We divorced in 2016 because I realized my true love had not been true for the last 7 years of our 19 year marriage.
And that is a story within itself* but not for today.
When I found myself no longer a part of that whole, I was truly untethered. My past, present and future were swiped out from under me. Infidelity and lies altered all my memories. The nuclear family living under one roof dissolved into one parent and a never ending trail of children leaving the nest. (In 2016, the oldest of six was 19 and my youngest was 8.) The future was stolen, too. My visions of grandparenting from a big front porch with rocking chairs and a rolling front yard with a picket fence would never appear. I had imagined my husband and I traveling to Hawaii or the South of France on cherished anniversaries and growing old together while me drinking Diet Coke and him drinking mint juleps. My divorce and/or possibly my marriage stole so much of my being. My essential identity.
I went to Abbadabbas shoe store in Little Five Points to buy shoes I couldn’t really afford. I tried on at least a dozen pairs. I did not know what shoes I liked. I couldn’t even choose a pair of shoes to wear. I knew what my ex would have liked or would have deemed uncool. Or just claimed “never.” But I couldn’t tell you what I liked. I left with no shoes. I flip flopped out in worn down Havaianas.
In an act of loving myself and in an attempt to continue my life, I made lists which develop into a brainstorm which became the Ten Year Plan. For more than a year, I felt like I might die of heartache. An actual heart attack. It felt like an elephant sat on my chest. This plan gave me solace, comfort, and desperately needed direction. Thank God, who I wasn’t sure I believed in anymore.
-No fucking negative thoughts about myself. No poison in my brain.
-Keep Addy alive. (Refeed her to protect her from Anorexia- another story for another time**)
-Stay put in this city in this condo. Be happy with what I have. The answer isn’t out there. It is in here.
-Be a good friend to a few women. Value friendship.
-Think about my own thoughts. Respect introspection. Cherish my opinions and ponderings. Like- Do I believe in angels? Do I want to continue wearing Birkenstocks? How do I want to make money?
-Get a bulldog.
-Take photography classes.
-Mother the hell out of those six children, whether they are grown or not. Be there constant. Not in a helicopter way but in a lighthouse way.
-Raise Mim with knowledge and love.
A few people said it may take me a couple of years before I wanted to date. I laughed. That’s not on the ten year plan. People said “Do you think Mim will always live with you?” I do not know and I don’t need to think about that because it is beyond the scope of 10 years.
As the ten year plan came together and flowed through seasons, birthdays, and holidays I breathed and started to imagine a new life without an elephant sitting on my chest. A future that would be me and Mim. One Diet Coke and Walt’s mint julep replaced by a Starbucks venti vanilla latte. I imagined the two of us traveling to India one day to see the land of Mim’s ancestors. People with small dark beautiful faces. Elephants walking on beaches. Color everywhere. Smells everywhere. Seeing new things is a passion of mine. Others imagine a trip to Paris but I want to get far from my reality. I want to see another world and feel the bigness of humanity.
When my son Tuck graduated college from UCSC, I drove across the country with 13 year old Mim. Addy accompanied us the way there with my first grand baby in her belly. 20 year old George drove home with us. We had a grand time, staying in mid-century hotels in Scottsdale and Austin. Floating in swimming holes. Hiking in between redwoods. Mim and I are capable of great travel – as long as it is in driving distance. She does not fly. She will not fly. She cannot fly. This has been the reality for years.
I imagined Mim and I going from one siblings house to another. Mim would stay longer than me and she would visit her brothers and sisters, their significant others and her nieces and nephews. And she would love being surrounded by family and toddlers. I would travel on my own and work without so much responsibility at home. Not an empty nest- I imagined us fluid. I hoped for flexibility and stability within the love of my six kids and family.
In the past few years, which coincides with the tail end of the 10 year plan, Mim has had some health concerns. We had assumed her disabilities were stable but, it is possible the genetic make up of Mim has some progressive characteristics. Among many challenges, Mim has become less adventurous. Remember how she spent her elementary years in roller-skates.
