Mirrored Reflections of a Modern Woman Named Amanda-Leigh

I Am Moving On

2013-10-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

Amanda-Leigh and "The Open Boat"

2013-08-11T17:14:00.001-07:00

I feel much better after previously expressing my thoughts on my marriage. I was able to have a sense of identity again. That is a wonderful feeling to experience. Everything I have experienced since the year 2010 has drifted me into feelings of alienation the male literary characters share in Stephen Crane’s short story “The Open Boat.” Not a character jumps to his death in the water. Each day is a new adventure of survival. There are signs of hope along the water and land. The process of being rescued seemed to take forever. I am sure the Bible would estimate this time frame as forty years. Forty years would be fitting considering there was no hope at times.

“The Open Boat” does not share any hints as to where the crew has come from or where they are going. The dialogue is dry and not really lively. The focus is centered on getting from Point A to Point B. There is no actual center. There is no way to identify with a character or his or her interaction in their world. There is no way of knowing whether the character is struggling with the soul searching process of who he or she is. As readers, we do not know. We do not know how these characters relate to their environments. We do not know what challenges these characters face on a daily basis. From this story, we do not know the characters struggles of living outside of an open boat. Would having more knowledge hurt the story or help the story?

As I reflect on “The Open Boat,” I am able to think about my own life. How did I get into an open boat? How did the waters wash up my personal happiness for the past three years? I am unable to understand where I went wrong as a wife. There are times when I feel like breaking down crying. The pain of hurt and disappointment make me feel like a crushed rose. There are days when I do not want to deal with everything that is happening. There are days when I wish I could sit in my closet and cry all day instead of forcing myself to step outside to be happy and not feel like an ugly duckling. What bad thing did I do to deserve so much hurt?

Right now, I feel powerless about my situation. I am not able to move forward with my life and happiness until I move out. When I move out, I hope to feel so much better. I will not feel stuck anymore. I will no longer be confined to an uncomfortable role. When I use uncomfortable, I am referring to feeling like someone I am not. I am not a mother to anybody except a Chihuahua who was abandoned. I will no longer feel alienated. I will no longer be stuck in my home during bad weather. I will feel safer in my new place. I won’t feel hopeless anymore. I will be rescued the way the crew was from “The Open Boat.”

Amanda-Leigh and Moving Out

2013-08-09T07:22:00.001-07:00

As I write this morning, I reflect on something my husband told me about a week ago. when he looks at his friends page, he wanted to have what they have. I am assuming my husband meant having the American dream every man wants. To me, this also meant my husband was not completely satisfied with me in our marriage. I do not really know what his comment was referring to. What I do know is pretty clear and to the point. I will be moving into a new place in a week or two. This decision was not what I saw in the future when we married three years ago.

Three years have passed. Four days into our marriage, my husband began a series of medicine changes. He also underwent Electroshock Therapy. Before the ECT treatments, my husband was a sweet and loving person to be around. We would go around to different stores and feel happiness. He would pick out romantic cards for me and treated me nice. I enjoyed being around my husband in the beginning.

In the middle of our marriage, emergency room visits and hospital stays dominated our marriage. Everything good collapsed. When I say collapse, I mean that my hospital stays and his mental health clashed like vinegar and oil. After I had my hysterectomy at the Health Plex in Norman, we argued inside my hospital room. A divorce was expressed. A divorce never happened though. I had enough to deal with recovering from the surgery. I did not need that added stress.

In the end, as I reflect on my marriage, I believe in my heart that moving out of our marital home is the best decision. I am still experiencing health problems. I have to be seen by a gastrointestinal specialist towards the end of August. My doctor wants me to have a scope done to find the source of the pain. I also have poison ivy on my body. That is not pleasant. And, I am moving out as I have mentioned before.

I mention moving out so many times. Maybe I am trying to convince that everything will be okay and don’t need to scared. Moving out is not a sign of weakness. This is a sign of strength. I will no longer be criticized for drinking Dr. Pepper or eating foods that will not get me to my weight goal. I will no longer have to worry if someone else really loves me. I will no longer feel trapped in a web that has no holes.

As I filled out paperwork to move out, I entered into the commitment a bit scared and nervous. I did not wish to be judged nor did I wish my husband to be judged. I really do appreciate prayers and love. This road has not been easy. I have been disappointed and hurt in my marriage. What other people do not know is everything that happens behind closed doors. I do not express everything that happens behind closed doors. Only those who are closest to me need to know and do know.

Women in our society are taught to suffer in silence and not speak up. We are taught to pray our marriages work out. We are not told, “I will be praying for your happiness as God works on you.” We are taught to suck things up the way men do. We are taught to stay in the home or we will be judged. Who really wants to be judged? Who wants to be gossiped about? Nobody does and nobody should be. We have enough to deal with in the home and do not need to be crushed by the ones who loves us the most. Being open comes with a cost for us; therefore, we must be silent or risk losing everybody.

I only have a few more things to pack. Hopefully I will get a phone call soon. I am prepared to deal with the phone call the way a loved one responds to a corrections officer when he or she delivers bad news. For this situation, I have had time to prepare for the bad news. I could have lost my husband to death after a terrible incident happened in Norman. I believe that a police officer coming to our home to deliver the news that my husband had died would have been worse for me to handle. That was something I never wanted to deal with. Nobody should.

Amanda-Leigh and Trayvon Martin

2013-07-14T11:53:00.001-07:00

For the month of June, I was in physical pain. My abdomen hurt. When I ate oranges and drank orange juice, the pain increased. For the month of May through June, I suffered from severe depression. The EMDR increased the depression. Writing every painful incident was not easy for me to cope with. The next counseling visit I was scheduled to have would have involved me listening to different tones of music and opening up to the young male counselor. I did not feel comfortable.

At the end of my last session, Dr, Crackerjack (name is fictitious) provided me with a list of feelings to choose from about my current frame and then some more on how I would like to feel. The feelings I chose beforehand were negative. The feelings I chose afterwards were positive. At the time of the session, the thirtieth anniversary of Grandma’s was approaching. Bringing all of the painful incidents sent me into a whirlwind of depression. Since the weather was rainy on the days of my scheduled appointments, I had to wait. Finally, I decided that I did not need to sit in a room for an hour pouring my heart out to a person who did not like me using literary characters to relate to the way I felt inside.

I am able to write today thanks to loved ones who cared about me. I now have a stack of literature and Humanities II textbooks for the Fall semester. I have a few weeks until the Fall semester. I am going to be moving soon. I have friends I would like to handwrite letters to.

My self-image has changed from May. I no longer view myself as worthless, a failure, or helpless. I no longer have to see how Dr. Kevorkian is doing. I no longer have to feel trapped in a dark cellar that refuses to opens. The tools I have are much cooler than the cellar lock anyway. A stationary bike, a pink Yoga mat, and arm weights are more powerful than any health problem in this world. I enjoy working out in bright Capri pants and tank tops. I like to eat fruit and foods that do not contain citric acid. I have also healed as I took a daily woman’s multi-vitamin.

Last night’s verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder case has the majority of the world upset. The message being sent is that the Open Carry Law has no form of justice in the legal system. Every news photo features Trayvon Martin wearing his hoody and baggy jeans. This was his individual identity. However, this is not the image of the young man I keep in my mind of him. I keep the image of Trayvon wearing a black suit and a nice dressy shirt with a tie.

I remember going to eat a Cracker Barrel in Norman in N. I wore a black pant suit. I saw two professional businessmen. We waved at each other as we passed on our paths. These two business men had no idea that a few months ago I had been hospitalized for blood clots and a hysterectomy. I liked that. I really liked that. I liked that wearing my nosiness suit hid everything I had faced on a daily basis. These businessmen did not have to see anything other than the woman I had become.

I have another business suit hanging in my closet. I have black tights to wear with my skirt. I am looking forward to wearing these clothes as I work on homework and wear black dress shoes to match. Experiencing pain is worth this feeling. I feel the same as Faith Hill when she sang “This Kiss.” The road on becoming a writer and editor is really happening. Perhaps I will create one of my literary characters wearing a business suit for others to see. Perhaps I will create a strong heroine who falls for the man who gets rejected and put down too much in his society.

I close with Claude McKay’s heartfelt poem “America.” I am not sure how I should feel right now. George Zimmerman walks away a free man. A child from Oklahoma was sent to live with her “Father” with the Judge having full knowledge he had been a sex offender. A couple in South Carolina continued to adopt a little girl even though the girl was happy living with her biological Father. At the end of the night, two strong parents walk away without justice for their son’s murder. Do two strangers in the middle of the night not stop believing? This journey we call life is not easy.

"America"

Claude McKay (1921)

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven

belongs to such as these" - Matthew 19:14

Trayvon Benjamin Martin

Date of Birth: February 5, 1995

Date of Death: February 26, 2012

Amanda-Leigh and the Princesses of the Round Table

2013-06-07T07:18:00.001-07:00

Good Friday morning from Amanda-Leigh! This has been one busy week from Oklahoma legislation. A law prohibiting smoking in public places was passed. The Governor stated that schools should not be required to build storm shelters. This statement comes days after tornadoes blew through towns in Oklahoma. Since I am not a political person by heart, I will only state my fact. Realism in literature is much easier to cope with than realism in real life situations.

With that being written, I will admit that I have been suffering from depression for the last two days. What is going on? I believe reality has finally caught up with me. For months, I was excited about beginning college to work on my BA. When I search for employment, nobody will give me a chance. Nobody will take me seriously because of my speech difficulty. For anybody who thinks I have self-pity, this is far from the truth. I am not the only person with a physical disability that has doors slammed in her face. We want and deserve more. We wish to be financially independent. We wish to provide clothes and basic necessities for our families with our own money. We wish to have the American dream.

I am back to square one with the princesses of the round table. How did Queen Esther save the Jews? How did Mary have the strength to weep for her son being crucified? How did Catherine Beecher begin teaching? How did Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton have the fighting power to win equality for African American and female citizens? With so much debris plaguing inside of me, I wish someone with the strength of Hulk Hogan would knock the debris away so I can think more clearly. I am frustrated at this point.

One of my prayers was answered this week. My husband began working yesterday. He works on Thursday through Sunday part time. My husband is grateful to be able to work at all. He applied at several places in our town. Several employers would promise to call or e-mail replies on their decisions. I would watch my husband be disappointed by broken promises. Getting angry at the employers were not worth my time. In the end, a few businesses have lost our service. We were loyal customers at one place. After this, I don’t feel the need to go back. There are several other places to go and try out.

