met Mailer in 1984 when he was working on his 34th book, novel, “Tough Guys Don’t Dance.” Written 36 years after his first novel was published, “The Naked and The Dead.”

No depiction of his life would be as poignant then the legacy of his nine children. Barbara Wasserman announced what it was like to be Norman’s sister, “He was loving, supportive and wonderful to be with. But over time I wondered where did he come from? Being someone who believed in reincarnation, I thought “Ancient Evenings” was an autobiographical book,” she mused.

There was a similar thread with each speaker---as they detailed Mailer’s piercing or searing blue eyes….blending with the blue skies. But it was his nine children bore by six wives, who eloquently read speeches as if pages from a novel. Each inheriting their own vibrant, identifiable Mailer trait of an articulate wordsmith---weaving memories of their father into a Bi-Opic novel of his private life. The wildly humorous but tender recollections from his family were captivating vignettes mostly of Provincetown. Their colorful memory reels of laughter---left no time for tears or sadness.

His nephew Peter Alson recounted the last days in the hospital with Mailer, his health failing one month after undergoing lung surgery. His final cocktail would be from his son Michael, who’d called asking his father if he wanted one last drink. His request was rum and orange juice. Michael arrived to the hospital with the spirits and found a glass at the nurse’s station. His father instructed him to mix two ounces of water, two ounces of OJ and four ounces of rum. Because of the breathing tube an inability to swallow, Michael dipped a lollipop sponge into the glass and wet his fathers tongue. After several unsatisfying attempts….Mailer grabbed the glass and began swigging it, then passed it around the bed for each to savor his life.

“Most people think of Dad as a great writer. I like to call him a weaver,” said his daughter Susan Mailer. “Weaving the family like a tapestry.”

Stephen Mailer, the self-anointed “wild card” was the most dramatic of the brood. Spouting, “I’m going to channel my father for your viewing pleasure.” Akin to an evangelist he stretched his grey suited arms up to the ceiling to invoke his fathers spirit. Calling out to his father to possess him. He smacked face flat to the stage floor only to arise in Norman’s stance, clearing his throat Normanesque style, bellowed in his fathers voice and diction, “Carnegie Hall—Carnegie Hall—why the fuck not!”

He went on to criticize his son Stephens song choice, “Candle in the Wind” for his memorial. “I was a forest fire in a hurricane,” he scoffed. Stephen rested his fist upon his chin, just as his father an avid boxer had done when sparring in the ring with his son. And in his fathers voice grumbled, “Goodbye. I love you.” Instantly Stephen hurled back to the floor, his father disappeared…. and the son reemerged.

Author Don DeLillo honored Mailer by accounting his work. “He wrote novels,plays, poems, essays and advertisements for himself. He was not just a voice, but a novelist of sweeping range. A great novelist thinking about the world sentence by sentence.”

Watching the video of Mailer in his earlier years on black and white newsreels, was like watching a gangster film with Edward G. Robinson. As Mailer salted with bravado was larger than life, a distinct voice rich with thunder and strength. The boxer, the tough guy, Marilyn Monroe obsessed, the activist, the non-conformist, a lover of Picasso, the poet, the writer, the author---the beloved father, the adored husband and the dedicated friend---we say goodbye. Congressman Neil Ambercrombie choked back, “Norman beloved outlaw and friend…fly away.”

Prominent criminal defense attorney and friend for over 25 years, Ivan Fisher remembered an afternoon with Norman and Norris. “His blue eyes gleamed as he looked at her and said, ‘Baby, I love you.’ ” It spawned a photo montage of their three decades of marriage. A smoky pre-recorded rendition of a sentimental song Mailer wrote for “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” wafted through the air, “You’ll Come Back (You Always Do),” sung by Norris Church Mailer.

She may have been a red head, but in the end….he found his Marilyn.

Copyright April 2008, R. B. STUART. All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"AN AGING ROCK FAN FACES THE MUSIC"

2008-02-15T23:53:00.013-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Eight

In an attempt to recapture my beloved 20's through the music of the 80's, while in NH the summer of 2004 I was compelled to see a concert at the Manchester Verizon Arena. The Rock n' Soul Review listed Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald and The Average White Band. I was so captivated by the line up---I decided to go alone.

I guess at 44 years-old one hopes to be grounded enough in who he is to solitarily entertain oneself. Without any conversational distractions; being solo allows you to immerse yourself in the situation, even if that means consciously observing yourself within the event, by allowing discoveries about how you view yourself to gurgle upward like heartburn in the aging world of baby boomers.

As I entered the brightly lit arena I was startled by the sea of leisure wear, Hawaiian print shirts, receding hairlines, eyeglasses and over weight balding men neatly tucked into their seats. Had I stumbled into a Wayne Newton concert, or could they really be my peers? No one was even wearing black (blame it on the region), even Michael McDonald was dressed as if he was jamming at home.

Everyone was sitting in a civil manner, not one stood on their chair and the only bottle seen swigging was that of Aqua. Where was the smuggling of liquor in your soda can, or bottle of beer wrapped in two fists with a cigarette hanging off your lips? The 50 year-olds had become music aficionados---simply there to listen, spouse by their side.

Had things changed that drastically in 10 years? The last concert I think I went to see was Alice Cooper in San Diego or was it Bowie and Tin Machine in NYC? I was in my mid 30's then, but now I'm closer to 50 than 20. I found myself rejecting the notion I was amongst my generation. All these old fogies around me must have chaperoned their rockin' 20 something children---for why would they like this type of music? I sat stoically dismissing the idea that they were there as I---for the sweetened music of the past.

Attending concerts in my 20's, I recall seeing U2 in Boston, standing on my seat gyrating, singing and crying with excitement from the intensity of their music. Flash forward twenty years and I find myself sitting motionless listening to Michael McDonald sing a Stevie Wonder song---weeping from the feelings of loss experienced in my life.

While listening to my favorite music at home or in the car---it seems to retain the fantasy of my youth. But the ebb and flow of time smacks me with the reality of aging. Now I sit amongst the other 40, 50 and 60 year-olds bobbing my head and reminiscing bits of my life woven into each song---remembering the loves gone by.

I realize that I may have been traumatized by this event---but when Hall & Oates trotted on stage---I jumped to my feet and burst out hollering, slapping my eyeglass case against my palm like a make shift tambourine, singing in a transfixed state as if I was at a Christian Revival. I saw them as vibrant, ageless, artists capable of stopping time for an hour---so that I too could feel, ageless once again.

Copyright July 18, 2004, R. B. STUART All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"SUGAR : THE NEW CRACK COCAINE"

2007-11-16T01:57:00.004-05:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Seven

When I began feeling like a junkie looking for a fix---I knew I had a problem---with SUGAR. The addiction symptoms were: anger, self-hatred, depression, lack of energy, sweet cravings, bloating, out of control eating and weight gain.

Having battled a food addiction for over 20 years (food my drug of choice) and while temporarily living with my sister after the death of my mother, I gained back 20 pounds and 10 of the 12 inches I lost while diligently working-out for the last 8 years. All the hard work I did vanished, by the daily temptation (of the Drake's isle in my sister's kitchen) and endless consumption of the over-the-counter drug: pure white (co)cane sugar.

Over 10 years ago a friend introduced me to the book "Sugar Blues," by William Dufty. She passed out copies like lollipops and preached about the psychological and physical addiction. I ignored her zealot attempts to convert me shunning a copy of the book she swore by. I figured I knew it all because I ate honey or brown sugar (refined white sugar dyed brown with Molasses). Never considering what she was trying to enlighten me to was the dangerous white substance traded on Wall Street. It was lurking in the cyclical ice cream, Funny Bones, holiday desserts, M&M's, and birthday cakes (my favorite) I made excuses to inhale. Except, I wasn't aware enough to see the correlation between my inability to lose weight and the physical symptoms of the sweet junk. That is until I was unplugged from NYC and living in the country trying to reinvent myself while mourning my mother.