Her level of comfort with new situations has decreased. Her anxiety has increased. Those words I used two paragraphs above- fluid and flexibility– seem out of reach as descriptors of our life. As I finish repairing myself and coming into my own, Mim is becoming a late teen, almost young adult. My past has taught me to radically accept my own reality. And I absolutely love my life with Mim. And it honestly will not be how I imagined. Is anything ever how we imagine? Trauma has altered our brains. Whether it is the trauma of adoption, the trauma of Addy requiring life saving care, or the specific trauma of being the youngest of six children, Mim has experienced so much. Dad moves out with divorce and siblings grow up, go to college, move out, make their own way. Abandonment became a constant theme in Mim’s life.
Home life becomes smaller. More Mim specific. Mim and I are not the Mim and I of 10 years ago. Nor are we the same as we were three years ago.
We have experienced deaths, divorce, Covid, Trump, bullies and genetic diagnoses.
Cross off granny and gramps sitting on the big front porch. Cross off flying to India or visiting with friends while Mim stays with siblings.
Maybe I wouldn’t have flown to India anyways. Having the ability or the possibility of adventure fueled me and consoled me, like a new mother with successfully pumped breast milk in the freezer. Choice and agency are power. Mim’s clinging to me for safety has become more intense. Well maybe that isn’t true- maybe her growing older makes me more aware of the intensity of her needs because my other children grow up and out into more independence. At sixteen, I imagined Mim would need me a little less.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C8-LRRJKTXQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
PDA stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance. Some prefer the term- Pervasive Drive for Autonomy.
I post the info/ instagrams above to deflect my own feelings of parental inadequacy and to protect me from uninformed judgment. And to explain a small piece of how Mim’s brain works.
My world shrinks to driving distances accompanied by my constant companion. And who am I to not love my life? This life is beautiful whether in Atlanta or distant shores. So I redid my condo. Year 8 or 9 of the Ten Year Plan and I am living to the fullest. I avoid the phrase killing it because I want to move away from violent imagery even in my language. The walls are cloud wallpaper. The tile is pink subway. The light fixtures are a moth, a huge peppermint ball, and flowers. The bedroom Mim and I share is becoming our art gallery. Beauty, my passions and my own personal opinion is rampant in 14b these days. I mix patterns. I combine pink and red. Plastic tchotchkes, a collection of Virgin Marys and children’s books will gather dust and make me smile in contentment.
I move my focus to my community. Atlanta is a BIG city. I will find my adventures here. People from all over the world live here.
But today is so close to Nov. 5th. Election Day looms and triggers. I know I could ignore or avoid politics for my own sanity. But I am a citizen and advocate for people with disabilities, a mother of six, a woman, a public school teacher, a mental health patient, an empath, a human. I can’t make anyone not vote for Trump or vote for Kamala who by the way shares the same ethnicity as Mim. That alone is a good reason to vote for her. Show Mim and girls everywhere that they can be the president of the United States of America.
I want to make this world a better place, and the world is beyond my scope so I focus on my small world. Photography is my art of choice and BINGO- it can encompass Mim. I will use photography to expose what I believe to be one of the true issues of injustice. A crux of unfairness. Atlanta is THE city in the country with the LARGEST income disparity. I see sparks of this evil in our own hamlet of Decatur. Unhoused next to gourmet artisanal ice cream shops. I see income disparity because Mim points it out to me. “Mama, give them some money. They are black and homeless like Willie.” Willie is her birth father. She believes he is dead because we have not heard from him since before Covid. He was unhoused and living in NYC during a pandemic, so it is hard to argue. I see income disparity because I am an outlier. I am divorced, parenting a kid with a disability, a wage earner just above the line to get me into middle class. We are this generation who will experience having less than our parents. I am in this category while being lucky and privileged, without notable savings or home ownership. I am not poor. I have been broke. My kids have not once been close to hungry but mommy and daddy didn’t pay for a car or college, unlike their classmates and their own parents. So if we are thinking- woe is me and Boohoo, I have less- we avoid noticing the reality of poverty. If I am a bleeding heart liberal worried about my own income and lack of retirement, how will people in grave poverty ever see a fraction of what is essential to have a just society.
Wealth disparity is the sinner. Our civil rights issue is this widening wealth gap. I have come to this conclusion through research and thought and having my eyes open in lots of different settings.