I am truly appreciative of the power of prayers and the great people behind them. God works in mysterious ways. I have always believed this. This is my down time. I don’t know which path to take. I have to be careful and not move in some directions for my cyst to not hurt. I am able to work out after taking Aleve. I am able to go places in my electric wheelchair as long as I am tilted back. I am able to read fine literature and dream of dancing. I am able to write. I am able to dress my husband up before he goes to work. I am able to sleep at night and wake up refreshed in the morning.

Amanda-Leigh and Virginia Woolf's The Voyage Out (Part I)

2013-06-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

This is the morning I would have begun summer courses. I have had time to pray about the situations last week. I felt powerless and empty after receiving the phone call from my nurse about the cyst along with the fact that I did not apply for Financial Aid for the summer semester. Being in such a vulnerable state was not easy for me. This vulnerable state took me back to Emergency Room visits where blood clots were discovered and life had to be put on hold.

As a thirty-three old woman, I don’t feel that life should be put on hold any longer than necessary. I am not in my twenties anymore where depression controlled my existence. I would rather direct my positive energy towards reading, exercising, writing, and recovering. For me, the Fall semester begins on August 12. I have from now until that date to enjoy summer. I don’t want to live for pain and suffering. I have to make each day memorable. Years from now, this cyst on my kidney will seem small compared to what this summer will hold. I want treasures. I want to write about readings and research on subjects that interest me. This is meat on the bone. I want to look back on my writings and share them in years to come.

I am getting back into reading literature again. The first book of summer is The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf. In the beginning chapter, one thing I notice from The Voyage Out is the color yellow describes the setting and mood. The mood is not too pleasant for Mrs. Helen Ambrose, who ventures on a voyage with her husband, Ridley. What good and caring mother leaves her own children behind? This thought of mine is expressed by the blunt words of Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway in a following chapter. In the beginning, I don’t view Mrs. Ambrose or Mrs. Dalloway as being productive members of their society the way of Rachel Vinrace. Rather, I view the married women in more of a negative light. At least Mrs. Dalloway tries to reach out to Rachel in the beginning.

Music and literature have always been an expression of Rachel. After Rachel's mother's passing, Mr. Willoughby did his best to provide Rachel with a rich informal education. In the beginning chapters, Rachel’s talent of playing the piano is silently criticized by Mrs. Ambrose. In Mrs. Ambrose’s mind, playing the piano will spoil her niece’s chance of becoming a proper lady who should want to marry a proper man. The field of art is not considered being productive to Mrs. Ambrose. The field of art can be considered an idle act for a young lady to partake in. This train of thought comes from Woolf’s society where men held positions in the British Parliament. Men wrote literature, music, and painted. Women were to married off from their Father’s houses and raise a family. There was no equality in the arts for aspiring young women like Rachel.

As I read The Voyage Out, the more I feel a desire to read books on the British Parliament, the Torreys, and the English, I would like to have a better understanding of British society and history. I would also like to join the Virginia Woolf Society in England one day. With this being written, I am grateful things worked out in literature’s favor. I am interested in seeing where literature takes me this summer; what skies I lay under; and whose shoes I step into. Yes, my dear readers, life is good. Life is too good for pain. Getting lost in fine literature and great music are to be treasured. Writing this down also helps.

Amanda-Leigh and the Bread of Idleness

2013-05-30T07:55:00.001-07:00

One important women’s issue I strongly believe in is getting a painful scar from a hysterectomy checked out in an ultrasound. Since I did not know what to expect after having a hysterectomy, for awhile I took comfort in believing the area of my scar was normal scar tissue. The ultrasound I had on Tuesday morning took the cake of all cakes in this world. on Tuesday afternoon, my nurse called my husband to report that a small cyst on my right kidney was discovered. A cyst was causing so much pain inside.

Tuesday afternoon I also learned that I never applied for Financial Aid for the summer semester. I still had the option of applying for the summer. I chose not to. I need to concentrate on dissolving this cyst and moving over the summer. Taking care of these two stressors will have to come as a priority whether I like this or not. This does not mean I have eaten the bread of idleness for a short time. There will be plenty of artsy things that will occupy my time.

I can read, write journal entries, keep a documented recording of summer travels in literature, and watch ballet events and movies online. I am looking forward to fixing my new place up with pizzazz and colors. I am looking forward to my husband working at his new job. This is not going to be a disappointing summer at all. In fact, this time is needed at the moment. I need to have a room of my own before I can write and dance.

I sincerely apologize that my writing is not longer this morning. I need to rest and feel better. I believe everything will be fine in time. In God we must trust.

"She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hand to the needy" Proverbs 31:20

Amanda-Leigh the Ballerina

2013-05-25T11:49:00.001-07:00

I will be having an ultrasound on Tuesday morning. I have had my share of ultrasounds over the past few years. I have never become immune to having an ultrasound. I still feel the nausea build up inside my bronchial tubes whenever I think about previous ultrasounds. My past ultrasounds were for female problems and to scan for blood clots. I had an ultrasound before my hysterectomy for my former doctor to be accurate when she removed my uterus.

For months, I have had pain by my right rib cage. My doctor was aware of this problem. As I began losing weight, the pain became more intense. My doctor wants to perform an ultrasound to find out if this is caused by endometriosis, if my gallbladder needs to be removed, or if a cyst is inside. Getting to the bottom of this problem is important. Apparently having a partial hysterectomy was not enough the way I had hoped and prayed.

Classes begin a week from this Monday and I will be moving into a fully handicapped accessible apartment soon. To save my sanity, I do not let the upcoming ultrasound control my emotions. My husband was pretty clear about coming with me on Tuesday morning. I knew he would be. My husband has stood by my side through every ultrasound since we began. My husband has been a wonderful sport through everything.

I am still able to work out. In fact, I do. Nothing will stop me from being a ballerina dancer. I am aware I am not be as graceful as ballerinas in Russia or in the Nutcracker. I have learned that I dance to the beat of my own drum. This is completely acceptable, When I work out, I do so as an expression of a little ballerina in a Tulsa dance studio. I wanted to dance, so I did for a time. When the music stopped and the studio for children with physical disabilities closed, the dream somehow died. The art of ballet died. No one could dry the tears of my hurt soul.

As I sit here reflecting back to that time frame, I realize I held my pink dance bag with the dreams of a true ballerina. So the dance studio closed. My personal ballet studio has just begun to open. Nobody will ever be able to close this dream. I am hoping to get another pink dance bag, leg warmers, and a tutu one day. I already have my leotard, tights, and ballet shoes to go inside the bag. I am keeping my eyes focused on the stars above as they guide me in this world. This keeps the gnats of life outside my safety net. Every ballerina is a strong lady in my book. This is why I choose to be one in my own little world.

Every ballerina has a pair of her own ballet shoes.

This is one example of my daily leg stretches. I prefer to do more strenuous leg stretching.

Amanda-Leigh and the Wrath of Mother Nature

2013-05-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

My state has been criticized by the world-wide media. Living in Tornado Alley should be a shameful act. We should be ashamed of ourselves for living in high risk natural disaster state. Pat Robertson went further and blamed Oklahoma for not praying hard enough. The Westboro Baptist Church plans to protest funerals of children because Thunder star Kevin Durant donated a million dollars and supports gay marriage. Toby Keith gets criticized because he does not publicly announce his good monetary donations to help the victims.

As I sit here typing and listening to thunderstorms, I am reminded of the two strong people who lived through the Great Depression and storms. For cows, my Granddaddy built metal barns in his fields. For shelter, my grandparents had a cement shelter to sit in during tornado season. Each Spring, watching Mike Morgan’s forecast was the norm for my grandparents. I learned the tradition early on. I am not able to know another culture. This is a culture Oklahomans live with. We learn from past tornadoes.

I do not take the media’s criticism of Oklahoma at face value. One reason I dismiss the criticism has to do with the simple fact that news reporters criticizing live in other states. The criticism would be more valid if the news reporters could shed personal insight supporting their points. Do some of their family members live in Oklahoma? Do they feel sympathetic to the people and animal who have lost their lives and possessions? Do the reporters understand the traditions of living in Tornado Alley? If none of the questions apply to news reporters, then we should take the criticism lightly. If no news reporter can provide absolute reasoning of personal ties to Oklahoma, then kindly move on with other news.

I have broken the family tradition this year. I broke my faithfulness to a news channel that was dear to my grandparents. This has eaten me up inside the way Romeo’s poisonous drink touched his lips. The meteorologists simply were not covering important weather in my viewing area. What if an E5 tornado had formed in Northern Oklahoma and that had remained ignored? Southern, Eastern, and Western Oklahoma would have been in the same helpless open boat. Under these circumstances, I have a feeling my grandparents would have understood.

I am not ashamed to be a native of Oklahoma and continue to live her. Being born in the Grady Memorial Hospital thirty three years ago was not chosen by me. At the time of my birth, winter had arrived. Goodness knows that I am not a winter person! In fact, I don’t like the intensity of the heat in the scorching summer. Why I live in Oklahoma is a good, thought-provoking question. Perhaps the answer goes back to Baptisms at church as a young person. As a congregation, we vowed to support our loved ones in their faith as disciples of God. I never said, “I will” without hesitation. Nobody else did either. We followed our Christian faith and lived by example.

We are unable to control the wrath of Mother Nature. What man can (or should) control a woman? According to recent tornadoes in my state, we are aware that Mother Nature can be a moody woman. She can be downright mean and ugly. Her ways are not our ways. Mother Nature strikes and leaves. Mankind has to pick up the pieces of her wrath. Mother Nature shows her temper in the Spring. What a temper! Mother Nature shows no mercy on her people.

Mankind shows mercy through his acts of generous kindness. I did not forget women in this. When a tornado strikes, houses and facility get destroyed. People, pets, and cattle are swept up into the chaos. The mother cries as she realizes her child is lifeless in the cold, heartless destruction. She curses at Mother Nature for this unforgivable act as the act is inhumane. Mankind will rebuild, but he will never forget this tragedy. Nobody else will either. We are still praying, Pat Robertson, faithfully. In God, we must always trust.

Amanda-Leigh and the Alligator Plague

2013-05-20T09:21:00.003-07:00

I suffered from the one and only Alligator Plague at an early age. That Alligator Plague was one of the most miserable life events I can ever recall. This along with getting my hand swept into a cow’s mouth. The cow’s mouth did not poke holes in my skin the way of the Alligator Plague. Almost every child gets the Alligator Plague.

The Alligator Plague began with me scratching all over! I could not stop scratching. The more I scratched, the more the Alligator Plague showed. Red spots marked my skin from head to toe. I was kept under a cover away from everybody. The Alligator Plague had struck hard! For days, I scratched. For days, I was told not to scratch. When a little girl has to scratch her Alligator bites, no one can be there to tie her hands down night and day. I scratched those bites as if they had become a daily ritual. Scratching more felt good!

