Some topics draw me in right away, there’s no hesitation, no staring at the lines on my page. Not so Kindness. If the topic were Demanding or Disappointment, would it pull me into its loops and swirls, take me down with it, down to the grit behind my elbow?
Ah, elbows and grit and the dirt. The scoop. OK, here’s the scoop. I was lying on my bed after picking up the girls in carpool. I was remembering how compassionate the little Me was, the Me as a girl. How I’d cry when Larry stepped on ants. He did it to make me cry. How I couldn’t bear the thought of an animal dying.
Wondering where it went, how I got so hard. I’m hard-edged, straight-spined. Get over it. Words to live by, to tell others who are in pain to live by. And not that any of it is that cut and dried. I’m not horribly hard, but there is a veneer covering my soft parts.
I wonder if it’s Mom’s ranching sensibilities. Realism. Turkeys get slaughtered. Wooley and Wally, who I named the summer I turned 12, were hauled off to be butchered, but I lay my 63-pound body on the plank the sheep were to walk to get into the trailer. Lay there like those environmentalists who chain themselves to trees. Uncle Pat came and grabbed me, I stayed in repose, folded almost in a back-bend over his arms.
I sobbed, NO, NO, NO, you can’t take my sheep! Grandpa laughed. He wasn’t the kind of gentle white-haired man in a cardigan who would sit me down by a fireplace and tell me about the cycles of life, the food chain, where the meat goes, where the wool goes, how it is in the world. My grandpa wore a cowboy hat and a jean jacket and was missing a fingertip on either hand, lost slaughtering cows. My grandpa would have said, Getouttathere, you’re in the way. He’d have been embarrassed maybe, maybe mad for making him so. Life, this was life, this wasn’t meanness or anything slightly unkind. It just was.
Can ranching culture reside in your DNA, sleep in there like the cancer gene or a propensity to get rheumatoid arthritis? Lie in wait until you hit the age your mother was when you realized she wasn’t all buttons and bows either?
I always wondered, back when I was a teenager, how she could have taken my tom cat, Tiny Roy, to the pound and then claimed all along that he’d run away. How could she have left me crying night after night, praying for Tiny Roy’s return, her knowing all along that he wasn’t coming back?
It’s not just animals. It’s a way of moving forward, getting on with life. What is it, I have to ask myself now. Unkindness? A mean gene? A sense of reality?
Maybe none of the above. Just a moment frozen, like any other.
-from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – KINDNESS & POLITENESS
Good piece ybonesy! I can see the ranch woman gene in you!
When Tania and I go buy chicken, it is still alive. They’ll grab a chicken, kill it on the spot, pluck it, clean it, and give it to you still warm. I always have a tinge of remorse, but then I reason, its just a chicken. They’re bred for food.
I used to bird hunt (quail mainly) with my dad. When I’d kill a bird, I was okay with it. But when I just wounded it and had to wring its neck, then I felt bad. They (quail) are really beautiful birds.
Now being a former parrot owner, birds do have distinctive personalities. At least mine did. I don’t think I want to hunt birds anymore.
My uncle gave up duck hunting (one of his passions) after returning from Vietnam in the very early 70’s. He said had enough of killing and enough of guns. He is a very kind person and how he survived Vietnam without a lot of heavy emotional baggage is a tribute to his character.
LikeLike
In the Blogging world, we can only get a sense of the person from the words they write, then try to determine what is reality from what’s left laying there, just on the inside.
You have a wicked sense of humor. In that alone, I find kindness. You have the ability to laugh at yourself and make others laugh with you…
You show great patience with some of your comments. You honor each persons view and treat them with respect. If this is not a show of kindness…what is?
yb, tough decisions have to be made by someone. Good people sometimes must be tough…but they have the wisdom to do it with both care and kindness.
Have no fear. You have it in you girl. Your heart tells on you.
LikeLike
Bless yer heart, H. YOU have a heart of gold. My friend would say that you are one generous person (if she knew about your incredible Halloween gift).
MM — these poor turkeys — they really do have their own personalities. Tonight the mama of the three gobblers we sold yesterday is crying for them. Poor thing. It’s hard to raise your own food, especially animals. I do think you have to find a way to balance the remorse and the pragmatism. Jim says when he slaughters the two turkeys we’re going to eat (egads, can you believe it!?) he will say a prayer.
LikeLike
You used the word I have come to use for those situations…pragmatism.
LikeLike
ybonesy, you know what struck me about this practice….that our ideas about kindness may be inherited. It almost reminds me of the individual ways we act and feel about love. What if part of the ways we are kind are passed on through generations – by the way we’ve been taught to value animals, or plants, or turning the other cheek. Like you mentioned, kindness as something practical or passed down from our ideas about ranching or farming…I hadn’t thought of it quite that way before.
I don’t think any of us can be kind all the time. I know, for me, when I feel depleted, I don’t have much to give to others and I tend to be more impatient and less kind. But I think it’s good to look at ourselves as whole people..are we generally kind? It’s going to vary. And maybe some are more extreme in their swings than others. I think people are attracted to other people who balance them out.
