How?

I ended up feeling like shit yesterday and so I took the opportunity to rest and elevate and ice my foot. I turned on daytime TV, which is something I never, ever do.
And you know what?

Daytime TV sucks donkey dicks.

I laid on the couch with the dogs all curled around me and watched a rerun of Curb Your Enthusiasm which of course was great and then...I can't remember. I honestly cannot remember. Emmy red carpet was in there somewhere.

I dozed and felt guilty for lying down in the middle of the day and woke up occasionally to hear what people completely unknown to me were saying about what other people completely unknown to me wore to the Emmy Awards.
At four, Oprah came on. I'd seen a teaser for the show with Mackenzie Phillips which was coming on at some point this week and so I thought maybe I'd watch that but no, it was an episode featuring a woman who got a face transplant because her husband shot her face off with a shotgun and a ten-year old girl who suffers from a very rare condition known as Mermaid disease or something like that.

I was just appalled. First of all, Oprah looked miserable and barely moved during the entire interview. And all I could think of was the tragedy in people's lives and how bloggers are accused of oversharing and yet, people will go on Oprah and discuss their children's colostomy bags with film.

I'm sure there was a message behind this specific show and I'm sure it had something to do with resiliency, hope, and strength but all I could think about was how the woman whose husband shot her face off hasn't divorced him yet and obviously is a little conflicted about doing that and also, oh, I don't even want to tell you what all I was thinking because it was not charitable.
And it seemed like Oprah was phoning this interview in. She repeated the same things about fifteen times ("And the doctors only expected her to live for 72 hours?") and I don't think she could have cared less.

Well. We all get burned out.

And then last night it had been leaked online that Mackenzie Phillips' secret is that she and her father had a "consensual" sexual relationship for many years, beginning when he raped her when she was in black-out mode from drugs he'd given her.

Well, that explains a lot about that little girl on One Day At A Time. I never did like that show. I'm not sure why. Valerie was too cute, the mom was too...something. That super was too stupid and Mackenzie was obviously in too much pain.
I think that was it. The girl playing a normal teenager with normal problems had a look in her eyes that was too frightening to bear. America watched as she got crazier and thinner. Her smile became eerier and eerier as her teeth seemed to become the biggest thing in her skeletal head. And then she got fired for drug use.
And as America criticized her for that drug use, no one had any idea of what that child was going through.

It's a fucking miracle she's still alive. And according to what I've read, she says, "Please don't hate my father."

Sorry. I hate him.

And I can't shake the horror I feel at what happened to her. She may say that her relationship with her father was consensual but it wasn't. She was fucked up on drugs he gave her, he was her father. Fathers are supposed to protect their children, not shoot them up with heroin and then rape them and try to convince them that what they're doing is out of love.

Yeah. This just comes too close to home. No, my stepfather never gave me drugs but he sort of gave me a Porsche. No, he never raped me but he did things no father or adult, for that matter, should do to a child. And that was bad enough and I know that to this day all of that affects me more than I even know.

How is Mackenzie Phillips alive? She's gone through addictions, divorces, arrests.
But she's still alive.
And she says, "Don't hate my father."

That woman whose husband shot off her face rushed to make sure that Oprah knew that although her husband had emotionally and verbally abused her for years and years, he had never physically abused her until he picked up that shotgun. Oh well, sure, he threw a microwave and a knife at her, but hey! you know.
And when he gets out of jail, he's going to need someone to talk to. Right? And he has no other friends. Besides her. The woman whose face he blew off her head.

Will I watch today's episode of Oprah?

No. I'm going to be at the midwife's office with Lily.

Look. My life could have turned out like either of those women. And it didn't. I ended up with a family that brings me more joy than anything I can imagine. I ended up with a man who is not only not abusive but who is, by any standard, one of the truly best and most loving. Who is a loving and nurturing father. Who has never hurt his children. Who is going to be the best grandfather in the world.
How did that happen?
It was a blessed miracle.

And here we are, waiting on this next miracle and today I go to the midwife with Lily and we shall see what's going on and one way or another, that baby is going to be here soon. A baby who has two parents who are loving and who are going to love that child his entire life. The right way.

I mourn to grief about the children who grow up thinking that love is hurt and pain and rape.

I give thanks with every breath I have that somehow, some of us make it through, not unscarred but able, with great help, with massive amounts of love, to let the buck stop there.

I tremble at that thought. Of how badly my children's lives could have turned out if I had just slipped a little further than I did- slipped too far to come back and realize how I could change the tide of my life and thus, my children's.

Owen is about to be born into all the love in the world. And Lily and Jason will make mistakes as parents because we all do. God knows I did. And do. But they will be normal mistakes. They won't be soul-and-spirit crushing mistakes.

There will not be secrets that are kept for thirty years and then spilled on Oprah to world-wide shock, horror and disbelief.