The Alligator Plague was at its peak. The Alligator bites had taken over my body. No need for Calamine or anti-itching medication at this point. I also do not believe any home remedy could have cured the Alligator Plague at this point. My tiny, vulnerable body was a statistic to the Alligator Plague. One in a million children suffered from the Alligator Plague world-wide. The Alligator Plague had struck.

The itching continued. The scratching did not ease up. I was a bad child. I did not know how to get rid of these Alligator bites. This remedy was not simple as pouring sweet pickle juice over my face to cure freckles in the summertime. I could not poach the Alligator bites on a hot stove to de-sensitize the itch. I could not swim across an ocean to lose the Alligator bites at sea. Would this have been fair to the aquatic animals? I could not pour baking soda on the Alligator bites. I simply could not get rid of this annoying itching business!

As the days passed, the Alligator Plague got to the point that I did not want to be itching anymore. Imagine turning five with having Alligator bites all over! Classmates would have understood. Adults would not have. The Alligator Plague is only for children! Adults have learned the remedy of the Alligator Plague. Their wisdom skips children. Children can itch, scratch, itch, and scratch until the Alligator bites appear. Children wait anxiously for the Alligator bites to disappear.

As an adult, I do not hear about the Alligator Plague much. Since I am not around children much, I am not aware if this still happens. i do not post this plague to my timeline on Facebook. I do not tell many people about getting the Alligator Plague. The Alligator Plague hit me hard as a child. I had Alligator marks all over my body that can still be thoughtful shameful in modernism. Without falling victim to the Alligator Plague, I would not be writing this today. The Alligator Plague and I sure did have our daily battles the way Edmund Burke and Mary Wollstonecraft fought over the education of women and Ezra Pound fought over Imagism with Amy Lowell in 1835. The Alligator Plague seemed to win at times. The itching was a vile and toxic part of my young existence in a world that was not shaped for the Alligator Plague. The little girl did not fall for the itching after days of peaceful harmony the way Alfred Lord Tennyson changed his literary expression style to suit the harsh literary critic, John Stuart Mills.

Before, in between, and after the Alligator Plague, I thought and behaved like a child. The Alligator Plague did not rob me of my innocence. The Alligator Plague did not land me in the hospital. The Alligator Plague tempted me into the childhood sin of scratching uncontrollably. The Alligator’s jaws became shut as the days passed. The Alligator no longer struck hard or at all. This liberated me as a small child. I no longer felt empowered by something I could not control about my body.

Why am I sharing my experience of the Alligator Plague? I believe the Alligator needs to be set free back into the wild. After thirty three years of hiding the Alligator Plague, parents can be aware of my experience. Every Alligator belongs in his or her natural habitat. When an Alligator is taken out of the wild, its teeth will strike. The Alligator is confused, upset, and does not know how to behave well in society. This makes an Alligator bite the innocent, sweet skin of small children. Children do not know how to run from the Alligator Plague. The only way a child knows how to survive the Alligator bite is to scratch after itching. Until Alligators are able to remain in their natural habitats, children will continue to suffer from the Alligator Plague.

Amanda-Leigh and the Art of Humanity

2013-05-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

I have two more weeks until the summer semester begins for college. On the home front, my husband and I are doing better. My husband and I have been raising our son, Luigi, and getting ready for summer to approach. As I write this, I do not feel as if I have been a faithful writer. At the beginning of the year, I had a goal of writing daily. I don’t know what happened to that goal. Too much stress came along and made the goal seem small.

Six months ago, I started a goal of losing weight. This goal has been an active part of my life. The second week of May caused me more stress than usual, so I ate more. This is where I can confess my sin. I noticed I gained a few pounds in pictures over the past couple weeks. Plus, the Oklahoma State adaptive sports program closed. The horse slaughter bill was passed on Good Friday. Everything added up. The world seemed to close in.

Over the weekend, I printed off ADA accommodation forms for my college. One responsibility I have is to get in contact with my professors to let them know I have a physical disability and will need them to work with me. I have already completed my responsibility and tried to get in contact with my professors. I have had to e-mail the Dean of English to help me with contacting my professors. Still, the professors did not respond. My husband has called both of my professors on my behalf. One professor provided a brief reply. My other professor has not bothered to contact me. I am interested to see how my first semester will go. As long as I am doing my part, everything will be fine as far as I am concerned.

I am looking forward to begin working on my Bachelors of Arts in Liberal Arts. I am aware art programs in my state were at risk for losing funding. As long as I can remember, the arts have been an important part of my life. For a person with a disability, a horse can also be considered an art as well as the adaptive sports program at Oklahoma State University. Combined, the arts provide us with talents and opportunities the majority of society may not understand. The arts have been taken for granted in my state.

For a woman in my late twenties, wheelchair basketball at Oklahoma State University made me want to go back to college and finish up. I researched the sports team to see how the members were doing and what made them change as individuals. Before I found out about this great team, I was merely surviving. I suffered from bitterness, resentment, and confinement. I survived by the false friend of depression. When I saw this team online, something powerful shot through my body. Cupid’s arrow had struck!! I fell in love with this new concept of being a born again woman. Thus, the disability became accepted in my life. This group of athletes showed me that I could become something larger than accepting life as it came. The old way of living was the same as taking a bite out of a chicken sandwich that already has a bite taken out (that really did happen to me).

I learned to not settle for anything in this world. By this time, I had begun to take an interest in my old flame, literature! The books I chose from the local library spoke to me. From literary characters, I learned more about life. I learned valuable life lessons. I never believed lessons in life could be taught in college. At the time, I was anti-college. College was about taking out student loans and going into financial debt, learning about historical figures who had no relevance in modern society, and a length list in my mind. This anti-college movement off and on during my twenties really led me nowhere. I do not even know where this trail of thought originated from.

I am not impressed with the thoughts I had during my anti-college movement days. As I look outside the window and reflect on the woman I was, I wonder where I would be today if things had happened differently in the past. One particular instance, what would have happened if a horse owner in Anadarko had really taught me how to ride a horse? From an early age, I enjoyed watching old shoot ‘em up Westerns. The horses carried people from town to town as they rode in carriages. The horses won races. Horse patrol was used by England law enforcement and early American law enforcement. Before rail way and telegrams, people heavily depended on horses. Horses were an active part of the culture and media.

At camp at an early age, I witnessed first-hand how riding a horse could bring strength to a person with a physical disability. With assistance, riding a horse is liberating the same way of swimming. When I rode a horse, I felt more in control of my life. i had to be careful to not have muscle spasms while riding. I felt disciplined in my ways. Being on a horse made me want to take care of an animal the way horse owners groomed the one I rode on. Riding on the back of a horse showed me how to be more humane and understanding of animals needs and wants.

As I turn from the window of memory lane, I admit I was wrong about my thoughts in my early years. I remember the summer of 2001 when I entered Composition II and Responding to Literature. That summer, literature took on a whole new meaning. From watching the play, “A Doll’s House,” I learned about the role of womanhood in the home and society. I was mad at Torvald referring to Nora as a “spend-thrifter.” But I also asked why Nora let Torvald degreade to that level. I learned family traditions should be kept alive and active. I learned the ghettoes of New York City were hard to survive living in. I learned about the joys of learning how to drive. I learned that a marriage needs to have communication in “The Cathedral.” I experienced realism that summer in both courses. In Composition II, my professor enjoyed teaching the concept of “rhetoric.” That seemed to be his favorite word to use. I remember my fingers typing assignments left and right that summer.

Education is an important part of taking care of humanity and society. Being educated on alternatives to horse slaughter houses can save thousands of innocent horses. Oklahoma State University could have provided the adaptive sports program with a portion of income from regular sports activities and student tuition fees. There are other alternatives that should be considered before reaching the breaking point of giving the axe.

I am trying to psyche myself up for tornadoes and stormy weather. I don’t know if this will work. I still remember a tornado taking the life of a great bus driver and friend last year. I do not believe a person can ever be ready to hear (or read) that type of news. I have also been praying for a friend of my husband and mine who entered the hospital last week with fluid in his lungs. I have been praying for a few friends who are battling with cancer. I have been praying for innocent animals to be loved and cared for, especially horses, dogs, and cats. I have been praying for my son to be taught humanity towards other animals so he can make friends.

Amanda-Leigh and the Power of Love

2013-05-08T09:13:00.002-07:00

A month has passed since I have written on here. My first priority is to serve God in any way possible. My second priority is to keep the marital flames sparking on the home front. My third priority is to educate men and women of my modern society. Combined, these priorities help me stay busy and active. I have a few weeks left until college begins for summer. Everything has been on my mind lately.

I want to let my readers know I am doing better now. During my absence, much has happened. Things in my neighborhood were slowly getting back to normal after my neighbor’s parents moved their son out. After I wrote my last piece, all havoc broke loose. Another neighbor began having early morning arguments and shady guests visiting our area. This created anxiety for my husband and me. We began to argue more due to the negative environment along with one of my husband’s medicine.

My husband stopped attending Celebrated Recovery. After my husband was told to keep everything from me in the form of progress, he decided to stop attending the meetings. One day, my husband approached me to help him with a piece of homework. I provided my husband with some thoughts to jot down. I never read what my husband wrote in his books. In fact, I began to feel my husband slipping away from our marriage. I was home alone the night of Easter. I was home alone on Sunday and Thursday nights. I did not feel as if I had an active role in my husband’s life anymore. I began to felt like Nora in “A Doll’s House.”

I believe in full honesty in a marriage. No man should be telling a group of men things he cannot tell his own wife. When my husband took me before God, he promised to honor me. This means my husband provides me with anything he feels I should be aware of in his life. I am aware of everything surrounding his mental illness, from the terrible voices in his head to the Jehovah Witness nightmares. My husband credits me with having the mind to rationalize for us what should happen. Withholding important information within a marriage is a selfish act of mankind that should be stopped. A wife is to provide ideas and thoughts that will benefit a marriage.

The step we have taken to help our marriage blossom has been counseling. This was a mutual decision. If a patient does not leave an office with tears at first, the counseling session must not be effective. As I partook in the intake process, there were questions over suicide. Did I ever feel suicidal in my life? Yes. Did I have a history of suicide in my genes? Yes. Did I have a history of depression in my genes? Yes. Where were the “no” questions at? I will admit, I did have the normal flighty response at first. But, I never thought of food or drinking a Dr. Pepper to help me survive the intake process. This is something I can honestly discuss.