Everyone experiences going home for the holidays and overeating because you are out of your element, seduced by your favorite childhood foods. But when the holidays are over and you're still there---and so are the goodies, coupled with those less health and body conscious---it can equal disaster. If your constitution is built on a flaky foundation of pastry crust---you will crumble---becoming "one" with the donuts.

My observation of the negative emotions associated with sweets became prevalent when I began eating insatiably after a morsel or two of the three C's: chocolate, cookies or cake. I'd say to myself, "I'll only have two Oreo's" (or one slice of cake or three pieces of chocolate). Then before the first bite slid down my gullet, I'd up the ante to 4 cookies then 6. Of course after a lightening speed consumption (similar to the initial rush of drugs)---I'd become sick from the sugar. A nauseous feeling came over my stomach as I swore I'd never do it again.

This went in circles for months. Arguing with my sister to stop buying the junk food and seductive desserts. She reasoned her husband liked sweets (so did she and her Poodles) after dinner, before dinner, for lunch and sometime for breakfast. I began hating myself for not being able to pass it by. It was the first time I felt like an alcoholic, unable to pass a cookie jar or chocolate layered cake without having a binge. I thought maybe I should adopt AA's philosophy by taking, "one day at a time." But how could I master control over the dreaded thousand mile walk through the "pastry shop" in her kitchen?

I managed to make the conscious choice and stop due to weight gain. For two months I felt energized, confident, hopeful, euphoric, centered, a general sense of well being. Feeling elated and in control of my life and eating, I decided to test myself at a function by eating only 2 bite size squares of a brownie and cheese cake. I remembered the taste---and it remembered me as I walked back to the table popping a few more in my mouth. Instantly I was sucked right back into the void of empty calories.

This pattern repeated itself over the last 24 months---until the tape measure expanded compounded by the strangulation of my clothes. I once focused on every curve and prided myself on finally seeing my hip bones---I observed the disconnection from my body. Ignoring the outer manifestations of the miserable life I was temporarily leading, in a household spiraling out of control with carelessness and intentional sabotage. I wondered why their self-destructive ways were more encroaching to me than my conscious, healthy organic life style on them? They were a combined force like a blender whipping cream. I had to fight for my life and piece together the cause and effect of my sugar habit.

Over the Christmas holiday [2004] it began to take root as I monitored my emotions and bodily symptoms after I'd eaten sweets. Like Einstein creating the atom---I saw the connection ---and felt it when I woke on the 5th day after my last affair with chocolate on New Years eve. Finally kicking my addiction to a crack pipe of burnt sugar cubes. Feelings of being in control again, happy, almost speeding with adrenaline, no longer felt obsessive and indulgent. The sensation of being healthy, whole and alive had been lacking. The motivation and desire to reconnect to the positive side of life once again emerged. Leaving me possessed with the ability to make things happen. I was no longer ignorant to my sucrose bondage. And the negative symptoms superceded the momentary desires of---my aching sweet tooth.

It may only be a forkful for some, but others a handful leads to a trough. Dr. Phil's mission this season focuses on this countries overweight epidemic, making us understand these foods were "created to be addictive." A legal and cheap way of hooking millions of people, while making billions of dollars. Sugar is big business---a commodity which produced 147.1 million tons world wide in 2002/2003. And we consumed 139.1 million tons of the decaying substance. Which is the real crack cocaine here?

Originally written: 5 January 2004
Copyright 2004, R. B. STUART. All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"THE WORLD COLLAPSES"

2007-10-03T15:38:00.001-04:00

The Sixth Anniversary of the World Trade Center Tragedy

By R. B. STUART
Part Six

On September 11th 2001, while living in New York City I watched the terrorist attack the World Trade Center on television. After an hour, when the numbness and denial faded, an urgency to volunteer swelled within, needing to care for the city the way she comforted me over the years. I would go to her rescue in any way possible and aid the two limbs that had been taken without warning. The Mother of all cities, was herself, crumbling down to the marrow below her streets. The solid bedrock which sprouted two of her tallest beauties, were savagely destroyed---taking with them the many children of her city.

The Twin Towers were akin to California Redwood Trees, only in an urban environment. The destruction of our Redwoods brought about an equal amount of emotion--just as tree-huggers feel watching the electric saw chip and cut away the thick brown skin of natures grandest. The disbelief while watching the calamity brought upon the defenseless, helpless victims---who sat perched on each of the 110 floors as they attempted to fly---becoming One with the towers. Kept the world standing in silence enveloped by a quiet banding together of those experiencing the traumatic event of mass devastation and sadness.

For a brief moment the grief and sorrow had given way to love and peacefulness. It was as though an intertwining between Pearl Harbor and Woodstock had occurred---lifting consciousness with prayers, white candlelight and solidarity. Emerging from the pain and suffering of our forefathers past and present who have fought in those very wars, most, needlessly by sending many to their grave and psychologically maiming others for the rest of their life. It was their history coming forth, and in so doing brought volunteers from across the country and from the foreign lands where those battles were once fought.

The unity had begun. A New World was forming. In the dark of the night as volunteers we worked side by side unloading trucks at the donation center at the Jacob Javits Center. Crews of construction workers and out-of-town cops, women and men, shoulder to shoulder---white collar and blue. All suspended in a new reality. Tied together by the red, white and blue ribbons that were pinned on our breast. A quiet sadness filled our hearts, and a peacefulness flowed from our Spirits---for once, we were all equal. The Hero's that died, united us, in compassion.

Some volunteers slept overnight on the cold sidewalks; the voluntary homeless with make-shift beds made out of newspaper and faded denim jackets, colored bandannas tied around their necks, scuffed yellow-buck work boots fastened at their ankles, pillows of blue plastic hard hats, with rows of white candlelight looming over head on the cement walls. The country was built on the backs of these men, and they were willing to break their backs once again by sleeping on the gray concrete their brothers mixed and poured years before. Even still---they would wake with ease. Then in the early morning hours at Ground Zero they would gather the ruins that were laced with sweat and toil from their forefathers. Which was now soiled with the blood of our beloved---and our enemy. And they would do so lovingly for well over a year.

The financial downturn that occurred in the aftermath of the city lead many New Yorkers to re- evaluate their lives as they knew it. The future of the city was uncertain and my own life took on a gloomy air. People seemed more caring in the weeks after the tragedy but it didn't last. The lack of connectedness takes its toll on you after awhile, you begin to absorb the cement from the sidewalks and the only way to rescue yourself---is to leave.

Hiring freezes happened immediately. The avenues became barren as stores posted "Going Out of Business" banners in the windows. Filled U-Haul trucks peppered the desolate streets as taxi cabs rode empty---a sign people were leaving. The city simply wasn't the same, and neither were the lives that lived within it.

Within four months my trepidation's about leaving became clear when my mother suffered a third stroke. The possible loss of one's mother shifts the order of your priority list. She would be the reason for weaning myself from NYC after 13 years. The magnetic pull of her failing heart brought us to her bedside for six weeks. We stood holding her hands---she was barely able to gaze at us one last time before dying.

She watched September 11th and its effects on her daughter, living long enough to see me come home safely to care for her. Not knowing six months after The World Trade Center tragedy, I'd witness my own tower collapse---my mother. If the survivors of September 11th can go on with the unexpected tragic loss of loved ones in their life---then I can certainly be grateful as I mourn, for the fortunate six weeks I had watching my mother make the transition to death. Breathing her sweet scent, caressing her brow, kissing her motherly hand while gazing at her childlike face and loving eyes one last time---is more than the survivors of September 11th had. I must find the grace in knowing that.

Since then I've observed the loved ones talk about those that have senselessly and suddenly died in The World Trade Center. They spoke of similar characteristics and qualities the deceased possessed: a good person, happy, humorous, a heart of gold willing to do anything for anybody, kind, considerate and loving. It sounded as if God was calling his favorite children, back home..... Maybe, just maybe---they can find peace knowing that.

"YOUR MOTHER WALKS WITHIN YOU"

2007-08-15T12:45:00.001-04:00

A Daughters Journey Through Self-Discovery and Loss
By R. B. STUART
Part Five

Several years ago when my mother suffered her second stroke I began bartering with God, "Please let her stay alive for another ten years so she can see her daughters finally marry and maybe have children."

