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Biddy is a woman of some years: a GenX'er, Riot Grrrl, survivor, traveler, tattoo collector, senior pet owner, music lover, former public school embattled public school retiree and amatuer vegan chef. Biddy Sounds Off is a thinking woman's bildungsroman and pirate radio station some thirty years in the making: featuring episodic writings and eclectic musical selections.
Welcome to Biddy Sounds Off, a place for episodic writing and music I love. I'm Biddy. Happy Pride Month. I almost said for those who celebrate, but if you're not celebrating, why the grump not? There's that oldie but goodie meme, I'll post it on Instagram, where someone is awkwardly texting another person happy pride for your people.
Biddy:I think it says celebrate being fancy month. So say it awkward or not, try to connect with a celebratory headspace as often as we can. Right? There are a lot of brave souls to be thankful for and grateful for. Their voices and representation, for intersectionality and recognition of the struggles survivors face every day, unimaginable struggles.
Biddy:Queer, people of color, abuse survivors, people of all abilities including drag queens of all abilities and I have a wonderful link on Instagram. Now that I'm getting more used to being on the socials more and with a promotional mindset, I want to share Disability Horizons has this wonderful article featuring 6 influential and versatile disabled drag queens to follow on social media. So if you are like me looking for interesting and inspiring accounts, take a moment to check out this link on my insta page. When the fashion industry in particular becomes more accessible for all and one day hopefully becomes more sustainable as well, that will be another time to celebrate. But for me, I'm going to be doing my best to celebrate right now, also because my pain is flaring up in my body and I've lost some mobility.
Biddy:That happens when I'm not getting enough movement and physical therapy, and this is both the result of and compounding cause of living with PTSD and my arthritis, I get caught up. We get caught up, and financial stressors do be like that. But my intention is to spend less time judging myself for having flare ups and more time finding celebrations as I continue working on recovery. I mean, listen, prevention is best, but we don't all live every minute of every day in the best column. So let's celebrate where and when we can this month with pride in our hearts, and let's do it on a budget.
Biddy:I am counting my every last peso right now. Finances have a way of applying the kind of pressure that can be all consuming. It is expected when all all of life is changing, big moves, literal transitions, leaving teaching, finding a new career in tech at my age. Just because something is expected doesn't mean we always show up as prepared as we may like. The landscape of my life is changing.
Biddy:It is markedly absent several people as it continues to progress season by season. Some of those losses were expected, right? But that did nothing to ease the pain. As I learn ways that do ease whatever I can manage and do help to manage the triggers, I feel less resistance in my heart, mind, body when they set upon me these stressors. My stillness and breath allows the momentum that those flashbacks and triggers arrive with.
Biddy:The charge they bring doesn't stick to the calm observation. The placid witness inside me watches them swirl like cotton candy, insulation colored pink, and they're blown out through the window I've opened for them. The space I've created within me now allows for this breathing room, the emotional hoard having been largely cleared. Thanks to therapy, thanks to movement, thanks to my continued survival. Celebrating survival is an important physical therapy, my old ass, but the goal is progress after all.
Biddy:I strive and sometimes stumble and sometimes miss completely equilibrium. The golden ratio held in balance by a commitment to do one's best. An idea supporting 2 counterbalances, 2 scales aligned at 0 flux given and 0 shit taken on either side. Balance is the goal, but striking the ideal in a world of movable parts and ugly rhetoric and no independent wealth to speak of can be an unrelenting challenge. It sets my scales askew in an effort not to stagnate.
Biddy:Getting caught up in the tar pits of self doubt, pending paralysis of heart, body, mind. It can be a good idea to work on a bit of self care. Shake some of that internal rot loose with some physical movement. And the best way I know how to do this is with music. I think we have these artists as music lovers that are break glass in case of emergency.
Biddy:Right? They are so deeply imbued with our memories and emotions informing certain eras of our lives so acutely that they bring that time alive again. Nostalgia can be a poison if we ruminate too long. Remember that the goal is progress, forward facing at minimum. Decay sets in when we overindulge as I am experiencing quite literally in this moment.
