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I love the rawness, the realness in this essay. You speak to the struggle, to living within the unknown, the uncertain and the liminal places that are so damn uncomfortable… but also are ripe with possibility.
Linnea, you distilled it into one sentence. Yes. That's it. And if we let go of our preconceived, conditioned notions, we might be up for a big surprise... Thank you. I appreciate you taking to time to read and comment.
I’ve been contemplating an essay with the working title “be the goo” about metamorphosis and dissolution. It has echoes of your essay, and how incredibly hard it is to sit with the unknown in the midst of the transformation process. It’s not fully formed yet, but maybe in a couple of weeks…
Linnea, that sounds very intriguing, though I am not sure if i would call my process still metamorphosis or even dissolution, because that would be more in the realm of transcendence. I see my work more as subscendence and you might look at it like having been clad in layers and layers of clothes, so many, that our silhouette is transformed and obstructed. And what i am doing it getting out of those damn constricting clothes, that are ugly, do no longer fit neither my needs, nor values or style. Yet because of having them worn for decades, they are now all filthy and partly woven into each other, so it's not like skinning of a snake, more like those Russian Dolls. And what emerages is not a transformed, metamorphed or dissoluted person, yet the true authentic person, that has been there all along, just been obstructed by ill fitting clothing.
Jay, once again you have such a beautiful way with words. This metaphor of the constructing clothes is perfect, as is the term subcendence. I suspect you might enjoy the book Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin. He talks about just sent into soul to find our unique identity. But I read it, I immediately had to turn around and read it again.
Linnea, thank you so much for the recommendation and for your kind words about my writing. Your reflection on the metaphor of constructing clothes and on “subcendence” means a lot to me. Soulcraft sounds like a book I would truly connect with. Unfortunately, American library cards aren’t available to me, and German libraries don’t carry the books I get recommended. I’ll definitely keep it in mind for the future—especially once I can afford to renew my Audible subscription.
Having read many / most of your posts, I know that I’d love to subscribe and follow you. This is likely gonna’ sound like a cheap cliche from just another free loader, but it’s tragically absolute truth. My household income is solely SS due to disability. 8.5 years ago I got disabled on the job at work. The fortune 500 multinational corp. I worked for for 53 years accepts zero responsibility for my injury, so we’re left to live like paupers. I would shamelessly tell you more if I suspected that you had any interest. The short story is that I contracted an antibiotic resistant staph infection in my left elbow that wasn’t discovered until I went into septic shock in a doctors office - a seizure when it hit my bloodstream. It left me with a disabling conditions that are ‘known’ as “Post Sepsis Syndromes”. It’s no joke. You could look up “Life After Sepsis” on a search engine and get as much of a primer as you care to. Upon trying to recover, I came down with covid 19 - Omicron and retain long covid as a result, along with other associated and perhaps non-associated ailments piling on; As though there’s some dark cloud ever over my head. But I guarantee you that it’s not some twisted karma; I’m a good and honorable soul. Anyway, I’m equally stunned / grateful to learn you’ve chosen to follow me on substack, for what it’s worth. Brava !
I know how it is to live on very little by now, no justification or explanation needed. I am very sorry for all you had to endure, and I know you are living in a country in which employers and the government basically let you fend for yourself. That is why you have so many lawsuits. In Germany, we have laws that make people and institutions responsible—employers, healthcare, the state. There is free healthcare and a legal duty of care for people. All of this has been intentionally left out of the U.S. constitution. If you want your rights respected, you have to get a lawyer and fight for them yourself.
I am in fact grateful for everyone willing to read my words and occasionally comment, so I do not feel like writing into a void most of the time. I cherish people who can afford to support me, and I know fewer and fewer will be able as prices in the U.S. rise together with inflation. I studied economics once, and this seems inevitable.
So thank you for reading and for telling me your story. I appreciate you.
Sister friend, I've not told you all of the story even yet. It strains credibility, yet pending interest I'd tell you more. I have at least one friend in Germany. I don't know how to contact her now if she still survives. She lived in my local neighborhood with her Husband Don McCracken, whom when he passed she moved back to what was east Germany (town escapes me just now) where her family recovered their old large property and home that had been absconded by the E. German government back in the day. A grand looking house and property from photo's she'd shown me. My last name is anglicized Germanic. Wonder if that might qualify for adoption / immigration... lol. It's my nature to stay and fight the bastards, but I'd sure love an escape hatch, so to speak.