Normally, when I think of the subject of suicide, I feel like eating more. This is the most uncomfortable topic to discuss aloud and with anybody. You get stereotyped as being insane if you open up about suicide along with how suicide affects other people. This is a socially taboo subject. The truth is that suicide hurts many people. How many people have been affected by suicide?

In literature, suicide for women was the only available option. Women were morally unfit for society if they sought a divorce. Husbands were able to beat their wives, cheat on their wives and bring home venereal diseases that made their wives suffer, and divorce only in the Biblical form, which was committing adultery. Therefore, these women were oppressed and suffered greatly at the hands of bondage for the Church of England. These women were unable to become liberated through education. Pioneer women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Catherine Beecher, and Louisa May Alcott were fortunate enough to be taught in the luxury of their inner circles. These women found an outlet besides suicide. Suicide was not an option for their lives.

I do not believe suicide is an option for my life. God delivered me from blood clots twice in my past. I was provided with the opportunity to go back to college and graduate. I will be going back for more literature and humanity parties. There is too much to live for than to be empowered by suicide. I do not want to be empowered by a concept. I want to outrun suicide the way Forrest Gump outlived his braces as a child. I want to feel like a radiant dove with depression locked inside a glass window the way the J.D. McCarty swimming was in 1985. I want more in this world than to be defined by these conservative roles of womanhood. Strong men and women of literature and the arts have taught me this. And, from childhood the lyrics, “He’s still working on me” is right. Not a day passes where I do not feel God working on me. This is a great feeling to have and share. My strong and wonderful “sheroes” are great enough to share!

Amanda-Leigh and Officer Chad Peery's Courage

2013-04-16T12:24:00.003-07:00

Mid-April has arrived. There are many things on my mind. Some thoughts are only known to my keeper (not my husband!). I have gratitude that I may not express as often as I need. Yesterday was a tragic, sad day for our nation and fellow Oklahomans. A bomb exploded during the Boston Marathon and a young police officer passed away in a hospital. All of this happened when I checked Facebook to see how my friends were doing. My friends were naturally as shaken up as I was.

Two things I loved about Officer Chad Peery were his strength and determination. This man passed away yesterday afternoon after surviving the last two years as a paralyzed man. The paralysis did not happen naturally. Rather, Officer Peery tried to break up a bar fight one night while he was watching a sports game with his father at a bar. Officer Peery was off-duty at the time. Afterwards, Officer Peery’s life changed. He became a paralyzed man who provided strength for men and women like me.

Writing about this man’s devotion to the police force tears me up inside as I write. When Officer Peery chose the field of law enforcement, he became a public servant. From my knowledge of law enforcement, I am aware the field can be difficult at times. Police officers can suffer from burnout, family problems, being hurt on the job, and being put in difficult situations. This leads an officer to question his or her own dedication to the field. If an applicant is not willing to work off the clock, what is the point?

A Bachelor of Science is required for modern policing. An applicant without a Bachelor of Science can be hired for easy tasks such as desk duty and filing. To be considered for a promotion in the department, an applicant must have a higher level of education. I have often wondered the reasoning behind this, and this high standard is controversial to several Americans. What can an applicant with a higher level of college do better than an applicant that has had more experience with the real world?

From Officer Peery and other great influences, I have been motivated to go back for my Bachelors of Arts. I was once a woman who skipped a college literature course to watch groups performing at concerts on my former college campus. I questioned why I was attending college, where education would lead me, and why nobody could see past the education to see the person I was. From this perspective, the world seemed like a cruel and unforgiving place. This was not the good old eighties, where kind elderly people gave people chances. Those days have passed.

When I watched news reports on Officer Peery’s condition, I was still recovering from blood clots and a hysterectomy. I kept an active journal. Every thought was produced on paper by pen. I rejected modern technology to write with. As I saw Officer Peery on television, strength and hope were provided to me. Here was a police officer, a son, a husband, and a father whose life forever changed because of a bar fight. The reality tore my heart out at the seams. This crossover was more cruel than my condition where I became physically disabled in March of 1980. This officer had children whose eyes watched his every movement. This man continued to be a public servant.

I continue to pursue my education online. After reading about my great literary friends’ success, I believe getting more college education is meant for me. For the summer, I am enrolled in Creative Writing and Comparative Religions. One textbook is required for Creative Writing while there are close to five for Comparative Religions. All of this must be completed before August. The average person would probably be overwhelmed by this must reading in college. Believe me, I am. I can feel the stress without college even beginning for over a month.

One thing I have learned during the past few years is that God does not give us more than we can handle. Granted, going back to college is time consuming and often leads me to staying inside working most of the time. I read until my eyes need rest. I enjoy participating in class discussions, writing papers, and being liberated from the stubborn old views I may have had. College enriches my life. This is where I do not feel the disability. Each time I write, there are no chains of steel confining me to one corridor in modern society.

Reflecting back to the woman who a skipped literature course, I can honestly say I am glad I did. I would never have been the person I am today. I was able to seek out college courses that were specially designed for students like me who struggle with social phobias, meeting daily class schedules, weather threats, and other challenges. Since returning to college, I have never questioned why I have given college courses my one hundred percent. I want to learn how to write better and become more aware of humanity as a culture and art. I do not wish to remain as a flat character in my society. I wish to become a round character and change as new ideas are presented to me.

I will admit, the reading part has me a little concerned. I chose to return to college, and extensive reading is part of the package. Is this something I can handle? Do I feel confident? Do I doubt myself as a student? Do I have the energy to read and write so much in such a short period of time? These are question I consider entering every course. I am certain Officer Peery and heroes face similar questions.


To An Athlete Dying Young

A. E. Houseman

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,	\
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Amanda-Leigh's Third Wedding Anniversary

2013-04-02T03:06:00.002-07:00

My husband and I will be celebrating our third wedding anniversary tomorrow. We were married before the emergency room visits for blood clots, medicine transitions, addictions, adopting our child, and college courses. I must admit the last three years of my life have definitely been eventful. I am looking forward to celebrating my wedding anniversary with the great man I married.

I married at age thirty. At thirty, I believed I was ready to become a wife. At twenty one, I believed the same. As a young woman fresh out of high school, I was in college with dreams of graduating from college with a Bachelors of Arts in English. I received praise from my Composition I and II professors at the time. I realized the dream of graduation but did not have the ambition of fulfilling that goal until my wonderful husband’s physical presence and prayers for me to strive to do better in my own life.

When I married at age thirty, I did not have maturity. I did not know exactly what I wanted in this world. Being a wife was something I did want. I had so much love to offer a man and I wanted to show this. I wanted a great man in my life who would return the love. I did not want to give more of myself than necessary before our wedding vows. This meant that we did not live together before marriage. I liked the freedom to come and go as I pleased. I liked to have space in my home. This is what I personally believe. I do not wish to force my beliefs on anybody or make a reader feel inferior or low. I am simply stating my personal beliefs.

By my husband waiting for me until our wedding day, he showed me a new set of American values that seems to be lost. He did not have to disrespect my womanhood. My womanhood still shone on our wedding day. My husband loved me for me. He did not wish to violate me. That part came after our wedding and behind closed doors. Nobody else needs to see our private, intimate moments. My womanhood was not dependent on a man during our courtship. I did not have to be the female version of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. I had no impressionable young children who were living with me who could say, “Mommy, you set a good example for me. I don’t want to live with anybody before I grow up and get married. I want to be just like you!” I continued to go out the way I always did and lived life to the fullest. I had no one waiting on me at home.

Marriage is a lifelong commitment. I call marriage a life sentence. Marriage is not something that should be entered into lightly. Marriage should be taken seriously and discussed thoroughly before the wedding day. This means discussing personal family values, religion, backgrounds, gender roles in the home, raising children, finances, dreams, and hobbies. Marriage happens when two people meet in the middle in unity. One person alone cannot make a marriage work.

Marriage is not always easy. This I know. My husband’s personality changed greatly from his electroshock therapy treatments and medication changes. There are times we feel like wringing each other’s necks. Sometimes I feel like locking him out of our home. Sometimes we can’t handle each other’s mood. Sometimes we can be like vinegar and oil. In the end, we are able to hold each other in our bed at night with our tiny Chihuahua between us. We adore each other. We feed off of each other. We build each other up. My husband sure knows how to build his buttercup up. I am his "Gracie" and he is my "George."

My husband and I have not had the perfect marriage. Three years sure does feel like a long time. We have been through so much together in such a short time. I can still remember my husband on our wedding day. My husband was so nervous during our wedding ceremony that he kept kissing me. What a cutie! He reminded me of a kid in a candy store who had his heart set on one piece of candy. This is the feeling I love. My husband has sacrificed greatly for me to be the woman I am today. Even though the electroshock treatments did not get my husband off his medicine, he still has a heart of a sweet child. I still feel bad about putting my husband through several emergency room visits and hospital stays. In the end, we are still in unity. I love being married to my husband.

Amanda-Leigh Releases The Big Fish

2013-03-27T04:04:00.001-07:00

I was introduced to Ernest Hemingway in high school. At the time, biographies of famous writers and their stories did not make sense to me. When my class and I were assigned to read short biographies and their stories, there would be a small groan inside of me. What was the point in having to read this stuff? This question should seem immature to those of us who now take writers biographies and their famous pieces of literature seriously.

When I began keeping an active journal after suffering from blood clots and a hysterectomy, I was led to read biographies. Before I entered the hospital, I was prescribed the combination of Celexa and Risperdal by a nurse practitioner that was referred to me by my husband’s psychiatrist at the time. I stayed up reading a book by Maya Angelou. I also read a book about a cheating husband whose ex-wives formed a bond of sisterhood. My husband heard me laugh at the women’s unconventional friendships. We sure did have great fun with that adventure.

The biography that has my mind spinning is over Ernest Hemingway. I read up to page eighty in Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved and Lost, 1934-1961 by Paul Hendrickson and Hemingway: The Final Years by Michael Reynolds. The following findings are my perspective of each biography:

· In the beginning of Hemingway’s Boat, Hendrickson provides readers with the relationship Ernest Hemingway had with two of his three sons. Patrick (“Mouse”) and Gregory (“Gigi”) were interviewed by former Washington Post writer Paul Hendrickson. What happened to the eldest son, Jack (“Mr. Bumby”)? Were there not letters Jack sent to his father twice a month while growing up? The lack of this relationship left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

The strained relationship Ernest Hemingway had with his son Gregory, sometimes called Gloria, was out in the open in the beginning. Hendrickson addressed a letter Ernest Hemingway wrote about his disgraced son. I found this to be a distasteful approach to the youngest son. Airing dirty laundry is not something I find to be a good read.

