(l) Moon age 49 yrs presenting at Detroit-Riverside Hospital on behalf of Johnson Baby Products.(below)Moon age 47 yrs after a conference with grandson Chance now 13
(l) Moon age 44 in my gallery Jambalya Ya Ya in San Diego holding granddaughter Dell now age 14. (below) Moon age 46 presenting at a conference
Me age 42 when I first started out as a visual artist. I made the hat & bolereo thinking I would design clothes initally. Not...
I discovered a picture of me with one one my granddaughters who I call Della Bella now 14 when she was as tiny as my newest granddaughter Salli. I was delighted to see it and then in the next instant I notice wow how thin I was! In this picture I was 44 years old, and I recalled how people treated me like I weighed 400 pounds! Of course at that time I lived in Southern California which has somewhat a distorted idea of what slimness was. I was active, still dancing zydeco though slowed somewhat due to knee surgery, busy in my career and looking back now how happy I was. I had a dream that became a vision and I was pursuing it though i had many a detractor or lots of tsk, tsk, tsk
How many times have you heard someone say or you said yourself slim & healthy? And why people think that is really the case when then I could tell you women I knew half my size who were anything but healthy. And some who were lost emotionally, who did not know what they could do with themselves or felt they had no purpose or goal.
Moreso for me was I paid far too much attention and gave far too much power to ones who really were not even working on themselves and gave a lot of validity to their view of me which was as skewered as mine. So if I am to have a skewed image at least let it be mine and not someone else opinions of who I was (am). Tripped me out and I swallowed it,store the rage in the soon to come fat and stopped caring and let my vision's light dimmed. It never went out, just dimmed... A lot.I got mad at myself,misdirected instead of properly putting the anger where it belong, dealt with it and then let it dissipate, because I kept lying to myself that it didn't matter when it did. And the n'er-de-wells hurt me, when they did. I wore my heart on my sleeve in full view & my hurt, disappointment and betrayal encased in the fat that was to come and kept on going.
A quote of Dr. Angelou stated that being careful about whining. "Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the room". Brute is a word you do not hear a lot of today but I think it is an accurate one. The dictionary describes it as (n) A brutal person; a savage in heart or manner; as unfeeling or coarse person (adj)
Not possessing reason, irrational; unthinking as a brute
Rough uncivilized, unfeeling.
Most people who not characterize themselves as a brute or unfeeling, rough fierce etc. But thre are those who actions at the least are boorish or un feeling, lacking in regard for another that has cause a lot of people unnecessary,undeserved and in some cases irreparable harm because of their actions. So Dr.Angelou's statement is well taken.
I then looked up the word whine: noun
A long-drawn high pitched complaining cry or sound
Verb: To complain or protest in childish manner or about trivial things
My complaints or protests may have indeed been legitimate but view by somewhat else who had brutish tendency may have trivilized them seeing me as vulenerable enough to take advantage of and they did my opening the door, putting out the welcome mat and preparing a meal for them without knowing that their purpose was not a good one.
I am not talking about trivial/fluffy things as they were not, but the reality is people are what they are, not everyone has your best interest at heart so it was something I had to work on to rewire. People will do what they want to do no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary and protesting or complaining will not change that fact. And passivity or being the victim was a spiritual open invitation to feast on another’s sorrow.
So I have rewired which can be a long tedious process not for the faint at heart. Sometimes it means looking at something you have done contributing to this. My contribution was extending the welcome mat. I believe in people, still do, but needed more discernment that not every one needs to be given a carte blanche invitation to dine in your life. My failure in having that discernment previously cost me a lot. But I have learned & correcting.
But for one’s who can & do behave in a brutish way , changing can be so awesomely scary & frightening a proposition for some that they rather keep the status quo getting a faux sense of power from hurting other people. We are in this culture appear to be wired (not by nature but nurture) to be stagnant to not expand or change and if anyone dares to step out to do something a little different will be met with the figurative things breaking loose. But change adjustment movement happens whether we want it to or not because everything must change and fighting against an inevitability is exhausting, fruitless & pointless. We may slow it down a bit, but it will happen. So now for me rewiring has been a long process and still not over. It may not be over until the end of my life. It’s called growth, maturity, work in progress or anything you may want to call it.
I love this quote of Dr. Suess and is right about in its wisdom where I am:
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind"
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