*Forewarning: This is an angry rant brought on by too many interactions with willfully ignorant people.
The number of people I know who have truly made it on their own, no handouts or hand ups from family or the government, can be counted on one hand.
Over the past few weeks the members of Fox News Patriotic Shit Throwing Club have been emboldened by club leaders (the President and all who follow him) to come out and throw stones.
The people I see throwing the most stones over those who receive SNAP and medicaid in my small hometown should really pull the blinds closed on their big glass houses.
Living in the same town my entire life, I’ve seen and heard a lot. I know some people who are going to stay engaged for the rest of their lives (relationships) so they can continue qualifying for certain benefits. I know quite a few whose parents are still paying the bulk of their bills. Whose parents paid the downpayment for their homes or just flat out “gifted” the whole house. People who work for their family or own their own business yet claim minimum wage on their taxes, while getting cash under the table, all so they can get, you guessed it: government benefits.
These people drive new cars and live in big homes and only wear the best brand names so you wouldn’t think of them when words like food stamps and welfare come up but they should.
See, and maybe I should have made it clear from the beginning:
I don’t judge anyone who screws the system in order to survive.
Our government has been corrupt for a long time (probably the entire time) and the fact that billionaires exist should be a crime against humanity, as there is no such thing as a billionaire who made all that money ethically. Not one. They are all guilty of screwing the system, more so than anyone who magically fits through the hoops one is required to squeeze through for the most minimal benefits imaginable.
But those who manipulate the system and yet still manage to judge those who just haven’t figured out how to manipulate it in all the same ways they have, are the reason we continue to find ourselves in worse and worse conditions.
In the area that I live in, a family of four has to make less than $40K a year in order to qualify for preschool for their children. Unless the child has a dire need (speech, disability, etc). Yet the parking lot is full of people who spend hours a day on Facebook arguing and complaining about people having food stamps and how they know they aren’t working.
How do they know it?
They know it because they are working and doing what it takes to qualify for the minimal benefits (such as preschool and medicaid) that they are receiving and they don’t qualify for SNAP. They are often told they make too much money, yet they still need some assistance to get by.
(Also add, to their incorrect assumptions and ignorant arguments, illegal immigrants, whom they wrongly assume are getting SNAP (food stamps).)
The reality is that the majority of Americans can’t get by following the rules of capitalism and the current tax system. They have to break the rules, they have to find loopholes.
The ones following the rules in this country? The very few who are working hard, and honestly filing every penny they earn on their taxes?
They are struggling more than ever and are, understandably so, pissed off.
Many, though, are just pissed off at the wrong the people.
I know that the moral of the biblical David Versus Goliath story is lost on the majority of red hats, who insist on going after the vulnerable and the needy. They prefer punching down because punching up is too exhausting.
Look, I understand how hard punching up is, I’m 5’3. I also understand that in a world where we’re all just fighting to survive anything that requires more effort sounds a lot like hell.
But I know that my soul can’t handle the depravity being a bully requires. My conscience is evidently too sensitive to guilt. I guess that makes me woke and a wuss.
A few of the techno heads of silicon valley and godfathers of AI suggest that empathy is a weakness. I disagree. Not that they give a shit. I believe that empathy is hard but it is the only thing through which anything truly ever gets better.
Without it the world is lost, a hellscape not worth saving, and if we are all supposed to scrape out our empathy in order to survive then I say let it all burn.
I’ve had a few ask why I chose to name my blog A Hermitess. For starters, I just really like the word. My initial thought after seeing the word Hermitess was that I wanted to pluck it up and put it in a collection for later use.
I’m not sure if the word aligns with some modern style guides but I felt the addition of the -ess fit my own state of mind at the time of creation.
Recently, I looked into why the word stood out for me.
The Hermit Card from The Rider Waite Deck
In tarot, the hermit deals with not only solitude but self-actualization, reflection, and enlightenment.
This blog has, for me, been a reflection of those things. A spiritual journey that I am still on.
Part of my spiritual journey is finding and being happy with my feminine energy, hence the seeking of a word that would really define that.
The obvious though, is that I really do enjoy my time alone. My fantasy life has always been to one day be the old lady, rumored to be a witch, who lives in the woods with animals for company. I have always been drawn to that archetype.
The Hermit from The Pagan Tarot Deck
When the Hermit appears in a spread it is also a message to slow down and simplify. These are two things that I have been purposefully working on in my life for a long time. I have also made it a goal, year after year, to be less attached to the materialism of the modern world. It can be a struggle but I often look back on previous posts and realized that I’ve done a bit better (in some cases).
So there you have it. I am a woman on a spiritual journey to reclaim my feminine energy while working to cut ties with materialist wants as much as possible; A Hermitess.
Maybe you live in a bigger city or some place where that’s no big deal, but putting those words out there in my town, where a church sits on every street corner, is social suicide.
I can’t say I haven’t occasionally felt pulled to “spirituality”. I also can’t say that I have explanations for everything. I can, however, say that I don’t think the best explanation can be found in any of the current popular religious texts. I don’t fit in with any of the top 3 (the Abrahamic religions), if I may be so bold.