· The history of the Wheeler family’s boat business, where Ernest Hemingway purchased his boat, Pilar, was featured in-depth. Everything anybody ever wants to know about the boat business is written down within the first eighty pages of the book. My literary taste buds became bored.

· Ernest Hemingway shared a close and personal friendship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. This relationship turned me off of the book completely. From research and reading biographies over the Fitzgeralds, I learned that Fitzgerald was not an honest writer. He did not exhibit moral character. He had affairs that his beautiful wife, Zelda, had to suffer with. Fitzgerald was like Edgar Allen Poe who tortured his mistresses.

· Michael Reynolds’ Hemingway: The Final Years provides an in-depth perspective on the man Ernest Hemingway was. The man Hemingway turned out to be reminds me of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem called “The Fish.” In her poem, the fish is one every fisherman has tried to catch but to no avail. The fishermen wound up looking beyond the fish’s exterior and throwing it back in the sea. The fishermen move on and do not warn other fellow fishermen of this physically strong fish. The fishermen are to fend for themselves and lean that this fish can be caught by their hooks but never brought to surface and commit to being one fisherman’s prize. So, the fish is always thrown back into the stream of water waiting on some other fisherman to play his game.

· Reynolds’ image of Hemingway as a family man is non-existent. The three sons are mentioned throughout the book but not necessarily above the surface. The sons did not take center stage in Hemingway’s life the way his women did. Reynold’s description of the sons is a bit vague. In the beginning, the sons are mentioned more frequently. In the end, we learn that the boys grow up and are married. There are important pieces of information missing from the book. I am left with the missing question of whether or not Hemingway attended his sons’ weddings, births of his grandchildren, and how he felt about his sons. Was Hemingway proud of his sons – those who still spoke to him?

· Ernest Hemingway followed the steps of his Father, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, during the last year of his life. Both men were admitted to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, New York. Ernest Hemingway underwent a series of electroshock treatments (ECT) under the care of a doctor named Dr. Rome. Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary Walsh Hemingway, found an institution that had recreational activities as a part of therapy. In the end, Dr. Rome wound up not taking Mary’s loving care for her husband seriously and released his recovered patient. Hemingway manipulated his doctor into believing he was well. After being released, Ernest Hemingway shot himself with his favorite gun.

This is a lot of information to absorb for one woman. I did not know what I was getting myself into when I picked out Ernest Hemingway’s biographies. I thought Hemingway would have been a loving, caring husband and father figure. I was completely wrong. Being friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald, I should have realized his ways would rub off on Hemingway. Both men wound up disrespecting the marital bed and humiliating their wives in public. Both men suffered from the debilitating diseases of alcoholism and depression.

I am surprised Hemingway’s four wives did not wind up shooting him. Some modern women would have. When a heart is tossed around, stretched to the limit, and shattered into pieces, there is really no predicting how a woman will react. I do give three of the Hemingway wives credit for being strong enough to walk away from the big fish in the water. Hemingway’s biographies can be taken as a warning for strong women of our world. There is absolutely nothing wrong with walking away from a fish nobody wants to catch. I am releasing this fish back into the water where he belongs. My hook has no time for his jaws to latch onto, nor do I have any patience for his games.

The Fish

By Elizabeth Bishop

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown rose
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Amanda-Leigh Supports the Mayor of Pennsylvania

2013-03-19T06:09:00.001-07:00

This morning after reading a report over Pennsylvania's Mayor Cassandra Coleman surviving a DVT, I found a comment that surprised me. I could not tell the poster’s gender nor his or her age. The poster seemed very upset that Mayor Coleman’s personal friend, Representative Phyllis Mundy, is wanting to create an awareness on her friend’s new lifelong diagnosis of keeping blood clots from entering her body. Point taken. So, those of who have been in Mayor Coleman’s shoes should stop our fight to save other men and women’s lives? We should make this our number one priority each day? We should not create signs and posters that provide statistics and facts about blood clots?

The poster is right about one thing. We do have digital technology that informs our public on blood clots. This lacks real in-depth education. Facts from medical journals and leading research hospitals do not provide the public with survivor’s stories or our tips we have learned from our traumatic experiences. Traumatic is one word I use to describe my two experiences with blood clots. When I read this comment, I felt refreshed on why I create an awareness of blood clots. I had begun to wonder why I felt so passionate about creating an awareness. Years have passed since I have been hospitalized. I have befriended other women who have been in my shoes. This is considered networking and reaching out for assistance.

When I entered the Emergency Room on the afternoon of July 23, 2010, something happened to me that I cannot explain today. I realized my life was too short for having regrets. I had not completed college at the time. I have my Associates degree in Liberal Studies, and I will soon be working on my Bachelor’s of Arts in Liberal Arts with an English concentration. I could not eat salads or anything with vitamin k while on the blood thinner. I eat salads daily along with those other delicious green vegetables. I felt like a failure that day. Now I do not. I still battle with severe depression. I still have nightmares from that time period and before. I still feel like I broke my promise to myself about not ever taking medicine again. The one medicine I did take landed me in the Emergency Room with both a PE and a DVT. Perhaps that was my punishment for being so misguided in my life and dropping out of college during my twenties. This is something I will never know. Why did blood clots happen to me?

This is why strong advocates fight for other people’s health and security each day. We do not personally know the people who may have a genetic trait to the blood clotting disorder. We feel as if we have a mission to serve and protect our communities by creating an awareness. We have our critics who think we should keep silent. Keeping silent was what landed us in the Emergency Room to begin with. When nobody comes forward and provides a personal testimony, other people suffer the same way. We do not have a light guiding us down a dark tunnel. We do not know what to do or how to respond to this situation. We suffer in silence.

My husband’s paternal grandmother passed away from a blood clot in 1995. My husband has been affected by blood clots. This is why I work out and try to live right. I do not wish to pass away from blood clots. I remember the sadness my husband felt when he watched me suffer greatly from blood clots. My husband would have made his grandmother proud. I do feel sadness that he could not sit by his grandmother’s side and feed her the way I fed my grandfather when he suffered from a stroke in 1995.

Suffering is not something I wish for anybody’s life. To watch somebody strong physically and then become paralyzed is also traumatizing. My grandfather suffered a series of strokes and he never recovered. Up until then, I believed Granddaddy to be immortal. No illness or disease could ever take Granddaddy away from me. He would be around forever. He would always be feeding his cows or bailing hay. He would always attend the First Baptist Church on Sunday mornings and return home to his lovely wife’s home-cooking. He would be there to watch his grandchildren and great grand-children’s life events. This is the image I love when I think about my Granddaddy. Why did a stroke have to happen to him? He was a wonderful Southern gent who stood by his family through thick and thin.

As I have written several times in the past, I strongly believe that education will best eliminate ignorance in our society. Yes, we have wonderful digital technology that brings public awarenesses of heart disease, cancer, disabilities, and so much more. Several survivors of these ailments have taken stands to provide personal journeys about their struggles and skills necessary for achieving hope. This is what digital technology lacks. This world has made more sense to me since getting in touch with networks of women who have been in my shoes and reading articles over other blood clot survivors. We will always have critics who disagree with our paths. I look for comfort from those who have been down my path. Where will this path take me? How can I help other people with the information I have discovered?

Amanda-Leigh's Recommended Link:

State Gives New Attention to Deep Vein Thrombosis

http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news/349402/State-gives-new-attention-to-deep-vein-thrombosis

Amanda-Leigh's First Visit with Robert Browning

2013-03-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday! This is the first day of Spring Break for most of the residents in my college town. I wish these residents a safe, blessed, and peaceful break. May their minds be able to rest for at least a week. May their teachers and professors be able to unwind and enjoy time with their friends and family members. This is the time for everybody to throw their mathematic and biology textbooks aside and put on a different role for the changing season.

I have been reading Clyde De L. Ryal’s The Life of Robert Browning. One thing that has not been written is the feeling of guilt Robert Browning has for choosing to walk away from embracing all of the beliefs of Percy Shelley. Growing up, Browning excelled better from the education of his parents. Mrs. Browning seemed to be like my maternal grandmother in the gardening aspect. She taught her young son about plants and nature. His father, Robert Sr., taught his son different languages. When this son did attend school, he was sent home because the school did not wish to shame the other male students.

This meant the Brownings had to find a school for their gifted son to attend. In the meantime, Robert basked in the glory of Percy Shelley’s readings of absolutism. What is absolutism exactly? When I think of absolutism, I do not like the meaning I find. Absolutism is fixed. Absolutism does not leave room for change. There is no room for a student’s horizons to be broadened the way Bronson Alcott’s Socrates style of teaching enhanced young students’ minds. Had this young Romantic English poem been a hungry student in Mr. Alcott’s class, perhaps his path in the world would have taken a different turn. If this scenario had happened, would Browning have still written the beautiful lyrics of “My Last Duchess”?

When I read this biography, I get a sense of mixed feelings. For one, I am not too impressed by John Stuart Mills criticism of Robert Browning’s first work. Mills’ harsh review had been rejected by several news outlets. Reflecting back to Alfred Lord Tennyson’s first poetry, I remember reading where John Stuart Mills’s criticism shut him down in a way as a poet. Perhaps I am being too harsh in my own criticism of Mills. I feel that words should be expressed if the mood creates them. Great poets do not need to be criticized by religious or political authority. When I read where Mills had written a bad review of Browning, I thought, Oh no. He's at this again. Please leave these bright poets alone. Not again!

Maybe this form of negative criticism of the poet turned him to the writings of Percy Shelley during his childhood years. Shelley became a positive role model for young Robert Browning. As time passed and Browning found his way in the world, the more he outgrew the teachings of Shelley. He began to realize that Shelley was wrong about certain ideas and thoughts. This betrayal is reflected in some of Browning’s early work. Browning still reflected on his pure wholesome days of reading Shelley with great fondness. The man may have matured but the boy was still alive and active. Shelley's fatherly guidance never left Browning in a literary sense.

When I was reunited with my junior high English teacher a few years ago, I began to read famous works by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I would read these works and feel bedazzled by his words. I loved the images Fitzgerald created in my mind. I felt intimate with the beauty of literature. This made me want to read a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The biography opened up my eyes. I could not believe a husband betrayed his own wife by stealing work from her personal journal. This act disgusted me. I no longer saw F. Scott Fitzgerald larger than life. I saw F. Scott Fitzgerald for what he was: a fraud and a plagiarist.

I understand exactly how Robert Browning felt in relation to his literary role model, Percy Shelley. Even today, I still have a sense of guilt. I feel guilty because I outgrew the starry eyes for F. Scott Fitzgerald, who helped me find my place in literature. Browning became a famous poet thanks to reading the writings of Shelley. We both outgrew our literary role models. In a way, we may have betrayed them. Knowing that Fitzgerald used his wife’s brilliant mind, I can never go back to being that starry eyed fan again. I do not wish to be taken for a fool. I have grown up. I have matured. Fitzgerald was the one who dropped out of college and never returned.

