[Magdalen] Mike & Everett face a demon.

[Lynn Ronkainen]

I just read an amazing poem posted on someone's FB page... it addresses a 
bit of the dark side of what parents teach, often when they don't know any 
better....


Knots
 by Joseph Stroud

Trying to tie my shoes, clumsy, not able to work out
 the logic of it, fumbling, as my father stands there,
 his anger growing over a son who can’t even do
 this simplest thing for the first time, can’t even manage
 the knot to keep his shoes on—You think someone’s
 going to tie your shoes for you the rest of your life?—
No, I answer, forty-five years later, tying my shoe,
 hands trembling with this memory. My father
 and all those years of childhood not being able to work out
 how he loved me, a knot so tight it has taken all my life
 to untie.

"Knots" by Joseph Stroud from Of This World. © Copper Canyon Press, 2009.



Lynn, thinking of people who still deal with wounds from childhood, often 
not knowing why.

website: www.ichthysdesigns.com

When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I have not a 
single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything You gave me." 
attributed to Erma Bombeck
 "Either Freedom for all or stop talking about Freedom at all" from a talk 
by Richard Rohr

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Jay Weigel" <jay.weigel at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 5:52 PM
To: <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
Subject: Re: [Magdalen] Mike & Everett face a demon.

> I, OTOH, was fairly well trained, some of it intentionally and some 
> because
> of circumstances. I did my own ironing by the time I was in high school;
> also a good share of my brothers' until I rebelled and told my mother they
> should learn since they were going to be bachelors anyway because who 
> would
> want to marry them. I could do laundry and did when
> I wanted something and it was dirty. I learned to plan meals and cook for
> the family when my mom was sick when I was 14. I didn't learn to budget.
> And manage a checking account though.
> On Sunday, January 10, 2016, James Oppenheimer-Crawford <
> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This brings back a memory of Mom. They lived in a town just north of
>> Pittsburgh, and Mom went to college at Penn, which is in Philadelphia.
>> This meant she was a very long distance from home.  Her solution for the
>> laundry problem was to put her dirty laundry in a trunk and send them 
>> home
>> to her mother. Postage was low, and she got the fresh landry back very
>> shortly.
>>
>> I did all my laundry at school. I well recall getting my white shirts 
>> back
>> (we were a coat and tie dress code institution) with little holes (and
>> sometimes big holes) where some acid had splattered on the shirt during
>> chem lab.
>>
>>
>>
>> James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
>> *“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
>> except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:18 PM, Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com
>> <javascript:;>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > IT is interesting what we don't/didn't know or get taught "the basics",
>> > and sometimes the reason why.
>> >
>> > Either by admission or by my own deduction, I discovered some unique
>> > reasons why I never washed clothes, or knew how to do so until I landed
>> at
>> > college (my mom had to do her family of origin's laundry growing up and
>> she
>> > wanted to 'spare' her kids). I was the laughing stock of the dorm when 
>> > I
>> > needed to ask what to do. In retrospect, there were a few neglectful
>> things
>> > that happened to me growing up and I think not even telling me how to 
>> > do
>> my
>> > laundry when I headed to college may have fallen in that category <gdr>
>> > As adult who has discerned a number of quirks about myself as having
>> their
>> > genesis in my growing up years, I am sometimes amazed at what I failed 
>> > to
>> > do for my kids because it never occurred to me, or was not done to/for
>> me,
>> > all the while my kids experienced their peers having a different
>> experience
>> > then their own in many areas, and as is sometimes just human nature,
>> never
>> > talked about it until their 'scarred for life' years, post 30.
>> >
>> > Lynn
>> >
>> > website: www.ichthysdesigns.com
>> >
>> > When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I have
>> not
>> > a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything You gave
>> me."
>> > attributed to Erma Bombeck
>> > "Either Freedom for all or stop talking about Freedom at all" from a 
>> > talk
>> > by Richard Rohr
>> >