I identify as agnostic. According to the oxford dictionary agnostic means holding or showing the belief that it is not possible to know whether God exists or not. Religion does interest me. I enjoy researching and hearing about the different belief systems. I’m just interested in them in the same way as I am interested in sociology and psychology. I feel religion is just another way to explain people and why we are the way we are.
Having grown up in a deeply religious town in the south it would be nearly impossible to have no religious experience.
Vacation bible school in the summers (way back in the 90’s at least) was essentially free childcare and I went to multiple ones from June to August every year until I was nearly 12 years old.
The baptist church I attended most of my life, the same one my husband and I met in when we were young, was a five minute drive from my home. Some of the families that attended included a few kids from school but the majority were those I saw while working alongside my father in the fields around our house.
When I was younger I felt like the small town I grew up in was similar to Walnut Grove from Little House on the Prairie. There was a small country store where many in the community, mostly farmers, met regularly for lunch. Like the show, these farmers all worked with and helped one another and then most of them would be in the pews on Sunday.
It was my grandmother, my fathers mother, who played the biggest role in my religious experience. She was a Sunday school teacher who only allowed religious television and music in her house. She bought me several christian mystery novels as a way to divert me from my fondness for things that were “a little bit scary” (my mom was a horror fanatic-John Saul books, ghost stories- and I really liked those things too).
She attended multiple churches when I was young (I still don’t know why). The churches were not the more conservative Baptist church that I was used to, as my grandmother was Pentecostal. One visit included an hour of what to me, a 7 or 8 year old girl, looked like people screaming and throwing themselves on the floor while appearing to have convulsions. My father told me later that they were speaking in tongues and “letting God speak through them”. I still didn’t understand but I also never went to church with her again.
I was “saved” when I was 9 years old. It took place after months of my grandmother praying for me at meals to “accept Jesus Christ into my heart” and playing movies for me (cheap christian made projects) about the Rapture. There were also recordings of plays called Heaven or Hell that always “just happened” to be on when I came over.
Church at the time was actually beginning to bore me. I’d been moved out of the fun “kids church” and into “Junior church”. There were no snacks or songs. There were no puppets and much of the bible lessons didn’t make sense. As a kid who was obsessed with dinosaurs and Jurassic Park, I had a lot questions that were almost always answered with “Just trust in God”.
The joy that my grandmother had for Jesus eluded me and the heaven she spoke of, where everyday would be like Sunday church, didn’t sound so wonderful. Looking back I can say I didn’t have much love for Jesus.
I had a hell of a lot of fear of Hell though.
By the time I begged my grandmother to help me ask Jesus into my heart and save me I was a nervous wreck. When she told me after the prayer that it was all okay and that I would not be sent to hell, nor would I be burning in the pits for all eternity, relief flooded through me. “That feeling,” she said, “That’s God in you.”
My grandmother died of colon cancer not long after and before she passed she mentioned that “bringing me to Christ” was one of her happiest memories. I loved my grandmother fiercely. She was kind and always ready to help anyone who needed it. She was the kind of grandmother that is shown on television. She played dolls with me and made me hand sewn outfits for them. She was a good cook and her home was always cozy and warm.
I know now that she truly believed what she had told be me and that she was very much afraid that I would end up in Hell.
The are few people who have realized that I no longer identify as christian. Unless they are family, they tend to avoid me as though I have an easily transferrable disease. Although, over the past few months, with the current political climate, I’m finding a few family members have decided that they do not want to be contaminated by my “sinful ways”.
I have no desire to spread my lack of faith. I have no overwhelming urge to bring people over to the “darkside”. I don’t really have a side. I’m just like everyone else except on Sunday I don’t feel any guilt for sleeping in. Like the majority of people in my community I’m a parent and my life pretty much revolves around keeping my three kids alive. In my free time, however few and far between those short minutes are, I read and I garden.
But I live in a world that feels as though it’s rapidly becoming a modernized Puritan village.
Christianity in the south is already as thick and heavy as the humidity, and just as hard to escape, but over the past decade the seperation of church and state has been almost completely erroded.
Photo By K. Lawrence
While bible school is no longer the free summer childcare it once was, christianity is still at the forefront of nearly all early childhood educational offerings here in the bible belt.
Almost every form of preschool education, that isn’t income based or offered through the public education system, is based in christianity. When I needed to put my own children in childcare, because I didn’t qualify for the public schools pre-k program, I had no choice but to place my kids in one.
Church groups, or youth ministers, often come in to the schools in the area, usually middle and high school range, with donuts or pizza in exchange for prayer and bible lessons before or after school.
Recently in our area, a new start up church, began holding its Sunday services in the local public middle school. The Sunday banners and posters were often left up on Monday mornings.
As a parent I know from my own kids and their friends that there was a certain level of pressure from the school to attend the church, which was popular with many of the teachers and administrators.
Now that the church has its own property, it often functions as an offsite facility for many of the educational field trips.
