Worse Auntie / Grow your own Lava Lamp

Warning: children who do not need more distractions from their paths of goodness and purity should click away quickly. Quaker children who do not have Santa Clause around anyway may continue reading as long as you also acceptRantWoman's prayers regarding your immortal soul and ask some trusted adults to help season the following.

RantWoman, for her part is thinking of that phrase "Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me." RantWoman is thinking if that's where to start, boy are we in trouble.

RantWoman's clearness committee recently asked her what would happen if RantWoman were more open around Meeting about things to do with vision loss. RantWoman found herself thinking, careful what you ask for.

RantWoman mostly has not filled her audience in on every weirdo visual effect that comes her way. One or two groupies ask in low-key ways for updates and RantWoman repeats the family mantra, "my eyes have not fallen out of my head yet." RantWoman has a time or two shared some or another nugget from all her optho frequent flyer experiences with someone who brought up something related in conversation. RantWoman also mentioned a popcorn meeting and the interaction of eyes and light.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/02/popcorn-factory-minority-report.html

RantWoman has the strong, unshakeable impression that even those increments are too much for many around her. RantWoman so far has not made her clearness committee or another topical committee sit with a whole bunch of messages coming RantWoman's way that sound to RantWoman's febrile sensibilities too much like "shut up" when RantWoman THINKS the speakers could do fine with "I don't know how to deal with what you just told me." But never mind; save that thought for a couple other different threads. Let's start with Bad Auntie .

Remember Bad Auntie the sudoku-obsessed would-be role model of proper comportment during Meeting for Worship. Here is more of the story:

Bad Auntie rides the bus to worship. The Sunday bus run features several clumps of people getting on and later decamping to various houses of worship. The effect is centering and inclusive in a much gentler way than the multicultural maelstrom aboard Metro the rest of the week. RantWoman likes the walk to the bus. She likes the sense of many different forms of worship in one vessel. She likes caffeine and a walk at the other end of the route. In short, RantWoman's routine IS preparing for worship even though it might as well be something from another planet to many.

Then there is sudoku. RantWoman is VERY glad to be able to see enough to do sudoku, provided the print is big enough and RantWoman can use fat pen. RantWoman likes hard puzzles and did not always finish her puzzles during her bus ride, so there is A LITTLE bit of addictive behavior involved in doing so for a few minutes at the beginning of worship while RantWoman settles in, centers, gets a handle on her ill-behaved eyeballs' efforts to shift focal length.

There is also another messy eyeball issue or RantWoman's eyeballs interacting with light conditions in our worship room. RantWoman's pupils do not dilate and constrict correctly or very fast in response to changes in light conditions to begin with. This means for instance that even though RantWoman is an optho frequent flyer, she gets to skip dilation some of the time simply because too many gallons of drops have to be poured in to have any effect.

The worship room at RantWoman's Meeting has one glass wall facing south with plenty of bright sunlight on good days. The other three walls have a row of small windows several feet above the floor all the way around the room. RantWoman most of the time feels so grateful to be among community that she does not even attend to the fact that there is NO place in the worship room where RantWoman can count on being visually comfortable. Bright sunlight has one set of issues; clouds and glare have a completely different set.

RantWoman tries glasses on, glasses off, sunglasses on, sunglasses off, large-brimmed hat on, large-brimmed hat off and various combinations of all of the above. Each takes RantWoman to different frontiers of fog and blur, possibly to slapstick effect. None of them take RantWoman measurably closer to being able to center. One thing that does REALLY help is focussing on something close, which sudoku does WONDERFULLY.

Apparently silently doing sudoku during Meeting for Worship for silent waiting on God greatly distresses many in RantWoman's Meeting. Various people, members of Worship and Ministry and otherwise eldered RantWoman about this. No one got the full dissertation here but They all went "Oh, we had no idea..." when RantWoman talked about both generalized eye stuff and centering preparation for Meeting for Worship. Some people were more categorical than others about wanting RantWoman to stop. RantWoman said thank you for your opinion. Then RantWoman got sent off to a clearness committee and learned of the issue of the child objecting to RantWoman's example written of earlier. RantWoman still thanks the child for speaking up. RantWoman still thinks it's parents' job to teach children what is right regardless of what others around one may be doing.

Tonight Bad Auntie is ba-a-a-a-ck, only now she's Worse Auntie. Worse Auntie is not only unrepentant, she could really fast get into elder with a snarl mode! Worse Auntie is wishing she had said "why does it bother you? Please tell me how this specifically impedes your ability to worship? In particular what is it about being present with other people's pain and difdficulties that you find challenging?"

