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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. When I first arrived to Mexico, the layers of stress, anxiety, fear, repressed rage were all still securely in place, Encasing my body in a painful shell. I arrived hell on wheels, 2 wheels, taking some of those turns too fast in a sensible nondescript and reliable all wheel drive CRV.
Biddy:Outfitted with the best tires I'd ever put on any of my cars. Because this older car was a come up for me and I wanted it to be safe as fuck. Because I was spending a lot of my time commuting to and from the job I was growing to despise and would be damned if I met my end in one of these high speed death machines. Amidst all of this air pollution, noise pollution, and unyielding concrete, glass, metal, plastic, highways, shuttling us around in our tombs. Plus, dad had gotten sick with cancer and I was making a 3 hour commute to be with him in Pueblo when I wasn't working in Aurora or living in Denver.
Biddy:Dad insisted that I get better tires put on and I did. And I've been grateful that he cared so much, and I know I made him proud by taking his advice. Every kilometer we've tracked through the US and across the expansive and diverse landscape of the the beautiful country of Mexico. La Senora, the beaches, and the winding roads through and across mountain ranges and wild jungles. These tires have kept us safe throughout this journey.
Biddy:Safe enough for the cat to sleep soundly while I'm steering with one hand, over these climbing, twisting roads and holding a peekingese with the other, as close as I can get him near the blasting ac vent, while simultaneously keeping his puking puss near the window. Car sick, buddy. At first I wondered, who will ever be proud of me for investing in good tires again? Then I realized I make my better angels proud whenever I care for myself or my dependents enough to invest in our safety, health, and well-being. Let's be well right now with a break.
Biddy:That was 20 nineteen's Zuma coming alive. Followed by look away look away by go exclamation point team from get up sequences part 2. The act of driving and gripping the steering wheel and keeping my shoulders and neck from turning to concrete, plus the prolonged sitting can take a toll on the body. The chronic pain I've been grappling with since right before puberty, osteoporosis and sciatica and this progressed into degenerative disc disease and pieces of broken spinal disc floating around which caused a surgery. A fishing expedition really.
Biddy:They went in with a hook to remove a piece or pieces of broken spinal discs that had lodged into the nerve root. Hereditary. Sure. Mom always told me I had weak bones and joint disease like my grandma. It isn't a coincidence that this coincided with major family trauma and flare ups coincide with stressful life events.
Biddy:I just knew that stress was also pressurizing my internal systems and the longer I've spent here now in Mexico and removed from that hustle and bustle, more acutely I could feel that pressure leaving my body. Layer by layer it crumbled. I know I'm very fortunate that surgery worked for me. There are many people for whom it didn't. After that surgery, I knew I couldn't move backwards in time in terms of my physical health.
Biddy:Leaving my job in the US public school system of education as a teacher helped to remove a lot of toxic stress from my system. Leaving the abusive marriage before that or just recently competing the herculean task of cleaning up the hoarded estate of my wonderful, if poorly prepared father, leaving the stress of the US news cycle behind. All of these had been taking a toll on my body and as the months ticked by here in Mexico, my body began to hurt less. As that better life I'd hoped for began to take shape around me, that pressurized existence began to ease and it made way for a new kind of slowness. It required new strength to emerge through patience for myself.
Biddy:I think this is where my self esteem really took root. I had to show patience with my body. I had to show patience with my mind as it inexplicably races when I sit down for a cup of tea or when my heart beats too fast or I have to do deep breathing, relax my jaw when it threatens to lock the cables in my neck and grind my teeth to powder. I'm a jumpy person. Many of us are who survive trauma.
Biddy:You know, I once had a dickhead roommate who thought it was funny to scare me on purpose. That's a dick move if you don't know. Tickling too. Can we please stop that bullshit? One of the more surprising things I noticed is I began to show more patience with myself, allowing myself to move with more slowness, more considered movement to find my own pace and not senselessly try to keep up the breakneck speed of the critic's voices in my head is the amount of fear that had become trapped in my body.
Biddy:Like the quick heart of a prey animal cornered. The fear keeps our autonomic systems on high alert and so for me this included physical shaking, fluttering tremors in movement. My hands shook, I shook, my dad hands shook. An unforgivable failing of the body when one cannot feed oneself with dignity. My shaking is connected to my anxiety.
Biddy:And furthermore, the deep underlying electrical current of fear. Sparked sometimes by anger or its shadow face of pain, grief. By the time I made it to Mexico, my nerves were jangly and raw. I'd arrived knowing that there had been no other option for me. Somehow I knew that if I were going to survive the latest loss, losing dad after a lifetime of separation.
Biddy:The reason for which can only be truly known by his vindictive ex wife, my mother. Losing him felt like an unknowable piece of myself had been ripped away from me. So that by the time I made it here, finally, landed here safely, I was physically trembling with it. A tight coil tends to spring but instead, I slowly unspooled myself, felt the tremors move through me like little grief tsunamis. I was more patient with myself than ever before.
Biddy:Because some wordless understanding in me, a realization that if I had plunged back into my life again, such as it was, but now without dad, I could have died. This wasn't sadness speaking, not the overreactive emotions. It was the clear headed voice of my self advocate. I had a therapist who helped me learn to communicate with my future self. I think this is the well from which my self advocacy flows.
Biddy:This is why I never thought twice about walking away from my life such as it was, leaving teaching my home, leaving the US and moving here. The shaking comes when I'm putting away the dishes or folding the laundry. And I hear their voices, my moms, my ex husbands, I'm not doing it right. Or I'm shaking while I vacuum or trying to cook, trying to put on makeup. I'm fucking that up too somehow and it's going everywhere.
Biddy:I can't get that right. When I try to play my guitar and the voices tell me that I'm worthless anyway, mom and the ex, their voices are gone now. Mine is the only one I'm most likely to hear now besides those of my sweet pets who shared their voices more than once with you on this podcast. Let's take a break. I got heaven with mannequin pussy, and before that was jungle with us against the world.
Biddy:Stay there and don't run away. Futility. My dad fought for nearly 2 years and watching the cancer was terrorizing. Listening to it was haunting. Dad's voice had gotten swallowed up by the cancer in the end.
Biddy:He could only whisper by then and speaking to him with my earbuds plugged into my phone and the volume cranked up was the best way to hear him. Even then, his papery voice sounded like it was coming from beyond the grave. He'd say, hey, girlfriend. Don't you give into that depression now. Because even though we were from Pueblo, Colorado, he sounded like a New York City gangster.
Biddy:Carried himself with that kind of energy. He never tired of telling me stories about how the mafia guys lived out by the Saint Charles River. And some of them had farms there now. Straight from Italy. I'd sit with my tea, take deep breaths.
Biddy:The tremors stopped. I remembered how encouraging my dad had been of me. Mom's critiques were louder though and so I deferred as we often do to the loudest bully in the room. My hands have stopped shaking now. And what's more, I've felt the inner trembling subside, the thrumming of my blood.
Biddy:He'd say, take it easy, girlfriend. And not to make him proud, but I take his advice. Our last song is from Porta Static, Naked Pilseners. This has been Biddy Sounds Off. Thank you for listening.