I’ve lived in this area so long that having an opinion on the whole thing feels like trying to find my way down a dead end road. I’m sure the powers that be in this community have done everything in their power to toe the line on legality. Not to mention the fact that the majority of people in this community are supporters of the cause of converting children to christianity, so is there a point in getting “riled up” about it?
My kids have grown up in a household where they have access to books and education which allows them to make up their own minds about religion. I was able to attend the local University, which is not religiously affiliated, and through education was able to experience, and learn from others experiences, a world outside of small town theocracy. Many, if not most, in this area never get that chance.
The town I grew up in is still the town that I live in. The country store is no longer the same. It’s changed many hands over the years, with each new owner attempting to make it something that it isn’t.
The farmers who used to eat lunch there during the week and then sang hymns next to us in church on Sunday have either died, retired, or disappeared (this usually means married someone young and moved off). Most of the land is now owned by about four people and they won’t be around very long. From what I know, bigger fish are waiting in the wings to snatch it up.
I found out a few years ago, from my mother, the preacher from our church had told her and a few other wives suffering from abuse at the hands of their husbands that divorce was a sin. He never preached or “ministered” to the husbands. This was all around the same time that the umbrella of protection theory was playing heavy in churches across the country.
Photo courtesy of an old Sunday school Bulletin
Growing up has a way of taking the shine off of most things. We find out how the magic trick is done and we see what’s behind the curtain. Sometimes our good memories of the past have a way of clouding over as we see the truth more clearly in the present.
I know that it is through all these personal experiences that I now find religion so distasteful. I know there are others who don’t share those experiences and I don’t begrudge them that. If religion gives you peace, if it helps you get through this thing call life, which is almost never easy, then so be it. As long as you don’t hurt others, treat others as you want to be treated, and all that good stuff, then in my book it’s none of my business.
But religion in the hands of some can be a tool for terrible gains and there are a great many in this country right now using their influence to twist scripture into a scapegoat for their hatred, anger, and most of all their ignorance.
Recent events, which I will not mention here, (mostly due to the fact that there have been more than can be justifiably discussed in one post) have led many to openly and loudly declare themselves in the camp of christian nationalism. This includes many whom I once sat next to in the pews of that small town church.
These declarations have been followed by a severing of ties with those of us who do not feel the same. Those of us who no longer find comfort in religion as well as those who do not wish to use religion as a sword against those who simply wish to exist.
Separation of church and state hasn’t existed in my small bible belt town for a while though now not many are hiding it. However, I fear a much deeper line is being drawn as I write this. A line between those who will follow that church wherever it decides to go even if it’s off a cliff…and everyone else.
So why admit this? Why confess to my lack of faith?
Because it’s important to know that you aren’t alone. That in the south, or in the midwest, or even in the bible belt, there are more of us than anyone thinks. That we work with you and go to school with you. That we exist, and we live, and we vote, and that number grows more everyday.
Every day there are more non believers, more agnostics, more atheists.
A few months ago I joined a Master Gardeners class offered by my local extension office. It takes place in a building that used to be part of a camp I once attended. It was used as a mess hall and once a week a dance hall for the camping kids. During classes I sit in a seat where I first danced with a boy when I was ten years old.
The building sits behind a church and graveyard where members of my family are buried. This includes my grandmother, for whom my love of gardening and desire to learn more about it comes from. It seems fitting that the way I’ve found to remember her best was always gardening and now I see her tombstone every time I go to class.
In total I’ve spent less than $20 in order to be a part of it.
Since the class has begun we have shared few details about ourselves. Occupations, our education, and a little bit about our other interests. Most of this was done at a Christmas party hosted by one of the senior members.
The group agenda is pretty simple. We learn what we can over an educational course which lasts the span of a school year. Then we earn a certain amount of volunteer hours helping the extension office answer questions from the public regarding gardening issues.
Things like: “Why is my tomato plant dying?”
“Why does my tree look like this? “(insert grainy blurred tree photo)
We also work on public flower beds and have a compost pile that we hope can someday be used by the community.
We are a diverse group.
People from a variety of backgrounds and even cultures joined together for a simple common interest: gardening.
I have no idea what these peoples religious or political backgrounds are.
And I hope I never know.
Sitting in our discussions and our classes I have found a small bit of hope in this extremely polarizing cultural climate. Where everyone is angry and pissed off at everyone else in almost every other place of community exchange (social media, the grocery store, schools, and even sadly many places of religious worship), this place is a breath of fresh air.
We are not only joined in our love of plants and dirt and even bugs but in our desire to spread such knowledge with others. To use it to build and help our community and the place in which we live.
This class has reminded me that a person will always have more in common with their neighbor than they do with whoever is “in charge”.
It’s made me wonder if there is a way to fix our divided communities by creating these small interest based communities like this little garden club.
Master Gardeners is a program that isn’t just based in my local extension office but many offices across the state (as well as in other states across the country). In the area of Western Kentucky, a small conference was introduced to allow for information sharing, classes and networking between the different county Master Gardening groups.