To atleast have one of her remaining four daughters marry and give her grandchildren was a long held wish. If we could give her that by the time she turns 80, her life would have been complete. Seeing her beautiful daughters have what she had: a wonderful loving husband and adorable children. Her mission in life would have been satisfied.

But as one knows what we pray for sometimes does not come into fruition. God has his own reasons why he takes those that we love at specific times. Whether we are ready to face that loss or not isn't his concern. No matter how many people love you---when he decides it's time to withdraw his last breath and stop your heart, as you were born into this life, you are born into another.

So in January of 2002 when my 73 year-old mother had a third relapse. I pondered my 13 years in New York City, my childhood, and the possible loss of my mother. I reached an under- standing; that in order for me to have a quality and healthy existence---I'd have to rescue my mother, my own life and leave New York. I thought I'd move in with her in New Hampshire where she spent the last thirty years.

In taking care of her disintegrating body I'd assist her as she made the transition into death. All the while still bartering with God that she'd recover from this one as she did the other two. My heart and mind were split in two while I listened to her yearn for the days as a teenager drinking bottles of Pepsi-Cola and eating Devil Dogs---in between her long swims in the cool ocean waters of Gun Rock Beach in Massachusetts. Mentally I knew she'd eventually die from refusing food, but in my heart I couldn't fathom the loss of my one and only--Mother. Yet, there was still so much I hadn't achieved in my life that I needed her to be around for. After all I owed her the happiness of seeing me marry a wonderful man, that is after I found one.

In the six weeks that followed she died. As her life had unexpectedly ended---mine began. Upon planning my mothers Memorial service---I planned my move out of NH where I restlessly left three decades before. During the first few months of mourning I'd experience waves of grief along with periods of acceptance and a sense of well being. But with emotions and their unpredictable manner, I felt consumed by the darkest moments. At midnight driving along quiet and still country roads listening to a Dean Martin cassette, remembering the old songs that she loved. I pictured her in the car beside me swaying to the music and singing in unison. That vision had put me into a tailspin of sorrow and grief. I missed her so. Riding down the blackened, barren roads howling in pain like a lone fox caught in a trap--no one to come into the cold, dark woods to rescue him in the deep of the night. Suffering---the ache tightly gripping my head from the forceful well of tears bursting from my heart---draining from my eyes. Sleep was the only remedy. She takes me back to Mum, and our family as it should be…

When I resuscitate myself from the tidal wave of pain, my memory ponders the last three years with my mother. I began to notice traits and tendencies of my own that I had apparently inherited from her. During the fall and winter months I'd always tuck a Kleenex tissue up the cuff of my left sleeve. On the last Christmas I spent with her I watched her stuff more than one tissue up the cuff of her awning-stripe, pale yellow and gray knit shirt, a handful of them bulging like a bull frog at her wrist. Like me, my mother recycled her unused tissues by placing them in a small plastic bag hidden in the bedroom closet or by squishing them like cotton balls into her blue tapestry tote bag, the one hanging on the back knob of her bedroom door with an aged wooden back-scratcher poking out. Both were overflowing with the white crumpled balls.

In February 2002 while she was in the NH hospital with her third relapse and bout of Congestive Heart Failure, she lamented that she needed her box of tissues from the TV table in the living room. As an environmentalist I continually lectured her on waste and recycling. In jest I tormented her by bringing to the hospital a large blue Kleenex box packed full of the white-balled tissues from the closet. When I placed it beside her on the hospital bed she gleamed and instantly reached for one. Having to dig her hand furiously into the tight, plastic-lipped cardboard wedge to fish one out is when she realized what I had done, in disbelief she looked at me with her widening hazel eyes and spouted, "What the hell is this?" I chuckled, "You know all the unused tissues that you've crammed in the bag in the closet." She interjected in her usual theatrical tone, "These are them? How embaarahsing!" I nodded and smirked at her apparent dissatisfaction with my recycled gall. She used them anyway.

Within moments a nurse entered to flush her I.V. lines and needed a tissue for the overflow. My mother moved the tissue box closer to the nurse and as the nurse reached in for a tissue she pulled out wrinkled ones and remarked, "Are these used?" Without hesitation my mother retorted, "I know Robin---how embarrassing!" Humored by my actions and her ability to still be feisty with such an uncertain situation. I explained to the nurse who remained preoccupied with her task at hand, that I was punishing her by using the bag of clean tissues from the closet that she'd collected from her purse and sleeve for the past two years. My mother with exaggerated dramatic Italian flair rolled her deep set bulging eyes and rested her gaze upon the nurse pricking her arm.

Out of her six children (five daughters) I was the only one who plucked a tissue from my sleeve in the cool months. Each night before bed I'd whisk my long sleeve shirt up and over my head and a white mass would tumble to the floor. Forgetting they were there---I'd wonder what had fallen. I looked down and the mere sight of a rumpled tissue laying at my feet, brings a memory that warms my heart. Remembering my holiday visits with Mum my eyes smile as I hear her voice tucked somewhere in my mind, with a faint glow on her face saying, "Just like Mummy." Inwardly, I gaze back at her contentedly watching me dress from her wheelchair while I slide a tissue up the sleeve of my turtleneck before going out. And now that she's gone---we're connected by traits. The tissues she wiped my nose with as a child, the tissues that I've sobbed in since her death. I am her---she is me.

From my nose to my toes she is there. I never liked my feet tucked tightly into the bottom of a bed sheet, I feel confined. The uncomfortable sensation of my feet being bound and trapped make me instantly kick the sheets off. While visiting my mother, after she changed into her nightie and pivoted herself from the wheelchair into the bed, I'd enter when she was settled and tuck her in.

With her left side paralysis from her first stroke she maintained her independent living, but her ability to do things as perfectly as before were no longer. Her days of synchronized swimming were over and simply turning onto her side in bed wasn't an easy feat. When I'd kiss her goodnight and bid her sweet dreams, I'd straighten out the pillow under her knees. Then position her feet against the pillow wedged between the mattress and foot board of the rented hospital bed. Her long 5-foot 10-inch frame made it difficult even with bed extensions to keep her long legs from pressing against the hard uncomfortable foot board. I'd carefully lift each leg propping her heel a top the pillow. Then gripping the lion throw along with her sheet I'd wave it into the air. Watching her short baby-fine white hair fly in the breeze as the bedware melted over her aging maternal body. She'd blurt out, "Don't cover my feet!" As she kicked the sheets off in unison to my response, "I know. I don't like mine tucked in either." I'd lightly pull back the bedding to her shins leaving her toes exposed and free. The same toes that I had. The same size 11 foot. The same hang nail on the big toe.

The same piggies she scolded me about as a child when I'd run around outside in the summer bare foot, and then try to go to bed with dirty feet. My late sister whom I shared a room with would tattletale more than once whaling out to Mum, "Robin's going to bed with dirty pigs feet again!" Mum would storm into our bedroom and yank me out of bed ridiculing me to wash those dirty rotten pigs feet. Adding, "What did I tell you about going to bed with dirty, black feet!" I never even noticed until they pointed it out to me. When I grew older I kept my toes manicured with red lacquer. Although Mum never let me forget those childhood instances, and as I walk through life---it is her feet that I will take with me. Even though she has passed, every cell of her remains alive within me. And it is her love and her humor that will stay lost inside---forever.

Copyright July 2002, R. B. STUART. All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"THE CASTRATION OF THE AMERICAN MALE"

2007-07-15T23:52:00.001-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Four

As one matures hopefully becoming self-aware is inevitable. Bringing with it an observation, in this instance the submissive nature occurring between the sexes; American men are kowtowing to women. It became apparent to me while traveling with my sister to Greece in 2000. The emotional warmth, masculine confidence and aggressiveness that men are organically born with, that deep-seated nature is being squelched by women; mothers, wives and girlfriends in the American landscape. When it comes to the female contender that they love and care for, a percentage of American men have lost their voice and backbone.