Thank-you, thank-you to whatever power there is for that.
As my heart breaks for all the children whose lives have not been somehow redeemed, I give great, humble thanks that mine somehow was and that my grandchildren will not know this aching pain and will know what love is and what love is not.

Such a simple thing. And yet- the most amazing thing.

There's no more to say. I am waiting. We are all waiting. For the simplest and most profound miracle of all. With clear hearts full of love that will never harm or cause pain.

This is what my life has meant. If nothing else, this is it.

And I cry at the thought of how it could have gone and I am brought to my knees with that realization. I look into Mackenzie Phillips' eyes and I see what my own could have looked like.
See how my body could have become a vessel for unbearable pain instead of a vessel for the lives of my children who love and who are loved.

How did it happen?
Blessed miracle. That's all there is to it.

Give It A Rest

So my daughter Lily was over the other night and we had dinner ready and were waiting on the men to come in from hunting to eat and I settled on the couch with some embroidery and was flipping through the forty thousand channels to see if there was anything on and yep, there was Larry King (how old IS that man?) with a hot show.

He had Oprah's personal trainer, personal doctor and personal spiritual expert in the house.
Yes. That's what it said. Her spiritual expert.

That's a picture of the guy, whose name is Michael Beckwith although he looked even creepier on Larry King. In fact, Lily kept saying, "He looks like someone on Star Trek. He's scaring me, Mommy."

But the point is, these three men, led by Larry, were discussing the world-shaking news that Oprah has gained weight again!

No. Tell us it isn't so.

But yes, yes she has. She's ballooned up to 200 pounds again and she's ashamed and her entire life has no meaning because she's fat!

Look. I'm not making this up. Although Oprah herself was not there on the show, there were many interviews with her and magazine covers and so on and so forth where she discussed, once again, her struggles with weight.

Now listen- I am not making fun of Oprah's or anyone else's struggles with weight. Been there, done that, worked with hundreds of others struggling with their weight. I have compassion.

And I understand that Oprah's weight is a topic which fascinates and captivates the entire world. And I understand that it sells advertising time on television and magazines and is probably responsible for about one-quarter of the total income of the vast Oprah Empire and has made more than a few chefs, personal trainers and Spiritual Experts rich and famous but this is getting out of hand.

What tore it for me was when these four men were discussing Oprah's appearance with Tina Turner and Cher in Las Vegas and how completely humiliated and embarrassed and ashamed she was because she was FAT and they were not.

In fact, one of the men, okay, Beckwith, had this to say about how humiliated she was: "She was twice the size of the other individuals."

WHOA.

If my Spiritual Expert said THAT about me on Larry King Live and I was Oprah, he would be one kicked-to-the-curb spiritual expert motherfucker.

Because here's the deal: Oprah may weigh two-hundred pounds but I guarantee you that neither Cher nor Tina weighs one hundred pounds. Tina Turner has always been a full-bodied, strong woman and the perennially anorexic Cher has recently done some ballooning herself.

So what's my point here?

My point is that this is insane.

Yes, it makes us all feel better to know that even Oprah, with the vast resources she has, seems to be as incapable as the rest of us when it comes to controlling her weight.

And yes, it's so much easier to wrap our heads around issues like this than it is to understand oh, the Gaza Strip and the crashing economy.

But to have an entire hour's show with four grown men discussing the issue and to have one of them say that Oprah was twice the size of Cher or Tina makes me want to hurl.
I am certain Oprah had given this panel her blessing to discuss her like a piece of meat on Larry King, but that makes me sad because it says so much about how she feels about herself which is uncomfortably close to how so many women feel about themselves, which is rather unbelievable here in 2009.

I'm sure that in about four months Oprah will be back to her fighting weight and then Greene, Oz, and Beckwith can come back on and discuss how she did it and how once again she has conquered her demons with the proper diet, exercise, stress control and spiritual growth.
And Larry can lead the discussion with all the gravitas he would offer the president or the secretary of state and we call all feel good, knowing that Oprah is thin again, happy, and ready to lead us all into a state of spiritual and physical wellness.

After that, maybe they can deal with Cher.

Which would help them sell even more books. And she can go on Oprah and discuss her thyroid, aging, weight gain and sense of worthlessness due to being fat.

Perhaps Beckwith will point out that her ass looks huge when she wears red-sequined dresses. And she will cry and say, "I know, I know! Forgive me for having a fat red-sequined ass!"

But what I'd really like to see is a show where this powerful trifecta of women would line these men up in a row and kick them in the crotch with all the strength in their powerful and stout legs and then stride off into the sunset together, wearing whatever they felt strong and beautiful in, shouting over their shoulders, "Fuck you!"

And then they'd all go get Mexican food and margaritas and then take over some dance floor, showing all the skinny gals how real women dance.

That's a show I'd feel good about watching.

How about you?