As much as I enjoy reading the writings of Browning, I am disappointed that he did not apply himself as one of the first rosters to attend The London University. I also understand why Browning dropped out. The 1800s did not have the advancement of modern technology or honors programs at colleges. This hindered the academic progress of student curriculum. There was no alternative that made Browning feel challenged as a student. With Browning’s tragic history of being sent home from school for being too bright, we are unable to get a first-hand glimpse into the emotional damage this caused. Perhaps Browning would have excelled best with online college work the way I do.

In the online college environment, there are no outside demands placed on a student. When the weather is bad, I do not have to e-mail professors that I am unable to attend classes. I do not have to rush and get ready each day. I am able to be stress-free of an environment that creates anxiety for me. I feel nervous around a class full of students. I feel self-conscience. Nobody else in the room has a physical disability. I do not like to stand out. I prefer the online classroom environment because I feel safe and at peace. This is where I do not feel the disability in me. This feeling provides the musical instrument I need to succeed. I am able to take comfort that I am not alone.

Amanda-Leigh Explores Transcendentalism

2013-03-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

One thing Louisa May Alcott’s biography taught me is to never give up. Her golden days were spent writing for fourteen hours a day. For exercise, she would walk miles by foot. This young maiden’s experiences provided me with hope. If this great female writer could live life to the fullest, then certainly I could, too.

Miss Alcott lived during the Transcendentalism movement in literature. This movement began with British philosophers and writers. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott were the pioneers of Transcendentalism. There have been many definitions of Transcendentalism. The best definition refers to naturalism. Transcendentalism is a movement in literature that creates a natural feeling of being one with the environment. This can also be a spiritual experience. For example, later American writer Stephen Crane’s story of brotherhood in “The Open Boat” can support arguments of fitting into the Transcendentalist genre.

I also equate naturalism and Transcendentalism to the writings of British poets during the seventeenth century and beyond. As a guru of fine literature, I was assigned to read poetry from the greats of the British world. I remember during my high school days of English, I would groan inside when being assigned to read poetry. I really disliked dissecting poems the way a science student dissects frogs. After surviving blood clots as an adult, the process became more real to me. I would either have to learn terms in poetry to make my “A” or I would fail miserably. I chose to dig into the poetry and writings. I wanted to have a wealth of knowledge on these great writers. The more I read, the more I understood history.

In Introduction to Law Enforcement, the British were the main Sugar Daddies of knowledge. Our laws and philosophies stem from the British. Foot patrol, the most effective form of policing, came from Britain. The baton also came from Britain. Our ideas and thinking came from Britain. Being able to understand the writings of British literature seemed important to me. One, I learned from Peter Jennings’ biography that a great wealth of knowledge about the past will help a person understand the future better. Two, literature and law enforcement mix together. Three, learning British literature makes a person mature. Finally, the British seemed to have a strong sense of confidence in their world. Perhaps the latter is what attracts me to great authors such as William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Virginia Woolf, and Mary Wollstonecraft.

The world of writing can be spiritual for most of its residents. The same is true for me as Bronson Alcott once proved. As an educator, Alcott strongly believed that children learned best by the Socrates style instead of rote memorization. In Socrates learning, Alcott presented a topic where students had to think outside the box. There were no exams that included memorization of facts. Socrates wanted his students to thrive by creating ideas and imaginations rote memorization failed to offer. This taught students that only one answer was not absolute, or fixed. Alternative answers were applicable. Going one step farther, this acceptance of new ideas and thought enabled students to branch out and become more tolerant of the abnormal. This can be equated with the liberated program style in music. Composers like Saint-Saens created new styles of musical expression by experimenting with ideas and thoughts.

I don’t believe the world was ready for Bronson Alcott. I believe Bronson Alcott might have been happier in our modern world residing over an independent charter school or virtual high school. Many people did not attend his lectures when he travelled. I would have probably attended every lecture of Alcott. This man’s writings prove himself to be a man beyond his years. I would have asked to become of his students. The greatest female student Alcott taught turned to write great novels. I believe Miss Alcott had a fear of her Father the way children are supposed to have. Fathers do not relish on mushiness from their daughters. This could be why Miss Alcott did not close her letters the same she did with female correspondences. I believe Miss Alcott understood her Father better than anyone else did. In her book, Miss Alcott of Concord, Marjorie Worthington once pointed that Louisa May had a keen perception about her parents troubles better than her three sisters. Perhaps Louisa May felt the need to protect her parents’ financially and this was her duty in life. Much like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Louisa May felt discomfort that she was not born a son. These patterns set through the years.

In closing, I encourage the avenue of literature in this world. I encourage the reading of the great British and American writers. Each day that passes is one that needs sharpening. I read biographies, stories, and listen to music. I love the arts. Without the arts, I do not know where I would be at this point. I would probably be a nomadic wandering wearing neon clothes. This is not a pretty sight. Neither is going a day without reading. I love to read. Reading loves me in return. Reading is my window to the world. Not a day passes where the blinds are closed to me. I love to explore new worlds and opportunities. This is where I am not turned down for employment for having a physical disability. This is where I can sit and read about birds and animals becoming personified by writers. I am able to dance at balls with nice gentleman callers. I am able to go on trips abroad and not worry about flight attendants freaking out about my physical disability. I am able to wake up and wear clothes I normally would not try. I am able to breathe literature and be held captive. The expressions written on pages are not words I wish to run from. See you in literature!

Amanda-Leigh and Smart Shopping

2013-03-07T03:55:00.001-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, I played around with my new phone. I can remember a time when cell phones first became popular on the college campus. The year, I would estimate, was around 2005. I can remember feeling alienated when I was around students with cell phones. This made me not wish to purchase a cell phone or be on a plan. I was attending college to make friends and get a good education. If college students were connected to a world outside the friendly college atmosphere, how could both goals be met? This is probably the reason I feel more of a connection with online college. I don’t feel as alienated as I do in the regular college environment. Plus, with the advancement of modern technology, I am able to take full advantage of the situation.

I decided the time had come for an upgrade. When I paid my phone bill online, I noticed a purple phone I would love to have. I did not decide to get a new color of phone. I decided to upgrade to a touch-screen phone. One preparation that led me to this decision was the process of observation. I had observed other people having problems typing on the touch-screen. My process of thinking going across a new avenue began with a question: how could I improve the conflict of typing on such a small screen? What tool could help me type better?

I had seen Styllus pens used with purchases. A Stylus pen is usually used with purchases at stores and restaurants. The Stylllus pen made sense. I got it. Since I have problems with spasms and uncontrollable hand movements at times, the purple Styllus pen and I had a blast yesterday! I learned how to put my contacts into groups of Family and Friends. I began texting again. Before too long, this new phone, Styllus pen, and I had formed a great relationship. i do highly recommend any man and woman with a physical disability to follow my path of using a touch-screen phone and a Styllus pen to type with. The best place to purchase a Styllus pen is on Amazon. Amazon has a few sets of Styllus pens for a couple dollars.

I searched a freelance website yesterday that seemed to have potential until my husband set me straight. The word “bid” meant I had to made a financial bid on how much I would pay to be a ghost writer or research projects for writers. One creative freelance writer scanned his or her handwritten manuscript in to be typed by someone else. This did interest me but not the bidding part. When I perform a service to the field of writing, I want to be the one who gets paid. I would be taking the time to download the files, print the pages off on my printer, and typing the manuscripts on my time. I would be happy to type manuscripts for other people or write as a ghostwriter. But to bid on typing? This makes no sense to me. I am glad my husband pointed this out to me. I would want somebody else to appreciate the effort I put into him or her write a story or piece of work.

Amanda-Leigh's Recommendations for Styllus pens:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B005AOKW8Q/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&colid=1EETHPKJU7DPJ&coliid=I30MV8I2MULVRZ&condition=new

This link comes from my Wish List on Amazon. The prices fall each day on my items. I am sharing this item because this is a smart purchase that can benefit other people. I recommend buying Styllus pens to give away as gifts. Keep one pen and pass the others around! Slip a pen inside a gift. Friends and family will be grateful!

Amanda-Leigh and Respect

2013-03-05T04:01:00.003-08:00

Yesterday evening, I came across the story of an eighty year old grandmother who was a blood clot survivor. This woman had surgery to permanently stop blood clots from forming. What I am left with is the trace of a smile on the woman’s face. As someone who has experienced the trauma of facing blood clots, smiling is a sign of strength and courage. This woman deserves to smile and feel at peace. I do not know if I could have such strength dealing with a third round of blood clots. I would like to be optimistic at least. This beautiful woman sure is!

I have begun to realize that blood clots will be an active part of my existence. I have tried so hard to deny this existence. When I traveled to the transit center in September 2012, I saw my dream of college shattered once again. That devastated me. After recovering from blood clots, college became my passion. This path led me to making wiser decisions, becoming more stable and not having to depend on the natural flight-flight response to cope, and everything seemed to make sense. The woman in me felt threatened once again.

I had to take time off (yet again) to recover. This time Celexa was messed up in my body. I did not feel well mentally. I withdrew from my college. I could not handle everything at once. This was too much for me. Taking time off became a good decision. I was able to focus on losing weight and learned how to eat better. I did not like myself. The Emergency Room visit in September can be seen as a wake-up call.

At the time, I weighed one-hundred eighty nine pounds. I was living on Dr. Pepper, foods high in sugar and fat, and all of that good, inexpensive stuff seen in aisles. Something had to give. Since the incident last February at dinner, I was on a downward spiral. I ate more to hide the pain. I felt ugly inside. My body was the first – and only – thing men saw in me. This really was not what I wanted.

I wanted people to see me the way I see the eighty-year-old woman. I wanted people to see my smile first and then my mind. I did not want people to see my curves first off. I find this degrading to a woman. A woman deserves to be respected. A woman does not deserve to be stared at like a sex object. I am not a sex object. I am a woman who wants to be seen for my mind. I want people to look at me for my mind and not my physical disability. I want to be hired at a good place that will lead to promotions. I do not wish to be treated as an unequal in modern society.

I feel confident about my decision to go back to college and work on my BA in Liberal Arts with a concentration in English. I desire to get more education than I currently have. This right is granted to me in modernism. I will admit, I have wallowed in self-pity because every door to job opportunities have been bolted shut because I have no Bachelor’s degree to show for my hours and hours of hard work in college. If I had an Associates in Applied Science, I would probably be taken more serious. Since I only have an Associates in Arts, I have been turned down. I do not regret the hours I spent reading, discussing, preparing for quizzes and exams, the courses I took, and the literary friends I have made. I am truly sorry employers are unable to see the efforts and accomplishments people like me have contributed to our societies. We have worked extremely hard to overcome. We did not work this hard to be discriminated against. We are seen as liability issues rather than real people.

