Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Possible Trigger Warning And Garden Pictures


I just haven't felt especially well today. No reason that I can see. Just no energy- you know. One of those days. I did stuff. Regular stuff. Nothing special and I don't feel as if I got a damn thing accomplished. I picked two nice fat carrots from the garden and diced them up to put in the chicken and dumplings I'm making tonight. I think I'm going to try and make what I call "flat" dumplings you have to roll out, rather than the "yankee" dumplings I usually make which you just drop into the simmering broth. Mr. Moon loves the flat kind- his mama made them. I usually just buy the little fuckers frozen but I haven't bought any recently and so, I guess I'll get out the rolling pin and flour up the counter.

Here's a few more pictures I took in the garden today. 


Butter crunch lettuce


Lovely spinach


Rainbow chard


Potatoes coming up

I watched a new episode of the Allen v. Farrow doc this afternoon. This one mostly had to do with the trial of yes, Allen v. Farrow, where Mr. Most Beloved New Yorker sued Mia Farrow for custody of three of her children. Two he had adopted and one he supposedly fathered. When it came out that Allen had possibly molested their little daughter, Dylan, he counter-attacked swiftly and cruelly and tried to turn the tables on Farrow by claiming that yes, he had absolutely fallen in love with her daughter, Soon-Yi, and that she was an adult and too bad, so sad, and now Farrow was taking out her anger on him by these accusations of abuse. She was, as I said before, what he claimed to be a "scorned woman."
No. She was a mother who found pornographic polaroids of her then teen-aged daughter taken by the man she had thought of as her lover, her partner, her companion, her coworker, her boss, the father-figure of her children. 
And here's where things get tricky for me- for years Farrow knew that Allen's behavior around Dylan was inappropriate, to say the least. This had been noted not just by her but by also caretakers, neighbors, teachers, friends, who verbalized these concerns. He was obsessed with the little girl. And this being Woody Allen, he agreed to go to a psychiatrist who would help him with this inappropriate behavior. This person deemed Allen's obsession with his daughter as being "not sexual," just not appropriate. He attempted to help Allen set boundaries for his behavior around the child and Allen agreed to all of this as well as to stop "getting mad" at Mia when she would point out that he was making her uncomfortable. 
This was not a great relationship and Mia, mother of fourteen, was not, in my opinion, protecting her daughter as she should have. I am not saying that Mia wasn't a good mother. What I am saying is that she let her desire to believe that Woody Allen was a good man, a decent man, a loving man whom she had given her trust and commitment to, who made it possible (in her eyes) for her to make a living to support her large family with many special needs children- overcome her gut knowledge and the warning of others that he could possibly do something so vile, so evil, as to seduce her shy, inexperienced teenaged daughter or to molest their seven-year old daughter. 
Woody was fifty-seven at the time. 
How many women have turned a blind eye to what was going on in their own homes due to very, very similar beliefs? Farrow's fame and her partner's fame may appear to put this all on a different level but in truth, it's not. Whether a family lives in two separate huge apartments across Central Park from each other and has a huge house on a lake in Connecticut, or lives in a trailer, there are so many of the same issues. 
And I can't help but see this through the lens of the patriarchy. Women and children have been considered chattel throughout history and that's the truth of the matter. Women, no matter how enlightened and seemingly independent, so often have a great need to stay in relationships for a myriad of reasons, many of them financial. This was true, even in Mia Farrow's situation. And there is also always the threat that a man can take the woman's children away from her.
Which is exactly what Allen tried to do. 
The same man who said in an interview once, "I have zero interest in children."
One can look back at that statement and see the irony there.

Of course, I have a lot more to say. You don't have to read these posts. I write them to figure things out in my own head and to give those who may need it validation for feelings they may have and the reassurance that none of it was their fault, that the person who abused them was to blame and that there was generally an adult around who should have, could have, stepped in to stop it. 

I guess I'll go try to make flat dumplings. 

Love...Ms. Moon



21 comments:

  1. I LOVE reading your comments...You have an ability to verbalize your thoughts way better than I do.You're pretty much my hero. And also, you made me laugh out loud with your comment about Having to go make those "little fuckers", the flat dumplings! xo

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    1. I should have bought the little fuckers. They would have been better.
      Thanks for your sweet words.

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  2. Remember that MIa was once the other, younger woman. At 23 she was an actress working with Andre Previn who was married to Dory. Then Mia got pregnant. Andre and DOry divorced and Mia and Andre married. Mia gave birth to twin sons who stayed in England with their father when Andre and Mia divorced nine years later.

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    1. AND- she married Frank Sinatra when she was 21. He was fifty.

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  3. I will say one thing: We do not know what goes on in a house. My husband abused my daughter. Pillar of the church. Well educated man. I was gobsmacked. Did not have a clue. Spent years feeling like a failure for missing what was happening. My own mother told other people that I knew about it and ignored it because "I liked having money."

    It's painful trigger to read the comment that Mia Farrow could have, should have stepped in to stop it. I don't know what happened her house. I can only look at what happened in my own.

