How do you feel about ghosts?

I’m not saying people are lying when they experience something they consider supernatural, but I think everything has an earthly explanation — even if we haven’t figured that explanation out yet. 

I struggled with schizoaffective disorder as a child and young adult. My hallucinations often involved the supernatural and I was terrified. Thankfully with medication, I left that all behind years ago. But still, talking about ghosts can occasionally bring back memories of some of my hallucinations — most of which were visual and auditory. 

For the past few nights, my husband and I have been watching BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural on Prime Video. He gets off of work at 10 at night and if we’re lucky, our daughter will fall asleep so we can watch TV. Anyway, while I don’t believe in ghosts, the stories are absolutely fascinating on that show and I do wonder what happened. I think the most interesting part is when they explain the history of a location they are investigating. We really enjoy it.

While I believe everything has an earthly explanation — let’s be real — I’m not exploring an abandoned asylum after dark anytime soon. 

How do you feel about ghosts or explaining the supernatural?

I have been posting less frequently to my blog because I am working my butt off on my poetry book, The Heathen Mommy From Holy Toledo. I found out two weeks ago that it will be published by Freethought House. I want to tell you a little more about it.

The book is about being an atheist mom in the Midwest, and many of the poems I have posted earlier in my blog will be used in the book. My goal is to have around 80 poems. I have broken the book up into sections: poems about growing up in rural Northwest Ohio, poems about being an atheist, poems about being a mom in Toledo, and poems about being a working mom in the current political climate.

I am so excited to be working on this project. I’ve really made a lot of progress just in the last two weeks. I hope I can keep up this pace and not run out of steam. This is something I’ve wanted for a while so it feels great now that it’s actually happening.

I will post updates every once and a while and keep everyone posted.

There’s a town an hour south of here that I have a very troubled relationship with. At the moment, I have a doctor I see in that town, but he is the only reason I go there.

I got involved in their art scene for a little while. I did a two-woman show at a local gallery. The gallery was packed and everyone knew each other. One man was absolutely obnoxious over two nude paintings. When I asked the gallery owner what was up, it turned out the man was her friend. She replied, “I’m sorry. He’s always this way. He’s a realtor in town and everyone knows him.” Apparently, that made it okay. I can laugh it off, but my partner in the show had trauma in her past and was visibly shaken. I can’t believe that was allowed to happen.

I also worked for an arts organization that helped the disabled in town. I was horrified when they would pick and choose who was more deserving of their help, even making ignorant comments about certain disabilities. 

I thought I was going to write off small towns forever.

I live in Toledo where there are more opportunities for artists. I can leave that town and be just fine. I couldn’t imagine being an artist in that town and those are the people you have to deal with if you want to get involved in the local art scene.

It’s hard to believe people act that way in the art scene. Aren’t artists supposed to be open-minded? Not everyone is your competition and it costs absolutely nothing to be nice.

Dealing with this town’s art scene was disappointing, but it was a learning experience. I am now more selective in what opportunities I take as an artist. It’s important that an opportunity is meaningful and not just something to add to my resume. It’s also important to get out of Ohio. 

Thanks for letting me vent. Feel free to share your learning experiences or other small town disappointments.

Do you surround yourself with good people? 

When I was younger I was a very positive person. I thought there was a little good in everyone. Now I’m a little older, and, well, life happens. Now I know there are definitely bad people out there. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them.

But I am still aware that there are good people, too — just maybe not as many as I first thought. 

I’ve become more introverted as I grow older. I’ve got to be honest, with the exception of not seeing my family, this quarantine hasn’t been that hard on me. I don’t leave the house much anyway. I have been home from work for a month and a half. With staying home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel closer to my daughter who’s home from daycare and I’ve spent a lot of time writing. I really don’t need a whole lot. 

In many cases, I prefer to be alone. However, the few people I have around me on a regular basis are good people. My husband, of course. He’s my partner in everything. I read my poetry to him and he’s supportive even though he doesn’t like poetry.

 I’m also very close to my family. They are very supportive and we have a lot of fun together. I know I am extremely lucky to have a supportive family.