Several years ago the author Sam Keen uncovered this topic in his book, "Fire in the Belly" as did Robert Bly in, "Iron John." Being a single New York City woman I encounter men of my generation and younger that are suppressing their natural essence when it comes to the opposite gender. In the last two years I have spoken to numerous single women of different ages, and back grounds in a variety of shapes and sizes. And when discussing men the grievances remain the same, 'he's afraid of women.' I was disturbingly surprised that it wasn't me after all. Although this realization saddens me because I adore all men, especially for their masculinity, quiet strength, aggressiveness and in moments, tough-guy attitude. I have gravitated towards those qualities in men from the seduction of the silver screen. The epitome of maleness exuding from Bogart, Gable, Cagney, Robinson, Pacino and DeNiro. I know it's not fair to say since they are actors playing a role, but equally so it isn't fair to be held up against the bathing beauties in "Sports Illustrated." As men use Super Models and Playboy Bunny’s to gauge the ideal woman.

But this isn't a retaliation for a society of impossible standards for the beautification of women. This isn't about appearances whatsoever---it's about character. There's something to say about the confidence in a mans ability to sweep you off your feet…and if only they knew how simple it was to do. In my life it’s only happened once. It was while I was at a friends house-party eyeing this thirty-something gentleman for hours. Flirting upon his leaving, I asked him for a kiss goodbye. He took me in his arms and dipped me backwards to the floor. I held onto him as I fell within inches of the hard wood. He pecked my cheek. I felt extremely girlish and giddy as I was enveloped in his manliness, his quiet strength, his confidence. I relinquished myself to him, trusting he would protect me and not drop me. In his spontaneous response to my request, I was taken by his sweeping goodbye---he could of effortlessly captured my heart, with a simple dip. I never saw him again and I hear he now lives in Singapore. It was his gallant goodbye I'll never forget.

During an uptown ride on a local Manhattan transit bus to Lincoln Center, I noticed a subordinate interaction occurring between an older woman and her white-haired fifty-something husband, boyfriend or maybe even son. When they stepped on the bus she sat in the front seat available for the elderly and handicapped. He sat beside her, as one would when out with another. I sat alone in a seat beside them. Repeatedly, she said to him, "Sit there, sit there," as she pointed to the vacant seat next to me. At first he didn't budge. After another command, "Sit there," he moved.

I watched this interaction with a critical eye then spouted, "Can't he sit where he wants to?" Flustered with my apparent intrusiveness she retorted, "I thought he'd be more comfortable if he sat there." I thought to myself, ‘Well why didn't you suggest it that way. And how do you know what's more comfortable for him?" I waited for her to make another remark to "mind my business" so I could add another four-cents and tell her, "Mothers, wives and girlfriends have done a nice job over the years at castrating the American male. And being a part of the single female population I have to contend with 80 percent of the heterosexual male population being afraid of women."

I don't understand why mothers want to raise their sons to fear women instead of respecting and honoring them. The girlfriends and wives take the reins from the mother and continue "whipping" the man, pulling back on the bit, keeping his blinders on so the man doesn't fall out of line or stray. A man is a wild horse, unbridled with a beautiful inherent power, strong, with a sleek, raw, bountiful energy. The woman throws a saddle on his back at an early age and rides him until she breaks him. After he relinquishes his innate, masculine power he has opted for a life saddled, running circles in a corral.

Women have for whatever reason repressed the essential male desire to live his potential as a capable, confident, fearless stallion. The God-given beauty only men possess is cloaked with the ashes of fear and doubt. As he is not being who he was born to be. This is a calling out to all women---let our men run peaceful and free. We need them to be the men God intended them to be, the caretaker of our hearts, the passion of our Spirits, and the lovely manliness that quenches and nourishes our Soul.

Because of the American society's rearing practices between son's and mother's. Father's unfortunately take a back seat to this ritual. And if they themselves fear women, the fear is simply passed down through the generations. Ultimately giving us a homogenized version of man, created by woman. As women we need to support our men and reassure them that we are nothing to fear. That we need their manliness, their power, their strength, their warmth, their protection, their support, their logic, their courage, bravery and their intelligence…mainly, their love. For without it, a woman would merely be a wo_ _ _. And man would be---extinct.

Originally written July 21, 2001

Copyright, R. B. STUART All Rights Reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"THE WRITER"

2007-06-14T23:25:00.001-04:00

By R. B. STUART
Part Three

While attending The Marymount Manhattan Writers Conference in June 2001, 16 months after resigning from my clients to pursue a long held dream of being a writer. I never thought I was intelligent enough to write, never mind a book. Since I didn’t have the formal training; whether creative writing, English-Lit or journalism, nor read the works of the greats…the classics. Although, I was an avid reader, had written poetry since I was a child, horded pens and paper, wrote letters, journals and collected books. I had a couple of book ideas tumbling around my head, and attempted to write a few chapters and outlines in my 20’s. But when I set out to write a 400-page memoir, I didn’t know how to use a computer.

But all those limiting thoughts couldn’t stand up against my determination and will to do it now or never. The desire to live my passions and the age of 40 was the catalyst, as the milestone was only months away. So in 2000 my sister Dawn, sent me her 1993 Toshiba laptop, with its black and white screen, parallel port, floppy drive and printer. Ignorant to the depreciated value of electronics, in return I gave her $1,000. And for the next year she would become my telephone technical support advisor…. teaching me long distance, how to manipulate the robot sitting between my legs.

I studied the trades on writing and publishing, and one suggestion resonated with me, that ‘when you write, each time, you must hit a vein.’ As a novice to writing and publishing, I did it all backwards; first I wrote a book, then essays for magazines, then a column for a newspaper. It’s usually done in the reverse order, now the manuscript sits on a shelf cushioned by 100 rejection letters. I went from newspaper columnist to a fluke feature in a national woman’s magazine, back to newspapers, onto E-zine columnist, blogs and magazines. The training has been the work itself, the assignments I blundered my way through, learning what the AP style was, and how word count and clean copy is imperative. The latter an easy task, since I’m bi-anal and OCD…numbers and perfection are counterparts to my breathing.

I had been shopping my manuscript [What Is Your Soul Worth? The Challenges of A Woman Trying to Save Her Spirit and Ultimately Her Soul] around Manhattan when I discovered Marymount was having their annual writers conference, so I asked to volunteer. Marymount’s director of creative writing, Lewis Burke Frumkes said after taking a look at my work, “You can teach writing, but you can’t teach talent…and kid you have talent. You put this manuscript together all on your own…you’re one smart cookie.” It was just the stroking I needed as a young writer, and he allowed me to assist them at the conference.

In the auditorium, before a panel of professional writers, literary agents and authors, a young woman stood after the lecture to ask a question: “I'm 24, work two jobs and don't have the time to write. So how do I go about writing, if I can't find the time?” The panel of authors replied, “If you want to write you have to sit down and make time everyday.”

During the last twenty years when I only dreamed about writing a book. I became desperate to write and be heard, so I wrote complaint letters to CEO”s and Editor’s In Chief. At certain moments in my life, great inspirations would mount bringing forth an outline to several books. Each time they were propelled by unusual and meaningful life experiences. I must say, that as the young girl asking the question about finding the time. I not only didn't have the time and dedication, but most importantly, the time wasn't right. I hadn't ripened yet as a writer. When I did, dedicating myself to the totally consuming and solitary craft of writing was effortless. I found the time after twenty years, because the timing was right.

Miraculously, all the experiences and words I absorbed until that point imploded onto the page. Words that never linger in my mind during conversations---peeled from my fingertips as if flipping through a deck of playing cards. Without thought or knowing the exact meaning of the word, it somehow fit. As if it knew where it was suppose to go in each page and chapter. In the interim, I trusted the flow of consciousness and wrote what was triggered by a memory reel or emotion. Having never been able to communicate emotionally, the words, sentences and paragraphs brought prose to my hidden suffering and antiquated pain, that I'd been unable to articulate. Applying written words to the emotions gave me the courage and verbal intelligence to communicate--- accurately expressing my thoughts, ideas and emotions.