Oh, I wanted to add…I’m with H. 8)
LikeLike
ybonsey,
I agree with the other writers when they say, “Your heart tells on you.” I can see the kindness in your writing and your responses to those who respond to your blog.
I find that when I am having trouble seeing certain things in myself, like kindness, it is usually because at the time I am questioning that trait in myself. My ability to be objective on certain subjects can be skewed by my current frame of mind. I wonder if the “turkey decision” is weighing heavily on you.
For me kindness doesn’t always have to be overt, there are times when something left unsaid is more kind than an arm around the shoulder or a defending remark. I think the greatest kindness we can show is that where we are not recognized as the source – true altruism.
LikeLike
R3, I like what you said in the last paragraph. What is left unsaid can be kind. And, too, remaining anonymous in our kindness. That seems like a form of service and is big in recovery circles. True giving. Expecting nothing in return. A practice of humility.
LikeLike
Vivid. This swept me right along, through those scenes, those emotions.
Sometimes I feel like people pretend a great deal. When I walk past a beggar or muster whatever platitude will fill the cracks when someone has suffered a horrible loss, then a week later interact with that person like everything’s alright.
I think people don’t know how, sometimes, to be kind- to engage on that level where they really acknowledge the whole of the other human being. It’s scary to face the giant realities of another person’s pain or fear or loss. I think there’s a certain fear of getting too involved too, the same fear that made kids not want to stand out in highschool or go outside the ‘normal’.
Also, when you dare to care you end up walking through the world like a mass of nerve endings, feeling everything.
LikeLike
ybonesy,
the same woman that took tiny roy to the pound refused to eat meat this thanksgiving. she was telling the family that jim was learning to kill a turkey… and in the midsts of her story, she lost her appetite for the butterball on the table. then papa reminded her that not only was the turkey on the table, but so was wilbur the pig (in the form of a glazed ham). hearing this, she refused to eat any meat this thanksgiving, claiming that she felt bad for the animals. not typical of nanny. i had a laughing fit after hearing her comments.
on another note, i heard a lot about tiny roy this past week. i heard he was a fat cat, that did not deserved the name “tiny”. and that he would walk on the kitchen counters, grossing the rest of the family out. papa was telling me all about tiny roy.
regarding the idea that kindness is inherited— i remember one time at my house on easter sunday dee was extremely upset because we were trimming one of the overgrown peach trees in my backyard. even at a young age, she cried as though she was facing some trauma– all over a peach tree. i think she inherited this kindness and compassion for nature that you displayed as a youngster– at least in her younger years. trimming a tree is something neither me or my brother would have ever given a second thought. i think dee definitely got that from you– or maybe from jim.
LikeLike
LOL. Yes, I checked in on Mom over the weekend, and she still wasn’t eating turkey or ham leftovers. That’s so funny. I don’t know if all the years of eating food her father slaughtered has now caught up with her, or if she has a particular empathy for Dee knowing these are Dee’s turkeys. I’ll have to keep an eye on her. I don’t think she’s sworn off other meats, but we’ll see.
Well, Tiny Roy started out tiny. He was a baby, and I would have named him plain ol’ Roy, but when my parents woke me up and asked what I wanted to name the kitten they brought me, and I said “Roy,” they said, “Just Roy?” So I said, Tiny Roy. But he grew into a huge tom cat. I don’t know why we didn’t get him neutered; I guess you didn’t automatically do those things back then, but that would have fixed a lot. He used to pee all over curtains and chairs. He was a pretty normal tom cat.
I remember when Dee got freaked out over the trimming of the peach tree. She’s always been sensitive. I was, too. I still am. I’ve just let me rational mind counter balance (and sometimes override) my sensitivities. Jim is super sensitive. I think he talks to animals.
LikeLike
amuirin, you brought up some good points in your comment. About being afraid of other peoples’ pain and vulnerabilities. And when you said, when you dare to care you end up walking through the world like a mass of nerve endings, feeling everything. I do think highly feeling people are not as valued in our society as those who are more rational. I think they have to find ways to turn their sensitivities into gifts.
ybonesy, I do think Jim is an animal whisperer. I’m trying to remember the story about him and the hummingbird. Then remember the one that knocked into the window when I was there in July?
LikeLike
You’re right, QM, he is an animal whisperer. Funny you should mention the hummingbird. Just last night I took out a doodle I had worked on but wasn’t happy with. It’s related to the hummingbirds. I want to write a post about Jim and his hummingbirds. Maybe this week or next. And, yes, I do remember the one who knocked on the window. That was weird!
Speaking of feelers and thinkers (or is it sensers and thinkers?), my friend Patty just last week brought me a book on Emotional Intelligence. So I can learn more about these sensitivities I try so hard to repress. And I think I do that for the reasons amuirin brings up. It just plain hurts.
LikeLike