RantWoman / Worse Auntie personally really cannot see well enough to be annoyed by all kinds of quiet behaviors in Meeting for Worship and Worse Auntie MIGHT be tempted to tell some to be glad someone else's quiet behavior is the worst problem they have in life. RantWoman might also say she is darned glad to be able to do sudoku.

RantWoman might even read people the riot act about the lighting in the Worship Room. There are a million different ways light conditions in the worship room can be uncomfortable between light conditions, things in RantWoman's eyes that do not work normally, and variables like hay fever and sleep. If RantWoman only went places that are visually easy to deal with she would have no life and Meeting for Worship is important. Unfortunately, not only is this a whole welter of oddball messages, RantWoman also gets to figure out how to deal with the "shut up / I don't know how to deal" part she is already far too well-acquainted with.

But hold that thought. Worse Auntie, among other things has some ideas about things she needs around her Meeting. RantWoman needs to communicate specifically with children and her clearness committee has been a great help about ways to get that started. RantWoman has ben gratified too by reaction to a generalized query departing from RantWoman's reflection: other adults also like some of what is on RantWoman's mind. Now that is being seasoned and RantWoman gets to think first of all about dealing with vision loss and talking about it to children.

Worse Auntie and sudoku matters keep showing up though, and keep showing up and keep showing up, and RantWoman is going to have to figure out and strive to articulate some more matters involving adults as well before she even wants to wade into talking to kids. Ai-yi-yi-yi.


Then there would be Conflict is a Gift of God Friend, Friend who is a walking encyclopedia about many topics but has trouble sharing space in conversation with some categories of people. RantWoman had been detecting this problem to really serious and stifling effect for months before certain conversations melted down. RantWoman STILL feels no leading to have attempted to play fairy godmother or to sugarcoat the problem. RantWoman notes that it took Conflict is a Gift of God Friend SEVERAL more months to absorb what seemed to RantWoman VERY direct simple statements pointing in that direction.

During the several months, Conflict is a Gift of God Friend more than once engaged RantWoman's physical safety radar REALLY hard in situations where RantWoman otherwise would very much have enjoyed certain exercise-related activities with said Friend. RantWoman keeps turning over this issue. NOTHING is shaking her clarity that she owes NO ONE, not said Friend, not the clerk of Oversight committee, not the Pope, any explanations for her rules. RantWoman does not even apologize for blunt emails connected with the circumstances even if the point was not crystal clear in the email.

Furthermore, RantWoman considers waiting around for MONTHS while someone else gets a message involving the laws of physics completely unreasonable in the specific context she has in mind. RantWoman does not need argument. RantWoman does not need to be told she is being ridiculous. RantWoman does not need ANYONE telling her what is or is not in her own head! Nor does RantWoman need anyone without exactly the right cred telling her how to get about with Ambassador Thwack the badly-behaved white cane.

RantWoman is pretty sure, despite having told said Friend multiple times of her concerns that he still has no clue about RantWoman's issues. Unfortunately he is not alone; RantWoman was explaining the issue to someone else recently. Conflict is a Gift of God Friend is one of a couple people in RantWoman's life who INSIST they should help RantWoman navigate the mean streets, impose their own agendas, INSIST they know more than RantWoman about what RantWoman needs and are completely incapable of listening. Misery does not love company and Worse Auntie could easily ship them both off for reeducation in Quakerism 101, the listening module.

The other night before the Barclay reading group plunged into our Barclay time machine and flirted with the concept of Barclay the Musical, others were checking in with Conflict is a Gift of God Friend. Conflict is a Gift of God Friend still has eye yuck which his doctors have decided involves edema and capillaries looming large in his visual field, "like the crack patterns of dried up mud." He also has annoying floaters, but apparently he has managed to avoid the Grow Your Own Lava Lamp effects RantWoman dances with on top of oddly functioning pupils, double-vision, fog and blur multiplied with bifocals. At least that would be the impression from RantWoman asking teasingly during the checkin.
RantWoman is meditating about her motivations in insisting on Taking up Space in a public conversation about her issues too. RantWoman is sorry someone else is having eye yuck. RantWoman is NOT sorry for taking up space in the same conversation. RantWoman feels like a very large 3-year-old about the topic. What's worse, Worse Auntie is who's on duty for adult supervision. Happy Christmas to all; Lord have mercy on us all.