Biddy:This time, the panic entered my chest and replaced my heart with a pair of ringing hands. This is my body advocating for some self care and that stress catches up to me if I don't manage it. My body starts hurting again and my hands ache, and I get that depression, like my dad calls it. So I break open that glass, crank up that volume, begin to connect with my senses, my human body again as I shut out the noise. These stressors of mine will pass and they are ego based.
Biddy:Having begun sharing these stories in this way out loud with you, social media, my ego wants to pick everything apart. So, if I can center myself, clear my mind with a yoga pose, savasana, my lazy ass, happy baby, windshield wiper legs, a hot shower with this song I'm about to play for you, I take the opportunity to remind myself. In the words of the artist herself, this is a story about control, My control. Control of what I say. Control of what I do.
Biddy:And this time, I'm gonna do it my way. My way. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. Are you ready? I am.
Biddy:Thank you. Miss Demita Jo, Janet, miss Jackson, because you know I'm nasty. If control is at play, let it be our own. These stressors are not my life. I'm not fragmented, splintered, shattered the way I was before.
Biddy:I know where to look for strength and reassurance. I have found my way through that terrifying hall of mirrors and my gaze is steady now. I know there is strength within me. And what? She bring it to you every meltdown.
Biddy:It's time for the music, for real. Breathe. Welcome back. Of course, Janet Jackson is so incredible and is on tour, California, I believe, is coming right up. So if you are lucky enough to see her, I would love to know how that show was for you.
Biddy:Janet is a queen who stirs the power within me and hopefully you as well. And I hope you enjoyed those last two songs we shared, featuring the glorious Khia, in case you just wanted to keep it moving. Celebration is the goal this month, period. Survivors need to do that more, I imagine. Remind ourselves that our lives are more than flashback scenes from a house of horrors.
Biddy:We need to witness and respect how far we've come. Celebrate our strength through adversity, through strife, challenges, but in the end it is strength, period. Move forward with that new power and carry it into your new life with respect and love. I've met so many wonderful people along the way through Mexico this past year, but I remain selective in protecting my peace here. Even the silence rings in the ears at first and when we lose voices that were very strident before, it can take a moment to reset the frequency.
Biddy:There are no voices around anymore who would sit in judgment of me, who would disturb the peace, offset the balance of respect and love. I lived with the echoes for a while, but those old demands and that outmoded pressure of my prior life loosens up like a layer. I shake it off as it sheds like pants or a baggy slip. I step out of it. The soul gains a little bit more breathing room, expanding with the loss of every layer and gaining more life sustaining respiration.
Biddy:And it gets into your bloodstream, that expansiveness, and it gives you enough room to move a bit freer in one's own skin. It is the thing about realizing one's own power. The idea kicks up a bit of fear and dust but this has been a process of growth. Progress breeds results and progress breeds new life, new experiences and managing triggers with self compassion and letting the fear move through me. As long as I don't try to kick its ass on the way out, it moves through and leaves me feeling freer, stronger.
Biddy:We are always gaining strength. What I needed building was patience and trust within myself. My body in connection with the world around me, as I continue to push myself out of my comfort zone into Mexico City for events and live music and vegan food and pride celebrations. Mexico City is a place of life and vibrancy and people from all over the world. For me, it is a soul lifting goal just arriving there.
Biddy:There is a new buoyancy in my chest, in the areas of my head, chest and breast areas with the potential to include my neck, my back, my pussy, and my crack. Thank you again, Queen Kaia. The strength and a new understanding of my step into this role of self advocate, step into this power, power that I had been turning inward against myself for so long. After survival, we can make peace with ourselves. I haven't had children.
Biddy:I haven't given birth to anyone, though I did have stepchildren at one time. The love I felt for them showed up like condensation on glass. There were already multiple loving parental figures in their lives, which is fortunate. I was another outsider, a familiar place for me. I was grateful for the extended family at the time.