During this conference I attended a lecture taught by someone of whom, I’m pretty sure, sits on the other side of the political and religious spectrum than me. I know this because we share friends on Facebook, and many of those friends have unfriended me on the platform or no longer speak to me in public based entirely on my religious and political views. I didn’t know if she was aware of who I was based on similar interactions.
Her class was fantastic.
She had great ideas on how to use the connections through the extension office and the gardening clubs to create community gardens as she had in her own community. Including one for a women’s shelter, in which she not only used assistance from a local boy scout group (giving them volunteer experience) to build the gardens but educated the women living there on how to produce food for themselves by teaching them how to garden a variety of things. This year she said she is going to set up a flower area of their garden so the women and children living there can sell cut flowers to help fund the shelter.
Her ideas and the ideas we bounced around in her class could be life changing for some members of the community. But had we never joined this group we could have never shared these ideas.
My husband enjoys the stories that I tell him about our meetings. About how different we all are and the places that we come from. He says he wishes there was a group for people to talk about mechanics or working on cars the same way. A place where politics and religion and personal chaos doesn’t get brought up because the purpose is simply to share knowledge.
I can’t help but feel that this is where the original idea of schools and places of educational growth began. Though, somewhere along the way it all became what it is today. (**Though I want it to be known that I still believe, strongly, in public education and that the majority of educators are desperately trying to create this environment again.)
People need to be reminded of basic humanity again. That the people we hate, or are just pissed off at, are human beings with needs exactly like our own. I truly believe that at our core we are all very much the same. That somewhere along the way we all forgot that and this why so many of us search for connections in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.
Crazy to think that all it took for me to realize that there is a possiblity for all of us to coexist was a little gardening club.
Moving through That land between two rivers In stampedes Of angry growling machines -Hell bent on profitable purpose
And a desire to burn Those soft Green blanketed hills Turning the dirt over, Into the kind of green -which burned inside their pockets
To them it was just a tree- A 100 year old oak, Firmly planted, In a 20 acre spread Bought and paid for -by Progress and Improvement
Nothing but bark and limb A simple seed Which grew up Watching the children of rootless immigrants And exiled natives Searching for solace and that unfamiliar territory: Home
Simple branches stretching out Over years Offering peaceful shade to a community built From the ground up in that ground now deemed: Eminent domain.
That oak watched as New roads wove around it Making way for Very necessary government campgrounds Filled with carbon copied concrete Picnic tables, cold and hard -So weatherproof it hurts.
And when the sad attempt at a profitable preservation Failed The powers that be Begrudging and blinded Looked to the very ground Which to them bled envy
And they ripped into it Like starving scavengers Unsatisfied with their leftovers Now curious of the hunt,
so they chopped it down. The whole damn thing.
Gobbled it up like a growing Growling beast, Who runs back to the corner like a reprimanded dog Just waiting for the backsides of those Who still stand for the things no longer standing at all.
It did not creep slowly, like a spider after her struggling prey. More like a fifteen pound bowling ball, Thundering towards lazy fat pins unable to move.
The disease flowed through shiny silver cans Dripping with cold sweat
It poured out of beautifully crafted glass bottles
Liquids of gold, Burning amber, And fizzy bubbling blush
Liquid courage, it shredded our family tree, into paper confetti. Scrapbooks full of memories, no one could remember anyway, And those who could?
We stayed behind licking our wounds, like angry hangovers on regretful mornings later.
And like every year I’m doing everything I can to make it through…and it’s really pissing me off.
Every year I request less crap and every year my requests fall on deaf ears. Every one truly believes that they are going to get me the one thing that I didn’t know I needed, and every Christmas they are wrong.
“What are the kids into this year?”
They are into gift cards and movie tickets. They are into cash and experiences.
The older they get the more likely I am to get what I am requesting (teens aren’t as much fun as littles evidently) but this year I have a toddler. Despite the fact that I have clearly already raised two children through this phase of life, I have seemingly not realized all the crap that I need to do so again.
The poking and prodding for ideas for gifts began in early October and despite the fact that I have said at least twenty five thousand times that my toddler doesn’t play with toys much (like most early walkers he prefers cardboard boxes and large couch cushions) I’m told there are at least five presents tagged with his name in closets already.
“Diapers and books are not as much fun to buy as toys.”
I’m fully aware of this, but over the years the knowledge of how much crap I will be bringing home from other Christmas gatherings makes buying gifts for my own children much more challenging, and frankly that’s some bullshit.
Nothing has ever made the Christmas season more obviously headed in a terrible direction as the year I overheard my kids discussing that Santa didn’t matter because one of their grandparents would get whatever he didn’t and that they knew they would get more “stuff” at the other family get togethers anyway.
I hated that my kids were becoming so seemingly “spoiled”, but my hopes of stopping this process was quickly dashed when I realized that everyone was going to agree with me face to face then buy all the stuff anyway. It was as if Christmas became a competition as to who could get the “gift of the year” award and they all had 30 or more chances to get it right.
Then I got to look the Grinch for being mad about loading it all up.
“It gives them stuff to do while it’s cold!”
