So one of the side effects of having a baby is that I find songs from my childhood coming to mind as I search for ways to entertain/distract her. This morning as I was putting her into a clean onesie, I found myself singing the Knick-Knack song to her. Naturally, I couldn't remember all the words, so I Googled it, and found this.



That, my friends, is two minutes and forty three seconds of outright and disturbing hilarity.

Also, I was taught that this old man played knick-knack on my thumb, and was surprised to hear the real word being drum. I guess this was a substitution made since my people didn't believe in musical instruments? Interesting.

Five minutes ago in conversation with an old friend from Holdeman days, I literally said, "she was talking about some abuser, I can't remember who..."

And it struck me. I literally know so many abusers personally that I CAN'T KEEP THEM STRAIGHT.

Yay for weird religious sects that cut themselves off from the world, I guess?

Sigh.

Oh look! Another case of abuse within the Holdeman church not being dealt with/reported properly.

Colour me surprised.

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Went to the online forum populated by ex-members of my mother's church for the first time in a few years this morning. Still much the same... a few bright spots of people who've moved on to a better place, but mainly a lot of miserable people... still mired in their rage and pain (and somewhat understandably so, considering what's been done to some of these people), hating themselves, having Holdemans, hating gays, hating the world. Just trying to carve out some tiny little safe place for themselves.

I find it sad that so few have moved past their roots, and disappointing... but at the same time I have a lot of compassion for where they are. I think if I hadn't been lucky enough to meet the people I did in life, I might be there too.

I found this thread a little interesting, specifically Grace's answer:

My Dad used to say put someone where you can love them, I didn't get it then, but I do now.
I am able to love you holdemans when I put you in a category in my mind where my expectations of you are nil. No expectations. period.
May I share how I view them so that I can accept them? -as a bunch of crabs in bucket.
Did you know if you put one crab in a bucket it will crawl out and escape, if you put two crabs in a bucket, they will never get out, because one will always drag the other down.

I was thinking something like this yesterday after a talk I had with B. There's no point in continuing to be shocked and outraged and hurt when someone acts exactly like they've acted a million time before. You can accept them and love them anyway, or reject them and put them out of your life. Any other course of action is wasted energy on your part.

I need to practise this more.

My aunt and uncle are out from Manitoba, so we had a big "family day"... my bro took time off of work, and my mom, aunt, uncle, brother, sis-in-law, niece (6 months) and two cousins (17 and 19 years old, respectively) came over for lunch. My dog was reasonably well-behaved, which was nice.

After that we drove out to Cleveland Dam in North Vancouver, which was actually pretty cool, and went on an hour long hike or so to the bottom of the dam. The women in the group mentioned an interest in checking out Dressew (huge fabric store on East Hastings) and the men went along with it, so that was the next stop. We had to park 2-3 blocks away, and walked to the store.

So picture this. A large-ish group of Mennonite women, plus me, walking through the downtown eastside. The men have stayed behind to deal with the car parking situation. Needless to say, because of the way they're dressed, we are a fairly conspicuous group, and lots of people take a second look. Fair enough, I'm used to that with these situations, and that's fine... but I'm slightly on edge and waiting for some crackhead to think it would be funny to take a shot at someone.

Sure enough, at the corner of Hastings and somewhere, a cracked out homeless dude, REALLY rough looking, yells out, "Hey! Where you ladies from?"

There's a pause as no one knows what to say, but that's okay, because he continues, "You're from the Church of God in Christ... Holdemans!"

Sis-in-law grins and says, "Yup!"

Cracked Out Dude sways a little, steadies himself on his shopping cart, point at himself and says, "Kleefeld, Manitoba!" (For reference: Kleefeld is a town of maybe 300 people, and the COG has a church there... one of about four churches in the town.)

Fortunately the light changed then, so he didn't try to hug us or anything... but how totally random. I giggled all the way across the street.