I could feel the words and sentences gathering in my mind, fermenting. Too premature to write, I sensed them being suspended until the opportune time---then unleashing them into my vessel. I searched lifetimes for the vessel to hold my repressed love, sorrow and pain. I always thought it was in the form of a man. Much to my surprise while hovering over the laptop rewriting my past, it was the book I was searching for, the pages of my life, my memoirs.

The paper was my vessel. I poured all the love, sorrow, regrets and heartache into it. It was strong enough to handle the abundance of painful words. In its silence it effortlessly absorbed the overflow of what I could no longer contain. Unconditionally accepting everything I offered. The paper remained unfettered by the stream of consciousness no matter how light or dark. Bending backwards and sideways for me as my body contorted with memories. All the while maintaining an un-bias stance of my prose. Watching my pen tickle across the lines of the page. Never changing its form or color. The vessel is the holder of my passions. And what I poured out, in its own way pours back into the Self in the form of self-expression, self-awareness, acceptance, understanding, accomplishment and unconditional love for who I am, the writer; a vessel for my Soul.

So after the conference, I ran into eight time author, Malachy McCourt [A Monk Swimming & Singing My Him Song], he was teaching a workshop. When I saddled up to him in the corridor I told him my inferior thoughts on writing. I was elated when he affirmed, “All writers have those fears. I too felt I wasn’t intelligent enough to write a book. Since I didn’t have the proper education.” He then invited me to sit in on his memoir writing class.

Norman Mailer, whom I met Labor Day weekend of 1986 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and became pen pals. Corresponding for 14 years, I looked at him in an endearingly paternal way, since my own father had died when I was six. I longed for a wise, strong, male elder to comfort and guide me through my reckless life. I grabbed the crumbs I could from him, by sifting through his brief letters of encouragement.

When I turned onto another fork of the road at 40 to become a writer, I solicited Norman as a mentor for advice, he wrote back, “If you’re starting to write don’t think of agents or editors for the first five years. Think about learning how to write, read good writers, take classes in writing. Darling, learning to write well is as difficult as learning to play the piano well. But it can be done.”

I ignored his words of wisdom for I couldn’t abate the storm of memories, words, and chapters rushing into my mind. And wrote the 120,000 word manuscript, “What Is Your Soul Worth?” The Challenges Of A Woman Trying to Save Her Spirit and Ultimately Her Soul, in 15 months.

In 2005 at my five-year mark, I realized in an unconventional way, I had spent that time studying and learning how to write. After the book I began writing essay’s and pitching them to NY editors. My first, “Rescuing My Mother---Myself,” I used here as my first post. Was sent to Harper’s Magazine legendary EIC, Lewis Lapham, and was returned to me with a personal rejection letter from him, “As much as I enjoyed reading “Rescuing My Mother---Myself,” I can’t find a place for the text in Harper’s Magazine. I wish I could send more welcome news…and I send this with reluctance, admiration and regret.” His words welled my eyes….as I sensed I had hit the vein.

Now seven years later, I have over 200 clips in my portfolio; cover features, columns, articles, the NYT, GLAMOUR Magazine….and no longer need to call my sister for tech advice. Last year Norman wrote, “RB, Now that you’re a published author---that’s what I’m going to call you, I think it’s terrific. I know how hard you’ve worked and the disadvantages at which you started and you never gave up, which is the mark of somebody who’s going to become a writer and a good one.”

He continued, “If I have one bit of advice for you it’s not to level off. Now that you’ve moved on and gotten into print, enjoy it for a while. Do a few more stories, but don’t level off. The worse thing about leveling off in writing is when it begins to sink after a while. It could end up being tougher than anything you’ve done, even with your life, it could be tougher. But also, it could be the most enjoyable thing you’ve ever done. My best to you, and I mean it.”

In 2005 I relocated to the Hampton’s area to freelance full-time. The toughest aspect thus far is with the newspapers and some start-up magazines in local markets with circulations under 20,000. As ten – twenty cents a word doesn’t pay the rent. Some offer you columns for no pay. Or offer pay at five cents a word. Others will pay a flat fee as a weekly contributing writer, which is equivalent to ten cents a word, but then dance around the check book when it’s time to pay for the work. The publisher, editor, comptroller, bookkeeper play hot potato with the invoice when it’s time to ante up.

As I see it freelance writers aren’t much respected unless it’s a National publication and over 150,000 circulation. Magazines pay more than newspapers, from one – four dollars per word and pay you on time…but you have to sign your rights away with a Work for Hire contract. Publishing appears to be a flaky business, as many editors make promises with doubletalk. Without writers they’d have no pages for adverstisers to run ads on. And the Mast Heads at the top need to remember that. I think the only way to help them treat freelance writers fairly is to form a union…with nominal dues, that will institute our own guidelines that include fair treatment and fair pay.

So my fermentation has froth at the top, I’ve boiled out all the words and have come up with Passion has a price, I’m now $30,000 in credit card debt. And as I’ve lost money, I’ve gained 40 pounds. I may be healthier psychologically, more attuned communicatively…but suffer physically. And still, I haven’t found a vehicle which my “voice” searches for.

So you want to be a writer…..

Originally written July 2001, updated June 10, 2007

Copyright 2001, R. B. STUART, All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"OBSESSION (and I don't mean the perfume)"

2007-05-14T21:22:00.002-04:00

A WOMAN'S DISCOVERY OF SCHIZOID FANTASY
BY R. B. STUART
Part Two

Over the years I took my idealistic notions of love and romance to such a degree, I'd literally carry on a romantic conversation and fantasy sexual encounters with my latest conquest, in my own mind. In time, the disinterest and endless rejection from my object of affection, would eventually slap me back to reality. That is after I realized my lovely wasn't able to wake-up and smell the obsession. The hope of my desires being returned would ultimately go unfulfilled and the heartwrenching discovery became apparent that once again I latched onto unrequited love.

It wasn't until I was able to detach from my constant longings and talk freely and humorously about them, did I finally perceive that it wasn't normal. That was the day I plucked the Merck Manual (a Physician’s Reference) from my bookshelf and stumbled across a medical term for my neurosis: Schizoid Fantasy. In black and white I read that my symptoms were of a psychological illness. In horror and amusement, I deemed myself mentally ill. The description of this neurotic disorder was: "One who imagines and creates fantasy relationships in order to avoid loneliness." Loneliness? I never considered myself as lonely. I'd always perceived myself as an extrovert since I am extremely social, optimistic and carry an organic sense of humor and joy in my heart.

Seven months later and still in denial, feeling locked in extreme sadness and depression. A friend sensed in my voice that something was wrong. Over the telephone I shared with him my lowly thoughts. He replied, "Darling, you're lonely." I am? I thought as a dam of tears burst forth. We hung-up. While laying in the hammock of my loneliness I cried uncontrollably for quiet some time. I reached for my journal to write what I was uncovering. I wrote about the empty loneliness I felt.

It was then I observed my own mind, it wasn't cluttered with the obsessive thoughts of a man. The fantasy obsessions were for many years a distraction for the lack of a man ----the void of love in my life. Without the daily pining over a man, whom didn't want me I was finally alone with the emptiness of my own heart and mind. Strung along with it was my dejected spirit and negative feelings of self-worth and unattractiveness. The more I scribed and reflected, I began to put the pieces of my emotional and psychological puzzle together.

I had many fictional relationships begin and end in my mind. Each ending was as traumatic as in real life. Aware of my regrets and my mistakes, with each termination I learned more about myself. I'd joke with my siblings that I was the only person to have relationships in my mind, causing infliction upon myself and learning from it without ever touching or involving the other person. Saving myself from a partner with unsuspecting sexual dysfunction's or diseases, pregnancy or the dreaded, awkward confrontation of clearing out your clothes or his, and asking for the return of apartment keys. My way was less messy. There was only one hurt partner. One side of the story. And after I woke from my hypnotic obsession, I'd wonder what I ever saw in him anyway.

