Category Archives: Realities

RESENTMENT

I’m big on people feeling their feelings and acknowledging their emotions. For many reasons, that’s not always easy in our type of society. Every culture teaches the young what’s considered to be acceptable behaviors, and by those behaviors, what can be considered acceptable and unacceptable feelings. Relatively few societies teach the nuances between how one behaves as opposed to how one might feel and validates the feelings despite requesting a different public behavior.

Only recently in the US have parents and teachers begun to teach children about self regulation and understanding themselves as both social and private beings with complex feelings sometimes requiring social modification.

I was explaining this to my own child over forty years ago, telling him that he was entitled to his feelings. I suggested that during an argument with parents, he might be unable to fully express himself, and we might be unable to fully hear what he was saying. I talked to him about power differentials and suggested that he should go to his room and write down his feelings. Importantly, he should consider his argument and write down his points. I could not speak for his father, but I promised that when we were more calm, I would listen to his points and take them seriously, and freely admit it if he proved me wrong.

I wanted him to understand how systems of power/authority work, to understand where he stood in relationship to power, to understand his own feelings and always know that he had the right to feel however he did, and finally, to learn how to make a coherent, logical, fact based argument, and how to present it to any authority figure. I wanted him to understand that even in the face of authority or power, he was never helpless or powerless: that his feelings were important, and that modulation did not mean suppression.

Consequently, little dude kicked my ass after a later argument, and he did it with irrefutable proof of my unfair behavior. I was chastened and also as proud as if he had argued against the Supreme Court and won!

Now, this is a long way to the point I want to make, which is about one specific “emotion”: resentment.

In my opinion, it is the one unacceptable emotion. I don’t even consider it to be an emotion, because unlike anger or joy or hurt, resentment is bred. It is, like some forms of depression, born from suppressed anger. Unlike depression, resentment is anger combined with or wed to a sense of entitlement. Unlike simple depression, resentment is not turned inward even though it lurks under cover. It seethes and is aimed at the person considered to have perpetrated a wrong against you. It is an ugly, roiling mixture that spills over into relationships and spoils or even kills them. It is- again, in my opinion- the anger of cowards. It is never justified. I repeat: resentment is never justified.

I say that having recently spent time with someone who holds deep resentments for ill treatment in the distant past, and easily falls into it now. This is a person who never raises their voice, is controlled and controlling, while always wanting to appear to be reasonable and 1950s Americana “nice.” Meanwhile, they are a whiny, angry mass of unacknowledged feelings with a list of accumulated “wrongs” against them. My suggestion that it would be better to have a clean and clearing argument was immediately shut down and probably added to the resentment.

This person is attractive, a rather brilliant and accomplished scientist, musical, and a good cook, among their many accomplishments and personally lovely traits. Yet they only heard criticisms and felt them far more deeply than they were delivered. It was perplexing to me because my own relationships depend on honesty and clear communication between each person. We commit to always speaking our truth and to always figuring out how to work through our differences, hurts, or anger.

I don’t let many people into my world, but I depend on those in it to love me enough to keep me honest. I know these folks love me and have my back, so when they “pull my coat” to tell me I’m off the wall, or wrong about something, I take it seriously and listen, and we talk. This is the pattern with close friends, family, and my late husband. I don’t understand how you can have real intimacy if you can’t talk about anything and everything truthfully, even if it’s painful to say or hear.

Which means you have to figure out rules for difficult conversations and arguments. My people and I use safe words/phrases. Going back to that conversation with my then seven year old, we agreed on a phrase that indicated things were too heated and that we must each back off and cool down before resuming. In my life with my husband, we had similar cues. When my friends or I am going through rough periods, when we call, we use the phrase from Marathon Man: “Is it safe?”

They can then say if they’re up for conversation or not, but it also always makes us laugh and lightens the moment before going any further. What works has to be negotiable and agreed upon, as well as respected by all concerned.