Not if they can’t move around the boxes or the piles of toys that broke while trying to get them out of the packaging that was constructed by a Swiss engineer.
I’m tired of having boxes full of crap and trash so interchangeable they sit by the door for a week, because there might be something important still in there. (Like money that someone gave my kid one year without telling me)
I’m tired of my kids getting so much stuff that there is no where for it to go at home and therefore room has to be made.
Clutter both exhausts and depresses me and this is the season of my seasonal depression so the gift of not getting me something useless is a gift in itself.
“I Can’t just get them NOTHING!”
If you enjoy purchasing “things” there are countless charities looking for donations. There are kids everywhere in need of a Santa gift on Christmas morning, but my children are not those kids. There are also parents everywhere struggling to make this happen for their kids but this year that isn’t me.
HELP THESE PEOPLE WITH YOUR OBVIOUSLY EXPENDABLE INCOME!!!
If the idea of buying something and not getting credit for it or getting to see the “Oh-my-gosh” facial reaction feels wrong then maybe do a little soul searching and see why that is, because that’s not a me problem, that’s a you problem.
“It’s the thought that counts!”
Yes. I agree. I’m not a rich person by any means and a lot of the gifts I’ve given in the past have been handmade. Thoughtful gifts are always appreciated. But if that gift is a “grab it at the last minute just because it was on sale” gift then please don’t.
I’m not going to be hurt or offended if you don’t get me or my children a gift. If you can’t afford to, didn’t know what to get, didn’t have time, etc. You don’t have to even explain yourself.
The part of Christmas I’m done with is the idea that we have to and are expected to get random cheaply made crap for everyone in our lives rather than thoughtful and meaningful gifts to those we care for and those who we feel need it the most.
I want a Christmas full of memories. Of making ornaments and seeing lights. Playing games with family and watching cozy happy movies that me feel all toasty inside.
I want all the things that make this season “merry and bright”. I want to love Christmas again and I want everyone to please stop making it Crap-mas.
According to the National Retail Federation spending for Christmas in 2025 is expected to pass $1 Trillion dollars for the first time.
The current administration would like us to believe that since spending is up it must mean that everyone is doing okay.
Well, as a poor white trash mother in the middle of nowhere Kentucky I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit.
The reality is that we all just spent a hell of a lot more than we ever have on less than half as much stuff.
I have always struggled with the modern Capitalist Christmas. The amassing of gifts whether full price or from constant online sales, Black Friday “deals”, or coupon collections. I’m of the opinion we humans waste a lot of time and money on things that just end up in landfills a month later. I’ve seen the pictures of places like Lagos in Nigeria where so much of our American trash is sent. Places where the trash is 13 stories tall.
I’ve always tried to give my children enough so that they can have the same warm holiday memories that I know I cherish, but I don’t follow the idea that more things is the only way to have a better holiday.
For myself, as I’m sure many others, there is also the guilt that comes from giving our hard earned money to corporations, who exploit their workers (our neighbors), as well as the planet. These exploits have given them the advantage of our dollar: They’ve monopolized the system so that it is nearly impossible for a middle class person to be able to afford to shop anywhere outside of our corporate overlords Amazon and Walmart.
These two giants have really taken the old coal company town method and applied it nationwide.
But it’s really hard to sit down with a four year old and explain this. Santa can’t give him the toys he’s asked for because the only place that you can get those toys is a corporation that’s on the naughty list?
Then I’d have to contend with the fact that somehow his friends at school, many whose parents had to take out a cash advance loan or more credit card debt, did get that toy from Santa. I hate to say it but the old man isn’t really holding up well with the modern world.
I know there’s the option to ditch Santa. But I don’t want to do that. Maybe it’s silly, but in a world where kids rehearse lock down drills more often than fire drills, (because a shooting in an American school is more likely than a fire) I want my kid to be a kid. I feel as though joy in this country is fading faster than our constitutional rights, and I want my kids to have as much fun as they can while they can.
I also don’t want my kid to miss the few short years of magic that Christmas could be. Christmas the way I remember it.
Meanwhile , across the platforms of the internet, political pundits, influencers, and podcasters keep ranting at us to make sure that we make our voices heard through our dollars- but most of these people can afford to buy locally handcrafted toys at $100 bucks each. Also I’ve seen their pictures so I know they’re still buying the stuff they tell us not to.
The average middle class members of the struggle bus are, in the meantime, trying to work out how we just spent $100 on candy and tiny stocking stuffers. I’ve never seen so many buggies pulled to the side of the aisles while parents nervously calculate prices. I bet the makers of calculator apps are really having a moment.
Over the past few holidays I’ve noticed a major swing in the direction of nostalgia. Holiday decorating trends favoring the styles of our grandparents and a yearning for the christmases of our youths.
Christmas’ spent in crowded houses with tables popped out in every room, kids playing in hallways, and everyone fighting over one bathroom. A fresh cut cedar tree covered in cheap tinsel, multicolored lights, and old ornaments. Secret Santa’s that always got messed up somehow with someone forgetting whose name they drew. An orange in your stocking.