It wasn't until 2000 while writing my memoirs did the emotional eruption clear the dead wood hanging around the attic of my heart and mind. It had been gaining momentum with each memory unleashed and relived. In order to write about it I had to re-experience it. During a moment of being stuck in a deep fog of emotional pain from the past. I came to realize while walking through the fire---that somewhere along the way I stopped needing people. The endings of important relationships, the loss, the deaths stacked upon one another until I closed my heart and stopped needing and loving others. In the interim it was safer to fantasize relationships. Ending a fictional relationship was still hurtful for my young heart, but less permanent. The obsession was created as a need to not feel any more pain or loss, I was already filled to capacity and needed to empty.

The vessel I searched my lifetime for, to pour my love and adoration into, wasn't a man after all. I mislead my heart in a continual quest for "the one" who could handle such powerful love and devotion. The prose tumbled around my heart while I waited for him. I had so much to share with this creature, where is he?

The years of suppressed emotions saddled with the inability to communicate laid dormant no longer. As I hovered over my laptop rewriting the past, the sorrow and pain surfaced. A cluster of tears dripped from my eyes and through them I found my way clearly---the vessel I searched lifetimes for was written in the pages of my life. The paper was my vessel. I poured all the love, sorrow, regrets and heartache into my memoirs; it was strong enough to handle the abundance of painful words. In its silence, effortlessly absorbing the overflow of what I could no longer contain. Unconditionally accepting everything I offered.

The stream of consciousness no matter how light or dark---the paper remained unfettered. Bending backwards and sideways for me as my body contorted with memories. All the while maintaining an un-bias stance of my prose. Watching my pen tickle across the lines of the page---never changing its form or color. This vessel is the holder of my passions. And what I poured out, in its own way pours back into the Self in the form of self-expression, self-awareness, acceptance, understanding, accomplishment and unconditional love for who I am; a vessel for my Soul.
(My new obsession is writing.)

Originally written in 2001.

Copyright 2001 R. B. STUART, All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.

"RESCUING MY MOTHER....MYSELF"

2007-04-14T01:54:00.005-04:00

THE UNFINISHED LIVES OF THE
ELDERLY
BY R. B. STUART
Part One

My mother had a stroke several years ago leaving her 70-year old body paralyzed on the left side, and wheel chair bound for the rest of her life. It wasn't until then did I realize how much I loved and cared for her. Our mother/ daughter relationship had an invisible strain for nearly 30 years of my life. And out of the other four daughters she bore (and one son), I was the one she neglected and ignored. I'd often ask myself, "Why doesn't she love me like the others? Is it because I resemble her mother?" Later, when I found the courage to ask, she'd refute the claim. But how does a child reason away the pain of not being unconditionally loved and treated equally by one's parent, their beloved Mother.

In retrospect I have found her stroke to be a blessing, for as it paralyzed her---it also cracked our hearts wide open giving us the ability to finally love each other as never before. Although, it didn't happen immediately. It was during the first year of living life from a seated position; the new form of her physical body was unknowingly ravaging her once active spirit, and casting a shameful shadow over her Soul. For she was now disabled---dependent on others to do what she so effortlessly did for many years.

Years after my father died my mother relocated to a remote New Hampshire town, which she eventually came to adore. She lived alone in a small subsidized one bedroom apartment for the elderly. Her six children all grown, living their lives independently across the 50 States, corresponded regularly by telephone and bi-yearly visits. Her facade of, "I'm doing fine," with each conversation was a lie we'd uncover a year later upon her relapse. Unknowingly she'd spent the year with her new companion the television, and by her side comforting her, a "pet" bowl of chocolates or ice cream. Surviving being shut-in, locked away from life of the healthy taking place outside. A life she so recently participated in herself, only to struggle daily in her new "half-dead" body, as she called it.

So when I received the telephone call from my sister that Mum had a relapse. The Doctor conveyed that she had Congestive Heart Failure and was intubated (oxygen tubes inserted up her nose and down her throat) and in I.C.U. And it would be wise for the family to come at once for her days were numbered. We all dropped our lives and flew home. I was the first to arrive via New York City. My eldest sister from Boston another from Florida, and one from San Diego would arrive the next day.

My mother laid fully tubed, hooked up to oxygen, nutrition and catheter. Drifting in and out of consciousness from the constant Morphine injections to relieve the discomfort caused by the intubation. Her Mothers ring, a ten karat oval Ruby and gold nugget ring had been cut off in the emergency room. Her fingers and body swollen with 60 pounds of weight from the year of sedentary living and poor eating habits. Insulating and anesthetizing her from life as a cripple. The only other time in her life that her rings were cut off was in the delivery room. Seeing her hands discolored with bruises and swollen, tied down to the bed with cloth straps to keep her from pulling the tubes out, still soft to the touch with a motherly air about them.

Once my sister's and aunt arrived, we held daily vigils at the hospital. Watching Mum drift in and out from her drug induced haze. We stayed at my mothers apartment and spent nights shuffling through her personal belongings, claiming some as our own. With our aunts guidance we learned the business of death. We placed an account with The Cremation Society, my baby sister, a Navy chaplain wrote an obituary in preparation for the day Mum would expire.

Between our sobs and fear of losing Mum we rekindled laughter from the joy of everyone except for my brother, home. Crammed together in Mum's apartment, we nestled in bed and found daily amusement from the previous nights bout of manly snoring and flatulence. We were finally able to make light of our foibles and idiosyncrasies acquired in adulthood, even still nuzzling up to one another like a litter of snow white kittens. Feeling the tickle of my sisters hair pressing against my face, the scratch of her toe nails against my calf, the warmth of her breath, her womanly body crowding me like a blanket. We found one another again---in the mist of losing our mother.

One night I came across a grey scrap book. I opened it to find the pages pasted with cards, letters and pictures of me. I was taken aback. Had she loved me all along? Each page was a moment from my life in New York City. Mum began the scrap book in 1989 when I moved from Boston, venturing to the city in lieu of the dream of becoming a Movie Star. How could it be? Why me? I flipped each meticulously glued page pasted with my greeting cards and post cards from over ten years. There it was, years of my life cataloged by the loving hands of my mother. Caressing each page with her hands as she glued them in---spending private hours loving me.

Because of my sour childhood so many years passed with hidden anger and resentment towards her and women---but it all seemed to vanish in between the scrapbook and hospital room. The thoughts of never seeing her again and becoming an orphan loomed overhead. For it was Mum that always brought us home for the holidays. What would happen to us as a unit without her presence? Even though we were all in our thirties and forties, fully grown adults, underneath we were still her children, and as children, still loving and needing their mother.

As the days wore on we lit candles and prayed. The doctor in-charge wanted a conference with us about Mum's health. The discussion brought to light my concerns about the intubation and Morphine. It was impossible to converse with Mum without her eyes rolling back nodding in and out of consciousness. We never knew if she was slipping away into the death state or simply "high." The doctor's only concern was Mum's adamant request of "Do Not Resuscitate" written on her chart. She felt as if Mum was depressed and suicidal. I was appalled at her assumptions, since Mum drilled into us from childhood that she didn't want to be an invalid in a Nursing Home. She'd much rather be in Heaven with her beloved husband and daughter. So we suggested after a certain amount of time we would take her home to die peacefully in her own bed with her children around. The doctor agreed but only after she came off the oxygen and spoke to Mum about her depression, "Do Not Resuscitate," and prescribe her anti-depressants.

As Mum stabilized the doctor slowly weaned her off the oxygen and Morphine. So slow in fact, we had to leave. After seven days we decided to go back to our lives and work---leaving the eldest to remain by Mum's side and in charge. We expected the phone to ring any day. And it did the afternoon we returned. The doctor conveniently removed the tubes the day we left and started her on anti-depressants. The doctor said, "Besides your mothers throat and nostrils being sore, she's sitting up eating ice cream recuperating. I asked her about the resuscitation and she insisted she didn't want it." Without saying I told you so to the doctor who claimed to know my mother better then me. I took satisfaction in my mothers flat out refusal even on anti-depressants to stand her moral ground. Unknowingly my mother remained on the mood elevators and the depression symptoms the doctor perceived, were scribed in her medical records.