Biddy:But I hear mothers describe a feeling of stepping into their own power. I don't think you have to be a mother exclusively, but there are moments in life when no one else is around to navigate for you. As a teacher, I recall moments when no one else was around to speak for, advocate for a child in my care. That fell to me and there is no other choice in a situation like that. Children deserve that and I was honored to provide it and I did so unflinchingly and more times than I had ever hoped to, until that muscle memory was established.
Biddy:Neural pathways reworked themselves and new patterns of thought emerged. Behavioral patterns, developmental patterns I've taken with me from my learning and education and subsequent training and trauma informed practices have shown me how deficient my own personal systems of nourishment have become. This learning not only informed my teaching practice but my human practice. My mother certainly inspired me as she pursued another career later in life, earned her master's degree and training certifications required to become a licensed professional therapist at age 60. It fell to me to call her clients and notify them of her passing 2022.
Biddy:It was immediately evident to me the love they had for her as her therapist. She bragged all the time to me about how many people she helped. Of course, this is true. And of course, I was jealous she hadn't shown me the same standard of of care, but a pouting 40 5 year old doesn't rise to the same level of need, I expect. Now, I am endlessly proud of her, amazed by her capacity to treat the walking wounded and hopeful that she found similar lessons in her own learning journey and applied them to her human practice and found them nourishing.
Biddy:For me, these new patterns of thought were becoming full fledged systems of self advocacy. The year I filed for my second divorce in 2018, I began to trust and believe that I could manage this. And when I did, my mother was gracious and allowing the space I needed to practice new behavioral patterns, new boundaries I had begun to claim. By the time COVID hit, I'd had 2 years on my own to fine tune these systems and if I hadn't done that, I don't know how I would have survived that darkness that was yet to come. It feels like nausea to recall it even now.
Biddy:The winter of 2022 was the darkest it's ever gotten for me. I did not expect to survive, but the road back taught me a new way to travel through life. It feels correct. Now, when these inevitable quivers come back into my knees or my heart turns into a butterfly or a rabid bat trapped inside of my chest, seeking release, a respite from the mind. The ego is quick to re enter the conversation, but as much as I need that ego to survive, the moment I get up myself, karma will catch up and quick.
Biddy:A brilliant friend of mine, an angel we lost from this earth that same year going into the winter 2022. She was a rare creature from another time, a living doll from the 19 fifties starlet collection. A hollow boned bird, drank like she was in a 19 thirties detective paperback, fucked older men, was the one who would start dancing first when our friends' bands were playing. She told me karma would make a great character in one of my stories. Anorexia compounded with previous diagnoses and surgical interventions for brain and spinal inflammation at some point in her early adolescence.
Biddy:Having spent so much of her debutante coming out years in hospital beds, she was prepared to shine when she unexpectedly outlived those complications. Her doctors and families were prepared for her to die before 18. To everyone's surprise, she defied the odds. She drank, smoked, partied, fucked and was determined to live out the rest of her short life on her terms, and her beautiful family accepted that. She was visibly touched by illness in the same way my sister eventually became marked by death.
Biddy:Both were high glamour girls and the unsettling moments of glimpses of the corpse they would quickly become was a horror felt by all of their close friends and family. All of us who chose to spend time with either of them, understanding that we were there on their terms. They both bore the gallows humor for us, making jokes at their own expense, their little version of breaking the ice. My favorite friend didn't have paparazzi snapping photos the way my sister had, but people commented in the grocery store, whispered about her on bus. Chronic illness doesn't make you deaf, have some respect.
Biddy:Together, they both would have shared a scotch for 1, vodka for the other, smoked cigarettes together. Maybe somewhere they are, wherever that may be, it is beautifully styled because both of them studied fashion and old movies too. Another friend of mine passed in July that same year, 2022, about a month before my mom did. He died of fentanyl, impossible for me to know if it was intentional and we always do want the details, don't we? His loss is most deeply felt when I play guitar, listen to certain bands, write songs.
Biddy:He had great feedback for me and we shared a lot of music in common. A great sense of humor. I remember chatting with him before a show in Denver, his show, and while we were talking someone made a beeline towards us and he muttered, quiet enough only so I could hear, this fucking guy. I positively glowed with this gift of secret giggles he gave me, while going through the motions of shaking this guy's hand and thanking him for coming. Sweet, sweet person.