If we don’t see the injustice. If we don’t understand the huge impact of hoarding money on our neighbors, the consequences are deadly. We are good people. Right? We are helpers. We are volunteers. We are givers. We are at the point where us “good folks” are going to have to experience some pain for life to really change.
The reality of equality is bucking it’s head right this minute. Men do not want to vote for Kamala. having a woman president would involve men admitting that women are equal. Men will have to adjust their fragile identities to include the philosophy that we are all equal humans. The majority of white men do not want to feel that pain. They will vote for a felon to insure their view of themselves as superior continues to hold them up. I see a continued backlash to Obama. How can a black president have been a good president if all white people are inherently superior to black people. It can’t compute.
If you think I am speaking about all men or all white people, you are reading the wrong blog. Go. Leave.
A little boy was telling a detailed story of his birth mom and birth dad. The birth parents were dead in the story and living in heaven with the little boy’s grandparents. The listener was driving the car (where all good and hard conversations are had between children and their adults). Wait! wait! said the adult. Your birth mom and your birth dad are alive in Dallas. Remember when we went to Mama Diane’s house and swam in her pool this summer. Daddy Lewis brought his dog Pumpkin and y’all cooked hotdogs. The little boy said Mama Diane isn’t my birth mom. Daddy Lew isn’t my birth dad. The little boy went back to his imaginary birth parent story set in heaven.
It couldn’t compute. The truth would be too difficult. He wasn’t ready to understand or accept that the lady with the pool and the man with a dog are his birth parents. Why wouldn’t Diane and Lew come get him? Why would they live perfectly fine lives in Dallas without him? He knows the truth but it is too hard to integrate.
Some people are not ready to accept or admit or understand the we are all equal. The pains of their own lives are kept at bay by their own acknowledgment of superiority. Of the inferiority of other. Some people need the wall. Need the fear of picturing the other as criminals to maintain their own goodness. People need to believe Kamala is not intelligent to uphold the belief in their own value.
An older man held the door for Mim and I. Mim was attempting to put on her jacket and the sleeve was inside instead of right side out so she stopped to wrestle with it. The chivalrous man started waving his arm ever more fiercely so that we would hurry. He did not deserve to be slowed. Can you believe the good white man had to wait for us? Does not compute.
We remember this ad and Trump’s disgusting words and leers. People vote for him because he is pro life. The ends does not justify the means. What world would vote for this man? I cannot fathom it.
The evil in the world has to be stopped. But, the world is not perfect so it never will be stopped but at least it can be named and noted. And examined.
I want to bring daylight to a persistent evil in our city. Our personal wealth is due to many factors beyond our control. Having more money does not make you better or smarter. I can use photos to help that compute. Having less money does not make you less than or careless. Income disparity is tearing is apart.
We can use facts to make his point.
Three-generation poverty occurs among one in 100 Whites but describes the experience of one in five Black adults. https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/long-shadows-the-black-white-gap-in-multigenerational-poverty/
But what if we used photos of ordinary life to help all of experience the realities of the income gap. A photo of food shopping in a Family Dollar in Clarkston vs, Whole Foods in Buckhead. So my trusty assistant and I will be photographing you and your family and your neighbors and your friends (PLEASE Oh PLEASE) doing your everyday ordinary things. W need all of you so we can showcase the different experiences, opportunities and access afforded to all of us or NOT afforded to us.
I need people from every income bracket. I would love every race or combination of races. I would love different cultures. I would love everyone to be represented. LGBQT celebrated. People with disabilities welcomed. All included.
You might assume people in poverty do not want to be photographed grocery shopping but I have already had three separate families living in poverty photographed grocery shopping. I could use some people of higher income brackets to volunteer.
I do not caring about what you bought. I do not care how much you spend. I care about what you have access to. I care about how your experience differs from others across Atlanta.
Grocery shopping is phase 1 of the unnamed project to expose the large income disparity in and around Atlanta.
Next phase will be putting your kids to bed. Or the end of the day for your family. Please contact me if you would be interested in being photographed.
Please Please Share to make the pool of photographed subjects larger and more varied.
We will share the photos with you for free, of course.
Peace and love forever.
Go vote.
*A couple of stories from the past.
**A bit about the anorexia I referred to.
Momoirist 