When my sister told Mum of the week long vigil she was barely able to grasp it, as if she woke from a dream. Within a week Mum was transferred to a Rehabilitation Center for three months of rehab. My sister went back to her life in Boston. During her days at the rehab her new doctor followed the previous doctor's notes and continued to treat Mum as depressed. Adding anti-anxiety pills to help her with they believed was nervousness, my mother like Edith Bunker was naturally dramatic, high strung and a worrier, it was nothing new from the stroke or relapse. Adding a pill at night to help her sleep, one more for her leg cramps, another because she felt itchy. The doctor's provided a Band-Aid treatment of pills to soothe her every complaint. By the time Mum was discharged she was up to 22 pills a day. The new and unnecessary ones would within weeks and months become so toxic, she would be ready for a Nursing Home.

They discharged her under the condition that my sister be there 24 hours a day. My sister had the time and the experience to handle such a request and it was during that period did she observed my mothers physical and mental decline. Not only did Mum return home wearing diapers but a new host of fears had been instilled: from the fear of wetting the bed, to choking, falling, drowning in the tub and rolling off the bed. She could only swallow pills if they were crushed and smothered in apple sauce, she now needed a straw to drink, her food had to be cut into baby size portions. These new crutches had developed while she was in the hospital and inrehab.

It was after my sister witnessed Mum looking out of the window in July at the snow. Then telling my sister to be quiet so she didn't wake the baby sleeping on the couch. At another time asking when the kids were coming home for supper. She'd ask my sister if she was going shopping at "Spags," a store Mum shopped at 30 years before when we lived in Massachusetts. My sister asked her where she lived. Mum replied with the address in Massachusetts, the house we were raised in. My sister realized something was gravely wrong and relayed these conversations to me. In turn I quizzed Mum by phone where she failed terribly. With the instances mounting we began to believe Mum had finally developed Alzheimer’s, just as her mother had.

With Mum's physical energy and mind deteriorating, my sister advised more rehab. After a family conference and with her doctor's referral we placed her in another rehab with a nursing facility attached. Mum was leery with our request since it was a rehab wing of a nursing home. But we insisted she need a few more weeks of strengthening. She complied. Her medical records were requested from the hospital and former rehab to the new one where she would be assigned another team of doctor's. She was doing great until they gave her a T.B. test which catapulted her into bed with vomiting and diarrhea. Further weakening her and setting back her progress. When I spoke to the doctor in-charge he started spouting off to me my mothers angst and nervous behavior. I insisted it was her nature, he disagreed. Adding that he prescribed other anti-anxiety pills and increased the milligrams to her sleeping pills. I requested that they be discontinued. He stated she would need to be weaned off them gradually. When we hung up my mind started to click.

I called the nurse in-charge and asked her for the list of Mum's daily pill intake. When I scribed the 25 pills I was aghast to find her on the same pills I took recreationally 10 years before. I wondered, "Are Mum's hallucinations, excessive fears, sleeplessness, itching and dry mouth caused by the cocktail of pharmaceuticals she's on?" I walked to my book case and plucked the P.D.R. (Physician’s Desk Reference that doctor's are suppose to use when prescribing drugs) off the shelf and sat down for hours reading and cross referencing the adverse side effects, precautions and overdose symptoms from the pharmaceuticals Mum was ingesting willingly, every day. The more I read the more it was apparent, that her symptoms were in fact drug induced and not physical, emotional or psychological. I was irate, overwhelmed and on a crusade to rescue my mother from the unsuspecting hands of the trusted men and women in white.

Of course no one would listen to the hysterical daughter calling from New York. Not my sister's, the doctor, nurses, or social worker. Everyone was in agreement that she was never going to recover and I must accept it. Their recommendation was that she be placed there permanently. I defied and was desperately out of control, a wild horse kicking and bucking at the corral of limited thinking that was penning me in. As they tried to rip my mother from my arms, I clutched tighter. For this was the only mother I will ever have. I pleaded, "We cannot ignore her ingrained wishes of never being committed to a Nursing Home. As her children we owe her that." I whaled, cursed and sobbed over the telephone to these people in authority over my mothers life.

It wasn't until I convinced my brother, then my sister in Florida who was Mum's Power of Attorney, that it was the drugs and NOT Mum. They gave me the reins to do as I see fit. I knew we needed legal advice so I called New Hampshire Social Services, the Ombudsman’s office, Legal Aid for the Elderly and lastly the hospital where her personal doctor's worked and the reputable rehabilitation facility she graduated from on her initial stroke, C.M.C. I passionately pleaded for their assistance and discovered my case wasn't uncommon. With legal support, an appointment scheduled with the Director of Rehabilitation, my backbone in place I hatched a plan: I would fly there have her sign out A.M.A. (Against Medical Approval), get her off the mind altering drugs and take her to the director for an evaluation. It had to be done clandestine without Mum, the nursing staff, doctor's or social workers knowing. I deliberately withheld the plan from my elder sisters who were in agreement with Mum's nursing home placement.

When I arrived in N.H. I contacted the legal team and planned the next day to execute my capture. At nine the next morning my sister in Florida called Mum to tell her she withdraws as Power of Attorney and to change it to me. And when the doctor comes in tell him your wishes. She then called the doctor in-charge telling him that she is no longer in control, I am. They had created many roadblocks for me since I wasn't the Power of Attorney, at times refusing to speak with me regarding Mum's health. That wouldn't be the case any longer. Their nightmare was realized, I was in charge and in town. At 9:45 A.M. I called the nurses station to tell them I was in town for a visit and wanted to take Mum out for a day pass, to please have her ready. The legal team was standing by in case I had problems, then the big-guns would arrive. The leering eyes from the staff cloaked me as I walked down the corridor. When I entered Mum's room much to my dismay she was still in bed with an oxygen mask on, a nurse by her side. The nurse spoke for my mother telling me she couldn't go because she had trouble breathing this morning and needed to be monitored. Maybe in a few days she'd be better.

The blood coursed through my body as the nurse tried to throw a wrench into my plan. She prompted Mum to take off her mask to tell me the same. I looked at the nurse and asked her for some privacy. Reluctantly, she left the room. I leaned into my mother's face and in a quiet but forceful tone said, "Mum the family knows that I'm here to take you home. But I need you to tell the nurse you want to leave A.M.A." She responded, "But I don't want to leave. Didn't the nurse tell you I need to stay here on oxygen." With a deadly stare I leaned in once more with an ultimatum, "Mum, if you don't leave here with me now, you'll never see me again. Because you'll die in here, they're killing you." Just then she said, "Okay. I'll go." I retrieved the nurse and Mum told her that she wanted to leave A.M.A. The nurse replied, "Are you sure? You know we like having you here." I blurted out, "She already told you she wants to leave A.M.A. How many times does she have to say it!" With that the nurse abruptly turned on her heel and walked out.

I told Mum we were going to the emergency room of the hospital where her doctor's were affiliated and from there we'd go home. I quickly ransacked the drawers and closet, cramming her personal property in the overnighter and plastic bags. The nurse returned with forms for Mum to sign and asked where we were going. My throat tightened, the nervous energy of uncertainty consumed my body. I wondered if they were going to prevent my attempts at saving my mother. Mum replied, "To C.M.C. where my regular doctor's are." The nurse informed that the ambulance will be here to transfer you. Within moments the emergency double doors opened and two E.M.T.'s entered with a stretcher. They took the paper work from the nurse, put in on my mothers lap, hoisted her over to the portable bed and whisked her out the doors into the ambulance. I passed by the nurses station for a copy of her med. sheet.

My strategy was to reassess her medicine with the E.R. doctor and take her off all the unnecessary ones. They of course couldn't locate her chart, claiming it already went downstairs to the archives. I had them copy it from the wall chart. With the scrap of paper in hand I walked down the corridor passing the others parked by the walls, slumped over in wheel chairs, unconscious and over medicated. The last stop before dying, the unfinished lives of the elderly.