It was important that in all cases, we made note of our feelings and the points we wanted to make. We also made the commitment to really hear, not just sit quietly, when the other person stated their case. To take it in and take an honest, even hard look at ourselves and our part in the problem. To take responsibility and not only apologize if wrong, but to figure out how to avoid repeating the behavior(s) and to be more aware of how what we do or say impacts others. Not to repress ourselves, but to put our creativity into finding healthier ways to express ourselves. To recognize that might sometimes require outside assistance/therapy, and to value ourselves and our loved ones enough to do the work.

I don’t use the terms “friend” or “love” lightly. If I consider you a friend, my bond is one of family. To the best of my ability, I will have your back. I will listen and share your joys and sadness. I won’t let you go outside with a boogey hanging from your nose or wearing an unflattering outfit unless you’re in disguise. If it was a righteous murder, I’m your alibi (hahaha).

Yeah, I’m that sister, and I expect the same in return, whether you’re my lover or a regular friend. I’m not a casual kind of person, and there are few things that will lead me to abandon a friendship/loved one once I make that commitment. Even after a major blow out, when any trauma has receded, I will always attempt to talk and reconcile our differences unless I decide that the relationship is harmful to me or my family in some way that is insurmountable. The only two close relationships I’ve ever had with people that couldn’t be bridged, was with people who hoarded their resentments at the expense of love. It was heartbreaking to watch people I loved risk or wreck their relationships with others, not only me. Because I do consider that maybe I was the asshole in those cases. Certainly I know I contributed in the first one, because I didn’t then understand the shame and guilt my friend harbored from childhood abuses.

In the second, my lover was unable to be honest or discuss emotions as equals. They did not trust the depth of my feelings or commitment as they had never experienced that kind of relationship. But more pointedly, from childhood, they had never felt that they could speak out when they were treated unfairly. They had never learned the emotional or communication skills they needed and they were unwilling to do so, even as a mature and safe adult. The deeper mistrust was in themselves and their fear of being misused or taken advantage of: their lack of trust in themself.

I saw this respected elder behave in the most petty ways I’d ever experienced in another being, even as a teen nor by any gender. That, more than anything, took me aback and made me want to understand the gap between my perception of this soul and the self perception and insecurities that propelled them through life.

I guess in the course of seven decades, I’ve had a pretty good track record in maintaining freindships, but it’s still sad to have lost any friends you genuinely loved.

So yeah: resentment is a useless set of emotions. A “weapon of the weak.” to paraphrase James Scott. Be brave, people: speak your truth, and trust yourself and your loved ones to do so. The people who love you already do, and they probably already know how you feel. If they don’t, do them the honor of sharing yourself with them. Anger has a place in the pantheon of emotions. If you’re hurt or angry or both, it’s important to express those honest emotions. Resentment is dishonesty: it’s hurt and anger in an ugly disguise and it can cost you the best relationships you might have had.

“Be brave and mighty forces will come to your aid..” Goethe

UNITED WE STAND

There’s no longer any chance that Senator Schumer’s “No Kings Act”- an obvious deterrent against Executive Branch overreach-will pass. Nor will any other legislation that benefits working Americans. Many of the usual forms of civil public pressure are unlikely to be effective after December, and it’s likely that even the most tame forms of resistance will be met with increasingly harsh repercussions. While resistance seems to boil up about every thirty years, there hasn’t been a viable third party coordinated with nationally organized protests since the 1930s.

Sadly, it’s unlikely that enough people can organize and come together for a general labor strike this year, and in other year or two, unions and even such basic actions could be illegal if we’re not vigilant, stalwart, and courageous.
So rest, regroup, and connect with the natural world we hope to save. Rest is also an act of resistance in our hyper capitalist society, and a right to be protected. Connect as well with the established organizers/organizations already working and who have a track record in community action and alliance/coalition building with diverse communities and groups.

