Rehabbing the Holidays

One holiday season I considered going to rehab. Rehab seemed like the perfect place to hide. No one would expect anything out of me like gifts, parties, cards, smiling, visiting, showering, etc. A nice relaxing, low to no pressure holiday season.

The idea of it gave me a sigh of relief. When I explained my idea I was surprised by the looks of surprise and the immediate questions I got, "what are you going into rehab for?" I had not worked out the details and was annoyed friends were not more supportive about my plan.

That year, I obviously didn't want to make the long boring drive “home.” In the past I returned home not always feeling comfortable in the place listed under family in my address book. There would be the same annual questions that are not particularly difficult, yet somehow nearly impossible to accurately answer. I’m not sure good definite answers exist for those small talk questions, if they do, families all over would be left with only the generic crackle of television.

Ironic Holiday Greetings

I sent off our holiday cards and packages today. Some of the cards I sent were from the basement of an estate sale I went to a couple years back. They must be from the early 50’s. In my mind I thought they were very ironic. Not 50’s cool, but 50’s manger scene with lots of angels and lambs and chubby cheeks and scenes of little towns with a ten flag minimum. I tried to only send these delicate, yellowed cards to friends who might get the holiday joke. That the Jewish/non Jewish family is sending these second-hand-super-religious cards is funny. But, I guess when you have to explain it…

Anyway, I like the idea that someday some strange girl might find something of mine (like my forever holiday stamps) that I lost, and actually. She might use it and be laughing at me. But at least someone will be thinking of me and my basement will be cleared out.

Little Addict Annie

I don’t have to live in the house with dysfunction anymore. I don’t dial its phone number. I don’t go to that address. It is a slow process to shed what you think you loathe. So I have my secret stashes like any true addict. A trip to Wal-Mart for great prices and intense verbal and physical abuse in most aisles and my only protection is a rickety cart. Maybe that big yellow smiley face is a distant, vacant relative.

Deep down I am like little orphan Annie still imagining my real family waiting patiently for me. Except I know now that even if someone has great taste in books or art they can still suck at lots of other things because it’s our right as human beings.

Blood Sisters

As an outsider I relate to the City of Detroit. To its underdog spirit. We each have been misunderstood, unloved, disliked, discounted, gritty, historic, bitter, lonely, funny, dramatic, dark, fearful, isolated, abandoned. Depth and backbone and intensity with architecture and stories and music and food so sensual you realize why people are devoted.

Detroit can be like having your own secret attic at your fingertips. Steam billowing up from the street, my husband says hell is beneath downtown Detroit like something off a movie set. The city looks its best at 5 o’clock in misty gray.

I never feel out of place. People don’t always look like me. The setting may not be what I have thought to be comfortable, yet in a deeper way I know this is me and I am accepted with my cracks, dents, dusty baggage and frizz.

It’s bumpy and confusing and loud and unfair and scary and broken, but it’s not lost. There is faith and warmth and a willingness to share with an outsider. Nothing can make you feel more at home. Even the deep potholes and grit are laced with glimmers of hope. This is where my soul has found comfort.

It’s like your favorite foods, favorite places to be kissed and cuddled, music, pajamas, who you fall in love with, and if you’re honest, these things aren’t the prettiest, but they feel right deep down in the center of your belly just like home.

It's Worth the Helmet Hair

I believe in helmets. Helmets are the ultimate tool in the protection of our greatest resource. I’ve seriously considered wearing a helmet in day-to-day situations.

I’ve experienced intense verbally abusive situations giving me the urge to take cover in a doorway, place my head between my knees, and shout, “damn, why don’t I have my helmet?”

Having a helmet from birth would have given me the extra protection I needed. Like using sunscreen from an early age can help in your later years against harmful, damaging rays.

My husband knows a philosophy professor who drives around Ypsilanti wearing a crash helmet. People laugh at him. I envy his courage and insight. He is acting out my safety fantasy.

When I begin wearing my helmet, I will carry extra helmets around town to hand out to strangers having a rough patch. Detroiters often ask me for money. Instead I give them food. I could add a helmet to the granola bar or muffin.

One woman simply refused my offer of peanut butter crackers when she asked for money, “Honey, I’d much rather have a beer.” Maybe what she really needed was the protection of that helmet.

Embrace the rounDD’s

Over the weekend I bought my first bras that were not minimizing. Just regular bras. No restrictions no holding back. No censorship. Of course this is not a braless 60’s type situation, just letting what is to be be.

I had been told I would look thinner if my boobs were not so big and therefore to wear these minimizer bras. I fooled no one…the world knows I have big tits and I ain’t skinny.

So for the past few days I have been living with my double D’s front and center. They have moved proudly to the front of the bus like they had been hiding in an attic all this time.

Restriction is tiresome and unatural. It rains and my hair flairs out in loud-mouthed curls. My laugh can and has filled a movie theatre.

I am a full and round person in every sense of the word and it is how I best experience the world. Holding myself in in one place, makes something else pop out extra loudly somewhere else. And who wants to get it in the eye with a crazy double D that just got out of hiding?