I sent that entry from this morning to my dad, and got this back, clearly from his Blackberry:

Shar very touching tks sooo much 4 sharing with your old Dad, I wud love 2 sit in a relaxed surrounding an discuss , you express so much how I felt when @ that old group.. I was smart an sharp yet rejected at a certain cultural level. Love an adore you dad

I seriously love this man so much.

On Saturday night an old friend from church days came by with a bag full of Capers food and a bottle of sparkling lemonade. We sat down, lit the candles and had a long talk, and I got to thinking about some things.

Of course we talked about the old days... and somewhere during the conversation one of us made a reference to some people from then now acting like they're craving my approval... a total switch from the way things were.

I wasn't "popular" then. Actually, I sort of got the impression people hated me, and if they didn't hate me, they put me down. Not in an obvious way, in that way when you roll your eyes and say, "Oh, Sharolyn," in a sort-of-amused, sort-of-condescending way. I didn't fit into any category there. I wasn't loud or outspoken (at least I don't think I was, but in retrospect for a girl in that time or place, I might have been), but I did have opinions and those opinions tended to get stated. I read a lot, but not just the books in the church-committee-approved library (although I read all of those, too). I had opinions about feminism, in, like, grade 6. (Looking back, that's pretty odd, really.) I wasn't good at sports, so I couldn't fit in during the baseball games and volleyball games, and I can't sing, so I couldn't fit into the CE programs. I knew I was supposed to want to be a wife and mother, but I didn't want to be either of those things -- not the version I saw, at least. And I wasn't, horror of horrors, pretty. My hair curled in a way that just didn't work with the braids and flowered dresses, I had a brutal case of teenage acne, my skin was pale and my eyes were green and my lips were too big, and my awareness of my flaws made me horribly, sadly awkward.

I didn't realize at the time that I had a brain, and a pretty good one really. I didn't really think that I had anything at all going for me.

The process of getting out wasn't much easier. I didn't know how to dress in mainstream society. My body seemed wrong for the clothes, although the clothes themselves seemed to signify something so tantalizing to me. I didn't know how to put on makeup, although I desperately wanted to wear it. My crazy, kinky hair was even harder to deal with when it wasn't in braids all the time. And I didn't have the first damn clue how to interact with the world. With "normal" people. All the interactions I'd had until then were based on such deeply ingrained patterns, of generations of people secluded in their little world doing the exact same thing every week of their lives. To this day every Sunday at 10:00 seems like it's time for Sunday School, and when 12:00 rolls around I can feel the sweet relief of church being over. I can feel the pinch of the Sunday shoes, and smell that specific smell of the church... old wood and polyester and sweat and nervousness.

It took me a very long time to realize that there was more than that, and that I could have actual friends... who liked me. ME. I remember very clearly someone telling me in my early 20's that I was "incredibly charming."

What??

I grabbed that compliment and savoured it. Still do, really.

In a conversation with Carly this morning, we touched on the idea of impact... how we all have way more impact on the world around us than we think we do. I realized how true that is, and was for me. I thought I was insignificant then... and I was, in a lot of ways. What I didn't get was that people dismissed me because they didn't understand me. And that wasn't my loss, but theirs. And now, when they see me interact with the world and see me being comfortable in my skin and LIKING myself, they still don't understand me, but they want a bit of what I have. They'll never hear me say more than a tiny percentage of what I'm thinking, but that tiny percentage is something that they pay attention to. And in a weird sort of way, go out of their way to solicit. I've watched them do it. And it makes me feel strange, that the tables have turned so dramatically. And I guess, yeah, I feel good and sometimes a bit smug about it.

It feels a bit like I won, you see.

I haven't. There's nothing to win. And the reality is that any interaction I have with a lot of people from there will still be filled with the backhanded comments, the sly insults and the insinuations that I'm a sinner and they're not. They won't even realize they're doing it, because their "rightness" is so deeply ingrained, they have no ability to turn it off.

It doesn't matter, though. Because living well is still the best revenge, and I still have something they want, and I guess, in some strange way I really did win.

Weird how things turn out.