Christmas isn’t like that anymore.
From my own experience I can’t help but note the lack of family. Most of the older members of my family are dead. What remains of us are plagued with a plethora of addiction issues, relationship struggles, and a neverending story of financial misfortune.
This was all before Trump came along and the line was drawn in the sand by the MAGA members of our family to part ways with those of us could spell e-q-u-a-l -r-i-g-h-t-s.
To top it off like the star on this tree of sadness what was once $150 worth of groceries is now $315 and the kids will be home for at least two weeks for winter break. **Just for an example, here in “affordable living country” (where people from bigger cities have flocked because according to them it’s more affordable) a box of breakfast sandwiches (yes the preservative laden poison ones) that was $8 ten months ago is now $12. For those of you saying make it from scratch, ignoring the fact that most of us are running on empty trying to scrounge up pennies to just fucking exist and thus have no time– flour is at least $1.50 more than last year and a container of strawberries is $9.75 (*based on receipts from my own local store).
Canned foods are up. Bread is up. Meat?
If you aren’t aware of how extravagant meat has become then you must be a fucking millionaire who pays someone to do your grocery shopping.
We’re all nostalgic for a time that many of us still remember but most can’t understand why it’s gone. A time of affordability (the “hoax”) and upward mobility. When our lives weren’t so damn stress full. When we weren’t cursed with the knowledge that we weren’t going anywhere and things would get worse and not better.
The most certain fact I know: Poverty will kill you. I’ve buried people I’ve loved to prove it. Lack of medical care. Lack of mental health care. The kind of stress that breaks the body down fast. Heart disease brought on by years of never being able to just break fucking even.
So the idea of barely getting by is nothing new for me.
I’m always reminded of the last Christmas gift I received from my grandmother. She struggled financially her entire life, always apologizing for not being able to do more for us. She died in her sleep a few weeks before Christmas but had tucked away gifts for her six grandchildren. When we all sat in her emptied home to open our individualized cards, I’ll never forget our quiet shock. She’d given us each $20. We all knew how much she would’ve had to save to do it. How hard she would’ve had to work to give six kids $20 each while still keeping her bills paid.
We appreciated that money more than any we would ever receive.
This year holiday spending may be the highest it’s ever been but it’s not because the working class is doing well, it’s because we’re spending money we don’t have just to get by. Just to make things seem okay for our kids by putting a few outrageously overpriced gifts under our tree from a man none of us understand anymore.
So Happy Holidays to all but most of all to those of us who have only inherited generational poverty. If we have anything it is resilience.
My sister bought the book on our last venture into BAM (Books a Million). It’s been on my “want to read” list for a few years now. She graciously allowed me to read it first.
Slewfoot by Brom, a tale of bewitchery.
It is going as good as I had hoped, which is an incredibly rare thing in a book. There is enough suspense to keep one reading up into the night, the artwork is eerily captivating, the plot is rich, and the characters intriguing.
Inside the book is a section of artwork depicting a few of the characters in the book. All of the photos not only help one to visualize the story but are exquisite works of art worthy of frames.
The only thing that might send this book over the top for me is if it had a fold out map.
I’m only on chapter 11 but I expect to finish the book today (16 chapters and an epilogue). If all stays on track I’m expecting to give this book a full 5 stars on Goodreads and StoryGraph.
I’ll update this post after the reading is through.
I live in a place that has changed dramatically over the past ten years.
I grew up in a small town, and while I know I see it through the rose colored glasses of a white woman who grew up in the middle class, it always seemed to be the kind of place you see on television. Don’t just take it from me, you can look it up. Google: Friendliest small town according to Rand McNally.
My town is charming and picturesque. We are less than a half day’s drive from larger more well known cities like St Louis and Nashville. We are a midpoint between the north and south, a place the Indigenous called “Fair Land of Tomorrow”.
I love my home for its topography and its many natural escapes.
I have literally bled into the ground here many times.
It is as much a part of me as anything.
I never moved away. For a hundred different reasons but the main one was that I have always loved Kentucky. The land here is beautiful and while I have not traveled far I have yet to feel the connection that I feel when I am here.
I love the rivers, the creeks, and the lakes. I love the woods and all the creatures that dwell within. When I’m here, in these small Kentucky woods I call home, my body naturally relaxes.
The people here, though many do I love, are for a large part seemingly allergic to change or evolution. Just those two words may necessitate trigger warnings.
Home
My home is rich in natural beauty, but it’s becoming a place where certain members of society have adopted a “if you’re not with me you’re against me” mentality.
Photo credit K. Lawrence
They have gaslit themselves into believing they are somehow both victor and victim of a world which has changed so fast they no longer understand it. They truly believe the world (or anyone different from them) is out to get them, but are always quick to espouse that the world is messing with a loaded gun.
And believe me they are ready for (and some desperately hoping for) the opportunity to fire first and (maybe) ask questions later.
I know, now as an adult, that this small country town which touches not only the bible belt but the south and the midwest too, has always been this way underneath.