Well, as so many Russian Germans have come back to Germany, I am sure if you can prove a German ancestry it might make sense looking into options. And yes, having options is always a good idea. Especially with your disability. If they operate like the Germans did under Hitler (and not those under Honnecker) we have immigrants, Trans people, Veterans and Disabled people, everybody else on the Queer spectrum, the left leaning intelligencia, the homeless people, the poor people, the sick and ill people, and maybe even elderly people. Everybody costing more money than they pay in taxes, are unproductive and or liberal, progressive, woke, controversial, non-conforming, non-compliant. So probably about 60-70% of the population.
Damn; That's a shocking percentage. I wish there were some way, any way to transfer all the money and interest on monies I paid into SS, nearly 70 years. I'd do it in a heartbeat. I would also work as much as I'm able. I was a maintenance professional in heavy manufacturing for 50 years.
Muchas gracias, dear Amy. To hear the word eloquently spoken by you, who is writing professionally for so many years and equipped with such a wealth of experience, means a lot to me. Thank you.
Always the punchline, never the laugh. People said "harmless." It wasn’t. So ease, for me, meant comfort. A corner without ridicule. A seat where nobody sharpened their teeth on me.……I am sending you a virtual hug…. I believe your views on conflict…versus need were brilliant. Will be using that to keep my kitchen in order….lol.
Diana, I am so relieved to hear it. It was an experiment, it try to be less Judith and more Jay, less German in my style, more creative. Not an easy shift and one I feared indeed might fire backwards. Yet you took away that fear. Thank you. I appreciate you. And I so appreciate your comment and honest valuable feedback. Hugs received. Thank you. Love xoxo Jay
I love the rawness, the realness in this essay. You speak to the struggle, to living within the unknown, the uncertain and the liminal places that are so damn uncomfortable… but also are ripe with possibility.
That is so kind. As e-reading often seems to tire me out more quickly, I would prefer an audio book version. Your kindness makes me a bit speechless.
I am happy to offer this small kindness to someone I admire.
I am basically floored.
Linnea, you distilled it into one sentence. Yes. That's it. And if we let go of our preconceived, conditioned notions, we might be up for a big surprise... Thank you. I appreciate you taking to time to read and comment.
I’ve been contemplating an essay with the working title “be the goo” about metamorphosis and dissolution. It has echoes of your essay, and how incredibly hard it is to sit with the unknown in the midst of the transformation process. It’s not fully formed yet, but maybe in a couple of weeks…
Linnea, that sounds very intriguing, though I am not sure if i would call my process still metamorphosis or even dissolution, because that would be more in the realm of transcendence. I see my work more as subscendence and you might look at it like having been clad in layers and layers of clothes, so many, that our silhouette is transformed and obstructed. And what i am doing it getting out of those damn constricting clothes, that are ugly, do no longer fit neither my needs, nor values or style. Yet because of having them worn for decades, they are now all filthy and partly woven into each other, so it's not like skinning of a snake, more like those Russian Dolls. And what emerages is not a transformed, metamorphed or dissoluted person, yet the true authentic person, that has been there all along, just been obstructed by ill fitting clothing.
Jay, once again you have such a beautiful way with words. This metaphor of the constructing clothes is perfect, as is the term subcendence. I suspect you might enjoy the book Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin. He talks about just sent into soul to find our unique identity. But I read it, I immediately had to turn around and read it again.
Linnea, thank you so much for the recommendation and for your kind words about my writing. Your reflection on the metaphor of constructing clothes and on “subcendence” means a lot to me. Soulcraft sounds like a book I would truly connect with. Unfortunately, American library cards aren’t available to me, and German libraries don’t carry the books I get recommended. I’ll definitely keep it in mind for the future—especially once I can afford to renew my Audible subscription.
I’d be happy to gift a copy on Audible or Kindle. Which would you prefer?
