Category Archives: social behavior

Hog In The Road.

addiction, contemplation, creative writing, drama, Good Food, gratitude, healing, health and wellness, human behavior, psychology, relationships, social behavior, social commentary, sociology, thoughts, truth, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

My boyfriend and I fight.

It’s no secret to the few who know us as a couple.

He’s a petulant Aries, insisting on running his own show (the only show); I’m a stubborn Taurus, refusing to be led by the nose, with – thanks to migraine med, Imitrex – a streak of OCD, just to pepper the picture.

Yah. We’re a hot mess.

Today, in the midst of what much of the world is calling the downward slope of the first coronavirus pandemic, our town spiked for the second day in a row and, with only as many contact tracers as tested positive, we’re in for some tenuous coming days facing Memorial Day weekend on the lake.

He was to have spent today with me, at my house. He’d take the truck to inspection by 9:30, walk the dog up State St, and get to his mother’s across town before I woke up. But, the truck service center had its own inspection schedule to delay so his plan, to dig weeds at her place, got protracted into late afternoon.

I’d made a stop over, to take him a small snack and a water bottle, then another and, by the time the case count had come in he was physically exhausted and I was fit to be tied – by floating anxiety. Did he know about ticks, in the overgrown foliage in the backyard? I did; been bitten and infected, at least once. Had he brought his hat? Would he take a couple disinfectant wipes, for the truck when it was done? Would he soap the dog, after?

Sheltering in place, between our two properties – his a spacious country idyll with gardens to till, mine a corner lot in the burgeoning hotbed known as Zone 1 – had felt like a workable plan. And, for about 34 days, it had been. He appreciated the change of scene and close proximity to his mother’s; I appreciated his share of the cooking skill, as close to three star Michelin as any man I’d ever known. Together, we’d weathered it better than our usual score; only two major blow outs, and a couple fleeting grouses. I was sure that, when this was all over, we could make a set of How To videos. You know, for couples. Who fight.

But, once the weather finally broke he’d felt the farm calling and I’d run out of re-organizing brainstorms. Time to seed; time to rent the rototiller; time to acquire more laying pullets. So, he’d been spending more time at his place and I’d been spending more time proclaiming on social media.

Today, he’d gotten stuck and so had I; his day would become about weeding and waiting, mine about wondering and fretting.

Then, his phone died.

Being ten minutes apart is nothing, until the phone goes out. By the time the truck was ready, he had reached his limit of tolerance of everything imposing on utter fatigue, including and especially my increasing need for communication. Could I drive him to the dealership? Nope; not even that was within his scope of acceptability. Weren’t we going to spend time? Nah. Change of plans. His. Always his. His show, you know.

He’d called me pale, on my first stop in the full sun. I flipped through the rack and found my best red sweater. Perfect for a warm day without a jacket. And, for the first time in two months, a little under eye concealer and foundation with blusher fixed the aging face. No matter the double mask; I felt ready to present to my man, no matter his sweaty, foul, moodshifting self.

Heading back out, I grabbed a can of coconut milk and the container of Clorox wipes he’d given me. We could spend our evening at his house, over a little dinner, and check on the laying hens and the lone chicken’s dog bite in the pen. The drive was one part compulsion, one part commitment; I wanted to finish this day far better than it had begun doing what had always worked for us, in the past – being together.

The drive was its usual 23 minutes beating all the yellow lights. People, everywhere, without masks, a troubling cloud over a beautiful sky. Reaching his driveway I was quietly amazed; the garage door, shut, empty of any vehicle – and, the trailer for bark nowhere to be seen. Hadn’t he planned on getting a haul? What exactly, was going on here?

I left the can of Clorox where he could see it, checked on the injured hen, and headed back into town.

This return trip was always an opportunity for clarity. I could face myself, head on. Compulsive obsession only overtook me under intense externally imposed stressors, and this virus lockdown had tested it mightily. On this drive, I mulled and pondered and ruminated; how could this relationship survive everything that had been happening to us? When would any notion of “re-opening” allow us to resume, and to what degree would we be forced to contemplate our future without it? Where was he, anyway, and why did he leave me adrift on such a lovely day?

