Us vs. Them

Politics

Every time one of my Facebook “friends” try to politically cut me down or make a snarky comment on MY FACEBOOK PAGE, I can’t help but think about my in-laws.

“Trust no one except your own.”

I heard this sentiment from my Holocaust surviving mother-in-law in her thick German accent hundreds, no; thousands of times.

She’s gone from us.  Almost all of the witnesses to that unspeakable annihilation are gone.

I often wonder what she would say about the current state of politics.

I doubt that she would be surprised at all.

“Our neighbors turned us in. People we thought were our friends.”

He knew the “officials” he dealt with, my father-in-law would tell me. They’d attended the same schools, and knew each other’s parents, brothers, sisters.

“None of that mattered,” he would mutter. “I was their enemy,” he would state so matter of factly.

Am I the enemy?

Would my neighbors and friends turn me in if someone high-up in government asked them to?

I know in my ordered mind, that will never happen to me.

But then again, my in-laws thought the same thing.

Us vs. them.

Sometimes I read the hateful posts my Facebook friends share, and I cringe.

Some posts are a bridge too far, so those authors got the unfriending ax.

Other posts, I simply hide.

But is that enough?

My husband was born in 1950, here in the US of A.

If he had been born to Fritzi and Fred just a few years earlier, in Vienna, he would surely be dead.

Political hatred gone wild.

The Fates and the Furies

Observe & Ponder, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  
The Fates

  
The Furies

I love me some mythological figures.

And these days, myth is a whole lot easier to swallow than reality.

And come on, I know I’m not the only one obsessed with Game of Thrones’ Daenerys Targaryen and her three ill-tempered winged dragons.

The stories of Greek mythology have always fascinated me. From heroes and monsters to flying stallions, I found the creatures unnerving yet beguiling.

But none more than the Fates and the Furies.

THE FATES

I’ll start with the Fates: Three sisters, who determined human destinies and affected the paths of all of the universe. The ultimate girl power.

Clotho (The Spinner), Lachesis (The Allotter) and Atropos (The Inflexible) were goddesses of predetermination, spinners of the thread of life and dealers of some crazy karma.

And if you dared to step out of line and make these ladies mad? They didn’t get mad; they got even. Let’s just say karma was a bitch—times three.

Clotho, the youngest of the Fates spun the thread of destiny. Lachesis measured its allotted length, and when she decided that the thread was long enough, she would give the order to Atropos, the oldest of the sisters, to snip the thread with her shears, cruelly cutting through the cord of life.

In older mythology, the Fates were fatherless and created by the goddess Nyx (Night) without the intervention of man.

Clotho (the present), Lachesis (the future), and Atropos (the past) are almost always depicted as weavers of tapestry on a loom, with the tapestry dictating the destinies of men. The threads often appear incredibly delicate and yet we know that only Atropos’ sharp and menacing shears can cut through them. Her ability to end it all suggests the unforgiving power of karma.

THE FURIES

And then there were the Furies: Three furious and infuriated sisters.

Homer mentioned them in the Iliad as daughters of the night who had no pity in their hearts. And in the Odyssey, he referred to them as the “avenging Furies.”

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone were three powerhouse goddesses who lived in the underworld and exacted vengeance and retribution on wicked men who hurt women and swore false oaths.

The Furies were spawns of earth and sky.

The three daughters were born of Gaia (Mother Earth), who conceived them in the drops of blood from Uranus (Father Heaven) that fell upon her body when he was castrated by his son Cronus with a jagged sickle made of adamant.

Ouch.

Their Latin names translate as follows: Alecto (Unceasing), Megaera (Grudge), and Tisiphone (Retribution).

They were guardians and protectors of the law when the state had not yet intervened or did not exist, or when the offense was a crime of ethics and not actual law.

Their brass wings made escape impossible; their ripping claws made their torment relentless. They would harass and injure their prey but never killed them.

They punished men for crimes against the natural order and were particularly angered by homicide, perjury, and unkind acts against one’s family. The Furies also protected underdogs and social outcasts.

A victim seeking justice could call down the curse of the Furies upon the criminal, the liar, the unethical, and those sisters would get to work.

Now, these are my kind of girls.

Tormentors who pursued unpunished evildoers and relentlessly hounded lying, cheating, unethical men.

The Fates and the Furies: six powerful badass women, who were the embodiment of divine order and law.

We sure could use some avenging and relentless Furies right about now, with a little fateful karma thrown in.

The Light Is Still On

Family & Relationships

He was born in the winter, on a cold and rainy Wednesday night.