Having read many / most of your posts, I know that I’d love to subscribe and follow you. This is likely gonna’ sound like a cheap cliche from just another free loader, but it’s tragically absolute truth. My household income is solely SS due to disability. 8.5 years ago I got disabled on the job at work. The fortune 500 multinational corp. I worked for for 53 years accepts zero responsibility for my injury, so we’re left to live like paupers. I would shamelessly tell you more if I suspected that you had any interest. The short story is that I contracted an antibiotic resistant staph infection in my left elbow that wasn’t discovered until I went into septic shock in a doctors office - a seizure when it hit my bloodstream. It left me with a disabling conditions that are ‘known’ as “Post Sepsis Syndromes”. It’s no joke. You could look up “Life After Sepsis” on a search engine and get as much of a primer as you care to. Upon trying to recover, I came down with covid 19 - Omicron and retain long covid as a result, along with other associated and perhaps non-associated ailments piling on; As though there’s some dark cloud ever over my head. But I guarantee you that it’s not some twisted karma; I’m a good and honorable soul. Anyway, I’m equally stunned / grateful to learn you’ve chosen to follow me on substack, for what it’s worth. Brava !
I know how it is to live on very little by now, no justification or explanation needed. I am very sorry for all you had to endure, and I know you are living in a country in which employers and the government basically let you fend for yourself. That is why you have so many lawsuits. In Germany, we have laws that make people and institutions responsible—employers, healthcare, the state. There is free healthcare and a legal duty of care for people. All of this has been intentionally left out of the U.S. constitution. If you want your rights respected, you have to get a lawyer and fight for them yourself.
I am in fact grateful for everyone willing to read my words and occasionally comment, so I do not feel like writing into a void most of the time. I cherish people who can afford to support me, and I know fewer and fewer will be able as prices in the U.S. rise together with inflation. I studied economics once, and this seems inevitable.
So thank you for reading and for telling me your story. I appreciate you.
Sister friend, I've not told you all of the story even yet. It strains credibility, yet pending interest I'd tell you more. I have at least one friend in Germany. I don't know how to contact her now if she still survives. She lived in my local neighborhood with her Husband Don McCracken, whom when he passed she moved back to what was east Germany (town escapes me just now) where her family recovered their old large property and home that had been absconded by the E. German government back in the day. A grand looking house and property from photo's she'd shown me. My last name is anglicized Germanic. Wonder if that might qualify for adoption / immigration... lol. It's my nature to stay and fight the bastards, but I'd sure love an escape hatch, so to speak.
Well, as so many Russian Germans have come back to Germany, I am sure if you can prove a German ancestry it might make sense looking into options. And yes, having options is always a good idea. Especially with your disability. If they operate like the Germans did under Hitler (and not those under Honnecker) we have immigrants, Trans people, Veterans and Disabled people, everybody else on the Queer spectrum, the left leaning intelligencia, the homeless people, the poor people, the sick and ill people, and maybe even elderly people. Everybody costing more money than they pay in taxes, are unproductive and or liberal, progressive, woke, controversial, non-conforming, non-compliant. So probably about 60-70% of the population.
Damn; That's a shocking percentage. I wish there were some way, any way to transfer all the money and interest on monies I paid into SS, nearly 70 years. I'd do it in a heartbeat. I would also work as much as I'm able. I was a maintenance professional in heavy manufacturing for 50 years.
Look around. How many can live on one job? Have 100% health? Earning 100-150K+? Are white? Reasonably wealthy? Truly content with their life as is?
So glad you found the language to express all your feelings which you know do so eloquently Jay 💗
Muchas gracias, dear Amy. To hear the word eloquently spoken by you, who is writing professionally for so many years and equipped with such a wealth of experience, means a lot to me. Thank you.
My future grows out of needs, that is the soil.
I hear you and love you, dear Jay. Say hello to Monty.
Prajna, thank you. I have sent your Hello to Monty.
I liked it very much… you make perfect sense.
Always the punchline, never the laugh. People said "harmless." It wasn’t. So ease, for me, meant comfort. A corner without ridicule. A seat where nobody sharpened their teeth on me.……I am sending you a virtual hug…. I believe your views on conflict…versus need were brilliant. Will be using that to keep my kitchen in order….lol.
Di
Diana, I am so relieved to hear it. It was an experiment, it try to be less Judith and more Jay, less German in my style, more creative. Not an easy shift and one I feared indeed might fire backwards. Yet you took away that fear. Thank you. I appreciate you. And I so appreciate your comment and honest valuable feedback. Hugs received. Thank you. Love xoxo Jay