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    1. Debby- I can't imagine what it must feel like to be in your position. I swear that I would rather have been abused than to have had a child who was abused. I am so sorry.
      In the case of Farrow, it had been pointed out to her, AND she was made to feel uncomfortable by Woody's obsession with Dylan. It was not normal. He was actually in treatment to try and change that "behavior." And as I have said before, there is no one way that a pedophile can look. When I was in a survivor's group I heard many, many stories of other pillars of the church being abusers. Nothing surprises me anymore in this regard.

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  4. What garden photos! That lettuce is positively voluptuous.

    I appreciate your writing on these difficult topics, as it helps me think through things too. And I agree with Debby: "We do not know what goes on in a house". (Debby - I am so sorry.)

    Hope those dumplings were delicious!

    Chris from Boise

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    1. Nope. We absolutely do not know what goes on in other houses. And way too frequently, even our own.
      The dumplings were...a disappointment.

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  5. Your greens look amazing! I love those photos.

    I am certainly not an expert on the dynamics of abusive families and spouses, but I suspect there's simply a lot of denial going on. (Which is kind of what you're saying.) It must be incredibly hard for someone to admit, even privately to themselves, that the person they love and married and have cultivated a relationship with for years has this hidden, monstrous side. That's got to be a huge barrier.

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    1. Yes. A lot of denial in many cases. Not all, I'm sure. The dynamics of my own family was such that although my mother may not have realized the sexual abuse that was going on, there was no way she was missing the emotional abuse which was directed to every one of us including her. It was a totally horrible and fucked up situation.

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  6. Your Garden is lovely and so organized, I'm trying to grow some in Pots right now, so far, they're doing Okay. As for the Trigger, it did Trigger... and you are absolutely correct, Women and Children still do not have the level of protections they deserve within the Patriarchy. Men with monstrous sides can clean up so well in Public that rarely do they portray the insidious side, which makes Victims less Believable. Working at the DA's Office so many Years, every Sex Crimes Case I ever processed always had plenty of letters of recommendation for every perp that had been convicted... so, even for a Jury to try to sort out if they are a Good Guy/Versus a Predator, is not a slam dunk. Well, just look at that Monster of a President we just endured, 71 Million Plus think he's this person worthy of Adulation... just goes to show ya, even the most vile Humans can have massive Support by other Humans.

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    1. You're right about how men can present themselves as absolutely innocent. And they are SO good at ensuring that children do not tell anyone what's going on. They use shame and love and gifting and every other possible avenue known to humankind. Woody told little Dylan that she could be in his movies with her mother if she let him do this.
      And you couldn't be more right about Trump.

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  7. I imagine watching another segment of Mia and Woody didn't help your mood or attitude.

    I need to start food gardening again. seeing your lettuce and spinach and carrots. I have never made chicken and dumplings but I do like it and I like the rolled dumplings better too. the drop ones are more like matzo balls which are good too. haven't made that in a long time.

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    1. I woke up in the mood. Watching that episode didn't make it any worse.
      If you do decide to make chicken and dumplings, may I suggest you buy the frozen ones? I swear- they're delicious.

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  8. I love to see your garden coming up. Here that's still in the future. I like both kinds of dumplings, the pot sticker kind and the drop it in kind.

    Thanks for your thoughts about family issues and how difficult they are to face and handle. You're doing good work.

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    1. Well, every family is different. But as I know from attending a survivor's group for several years, there are themes which repeat over and over and over.
      Those greens in my garden are bout done! We can only grow them in the coolness of winter. They'll all be going to seed shortly.
      And oh, how I will miss them.

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  9. A few years ago the colleague I shared an office with had a nervous breakdown "in front of my eyes". I would guess she was late 40s at the time. Well it eventually came out that her uncle had sexually abused her from the age of 4. Her parents were devastated and confronted the uncle who was one of two never-married sons who still lived with grandma. Grandma stood up for her son and said V (my colleague) "had always been a little slut" - SHE WAS JUST FOUR YEARS OLD????? Then other female cousins came forward and said he'd done the same to them, but grandma stuck by her defective fucker of a son until her death. Thankfully V's parents backed her all the way, but it's so sad that that little girl had to go through that. And just look - it took over 40 years for that little girl to speak up! Bastards the lot of them. They should at the very least be chemically castrated!

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    1. That story sickens me. A little slut. At the age of four. That old woman should have been jailed. I swear.
      Many, many women wait until they are quite along in life before speaking up about what happened to them. This is absolutely not uncommon. The abuse, however, will show up in many other ways. It's one of humanities greatest evils.

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  10. Your garden looks delicious! I can see why you frequently include salads in your menus!
    I hope you feel better and can lift your spirits. It is good for you to write about your feelings - helping yourself and others. Take care!

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    1. Salads around here are almost a nightly thing these days! How can we not eat these beautiful greens while they're available?
      I feel much better today. Thank you, Ellen.

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  11. I love watching how early spring comes to Florida. And Texas. And their gardens.
    I would have a tough time watching Woody Allen material.

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