The Theory of Nevertivity

The Universe is a great and wonderful thing. What we know about it and its inhabitant’s changes as our understanding of science and mathematics becomes more advanced.
In 1687 Newton rocked the world with his three laws concerning force and bodies in movement. To put it in ways the everyday person can understand it goes something like this;



Law 1- If you have one child watching Scooby Doo with a bowl of chips and a juice box unhindered they are likely to stay put.


Law 2- Add a second child who is a remote stealing maniac hell bent on watching FlapJack and you have a chase. The previous body at rest would have stayed at rest had not the second body forced it to take action and chase it around the living room.


Law 3- When child number one is tired of running and smacks child number two he return the smack in "equal" ferocity. This was cutting edge for its time.


Then in 1905 Einstein rolled into town with his Special Relativity and Non Inertial Frames of Reference and the universe as we knew it became something even more wonderful as we found better ways to appreciate its complexities. He said that no matter where you are or what planet you are on laws regarding motion are the same. Meaning once the remote has been stolen, a chase and smacking will ensue whether the child is on Earth or Mars. Very simplistic I know but this is not Scientific American.


Fast forward to 2010 and I propose to you yet another break through in understanding life the universe and everything. The Theory of Nevertivity. This theory has two parts the first being the law of Karma and Never, the second being the law of Never and Rightness.


The law of Karma and Never proposes that at the same speed you declare you will never do something, you will be sent that same thing to plague you in as many forms as possible till you either give in or admit there are exceptions to the rule.


Ask any politician or televangelist that has had to apologize for a mistress. Then ask any actor that is repaying promotional money because the diet they were advertising lasted as long as their next relationship. Meaning after the love is gone food moves in to replace it and there is no diet in the world that repair a broken heart the way chunky money can. As soon as we say never it becomes ever and our constant companion.


The law of Never and Rightness proposes that in the same measure that you insist on being right you will be equally unhappy.


The problem with always being right is that every other person on the planet is always wrong and it is hard to live in the glow of such righteousness. Also when you are always right there is no room for compromise and the only way for relationships to work is for there to be compromises on both sides. I see unhappy people everyday that insist the root of their unhappiness is that the people in their lives refuse to see that they are right and do what they want. It never occurs to them that they might be wrong. Then there is the additonal fear that admitting wrongness is tantamount to a Supreme Court Reversal of conviction causing every other judgment they made to that point suspect. Which in the wider scheme of things is just crazy, I promise you the big brother is not watching you waiting for you to slip up he too busy watching… well Big Brother, or Lost in syndication. Happy in compromise or right and alone.


Humanity like the universe is a vast everchanging thing. What is the knowable today is refutabel tomorrow. In light of that absolutes are never a good thing, and I am just as bad as everyone else at declaring them. I have to remind myself to “try” to never say never, nothing is black and white. Cheaters do sometimes prosper, diets work as long as the line at Baskin Robbins and sometimes people find love and wonder in places they never thought they would be looking. And in those moments when I feel so right that I expect the heavens to open and doves to alight upon me, I need someone to say; Honey do you want to be happy or do you want to be right.

Why am I here again?

I was chatting with a California friend on Facebook the other day when suddenly in the middle of the conversation she asked me, “Where are you?” To which I replied, “In my house”. She asked again, “No, where are you, geographically?” I told her Tennessee, more specifically Clarksville, on the Kentucky border. 

She then asked how I got here, what I was doing and when was I coming back.

That was a good Question, one I have pondered for many years. The best answer I can give is one shared by many of the other inhabitants here; the military. For one reason or another we come to the Mecca that is Fort Campbell and then never left. Sure we venture out occasionally but somehow like a adventurers trying to time travel, we round the sun and slingshot back here and land in the same spot with the eerie impression that nothing has changed since we left if we really left at all. 

We transplants talk a big game about leaving, but know it is just that a game. Especially if you have been out of the military longer than six months and are still here. If you reproduced, married and buried here or had family relocate to be close, the odds against your getting out just went up exponentially.

I came here to visit my mom in the Fall of 1989, I had big plans back in L.A. and was not going to let anything stop me from following through with those plans. When we rode out of Nashville proper and I saw cows I panicked. When we rolled into Clarksville and I saw the cows and the corn fields... and honey we had quite few more then, than we do now, I felt a sinking feeling we weren’t in a major metropolitan area anymore. When I saw what constituted a mall, Two Rivers (the locals get it) I vowed to get back to the Glendale Galleria at any cost.

I said I would never become one of the ladies who lunch. You know the ones; always on the go from one place to another with kids, flowers, food or animals. Always planning for the next thing which is always around the corner, belonging to some organization that needs volunteers and donations, ending each holiday by starting plans for the next one. Having cookie dough premade in freezer and a gift closet just in case. The ladies that can’t wait to meet her friends for lunch because that is where they can say what they really think about anything and everyone. The ladies who are always starting a diet but live for butter and refuse to exercise but hate their ever expanding bottoms. The ladies in sororities and some kind of "League" and who say honey, sweetie and sugar allot.

Most importantly I was not going to be here long, if I was here for six months it would be a miracle.

That was 21 years ago and we are still here. Sure, there have been a few excursions to other places as a token gestures to our freedom, but we always come back here. I have married divorced and remarried here. I have given birth here and helped raise an assortment of nieces, nephews and Godchildren here. My father died here, my mother lives here as does one sister and all of my transplanted in-laws. Yes all of them.. (haha Michell I love you!)

We own a home, in a subdivision in a cornfield. I love cows, hate the mall and read Southern Living like it is the gospel. I am beyond pleasantly plump and belong to too many organizations to count. Most of my free time is spent driving with kids, food flowers or animals to the next thing. I have cookie dough in the freezer and a Suzy’s Zoo emergency gift box in the gift closet. Most importantly I love my friends and it is true no matter what the letter we are all Greek, and we do so love our lunches. I am always supposed to be on a diet, exercise when I remember and am always looking for the money and the courage to get it all sucked out tucked in. I live to cook and cook so that others waistlines may live large. I yearn to return to the coast but am not sure what I would do there. Oh yeah and the longer we live here, the crazier we get and the more we begin to feel as if have always been here. But now back to that original questions.

Where am I, hopelessly landlocked with friends and family I would not trade for the world.

What am I doing, going crazy from the lack of an ocean view and salt water, but holding it together till I get my new Paula Deen cookbook. Then you are going to get a care package that will make you see heaven and a few more pounds on the scale.

When am I coming back, probably never, I don’t think I make the weight requirement for that state, but please feel free to come see me. The food is great, the people are polite and for you folks living in a concrete paradise that remains a steady 75 degrees, we have nature and seasons. Maybe if you are here on the right day you can meet some of my ladies for lunch.

What is this blog about.. it is about me then and me now. About me becoming more here, than there and how as time passes I try to blend the two. More often than not it will be about how we live here landlocked and crazy and love it....