Be Careful With Me (Tara Taylor Quinn)

This has been a week for vituperative outpourings. I haven't looked at the celestial weather this week, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it says to run for cover and stay put until the stars and moons have a chance to realign. I feel like I'm in this vortex of swirling energy, being drawn and pushed from one spot to the next and every time I'm stopped it's to witness another bout of vitrolic interaction.

What's up with that???

If all these instances were aimed at me, I'd think I was a bad guy and that would explain the 'weather' and I'd crawl in a hole until I could find a way to be good. But these situations aren't all aimed at me. From internet slamming to someone I respect being unexpectedly and insensitively fired, the negativity abounds around me. After months of silence, of supposed healing, I sent communication yesterday that I thought was logical and respectful and to the point and the response I received was antagonistic. Last night I heard of a mother who cut off her college aged daughter's cell phone - reported it stolen - leaving her without any form of communication - because she didn't like who her daughter was communicating with, or about. It was nothing illegal or dangerous. So, what if the young woman, who lives in an apartment in another city, had an emergency? Or ran out of gas? She'd be stranded all alone in the city - in a world where a young woman just isn't safe out alone. I get angy. I get hurt. But I can't even comprehend this! How can a mother turn on her own child? What's the matter with us that we've made our world a place where this kind of behavior is acceptable? Justifiable?

My own daughter has made choices that are incredibly painful to me (what parent of a young adult hasn't experienced that?) and each day I tell her I love her. In one form or another. Not because I'm out for a medal or to prove anything or to gain anything, or even because I'm getting any love back, but simply because I do. That's what a parent does, isn't it? Supports their children no matter how painful to self? Or am I wrong here?

And yet I take another step. Something happens that hurts me, or makes me mad, and I pull out my own tongue, my own veritable collection of well aimed barbs, and I march right into battle myself.

I'm all for free speech. I'm a writer! I love the freedom to use my words. I'm all for openness and communication, but isn't there a point where humanity kicks in and we hold our tongues? Or our fingers? Ever since 9/11 I've had this shaken sense of who and what my fellow man is. There seems to be no limit to what a person can or will do. No sense of enough is enough. Enough is never enough anymore it seems. There is no safety. No understanding that there are lines that, as human beings, we just don't cross. People are capable of anything - no matter how atrocious.

It didn't used to be this way, did it? Except for those criminals who, I told myself, had environmental or genetic or chemical imbalances. And those guys were the bad guys and we all knew it and protected each other against them. But today, we're protecting ourselves against our own family members. Ones who have never done a criminal act in their lives.

We're protecting ourselves against cyber buddies we've never met - and I'm not talking about the predators, but rather people who share list groups and loops. And even those who read this blog. I belong to a professional organization that is many thousands of members strong and all week between members there've been discussions that border on cruelty due to people's lack of ability to allow differing opinions without feeling threatened, becoming defensive.

Is it because we're all running around in a mass of fear? Are we fighting such intense amounts of things we can't control that the fight moves outward and spills onto those around us? Has our world gone so crazy that we can't just have peaceful moments? Even amongst ourselves? Do we have to tear each other down to feel better about ourselves? And does it work? Really? How could it? How does my making you feel bad about yourself in any way make me feel better? What good is served by me attacking you? For either of us?

Since my move to Ohio I've been slowly replacing CD's that I used to co-own and lost. Just recently I bought the Jewel CD, Pieces of You. I used to listen to this with my daughter and suddenly, a few days ago, was struck with the compelling need to hear it again. I've been playing it almost non-stop since Sunday. Over and over. Listening to the truths, both good and bad, about life and the world in which we live. Jewel tells it like it is. She isn't afraid to say words like faggot, though she took a lot of flack for doing so. She's not afraid to talk about the sensation of needing to kick in someone's teeth for being abusive. And she's not afraid to admit that we all need to just STOP. To just love and be loved.

One song in particular has become my mantra this week. It's a song I can remember my daughter telling me to listen to. We were in a McDonald's parking lot one morning in Chandler, Arizona, an everyday ritual to get breakfast, and she told me that she related to every word of the song. I listened, with her in mind, and needed to cry - because she felt the need for the song, and because I could see her in it. This week the song became my own, too.

It might be yours as well. I hope it can be. If we could all see each other as Jewel portrays the heroine in her music, maybe the celestial sun could shine. If we could take these words unto ourselves, maybe the way we react to the circumstances in our lives would change. Maybe we could lose much of the negativity that is a sacrilege to humanity and, instead, face our days with more joy and peace than defensiveness. Maybe we would realize that those around us are there to be loved, not attacked. If only...

The song goes like this:

Excerpted from "I'm Sensitive" on the Jewell Pieces of Eight CD.

I was thinking that I might fly today

Just to disprove all the things that you say

It doesn't take a talent to be mean

Your words can crush things that are unseen

So please be careful with me, I'm sensitive

And I'd like to stay that way...

...Why's it gotta be so complicated?

Why you gotta tell me if I'm hated?

So please be careful with me, I'm sensitive

And I'd like to stay that way...

...I have this theory that if we're told we're bad

Then that's the only idea we'll ever have

But maybe if we are surrounded in beauty

Someday we will become what we see

'Cause anyone can start a conflict

It's harder yet to disregard it

I'd rather see the world from another angle

We are everyday angels

Be carful with me 'cause I'd like to stay that way.