Amanda-Leigh and Arthur Miller

A man sits on a deserted stage. The lights are dimmed. I can tell this playwright has “been through the ringer” so to speak. The more I read this man’s biography, the more disappointed I become. In Arthur Miller’s college years at the University of Michigan, his plays advocated for a change from the exterior of a person’s environment. This contrasted greatly with the plays of the great Tennessee Williams. One playwright concentrated on exterior conflicts while the other used internal conflicts. Still, as a critic, I do not feel either man succeeded in meeting these two goals.

Had these goals been met, Arthur Miller would have written that his father became a success in his plays. This would have included Miller writing a play including his son Daniel, who lived with Downs syndrome. This would have led Miller to advocate for better treatment of patients living in institutions. Where else would this path have led Miller to? This is something we will never know. Why did Miller not mention Daniel in conversations with friends and publicly? Why did Miller write plays that featured the man down on his luck instead of providing a reasonable solution to the conflicts?

If Miller had failed as a playwright, I could easily see him written into Paule Marshall’s story “Brooklyn.” The antagonist, Professor Max Berman, fits quite well with Miller’s roots and decisions. I compare their lives because I read this biography with this thought: What if this college student from the University of Michigan did not ever gain literary success? I can easily place Miller in Berman’s bitter role. Their pasts fit like one perfect jigsaw puzzle.

I am left with the conclusion that the Transcendentalism movement in literature might be better to read. I am not afraid to close Arthur Miller’s biography and move on. I must move on with my life. I do not wish to read about a man who institutionalized his disabled son right after birth. As a woman with a physical disability, this is not acceptable to me. I do not have respect for any parent who dumps a poor lonely child at the gates of an institution. I do not wish to separate the man from the playwright in this case. From now on, I will be sticking to my beloved seventeenth to nineteenth writers. They have never disappointed me in any way.

Amanda-Leigh and the Meaning of March

2013-03-04T05:22:00.002-08:00

March is Blood Clot Awareness Month. What does this mean? This means we have the chance to spread the word that blood clots are alive and active in modernism. Most people are the way I once was and believed blood clots could never happen to me. We are above this. Those of us who have survived feel this way. We have our lives back in check. We are not there yet.

Blood clots made me realize that reality existed. The child in me grew up the afternoon I entered the emergency room. I had to make the decision to either accept this life-changing experience or give up. The decision to accept realism did not happen overnight. The decision did not happen until I took American Literature since 1865. The term realism made more since to me. I have learned the meaning well in literature and my own life. I cannot exist in this world without the concept of realism.

Realism created a world for me that may seem cold, harsh, and potentially dangerous. No longer do Mother Goose stories make sense. The Tooth Fairy does not provide me with a sense of security. Nursery rhymes were not with me in the hospital. Where was the loving tenderness of childhood? Where were the loving voices of the greetings of friends I had seen at college on a daily basis? Where was that tender touch of books I had loved so much? Where were the peaceful worlds of Romanticism and naturalism? I added the latter two movements in literature to provide more of a realistic view from a woman who sat caged in a hospital for a few weeks. Everything I have listed became removed from my world during a dark period. This provides more of a depressing atmosphere. This was real to me. This alienated me from the rest of the world at the time. This created the step I needed to gracefully enter womanhood. No regret, should've, would've thinking lasted like stale fumes of a candle in the morning light. I woke up with the reality that I needed to change my life for the better. I created the goal of finishing college. I now have new goals. I have no limits on what I can and cannot do. I prefer to be direct and to the point in everything I do. Nothing should be missing from my daily planner. Nothing should be questionable in my life either. In a nutshell, I must practice what I preach.

Blood clots opened the door to a rude awakening for me. At first, coping was not easy. I had an extreme dislike for Margaret Sanger Seely. Who can blame me? This one hundred percent liberated woman created a pill to genocide the African American population in her society. Sanger was arrested numerous times, fled to a different country, and returned to America with a vengeance. Sanger found a vulnerable widow whose wealthy husband left a large inheritance. This money funded the little pills that women take each morning.

Had blood clots not affected my life, I probably would have never known the real history of birth control. The real history is not glamorous or attractive the way we see on commercials. Is an ambulance with paramedics attractive to you? This certainly is not attractive to me. I credit this research with the power of knowledge. I refuse to rely on the self for answers as it can be bias. I wish to turn to higher authority for answers. What I know is not good enough. This is the reason I suggest a woman document every little detail about events onto paper. What if a woman wishes to write a story and needs to remember a peculiar detail about an event and who attended? By her memory alone, she cannot be graced with such record. A woman needs to keep a thorough daily planner or journal to re-create events. This will allow her family to be provided with a wealth of knowledge on her life. She should document how struggles in this world made her feel along with plans of action she took to be the heroin of her own world.

I credit March with the month my life changed as a three month old baby. Perhaps this should not be remembered but I remember. I remember this the way a soldier remembers his first battle. There are no medallions in my situation. The doctors who saved my life did not receive stars on Hollywood Boulevard. I am alive today because of great doctors and nurses. At thirty-three years old, my dreams are coming true. March is the month winter ends and Spring begins. March is our Memorial Day. We deserve to have this special month.

Amanda-Leigh and Arthur Miller

2013-02-27T03:07:00.003-08:00

One big blanket of snow painted the ground yesterday morning. This morning, nothing except dew will be left. As an older woman, I don’t find myself wanting to lay down in the snow and making angels anymore. I find myself inside my home enjoying the romance of the natural world outside. I am able to know better than to roll outside in the snow and ice. I do not have a purpose being outside in the bad weather the way of a child.

I have two new library books to read. This morning my focus is on the first. This library book is Arthur Miller: His Life and Work by Martin Gottfried. Arthur Miller’s cover has an older gentleman sitting on the steps of a stage. There are no lights or actors present. Only Miller sits in his spiffy dress shoes, a business suit, a white shirt, and a tie. His eyes are looking straight at the camera. With the passing of time, Miller’s hair has thinned out. He must wear thick glasses.

Looking at this picture, a readers hopes the stage experience to be productive. From personal experience reading Death of A Salesman in a literature course several years ago, I understood the man and woman. As a truck driver, Willy Loman spent years on the road traveling to provide finances for his wife and their two sons. This traveling salesman was not able to be the active husband or father his family needed. The American dream was impounded into Willy Loman’s veins. He wanted to have a nice house for his family. This unselfish act led me to write a poem at the time. I have lost the poem, but I remember gutting every feeling until I came to the core. This was the heart of the play.

I understood that a man needed to leave his family to gain independence and respect in order to provide well. This did leave the wife and sons with feelings of abandonment. Their traveling salesman missed out on watching his two sons grow and mature. This play was written and produced before cell phones, text messages, and picture messages were thought about. Mr. Loman did not have a way to watch his son’s first baseball games or sit beside them at night to go over homework. The wife, Linda, missed having her husband at home. She raised two boys independently. If Mrs. Loman wanted to work, who would have watched her sons? At this time, Mrs. Loman did not have the power in her household to express her concerns, need to have a life independent of the home, or the strong voice women have today.

Why did Linda Loman stay in a marriage that did not show respect for the woman? What modern woman would want to be in such bondage and chains? Being married should not be this complicated for a woman. A woman should be able to freely express herself and her desires of entering the natural world independently. The woman does not leave the household the way Nora did in A Doll’s House.

The two female literary characters are opposite in character. Nora is a younger version of Linda Loman. Nora’s husband is not a traveling salesman. In fact, her husband is wealthy financially. I found Torvad to be verbally abusive the way he spoke to Nora. He was condescending and belittled her every chance he could. Nora’s character is not as tolerant of the man. As a young woman with small children, Nora makes the decision to leave at the end.

Each time I think of Nora leaving the home and stating her independence, I think of my first marriage. Eleven years have passed since I left on October 28, 2002. Not a day passes where I regret that wise move. Being married to a man who only wanted the flesh was not a good feeling to have. I deserved to be respected. I deserved to be loved for the woman I was. This led me to leave. My heart was broken in my marriage. As time passed, I began to think about Nora and what she put up with. That led me to realize I could do better. I did not need to be like Mrs. Loman who sat back and watched her husband leave a little more each time he traveled the roads.

When I reflect on Death of A Salesman, I try to imagine a scene where Willy Loman realizes he should not pull out of his driveway. Rather, he realizes his family comes first. Something stops Mr. Loman from leaving. He realizes the years he missed raising his two sons who are now grown. He realizes his wife’s hair has turned gray and she never lets it down anymore. He realizes life is too short to be traveling. He has no time for this dead-end life anymore. He gets out of the vehicle and goes inside his home to tell his wife everything he has discovered.

A man sits on the steps of a stage. No actors are present. No audience is there. A playwright sits on the steps. This playwright is looking at the camera. A half smile is present on his face. This is what readers walk away with. We walk away with the powerful words and images from a man who was able to experience the entire richness of the American dream. This man basked in its divine glory. There were no words left unsaid for the playwright. The reader is ready to open the cover and begin reading who this playwright really was. Was he written into any of his plays? If so, which literary character best describes his real life? How will readers be able to distinguish this from fiction to fact? Does this playwright have room beside him for a ballerina with her dancing slippers? If a mood shoots me on target with an arrow, I can be a willing literary character who would love to be on the stage with such greatness and literary excitement. I hope this biography will feed my hungry taste buds and not leave me starving .

Amanda-Leigh and the Great Act of Humanity

2013-02-26T05:25:00.001-08:00

My faith in humankind was restored last night. I was able to sleep better. Earlier in the afternoon, my sleep medicine fell out of my husband’s coat pocket. Since the weather had turned from nice to nasty, my husband wanted me to stay inside our home while he went to the closest pharmacy to get my refill of Sonata. This unfortunate experience caused our tempers to flare up at each other and utter chaos.

My husband searched his coat pockets. I then searched his coat pockets. After awhile, I could picture myself on every news station and inside every media outlet in our state. The headline would read Woman with a Physical Disability Arrested on Distribution Charges. This created anxiety for me since my name and address were on the outside label. Thankfully the pharmacy was out of an entire month’s supply of Sonata and only five pills were inside. This turned out to be a miracle in my defense. This meant if the medication had been picked up by the wrong hands, I would still be able to have a refill on Friday.