Heading north on Cherry was always the final leg, a coast all the way to my street provided the lights cooperated. Now, what was this stopping traffic?

I braked, and peered around to find out. Horns, from behind me; a pickup, off the berm southbound, finally resuming speed. Nobody moving. I waited, for a siren, wondering how I’d heard nothing to provoke it.

Finally, the car in front of me turned out around. The big reveal was upon us all. Right in the middle of old Erie town, former industrial mecca turned faltering resort, and next to the newly glistening facade of our lone, enduring city high school was the biggest, fattest, black hog I’d ever seen.

HogInRoadOnCherry

The thing had just taken two dumps, and was waddling in all directions, sniffing the unfamiliar asphalt wondering why nothing moved under its snout.

As soon as I could, I grabbed my phone for a capture, best possible in that lighting from the restrictive distance of the Pontiac hood, and then proceeded around the animal.

No sooner had I passed through the next traffic light, but this: a monstrously wide semi rig, backing for a turn right in front of me.

TruckInRoadOnCherry

Yes. Apparently, even the convenience store had to take a moment during the coronavirus pandemic and refill its steam table. Stop, again; wait, again.

The next intersection was the top of the final hill. Its light remained red long enough for realization to gel. Even OCD and generalized incompatibility were no match for these two gems, little gifts of stopped time, levity in the midst of the grandest test of human patience and understanding I could recall over life as I’d come to know it. Perspective was the objective, after all; where would we go, from here, and who really cared if we did?

Surviving had become both the end and the means to it. Either we did that together, or not. But, better to avoid allowing any more roadblocks to reason, acceptance, forgiveness, and a reach toward unconditional love.

Worth the fight.

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© 5/21/2020   Ruth Ann Scanzillo       All rights those of the author, whose story it is and whose name appears above this line.   Thank you for respecting the life of another.

littlebarefeetblog.com

No Limits.

arts education, brain research, civic commentary, commentary, contemplation, Deep Thoughts, health and wellness, human behavior, political commentary, politics, psychology, public education, slum culture, social behavior, social commentary, sociology, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Somebody has to say it.

Most trained educators will attest: those of limited intellect m.u.s.t. be led and protected by responsible minds. When I say “responsible”, I mean the kind of minds which comprehend the scope, nature and implication of such limitation.

Trained educators understand that those of limited intellectual capacity usually have the most difficulty comprehending abstractions. Theirs is a literal world, populated only by concrete objects which they can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Likewise, they react only to that which expresses concretely.

What is also important to realize is that those who are limited react as collectives; they either seek their own, or manifest genetically in large percentage within extended families. Next, while they do possess an occasional degree of awareness of their limitations they usually, if “outed” (and, given the opportunity to do so), express via angry or defiant outburst. When found in large gatherings, these are a palpable force. Even more critically, they react according to the limits of their understanding, and this point cannot be overestimated.

No child will obey unless either forced to do so by some perceived threat, or made to understand thoroughly the consequences of refusal. Those of limited intellect behave in similar fashion to children – but, have a far greater impact both on their surroundings and those who inhabit them.

Enter the kind of threat posed by the novel coronavirus, Covid-19. This threat is far from concrete, as perceived; it cannot be seen, touched, tasted, smelled or, apart from its symptoms, felt. Its power is abstract, and respecting that power REQUIRES comprehension of its unseen, undetectable properties.

I do not feel that those in current power within our government have behaved responsibly toward such individuals. Either policy or statistics wonks, they have failed to comprehend the nature of this percentage of our population – its inclination to band together, its almost complete lack of abstract reasoning potential, and its resultant stubborn refusal to comply with what seems to the rest to be simple orders restricting behavior.