Racism hidden in whispers and in barely concealed jokes. Fears and suspicions based on ignorant untruths passed down like rare fine china or in my family’s case, really good tupperware.
Things I didn’t understand as a child are things I can not unsee now.
Whatever prejudices and ignorant beliefs once hidden away are of recent years flaunted in the open. The “jokes”, which is the defense whenever any of this is called out, are loud and proud. If you don’t find them funny it just means there’s something wrong with you.
Waving the flag of Trump, even here in a red state which voted overwhelmingly for him, is treated as some brave patriotic act amongst their own ilk.
Lines in this town are being drawn, as I’m sure they are being drawn in towns across the country. I haven’t seen the pitchforks and torches yet but I wonder if they aren’t far behind.
Not If, but when.
Growing up in a small baptist church in this area I know from personal experience that this sort of imagined attack that MAGA Christians claim to be under (while they attack anything that they don’t agree with) is something that they have been preparing for for a long time.
Persecution is something that many christians (especially those who practice American Christianity) have been told that they will one day experience. It’s something that every single church that I have ever attended has preached about and prepared for at great length. (*I have not attended every church in America so I can not speak to all)
Many christians have all been told that they WILL be persecuted.
This lesson is preached to the point that for many it probably feels like a right of passage. Some test to prove their faith that they must go through in order to get the heaven VIP pass.
I remember a particular lesson during Junior Church (middle school) which made it seem as though to not be persecuted meant that we (myself included as a former christian) weren’t practicing our christianity right or openly enough. So persecution for many is seen as a badge of being a good christian, of doing it right.
The death of Charlie Kirk has emboldened many who were quiet and reserved before. They proudly claim his message as their own. For others who were already loud, angry, and on the offensive it has only given them a new litmus test. They see anyone who doesn’t agree with Kirk’s views, or doesn’t see Kirk as a martyr, as the enemy. We are “of Satan” as one person in my community (a member of The Friendliest Town in America) posted. on social media.
I do not think that anyone deserves to be murdered (though I feel a small group might be up for debate, i.e., pedophiles, rapists, etc.). But it has been hard to find, as the video clips of Kirk come pouring in, making him more popular in death than he was in life, anything I agree with him on.
I can say that his killing was terrible and horrific but that I was not a follower or fan of Charlie Kirk. I’m still not. If that makes me “of Satan” then I guess I’m just going to have to deal with that.
Boiling Points
If you googled my small town and discovered its name you might have also stumbled upon a current town issue involving a confederate statue.
Photo credit Kentucky Historical Society
Robert E. Lee, in statue form donated by the United Daughters of the confederacy, stands on our court square.
He faces the direction of what longtime (white)members of this community have condescendingly referred to as “Browntown”. It is the section of town that has been predominately segregated even after segregation was abolished. I’m told that it’s a coincidence, that a member of the bank who donated to the statue wanted it to face the bank or another building on the northeast corner. But it doesn’t face the bank, which has long been an empty building or the other building which fell away years ago. It faces the part of town where people of color have lived for decades, coincidentally where the jail is also located.
A movement began a few years back, as other confederate statues across the country were being pulled down or moved, to move old Robert somewhere else. The older, white members of the community came out in droves, many open carrying, to “protect” the long dead General’s solid form.
“History!” They cried as a defense.
Photo by Liam Niemeyer for NPR
There was a parade. There was scuffling and a court case. There was news coverage as far as Paris (The one in France, not Tennessee).
The statue still stands though. It still greets people coming up into that picturesque court square from the east. There have been a dozen different excuses as to why, but the issue painted clearly the picture that this small town may look friendly on the outside but has something darker boiling up from underneath.
A lot of people who reside on the same side I fall on this divide (that we should just move the damn statue) have discussed moving away. Some already have. Farther north, farther west.
The idea of leaving my home, the only one I have ever known makes me feel both sad and angry. It’s easy to see why people have battled and fought so hard for land and the idea of home for so many centuries. The fact remains though, that even if I wanted to, I don’t have the money to leave.
I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few years. I know that as the military moves into cities and ICE waits in dark vehicles on corners in places where so many people thought they were safe, change is already begun.
But if what has happened in my own town is a lesson of anything it is that this change has been coming for a long time. This divide, these lines drawn in the sand, have always existed. Those of us who have always had a shield of privilege, from either our skin or our economic placement are just seeing them for the first time.
So the question is now what are we going to do about it?
It’s been a few years since we made the choice to go back to public school.
The biggest reason was the kids missed socializing with kids their own age and the only co-ops in the area were religiously oriented.
I don’t have a problem with religion but I don’t want religion mixed with my education. I was especially concerned when I learned that the co-opted education part of the religious co-op was science.
For those unfamiliar with Kentucky,The Ark is a popular tourist attraction here.
If that’s something you want to do and spend your own money on cool. From what I know, it’s not a cheap trip but you do you (and all that jazz).
The idea though, that this is “science” is, to me, a joke.
The Ark was a “science” field trip for the local co-op.