My husband reported the missing medication to the pharmacy. An employee promised to call him if the medication was returned. After a couple hours, my husband received the phone call. Somebody had found my medicine on the ground in the grocery section. This seemed unbelievable in this day and age. The honesty of the person was admirable. I felt extremely grateful God put my medication in the right hands. The opposite has been featured in our news media too much. A miracle this great does not happen too often. Too often, a prescription falls into the wrong hands. This is what the media covers.

What the media fails to cover are people like me who have prescriptions returned. The negative effect of not having the prescription to me would have meant endless nights of not having enough sleep. I would have had to sleep in the daytime. I would not have been able to meet my daily goal of exercising to keep blood clots away. I would have been moody with my husband. I would have faced being a victim of a criminal act. I would have had to live with the fact that the medication could have possibly hurt somebody else’s life by unintentionally feeding their prescription addiction.

What I am grateful for the most in this happy ending is the fact that the Good Samaritan exhibited a good moral characteristic. Being an honest person is something to be admired. I admire this nameless person for restoring a sense of humanity. As I mentioned before, I was able to sleep better. I was also to pray thanksgiving to God. As much as I try to imagine who the person was, I am still unable to. What I do know is this: we need more wonderful people in our modern world! God bless this person! May your kindness, honesty, mirth, and love of mankind continue on until the day you can no longer breath. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Amanda-Leigh's Web Link for Tuesday:

Sermons from the First United Methodist Church of Stillwater, Oklahoma

http://fumcstw.org/sermons

(Personal Note)

As I have listened to these sermons, I have learned more than words will ever be able to describe. The sermon from this past Sunday spoken by Bishop Robert Hayes, Jr. included Mark Twain, Helen Keller, and Dr. Pepper. Literature, a great female advocate for people with physical disabilities, and my old favorite drink were wrapped up into one great sermon! This sermon should be posted on the site soon. Please enjoy these sermons. I sure do!

Amanda-Leigh and the Simple Truth About Employment

2013-02-25T04:33:00.001-08:00

In our nation’s history, strong literary female figures such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, and several others paved the way for the success of our modern women. I did not feel Marjorie Worthington's biography provided a thorough look into the life of Louisa May Alcott. The central theme seemed to be debt. This young independent woman relied on her family to resuscitate her family from financial debt. L.M. provided the financial support her younger sister, May, needed to attend college abroad in Europe. At times, L.M. took care of an ailing mother and an older sister named named Anna who was legally deaf by modern standards. The importance of work ethics L.M. exhibited was one thing I was able to appreciate about the biography.

Last night, my husband received his two year gold chip in Celebrated Recovery. My husband has been out of the hospital for two years. I refuse to reflect on two years ago with my husband’s mental state of mind. I will, however, comment that my husband has advanced greatly over the past few months. My husband is seeing the psychiatrist he had during our college years. This has been beneficial to my husband’s mental health. The doctor has an established history of knowing how my husband reacts to medications. This relationship has also benefitted in our marriage. We have more stability than a year ago.

A year ago, my husband had to take the Greyhound bus to our state capitol just to receive treatment for his mental illness. This was not fair to my husband or our marriage. There is a small mental health clinic in our town but the counselors only have limited education. These people do not have Master’s or Doctorate degrees. The psychiatrist visits every once in awhile. My husband and I made the decision to deny services from the clinic. I am glad we were able to walk away instead of getting ourselves into a bad situation.

This morning I read in the Huffington Post where the Republican governor of South Dakota is trying to implement a program that will promote jobs for people with disabilities. This is not a reasonable move. In our world and especially with the condition of our economy, several groups of Americans are unable to find employment. Why should this Governor zone in on one group? Since this Governor is not a person with a disability, he has no idea what challenges we face with seeking employment. Granted, this Governor does bring an awareness that his parents were physically disabled. This awareness does not mean the Governor’s parents are actively employed in our modern time. This Governor does not spend hours with those of us who have cried over being turned down for jobs we are better qualified than the majority of candidates. We would not engage ourselves in white collar crimes the way some employers must deal with. We would not engage ourselves in social media scandals by posting pictures of us wearing raunchy clothes and behaving dumb. We are the ones who get overlooked too much by our world.

I will give this Governor credit where credit is due. I appreciate the Governor’s desire to promote jobs for people with disabilities. We do not appreciate being turned down because of our disabilities. We do not appreciate taking the time to get dressed up for a job interview only to be turned down for a candidate who did not take the time to care. We may seem bitter and full of self-pity. This is hardly the case. We know when we are not wanted and we refuse to let ourselves get hurt. We are missed opportunities, and this is exactly how we should feel about ourselves. We can do much better than sit around waiting on phone calls that never happen. We deserve to be appreciated, and this is one thing lacking from potential employers. We are not fully appreciated for taking the time to apply for a job and getting groomed nicely for our interviews. We are able to pull our weight and uphold our end of the bargain. Will this Governor’s proposed plan provide the other half from the employer? If not, the proposal is moot and will fail miserably in his society.

Amanda-Leigh's Web Link for Monday:

Governor Pushed to Implement Job Programs for People with Disabilities

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/24/jobs-for-people-with-disabilities_n_2754163.html?1361732704&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Amanda-Leigh and the Lovely Alcotts

2013-02-23T04:16:00.000-08:00

A few days have passed since I have composed morning writings on here. For this, I sincerely apologize. The week began with a visit to my doctor for a lump inside my stomach originating from my battle with blood clots. How can a woman fully open up about those feelings with the world right away? As much as a woman tries to escape a battle with blood clots, the harsh reality will always exist. No matter how much I have tried to become independent of my health problems, they will continue to exist. I am not completely independent of blood clots and probably never will be.

At my doctor’s appointment, I learned I had scar tissue from the Lovenox shots injected in my lower abdomen twice a day during my three hospital stays from July 23, 2010, September 13, 2010, and January 23, 2011. In most cases, the blood vessels break up within a few months instead of being in one big clump. My case can be considered rare. My doctor had not seen this before, and she told me to report any pain or swelling if it happens. I agreed to do this.

After Tuesday’s beautiful weather, all havoc broke loose from above. That’s right, for the next two days, our yards were covered in solid sheets of snow. Even today, my faithful Weatherbug is warning me about a winter advisory. The weather may be frightful but the weather inside is delightful. Since yesterday morning, I have felt extremely cheerful and happier.

I had been “patiently” waiting on the acceptance letter from the college I chose to apply to in my state. The timing this letter arrived could not have been more perfect! Yesterday I needed divine love, and this arrived in the form of an acceptance letter. I will be able to enroll for the summer semester on April fourth. An e-mail address was provided in the letter to get in contact for an Academic Advisor for online courses. This news flew pretty fast thanks to a social networking site. Pretty soon I had likes on the status and picture of the acceptance letter. This made not being able to get outside easier for me to handle.

I also received my pink ballet shoes in the mail yesterday. My burgundy leotard should arrive today. When I think about dancing, I don’t do so with any physical limitations. I may have a history with blood clots, but this does not define the woman God made me. Thinking about how independent and flexible dancers are provides a sense of hope for my own life. The way dancers can do splits in the air and tumbles never ceases to amaze me. There is a unique style dancers carry out that makes a person wonder how this language was created. This is a language of character as well. Character was once instilled in these dancers early on in their lives. Character was shaped on the love of an art. In this case, the art happens to be dancing. If this character and love had not been nourished by faithful attendance, the art would be non-existent in modernism. Women like me are able to enjoy and appreciate dedication and hard work involved with dancing.

This is the way I view my own love, which is literature. With snow falling outside, inside I finished reading Miss Alcott of Concord by Marjorie Worthington. Worthington provides a wealth of knowledge over Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism movement in literature, the anti-slavery movement in American history, and the life of Louisa May Alcott. Still, I am not too fond of Worthington as a writer. In the reader’s role, I felt uncomfortable throughout the entire story. It took every ounce of patience I had to finish the book. If I was not a big fan of Louisa May Alcott, no energy would have been spent continuing on the journey.

The first disagreement I find with Worthington's book are the extremely offensive terms invalidism and cripple. These terms are used in Worthington’s book. To clarify, these terms are degrading to people with physical and mental disabilities. When used, there is a stigma that places every person into one simple category. We are not invalids. We are not bedridden for the most part, and those who are should not be looked down on. We are not crippled either. We have hopes, dreams, and goals just like everybody else who walks this Earth. We are able to live independent lives. if anybody feels burdened by our presence, then we do not need each other. This is how I feel about Worthington’s misguided use of these degrading terms. I do not feel the need to explain further as the subject upsets me. We have advanced from being locked in closets and hidden from society.

Another thing I disagree with is Worthington’s continued degradation of Bronson Alcott. When I read this biography, I get the uncomfortable feeling Worthington does not value the unsuccessful man who struggles each day to survive. More emphasis is given to the relationship between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott. When Louisa May Alcott became ill with typhoid pneumonia at Union Hospital in Washington D.C., Bronson Alcott traveled the distance to take her home. As a career, Mr. Alcott travels the countryside lecturing and advocating for education. Mr. Alcott does forget the needs of his girls at home. The way Worthington portrays Mr. Alcott is anti-man. The message being sent is that we should look down on this man because he did not provide well financially. Mr. Emerson’s financial wealth provided the majority of the Alcott’s needs. Was Mr. Alcott the only man in America who had to rely on traveling for employment? I do not feel Worthington shows mercy on Mr. Alcott's character nor does she depict his role of a man with the justice he deserved. Could Mr. Alcott's nomadic ways and giving up his money to everybody else have been signs he lived with a mental illness as a theory for the famous Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy?

I also get the impression Worthington thinks Louisa May Alcott would have been better off being born an Emerson than an Alcott because of this reason alone. In this biography, not much history is provided on Bronson Alcott’s parents or Abigail May Alcott’s parents. Mr. Alcott’s mother is sprung on readers the way a baby is in Charlotte Perkins Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper.” Does Mr. Alcott stay with his mother when he travels to lecture? We are disappointed readers as we are not well-informed about Mr. Alcott’s published books. Again, more emphasis is placed on the literary success of Mr. Emerson along with Nathaniel Hawthorne. This is disappointing since Mr. Alcott fathered Louisa May and nurtured her education. Mr. Alcott and Louisa May were born on November 29th and passed away two days apart in March 1888. This must prove the pair really did share a special bond.

I hope everybody stays warm today. I am enjoying the moods of wintertime. This takes me back to the first stories I read as a child. I remember with fondness. Winter can be a dreary time for most people, especially those who are also in my situation. What keeps me going is realizing that tomorrow’s weather may be nice and sunny. Spring and summer will be here soon. We won’t be able to enjoy the winter as we do now.