He was finally mine, and I was struck with an enlightening love I had never before known. The January of my life.

When I would call him mister-man in my baby talky voice, he smiled big and toothless, his brown eyes twinkled, and I felt warm in his love.

And when he needed me most, I rocked him through the pain, the dark, the disquiet.

I refused to put him down, lest he rolled over amidst the bandages.

And I made sure a light was always on, more for me than mister-man.

That was before the silence, before the break.

Seasons come and seasons go.

Too many, I fear.

But the light will never dim.

The Teri Tome – Top Hits and Duds of 2018

The Teri Tome - Top Hits and Duds

 

On March 18, 2015, I launched The Teri Tome, and for almost four years I have been sharing, sharing and oversharing.

For those of you who have stuck with me, post after grueling post, you know The Teri Tome is a mishmash of my life, my potential (or not), my political opinions (sorry about that), and everything in between…

…While desperately trying not to drag my family or friends into The Teri Tome fray.

Blogging has been my creative and mental release.  Some would accuse me of TMI.

And I would agree, but it feels good getting all that you-know-what off my chest.

At the end of 2017, I put together the TOP TEN BLOG POSTS IN 2017 based on the posts that received the most page views.

Now, I know you are eagerly waiting for my Top Posts for 2018, but I thought I would change it up a bit by giving you the Top Hits and Duds instead.

Since I only wrote 18 posts in 2018, the pickings are slim, so I’m only going to bore you with four 2018 posts: The top two duds, and the top two hits.

And since I need to stretch this post out a bit, I thought I would also throw in the best and worst of all time (2015-2018).

The 18 posts I wrote in 2018 generated almost 100,000 hits, which I will happily and appreciatively take.

I’ll start with the 2018 duddiest…

#1 DUD 

GLOBAL WARMING – THE NEW NORMAL:  Our world is hotter today than it was yesterday, but this post was a B-O-M-B.  Climate change keeps me up at night but apparently not so much for my readers.

#2 DUD

LIKE A PRAYER: This post was written as fiction to disguise a wedding I attended. I’m sorry it was a dud because the topic is one that many of us know all too well: Siblings who hurt each other.  I didn’t get a ton of hits for this post but it did generate a flurry of emails, mostly to point out that the lyrics of Like A Prayer had dual meanings of sexual innuendo. But I did not intend for it to be anything more than a post about a deceased mother who loved the song, and about her children who found it impossible to love each other.

And now for my top two 2018 besties:

#1 BEST

SELF-PUBLISHING TIPS:  Okay, so bad enough my climate change post was such a dud, but come on people. I’ve been pouring my heart out for a full year, and this post was my winner?

#2 BEST 

AN OPEN LETTER TO AMERICA’S YOUTH: IT’S UP TO YOU TO STOP THE GUN VIOLENCE:  Young people are more than just victims of gun violence; they are now among the leading voices calling for adults to wake up and change our nation’s weak gun laws and deadly gun culture.  Why this post wasn’t my reader’s number one, I have no clue. But it was my personal number one.

G.O.A.T. (THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME)

BULLIES ARE COWARDS AND WHY I REFUSE TO TURN THE OTHER CHEEK: This post has garnered close to 300,000 page views. I should be happy for the views, but I’m saddened that my number one keyword on The Teri Tome is “bullies.” Many bullies also fit the DSM-5 diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their importance, a deep need for admiration, a lack of empathy for others, are vulnerable to criticism, and attempt to get his or her way through aggressive, threatening, and hurtful behavior toward those who have less power. (Does this sound like anyone you know?)

D.O.A.T. (THE DUDDIEST OF ALL TIME) 

FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY: In 2014, I wrote a novel titled Our Romantic Getaway in which I mention nine songs. My marketing genius idea was to mail out a free signed book to anyone who emailed me their fave song out of the nine.  Except that as my duddiest post of all time, no one got the free book giveaway memo!  FYI: I still have plenty of books so email me a shout out! (Oh and one more FYI: NO, the book is not about me, and YES, I am wearing a top in my author photo.)

In reviewing my duds and hits for 2018, I can honestly say that regardless of their popularity, I’m happy that I put it all out there, and I still have no regrets. Not yet, anyway. Plus, I write because it’s not a choice, it’s a must, and one of the few things in my life that feels genuinely me.

The Teri Tome has allowed me to sate my obsession with words and the power they have.  I am also blown away by the realization that my thoughts and dreams and fears and loves and even hates can all pour out of me with just 26 letters.

I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2019!