We’re not starting from scratch, folks. The struggle has been essentially the same for 405-532 years for many of us, so welcome aboard. If you’re new to a group, remember what the old folks used to say, “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.” Be humble, listen, and learn before assuming…anything. While everyone is needed, it’s on you to learn where and when your expertise/experience might serve. It’s also on you to recognize your limits, of experience in diversity as well as personal energy. Humans don’t learn well on overwhelm, so while you want to expand your knowledge of self snd others, be aware of the emotional work involved and support yourself as needed- counseling therapy, yoga, massage, etc. Don’t expect to burden BIPOC with teaching you beyond required basics of the group(s) and don’t rely on allyship or other proximity to BIPOC to avoid the work of establishing new group or individual relationships. Allow time to grow real relationships: this is life work that didn’t start in 2016, and won’t end in four years.

We are always playing the long game, and thinking otherwise is counterproductive. Long term strategies combined with immediate tactics can lead to the systemic, changes necessary for long term, sustainable change and success. The ordinary people for whom integrity, ethical substance, kindness, and fair play matter will be the Marvel heroes and A Team, but only if united. The old ideas of aggressive competition and greed that have been centered since the 80s have led us to this sorry state: American vs American, ignorance of the largess and equality that is the New Testament’s central theme, and a very general unkindness and lack of compassion towards everyone. Antipathy towards science and critical thought mark our entrance to the new wave of the Dark Ages.

Much as many would like to deny it, this is who the corporate “we” have been, but it’s not written in stone and we can choose a different path. We can save what’s always been the best part of the American Dream and our greatest strength: unity in diversity.

A luta continua.

Having My Say: intro to Political Realities 100

Here’s the thing, people: I am three days younger than snow, and I understand how this system works. I’ve studied it from multiple angles, in and out of college and graduate school, and I am quite clear about it and where I am within it. In my entire life, I’ve had the pleasure only once of voting for a candidate I wholeheartedly supported. The rest has been voting in the best interests of me, my class, and my people. I don’t have to love the candidates, but I vote for the one most likey to support an agenda that doesn’t set us back in terms of environment wellbeing, race, class, gender, and community well being/prosperity. If they actually move us forward, praise be!
Should it be that way? NO! But I don’t live in a world of “shoulds” and dreams. I live in a proto-capitalist society that is veering from an intended-to-have-been democratic republic towards a theocratically tinged, racist, misogynist oligarchy. So hell yeah, I’m going to vote against that, despite any qualms I have about the candidate or party for which I’ll vote, because as much as I dislike neoliberalism and all that goes with it, it still beats the hell out of any possibility of being completely disenfranchised and having my rights as a woman descended from enslaved Africans and other people of Captive Nations revoked or seeing my children and loved ones threatened.

As of yet, I see no genuine and long lasting plans for a real revolution, or for what happens afterwards. If half of the current citizens don’t know how their system works and why it was set up as it was, do you really think you can garner a large enough base to have a people’s government that wouldn’t be prone to fascism? That other greedy and interested groups/countries would just sit and watch? Most Americans don’t know what socialism is, but they’re a’gin it, and we remain the only “First World” country with corporate healthcare that bankrupts families on a daily basis. So understanding communalism or other non-Eurocentric forms of government and types of societies isn’t even possible.

Bottom line: I do know much, and I know enough to know that people who speak and act against people who look like me should not be given power over me. My mother “didn’t raise no fools” and I am sick to death of people who “don’t have the sense that they were born with” writing about the short comings of the most viable candidates. Do some of you really think that redistricting, setting back voter’s rights, defunding and otherwise sabotaging our postal and educational systems is accidental and that they would do all of this if your vote didn’t matter? That union busting isn’t an act of war against the working class?

It’s a flawed system, but X marks the spot, baby: you are here and unless you’re independently wealthy (own corporations, resources, means of production, etc.) your ass is a worker- white collared, blue collared, or without a shirt- and you need to understand that you have more in common with the single mothers, Black, Latino, Appalachian, sex-workers, migrant workers in the fields than you do with people who make what you do in multiple years, every single second. You need to understand that you’re not going to become one of them, question the sick desire to accumulate more than is needed in ten thousand lifetimes, and grasp the reality that voting in the interests of a class to which you might aspire is voting against yourself and helps keep you where you are or worse.