Biddy:Intentional or not, immaterial to me, he was hurting enough to seek solace whatever way he could. Some of us latch onto that pain he might have felt in life. We can't possibly know what it was like for them. But there is an urge to grab onto that guilt or shame that we could have done more. All of that is built up and created by our imagination.
Biddy:It doesn't exist in the real world. That pain, my friend felt is gone now. If their spirit lives on, I hope to feel it. If not, by rejecting the pain of guilt when it gets itchy in my heart, by passing on that when triggered by memories of his loss. I allow myself to feel the love I felt for him as a music lover with great taste, similar to mine obviously.
Biddy:A musician, a sensitive sweet soul who I am grateful to have known. 3 loved ones lost in as many months. I moved out of the home mom and I had shared during quarantine, around August, gearing up for a new school year. After I'd finished closing out her earthly affairs and business, I found a lovely 1 bedroom shack with copious rose bushes and a garden for the children. In Denver, this home wouldn't last long on the market, but the landlord was kind enough to hold it for me.
Biddy:I told him how I've been commuting from Pueblo, where mom lived, to Denver, where I worked. Right at the time, the world transitioned into hybrid learning. The landlord was an elderly man who lived up the street. He loved being involved with the house so much that he made it kind of a necessity, considering everything had been cobbled together like the plumbing, from pieces and parts in his workshop. He just lost his dog a few months back and fell in love with Toby.
Biddy:We'd only been there a few months before he died from a fall off the ladder in his workshop. His wife, a local bookseller, his constant companion for the last 30 years, came home to find him dead for hours. I'm sure I walked the dog past his home that day, wondered for weeks if I might have been able to hear him, not that it mattered. But there are stray thoughts that mist up around us, little cloudy snatches, foggy thoughts. As confusing as grief can be at first, it is worth remembering not to fog up one's vision with useless spots like these just because they present themselves as coherent, all of the words lined up together in a logical seeming sequence, they are still little traps for our hearts trying to contain the ache.
Biddy:Keep it, control it, hold the trauma close and pet it and nourish it. The allure is there but I know better to indulge that now. Four deaths in 4 months now but who's counting? Luckily my dad was my constant companion repertoire and to my ear, he was the master. Repertoires change.
Biddy:They expand to include, in my case, this phrase, gentle listener. And no matter what the challenges ahead, let us not forget our darkest moments give us power. Stone cold survivors with new coping skill, making forward progress in this world. Whether you are in your own excavation stages or planning phase or you've made it to the surface by now. It helps, it helps me to remember to reset if possible and run through the self care checklist.
Biddy:Am I hurting anyone, myself included? Am I taking shit for some self demeaning reason? Am I giving fucks over things outside of my control? The answers to these questions lie in the larger one. Am I doing my best?
Biddy:It doesn't feel like I'm doing my best to be broke in this moment, to be hurting in my body as I am in this moment. But I'm working on that. Because one thing my mother taught me is that life is better with options. Without them, desperation sets in. We'll get tied to a one track railroad.
Biddy:She'd say, when you count on things the most, that's when they'll fall through. I took that to mean, backup planning was generally a good idea. She'd say, life is always better with options. We can live our lives more comfortably, find freedom, when we don't have to live in desperation. And for many people right now in the US, their government is forcing them to live in a state of desperation.
Biddy:Due to the stripping away of abortion rights and women's rights and fundamental human rights, freedom of choice is our last song this time by Devo. But before that, I'd like to share another piece of wisdom that came from my mom. I saved it. She wrote it down in her therapy office on the side of a Kleenex box I found while clearing it out. It must have been there to help a client but I ripped it out of the cardboard and saved it to help me.
Biddy:And it does. I've gazed on it when I'm low and missing them, my family. In her tight curly handwriting it reads by Hal Borland. No winter lasts forever. No spring skips its turn.
Biddy:If you'd like to get in touch, please look for me on Instagram at biddybops_ or send me an email at biddybiddybops@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. This has been Biddy Sounds Off. Thank you for listening.