I put her clothes in the car trunk, jumped in the front seat and a sense of relief washed over me, I headed for Mum. When I arrived at C.M.C. she was off the oxygen, hooked up to a heart monitor and ordering lunch. The E.R. doctor was running tests and assessing her health. I explained about the excess prescribing of drugs and handed him her medicine list. He shook his head in dismay, "She has Congestive Heart Failure her breathing is already compromised. Some of these pills repress her respiratory system even further. She doesn't need to be on most of them." Finally a doctor who understands. Hours later he said she could go home, there was no need to keep her. He gave me the most pertinent prescriptions, which totaled to four. Four pills from 25, amazing.

In a wheel chair we maneuvered to the parking lot, a waist belt wrapped around her for safety she pivoted into the car. While we drove I explained the course of events that occurred between me and the others. I let her know about the appointment with the director of rehabilitation for an evaluation. In hopes drug free, she'd be a good candidate for their program. She was astonished at all the goings on. I turned to ask, "Mum why were you so reluctant to come with me?" Frankly she replied, "I thought "you" Bitches were trying to commit me to a Nursing Home. Because I knew I was a Bitch to you children growing up." I was dumbfounded and saddened by her candid insightful remark. Because after years of ridicule she finally admitted she wasn't a very good parent. Even though, how could a mother think her children would act in any other way then with love and compassion to the woman who bore them? It saddened me to think she truly believed we harbored such larceny in our hearts for her. She muttered, "I was so stupid to think that." My sentiments exactly.

In actuality I think it was me she couldn't fathom having such love and empathy for her. Why me, out of all of her favorites would be so unstoppable when it came to her health and welfare? The child whom she treated like the runt, as a female dog does when she pushes the less then perfect puppy to the side, my mother thumbed her nose to me time and time again, year after year. The one she couldn't find a crumb of love for would reach back 39 years later to rescue her with an open, loving and forgiving heart. Which gave us a second chance at living and loving each other fully. And all because she laid at the crossroads of death and dying, she has been reborn as my loving and accepting mother and I---as her devoted daughter.

It has been almost two years since her relapse occurred. Days after I discontinued the unnecessary pills, Mum was taken off the diapers and she was back to swallowing pills with her beloved O.J. Her hallucinations ended, the idiotic fears lessened and her memory, mind and sense of humor returned. Mum drug-free, went through the 10-day evaluation at C.M.C. with such promise, the director extended her program for another four weeks. In the interim I fired off a complaint letter to her social workers manager, discharging her from the case. Terminated her contract with the Home Health Care Agency who in agreement with everybody else, believed Mum was dying and incapable of being home alone.

Due to negligent accusations against her former Internist, her Doctor of 8 years resigned from her case in fear of a law suit. I replaced her with another Internist who is aware of our over-medicated concerns and I stay involved to be certain she practices conservative medicine with my mother. Of course Mum didn't take any of this lightly, she resented my taking charge of her life. But after she witnessed that she was able to return home and live independently with only a few hours of assistance a week. Her dismay was quickly replaced with happiness to have a second chance at life. As her body and mind strengthened from the rehab, she was more confident in her own capabilities and in turn began trusting me.

It is understood throughout the family and her dealings with governmental agencies that I be included on any and all decisions. As her health was a mess, so were her finances. So I am now as she calls it, "her secretary." And assist her with all financial transactions. It may seem like a lot of work, but it's not. Getting it all in place was the most difficult, but now two years later all I have to do is maintain organization of her affairs.

We are closer than ever as mother and daughter, friends, client and assistant, drill sergeant and subordinate. But we do it joyfully, lovingly. She no longer sits in front of the television eating chocolates. She realizes how far she's come and doesn't want to lose what we take for granted every day: independence and health. And when I do catch her in a white lie, and she's getting lazy with her exercises one remark always seems to work, "Well Mum, you could always go into a Nursing Home."

I would have never known that the time spent with my sister drugging and partying would have played a significant part of my life 15 years later. Though my sister, a drug addict and I.V. drug user died from AIDS in 1987, I had come to learn a lot about drugs. In my 20's I had a pharmacists wall drug chart with the names and pictures of significant drugs. It was cool to have I thought, then eventually a P.D.R., which proved to be invaluable.

I have researched medicines for family and friends, finding drug interactions and adverse side affects unbeknownst to their doctors. I believe that most doctors treat the elderly especially, with numerous unneeded drugs that will sooner or later put them in nursing homes. All because they give prescriptions out like candy instead of taking the time to find out what the root of the problem really is. A whole new set of symptoms are created just by taking a couple of unnecessary pills. And if the person complains too much, then sleeping pills, anti-anxiety or anti-depressants are added as a Band-Aid only making matters worse. Before you know it your mother or father appears to be more frightened and forgetful than usual and has shown symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Starts wetting the bed and can't remember their address or even what day it is. Usually at this point the unsuspecting and unknowledgeable children of these elderly people are faced with the fact that their parent may be dying.

The doctor's confirm these thoughts and fears suggesting other living arrangements. Finally, when at these crossroads with a loved one do we start to take interest in their life. If some of you are able and lucky enough, with great effort, to become an activist for their health and welfare; then what you will find with the right research will be astounding. For you will have uncovered like Sherlock Holmes, a pattern and a list of new found reasons for those symptoms that your parent is displaying. You discover it's the drugs that they take faithfully with no questions asked. Why should they doubt the authority of their revered doctor. For without them where would they be? If you are able to intervene, while your parent is still living independently. Whether via phone, fax or letter, long distance or local, your efforts will be successful and your parents can remain as before--living at home.

Once the "unnecessary" drugs are discontinued the previous symptoms will disappear. Believe me once you start corresponding with the doctor with some cold hard facts. They will graciously aid you and will continue being on their toes as they assist with the health care of your parent. If they resent that you are intervening and try to turn your parent against you, then consider threatening the doctor with a Malpractice lawsuit and they will conveniently resign from the case.

Your parent may be angry with you for interfering in their life and ruining the relations with their adored doctor. Once you show them the proof of why they weren't "acting" like themself, and the next recourse for you is to commit them to a nursing home. Then in a short period of time they will come to their senses (that is after the mind-altering drugs are stopped with a doctors knowledge and assistance). As long as you allow them to choose another doctor on their own and make it clear to the new doctor that you will remain involved, but in the background. There shouldn't be any protest from the new doctor as to your requirements for "conservative" practices. Any further medications should be discussed at length with you and your parent, so as not to produce the same results as the subsequent colleagues had done with their lack of good judgment.

We are raised in this culture not to question our Medical Practioners, as if they were some sacred or holy figure incapable of being careless or making misjudgments. The majority of the time the Medical Industry answers to no one but themselves. Unless of course you are fortunate enough to be financially independent and are able through the courts to fight for your rights. But most of us are not that financially able nor are medically astute and the Medical Industry knows that. Therefore we must believe and trust in ourselves first and foremost and ask them many questions no matter how idiotic they sound, for it is our life or a loved ones at stake. Ask questions NOW while you and they are still alive. Because if anything should happen, believe me you will track them down and you will be asking: Why? How could you? What happened? By then my friend, it will be much too late.

This elderly person is not some disposable old woman or man or merely a case number, they are someone's sister or brother, your father, my Mother. They are not orphan's alone in the world, left in the hands of the Medical Industry to do as they wish, with nobody to answer to. Too many of our parents and grandparents are sentenced away to nursing homes, as they wait to die. They are the only parents we will ever have and it is up to us as their children to care for them as much as possible.

For in the not too distant future we will grow old and the children we had will have gone to live their own lives and we will be faced with the same uncertainties. To live at home or wait to die while in a nursing home? Hopefully with Gods grace we will all be spared and die at home in our own bed, amidst the dreams of our children as they laugh and play before your eyes, as if just yesterday, and old age was, far...far...away.

Originally written in July 2001.

Copyright 2001, R. B. Stuart. All rights reserved. No reproduction of this blog in any form.