Some might suggest starting a secular co-op on my own but I don’t feel as though I have that kind of clout. I’m not cheerful enough and I feel overwhelmed at the thought of leading something like that.
Nor do I feel as though it would be very well received in the area in which I live. Maybe I’d be surprised. I hope that I would.
I got pregnant with my (surprise) third child at the end of 2020 and the idea of doing anything more than I was already doing sounded like hell.
The kids missed school for more than just the socialization. I think they missed the routine. I was not good at maintaining the kind of “routine” they seemed to miss.
Not to mention that doing school and having rules in the place where they wanted to relax really wasn’t working for us.
Maybe if we had the small shed that we have now, to have worked in, and created a new space we could have made it work but sadly we didn’t.
Homeschool just didn’t work out for us.
I think there’s a chance that I may look more into it for my last child but for now he will attend part time at the local preschool.
The older two are in high school.
I spoke with a friend who told me that she had decided to not have kids. She was shocked that I, a person with three, told her that wasn’t a bad decision.
We then discussed how we both felt about the public school system. (A broken system trying to hold itself together with the hopes and good wishes of better people than I’ll ever be- supported entirely by a broken government that appears to be trying to tear it down and sell it off piecemeal-but I digress)
We discussed how I had tried homeschooling and how, while I feel that I wasn’t the best at it, that I still think about it a lot. Mostly because of school shootings.
What a nightmare to live in such a world. A world where the statistics of our kids just going to school to be shot at grows every day.
Anyway, that is why we stopped homeschooling. But why I will ALWAYS understand any parents desire to do so.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve started to write and then found something to clean.
Get my area ready, coffee poured and then I find that I need to clean the litter box or an animal needs feeding and their feeding area needs to be cleaned. The floor needs sweeping, the dishes are piled up and the floor needs to be vacuumed.
Now my coffee is cold and I can’t remember what I wanted to write.
The kids are up by now and they’re looking for food and while they’ve asked their father for help and he has finally gotten up to do it, he has no idea where it’s at. Also let’s face it, I’m too distracted to write at this point.
I wanted to be the female Stephen King when I was young. That was my fantastical dream. But instead I find myself wondering about Tabitha.
Tabitha King is the wife of Stephen. He speaks of her often and always thanks her in his books. Some of which she’s even inspired. She herself is an author.
There are none of her books at my local library and I have never seen them in the bookstores. Though I’ll admit that I most frequent second hand stores where I can trade my books for other books. I find comfort in worn paperbacks. Oh sure, there’s nothing so spiritual as the smell of a new book, or the feel of untouched sheets of freshly printed paper but a worn novel feels as though there’s a bit of story wrapped around a story.
A printed novel.
It is the religious experience that all writers hope to one day achieve. To put their own world together and hold it in their hands. How close to godlike one must feel.
Does Tabitha’s coffee get cold?
I grew up seeing the name Stephen King in the local library, online, in movies, and at home. My mother was a huge fan of horror and not at all restrictive of what I read or watched. I saw the tome of Needful Things on our shelf at home and when I read the list of the books he’d written on the inside pages, I could only hope to one day achieve that sort of success.
I wrote every day as a child, and later on as a teen.
I wrote poems and fiction. I kept daily journals.
My grandma kept blank paper and pens and notebooks in a drawer at her house because of the number of times she’d caught me writing in her calendars notes sections or her address book. My scribbling eventually filling up the pages and leaving no space for their intended purposes.
I’m 36 years old now. Married with three children and so sometimes I have to force myself to write. I burrow away in the bathroom closet to get away from the rest of the house where chores all silently beg for my attention and children openly ask for it constantly.
I had hoped to write some great horror novel in the vein of Shirley Jackson by now. Some southern gothic dark tome that might sit next to that old copy of Needful Things. Next to the likes of John Saul and Dean Koontz.
Most of my stories sit unfinished in half full journals that were eventually overtaken with to do lists and grocery needs.
Others are just ideas with characters scribbled about in the margins.
I write stories like a waitress taking meal orders, in quick notes with just enough not to forget later on when it matters.
But so very often that moment never comes.
I can’t help but think about the girl that I once was. Constantly writing and dreaming of the day when she would hold the published version of the world that she created in her hands.
The day she could feel what it felt to be like Stephen King but instead I’m here.
A sometimes blogger with a few readers desperately trying to go back into that place in my head. That place where I could create an entire world with nothing but pen and paper as a guide.
So I wonder about Tabitha King. I’ve found a few articles in which her relationship with Stephen is discussed. Her husband sure to point out that she is a fantastic writer herself and that many of the charities and goodwill they do is because of her but still the topic always returns to the man himself.
I grew up loving King’s books and dreaming about what it would be like to turn out these incredible stories with intimate characters living in such detailed worlds. But now I find myself searching for Tabitha’s stories. I want to know if she found herself hiding in closets or forgoing sleep for the ability to write and then discovering that she could only stare at the blank page.
Does Tabitha’s coffee get cold?
***Since writing this I have purchased two of Tabitha’s novels and am currently in search of her poetry book Grimoire.
A Hermitess 