So that’s it. Few people will read this and fewer will pay heed. There’s nothing I can do about that beyond having had my say and hoping that they didn’t drop you on your heads and there’s still some good sense in those big heads your necks support.

I wish us all peace, a safe place to live, enough to eat, good health, and the joy and solidarity of community and love. And I hope that you can separate ego and illusion in order to serve yourself, the actual Constitution and its Amendments (14th is important!) and do what’s in service to the generations of us all.

“Goodnight and good luck.”

Anjana’s Guide to a Better Life and Society (in no particular order)


Everybody should have to serve and work the line in a restaurant; teach a class; baby sit; work the register (old school, requiring basic arithmetic skills); write a formal letter; clean a kitchen & bathroom (baseboards
included); create something useable/beautiful from scratch; repair/mend something; work in a human or animal shelter/soup kitchen/hospital; spend time with people of a different generation, speak with (not only “to”) a person/people they perceive as “less than” themselves and would otherwise never approach; dance/sing/play for 15 minutes each day; spend time in the natural world without unnecessary equipment or noise; be kind to someone every day; actively defend the rights of the poor, disenfranchised, minorities, women, elderly, children, animals, nature; enjoy and take care of your body and senses; occasionally (knees permitting) jump rope; witness/assist in a birth and a death; vote or change the system through creation, not destruction; skip (while holding hands when possible); learn a new language or skill outside of your comfort zone; drive a cab in NYC; swim; spend 48 hrs incarcerated or in a senior care facility, or in a mental health facility; grow food and flowers; consider your connection to the living world every day; have your social & political life in alignment; reduce/eliminate waste. Be kind.

By Anjana Mebane-Cruz, PhD

July 7, 2015

Grief: no negotiations, no pardons.

Poem By Gwen Flowers

Phew! It’s an unwanted colonizer that takes over and sets up house inside you, follows you everywhere, seeming to sometimes relent but always returning, unbidden and often surprisingly.
A deep and ugly scar that never stops throbbing, and won’t be ignored. You live with it: the phantom limb of loss. You talk your way through the daily tasks because the body goes on, seemingly soulless, rudderless, all purpose and desires gone. The things that anchored your life vanish, leaving you not merely adrift, but blood-soaked chum in shark infested waters.
Is this still “life”? More a Purgatory that you cannot pray or repent your way out of. And some days, it is just pure Hell.

You try to keep it to yourself, but also know that there’s something entirely wrong with a society that doesn’t mourn deeply and skirts around feelings. Where many relationships are investments: all form, no substance.

I want a Greek or African type period of wailing: rending of clothes, ashes on my forehead, women keening all around me. Full throttled acknowledgement of the loss of the Beloved, who deserves and rates the stopping of clocks and covering of mirrors, all the actions of loss that spill outside the lines of daily life and boil over in messy clumps of grief not readily wiped away. I feel a bond with all those who have loved deeply and lost, no matter what the relationship. We are veterans of a horrid war, trapped in post trauma, clutching at bits of life and not knowing why.

Grief is a true connection to our humanity and the only surety that comes with birth. It is the terrible and murderous price of love, and perhaps the reason society denies all depths and pain, refuses to allow shared grief in full, and waxes prettily about ways of “moving on/going forward, and worst of all, “getting over it.” Love becomes another disposable item, replaced with people or things, but never plumbed, never allowed to annihilate our “was” to see what’s left or might emerge on its own like a tiny green shoot after a forest fire. Never risking the real, searing pain and suffering that comes from the loss of a life completely entwined with someone who is quite simply you. We are instead zombified: spent debris hoping to be up-cycled, perhaps practical, but never again achieving the singular and fluorescent beauty that being loved produced.

1,085 days I’ve cried out in pain, sometimes softly, often loudly, as though my cries might move some nonexistent being to divinely intervene, send my love back to me, make these years a terrible dream that alters our lives, forever chastened and appreciative. I want a story with an ending I can live with: the hero’s journey completed and survived, now coming home to a hard won and deeply felt peace.