I feel the threat of this absence of accountability toward our weakest population. It affects me every day, either by means of verbal retaliation or by actions which show defiance against orders laid out by our leaders. When a child doesn’t understand the consequences of action, such a child will go about his or her merry way, acting according to desire or preference. This is what we are seeing across our country: people who don’t fully, completely realize what is happening, and who are acting accordingly. It is this population which poses the greatest threat to public health, both to itself and that representing the rest.

Somebody, please; take a moment to sound this alarm. Make the Covid-19 pandemic rules clear enough for a fourth grader, and be SURE to include cause and effect on every point. Provide graphic representations, and post them on telephone poles and exterior doors of public places. Create sound bytes for radio, 15 second public service announcements, billboards – and, flood the communities which are underserved with them all. It only takes one insufficiently cognizant person to infect thousands and, when that happens, no limits are too great.

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© 5/20/2020   Ruth Ann Scanzillo.      Sharing permitted upon request of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for accepting responsibility.
littlebarefeetblog.com

The Present Mind.

brain research, commentary, contemplation, Deep Thoughts, family history, grief, healing, health and wellness, human behavior, psychology, relationships, scenes, social behavior, social commentary, sociology, thoughts, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

 

It’s not that I never saw what Mum saw.

It’s that I never saw as she did.

My view of Mum was always from behind. Her back ever turned, either standing at the kitchen sink or seated at the sewing machine, this was a mother intent upon managing the household. And, fulfilling this charge was the daily commitment – task by utilitarian task. Born likely of deferred dreams, to her the home was more about its daily upkeep and less about the living beings who occupied the space.

But, occupy I did.

Whether sprawled across the davenport, face embedded in the corner behind the pillow, or planted at the piano, or poured into a novel……I was there. And, what I saw while known to be was driven by the images which first appeared in my mind. Pictures; stories, entire narratives, from a single seed of thought. Though my body lived in her house, I dwelt well outside of it — inside my head.

But, to Mum, whose immediate purpose was home maintenance, anything worth vision was populated by that which dictated the next, practical move. Dishes, crusted with drying food, waiting by the sink. Dust, coating the coffee table. Cluttered magazines, sleeping with newspaper. Dirty clothes, lounging about. These, she clearly saw, every day of the week and Saturday, too.

On the unavoidable occasion which brought us both into the same room, her raised voice would sometimes penetrate the air around me. In tones of exasperation:

“Are you just going to sit there, all day?!”

There was “work” to be done. Didn’t I see it??

No. I did not.

Oh, I saw the coffee table. I saw the sink. I saw the magazines, and the newspaper, too. These were all props, in a delectable scenario which morphed every time my eyes rolled back and to the left, never requiring my interaction. But, if they captured my fancy, I might consider the contour of the sofa pillow, or the crisp leaves of paper, or the outline of the scalloped table’s edge. Perhaps I would grab the sketchbook, and draw them into the still life of a given afternoon.

But — clean them? Straighten them into regimented rows? Why spoil a good lay out? Why wreck the whole picture?

Some fifty years have passed, since Mum moved about around me in the house we called home. Now, the novel coronavirus has been upon the planet for at least eight weeks of our current lives. None of us, whether absent or present of mind, can see it in any form. All we know is its power to manifest, in potentially life threatening proportions. And, because we are nearly defenseless against such invisible, yet diabolical, intent, we must gather our senses as if to battle. We shield our noses and mouths, attacking only that which must afterwards be thoroughly washed. We count the number of steps between our feet and those of the person approaching us on the sidewalk. We stare through the windows, instead of going outside at all.

And, as we look, we are called upon to see our surroundings as our mothers did, as they appear before us demanding our command. The layout of our lives has changed, fundamentally, for as far into the foreseeable as we are able to imagine. We exist framed in an entirely new panorama, one to which we must be accountable nearly every minute. With each blink of our eye we must be present of mind, lest we be found absent, forever.

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© 5/14/2020    Ruth Ann Scanzillo      All rights those of the author, whose perspective it is, and whose name appears above this line, literally.  Thank you for respecting original material.

littlebarefeetblog.com