I have a few good friends who unfortunately have all moved away. We still keep in touch through Facebook. I don’t go out much but I’ve never really desired a busy social life. 

So basically, I surround myself with only a few people, but they’re good people and I like it that way.

Do you feel the same? What’s your circle look like?

 

I have been working on a poetry book for a few months now and I found out earlier this week that it will be published by Freethought House. I have a lot of work to do and I am writing my butt off, but I am so excited about sharing my poems. The book is called, The Heathen Mommy From Holy Toledo, and I will probably be posting updates from time to time. I can’t wait to see this project come together! 🙂

Yesterday, I published a blog post about moral dilemmas regarding my graphics and heat printing business and it was filled with discriminatory remarks. Thank you to the commenter who called me out on it because I then looked up the law. I explained in the post how I would refuse to do projects with religious text and symbols, and I didn’t even know that was illegal. It was pretty stupid of me to assume that it wasn’t. I often see signs at businesses that say, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” It turns out those signs don’t hold up under the law and private businesses can’t pick and choose who they serve.

I think it’s very wrong when religious business owners discriminate against gays, trans, blacks, etc. I certainly don’t want to be in their company. I still view religion as hateful, but it’s going to have to be one of those “hate the belief and not the believer” situations.

Plus, everyone’s money spends the same.

Thanks again to the commenter because now I know the law before I ever actually encounter this situation with my business. 

I’m sorry for my post. This was definitely a learning moment for me.

Several years back, I was working my butt off as an artist, and doing art shows almost every month. There were shipping boxes everywhere and frequent road trips. My husband and I were young, newly married, and without kids. I had a lot of flexibility in my life that allowed me to work a lot, travel, and take on new projects. It was a very exciting time for me.

At that time it was pretty early on in my recovery for schizoaffective disorder, and art was how I frequently coped with my symptoms. I had no problem finding inspiration. Sometimes I think people found my story more interesting than my art, but I was having a great time and it didn’t seem to bother me.

I still work in the arts, but my last project as an independent artist was back in 2015.

I’m in a really stable place now. I would even say I’m pretty boring. My mental illness isn’t really providing inspiration these days.

I hope to return to working as an artist sometime in the future, but I’m going to have to think about what I want to say with my work. I’m not the type of artist that creates pretty paintings to hang above your couch.

Are there any other artists out there willing to share their influences and inspiration?

Why are we fascinated with the things that scare us?

I have a fascination with tornadoes. Storms and tornadoes are just a fact of life here. We grew up doing tornado drills in school and everyone seems to have a story. I’ve had a couple of close calls and both my parents and grandparents have had property damage. I always thought it was funny when my grandpa called a tornado that destroyed one of his barns “just a little one”. My husband and I got too close for comfort to an EF-4 one night. I’ve never heard a storm that sounded like that one. The part of Ohio we live in falls in the Hoosier Alley, the northernmost tornado alley. Our official tornado season is from April to July but then we have another “unofficial” season in the fall.

Even from my writing, you can tell I’m fascinated with tornadoes, but I’m also scared to death of them. When a bad storm is coming I hide in the basement even if the tornado siren doesn’t go off. 

(A funny side note — when we would have tornado warnings when I was a child, my older sister would sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as we went down to the crawlspace just to freak me out. This might explain some things.)

I kind of do the same thing with airplanes. I’m often scared to fly. In fact, I haven’t been on a plane in over ten years. I spent a year in Denmark when I was a teenager and even today I shudder at the fact I flew over the ocean. Yet I like to watch shows on airplanes like “City in the Sky” and “Ice Pilots”. I love to see other places, so I’m sure I will get on a plane again. It’s just my heart will be racing the whole time.

Do you have anything that fascinates you but scares the shit out of you at the same time?

I mentioned this book a couple of weeks ago in a blog post. It’s a book of daily meditations with very thought-provoking and meaningful quotes. Well, I’ve been reading it every day and I can apply the quotes to my personal life so well that it seems uncanny. I highly recommend this book! It’s keeping my thoughts positive through this quarantine.

You can get it on Amazon or at freethoughthouse.com.