I wake up confused every single day, not understanding how I continue to exist without him, how we can possibly exist on different planes, how he can have ceased to be. It makes no sense, and every single day, my mind and body reject any reality in which we are not together, squabbling, laughing, dancing, making food and music, and loving each other with a complete trust that surprised and confused me for thirty seven years. That I could love someone as deeply as my own blood and bone was amazing to me as has been three years of anguished grief. I never thought I could feel so much except for my child, nor did I understand that love grows deeper, wider, stronger, beyond every boundary of the mind or senses, beyond the pretty words in any song or poetry, a powerful thing that alters your being in every possible way and lifts what you didn’t even know wasn’t there. You felt complete, but love grows an entirely new you that cannot have existed without such love. A seed? A song unwritten? A depth of self undiveable without the oxygen of Love.

And feeling such a well and wealth of love, how is it possible that we can be separated? How horrible and great the force required to separate two such magnets, united in passion and love. How evil and cruel that force must be. It cannot possibly be neutral and wreak such damage: we can only hope that reincarnation exists and that the crime committed in some other life can be absolved and balance restored. But three years later, despair wrangles with acceptance, science, and intellect, none convincing to my heart.

Bereft, bothered, and bewildered, I grieve.

Adventures in “Petty”

As an adult, I have never made New Year’s resolutions. I have a couple of traditional rituals, but they don’t involve promises of any type. I also don’t consider January 1 to be the start of the year and chalk off continuing or new annoyances to be the final dregs of the year until the Lunar New Year begins.

However, in an attempt to at least shift a bit and move past the grueling and unbearable level of anguish I’ve been in since my husband died, I made a personal resolve to try to be more present in my life and accept the reality in which I continue to reside. To live and not merely exist.

I also decided that I will indulge in “I told you so” and acts of petty revenge whenever possible. To whit, my first act of “Petty” in 2024:

I was minding my business, checking the information for a past order on Amazon, when their bot asked me to review past purchases. I ignored it and it asked again, this time stating that if I wrote five reviews it would tell me a joke. My reviews come cheap and I’m a sucker for a joke. Today marked 1,000 days since my beloved died, so for the sake of a laugh, I started writing.

With each one, there was an encouraging Bot note counting down the number to completion. But when I finished the five, BOT had booked! No joke, no thank you, nada.

This didn’t sit well with me, so I decided to contact Customer Service. The service bot couldn’t cope with the fact that I had a problem not directly related to a specific purchase, so I was soon directed to a human by phone.

To the poor woman who called, I patiently explained the problem, acknowledging that it was unlikely that she could help. Following my explanation, she was, as expected, confused. She then contacted someone else who was also stumped. I asked if there was an IT person who could send the joke or change the program so that people weren’t being promised items they couldn’t deliver on. Of course, they were helpless and remained befuddled, despite my obvious amusement. (As a friend noted, they might simply have told a joke over the phone, but I don’t think their English or job description covered this situation.)

After hanging up, I decided to email Amazon, explaining the problem and demanding compensatory jokes as well as the originally promised joke. I said that I knew they carried them, because Amazon Echo’s got jokes! Terrible jokes, but jokes, so I knew that they warehoused them somewhere, perhaps in Bezos mind.

I now await my jokes. I won’t give up and will contact them daily if necessary. A promise is a promise. The BOT specifically said “I’ll tell you a joke” not play a joke on me. As a worker and union member, when I complete a job, I expect payment. I’m retired, have time, and a weird sense of humor. This can become part of my daily sadhanna/spiritual practice. 🧘🏾‍♀️Like the Blues Brothers, I’m on a mission from god. (Not that God, the one “karens”are always entreating. Yeesh, people!)

The Force of Pettiness is strong within me this year, and I will not be denied. Beats crying every day, and I have a lot of anger that my husband died. Might as well use some of it creatively. Excelsior!

Another Sad Christmas Song

Holidays are brutal because Rayo loved them and was like a kid around Christmas. He was the antidote to my Grinchiness via his patience, perseverance, and passion. The cleaning, cooking, baking, and anxiety were relieved by his silly faces, kisses on my neck, and that outstretched hand, inviting me to dance.
I am easily annoyed, quick tempered, and seldom forgiving, but I could never stay angry at Raymond. I knew he had no malice in him and never intentionally hurt anyone he loved, despite his failings. And once we started dancing, it was inevitable that I would laugh, and he would be forgiven, even when I was annoyed that I couldn’t stay angry.
He was, is, and always will be, embedded in my heart. And as is my determined and serious way, I will not forgive him for leaving me here without his comfort and cheer, in a state where my heart remains imprisoned in grief. He will not be forgiven.

At least not until I see his loving hand reach out for me and we dance together again.

Life After Death?

Saturday will mark two years since my husband died. Two years since I went singing into our guest room, where he’d slept because he was sick and didn’t want to wake me or risk my health. He thought it was the flu, but in 37 years, he had never been sick for more than 24 hours, so after day two, I’d made an appointment for him to see his doctor, on what turned out to be the day he died.

I was laughing at us both, thinking we’d overslept, and saying “wake up, sleepyhead-somebody’s got to let the chickens out!

And I danced into the room singing “Wake Up Little Susie,” amazed that we’d both slept late, and expecting to see his grumpy, pre-caffeinated morning face, with that begrudging smile he’d first muster for my benefit, but which became real when I kissed him and made him laugh.

I won’t go into the horrid details of that discovery and morning- the shock that’s lasted nearly two years and the PTSD I still struggle with. What I do want to say is that although I can as yet see no future for myself, it has been my personal Beloved Community who have consistently done that for me. They have held me, and listened to me- crying, wailing, confused, furious, hopeless, “bereft, bothered, and bewildered.” They sat with me and helped sort through his things. They worked hard and helped me pack up thirty seven years of our lives together, even the things they knew were ridiculous and I’d dispose of later. They’ve walked me through basic things I could no longer figure out, and they’ve been always kind and given me the shoves I’ve needed at just the right times. They’ve kept me alive and held the space I might someday walk into, where Life resides and maybe flourishes.

Some wise person once said to me that when you can’t see your future or how you’ll make it, that’s when you’re creating something new, not just moving the pieces around.
I know that is true, but honestly? Right now I don’t care, I don’t wanna! And I know I’m sort of holding myself in an emotional hostage situation, but I want to just do enough to feel less pain. I kinda hate the thought of “life going on,” y’know?
I have a lovely next door neighbor, who’s happily married to his second wife. His first wife died, and he recently told me that she was diagnosed only a few months after they married: can you imagine?!?
Anyhow, he shared his story of grief and “nothingness” before he met his current, beautiful wife. And he also shared that every once in a while, something will trigger that sense of loss and pain, despite his happiness and general contentment.
I was both touched and relieved when he told me that. To know that it’s possible to regain joy and still grieve the beloved lost. That love grows around the grief.

My loved ones-kin and kith- are like the gold used in Kintsugi, helping me to find my scattered, broken pieces, and believing that I will again be a whole, yet different and beautiful self. In unexpected ways and levels, community is Life.

Caution: Paradigm Shift Ahead

I just received an email from a newsletter I’ve been reading for years, announcing a change in their domain name and asking to be “whitelisted.”
Now, I don’t know where you come from, but that sounds like some straight up KKK/white supremacist ish to me. As does “blacklisting/blackballing/blackmail/blackguard” and all the other terms employed to situate whiteness as good and blackness as bad.
And no, this isn’t a new thought. I’ve interrogated racism in language since at least the 1970s, which is exactly my point: how are people still using these words without a thought? Even with the limitations of English, there are alternatives. However, rooting out the inherent racism behind the words requires a fundamental reckoning with the culture and the societies on which they stand. And there’s the rub: people talk a good game, but true decolonization calls into question every structure and belief that we have, starting with the fabrication that folks really want equality and justice for all. Think about it and what that really means.
It’s the reality of revolution, not merely transient reform.

Good day, and thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.