...some call It God. Sometimes I do, too, but mostly I do not bother with a name. For expedience, I will say God, but that does not mean "the Father" to me. It simply means whatever it is that we find when there are no people, there is no money, when we are utterly alone, but search and find some strength that seems larger than our own.
In my adult life there were two times between 28 and 42 when I was acutely aware that I was calling on something that did not feel like only me. The first was after I'd been as far from any church as I could be for about more than a decade. Like so many children of the sixties, free love and "finding myself" were my religion from college through most of my twenties. At least this is what I told myself. When I fell in love with Matt, I knew that I was running from some demon I could not name. When he used me and threw me away, I cycled into self-destruction and running like hell from those dark places I could not yet quite touch, could not bear seeing. My dreams were peopled by a faceless man who touched. A laugh that was familiar, but which disappeared just as the face began to come into focus and I would awaken. I was not yet ready to remember my brother. Or my grandfather. Or those times I'd worked so hard to bury beneath ten tons of minutely detailed memory of everything but...
A funny thing happened one day when I was 27. It was February. And it was six years before I remembered anything of the abuse of my childhood. That fact is significant.
Chaos: My Family's Special Friend
Ten days before this my father had gall bladder surgery, in the days before lasers. While he was in surgery, I got a call from brother Jim's wife, Sue, that he had been in a severe car crash with another woman. He was in a coma, not expected to live. She was in shock and angry, but she was clear in her message to me. "He's a bastard but I'm not wanting him to die, and I will stick with him while he recovers. I'm his wife. He's my kids' dad. I just--"
"Sue, no one can or should ask for more. I think it's good for you to do this much. You must be in hell."
I found out that she had no money for bills, let alone his hospital stay. Their insurance was minimal, through the car insurance mostly. I went to my mother's but, of course, she was drunk and incoherent, so I called for the siblings. We split things up: Jean Ellen got a loan from her credit union, Jack would drive to New Hampshire to see to business there, and I would deal with telling Mom, when she was conscious, about Jim and tell Dad.
Only Dad had complications and went directly to ICU. It was fifty-fifty whether he would make it, but I knew I had to tell him. He was not in a coma. Mom, however, was semi-comatose throughout. How nice for her. I piled her into the car, propped her in the corner of Dad's cubicle and told him. It was only the second time I watched him cry. Then he said a curious thing, "If it makes me a bad father, so be it, but on some level, I almost wish he would just go. Oh, God, what kind of man am I?"
Something back in the recesses of the dark in me said, "HUMAN." I shoved the thought out, however, and said, "Well, Dad, this really isn't the way for him to go out, for Sue's sake. And sometimes near death experiences change people."
This seemed to help him.
It was five days before Daddy was put in his own room. He had spiked a terrible fever and was still on massive antibiotics, still with a fever over 101. Jim was still in his coma. On the sixth day he came out of his coma, but he, too, had a massive infection from a wound on his leg. They were now hoping to save his foot.
Celebration and Black Ice
In the meantime, I had been awaiting news from B. U., about my application to the Graduate School of Education, because I wanted to get a terminal degree in Adult Education. Good things come all at once...
I got a call from Jack that Jim would make it and keep his foot, then a call from the hospital that Dad would be okay, and a letter of acceptance from B.U. the next morning, I could not wait to go to the hospital with all the news. It was February, warm and foggy. I hit the top stair to the driveway, and a patch of black ice. I fell down six stairs on my back, and when I hit bottom, I knew I was in trouble.
I made it to the hospital to tell Dad the good news, leaving out graduate school. I went to the ER from his room.
I was scheduled for an emergency myelogram. It was 1980, just before MRI's. Two ruptured disks and no disk at all at the base of my spine. I knew I'd had problems, but this finished me off. I was immediately put into a body cast. As luck would have it, the ER doctor that day was my orthopedic surgeon and he said, "My dear, you will need surgery. This finished off our work I'm afraid." I had had two months of PT and was exercising regularly up to this point.
Fighting to Live, Praying to Walk
Jim made it; his marriage didn't. Dad made it; Mom drank to celebrate. Business as usual.
Except for me. The six months between the fall and my first surgery resembled my clinging to the side of a cliff, more than anything.
It was a terrifyingly dark time. It was more a dance to escape my own past, the memories that haunted me, but which I was not prepared to face. When Jim was nearly dead, I was horrified at my own initial thought, 'Good. Die, damn you.' So I ran to any man who looked my way, in a frenzy of dangerous sexual behavior.
I was in a body cast for a month and lost weight. I kept losing weight because I could not keep food down. I thought it was stress; I was mistaken. The thinner I got, naturally, the more other women told me how great I looked. I did not. You could see every rib and every vertebrae. I could pour water into the gully of my collar bone. I photographed great, though, because of the gauntness of my face. I did not miss work; I did not miss rehearsals for a play. I pretended that I would be fine.
By June, my legs began to collapse and the headaches started. Every day, on my way into Hartford, I'd pull off to the side to quickly vomit, then go to work. Once there, I'd take the migraine medication and try not to pass out. Sometimes my legs would collapse in the stacks, but I was so expert at pulling myself up onto a book truck or the shelves that sometimes no one registered I'd fallen.
I had had to turn down the opportunity to go to B.U. Even I had to face that particular truth; I never told my family that I was even accepted. Everyone was so busy with Dad and Jim, with Jim's divorce, that I did not care to worry them, and what was the point of talking about a program I could no longer join?
So I buried my pain in men. For an hour, maybe two, I would be beautiful and wanted, then I would leave. I did not care, I thought, whether I lived or died.
Facing Fear, Finding a Toe Hold
Until I saw the doctor and told him about my legs. He looked at me hard and said, "For how long has this been happening?"
"A month, maybe two... I am not sure." I looked at the floor. It was late July.
While I was there, he scheduled a myelogram and surgery. The disk had fragmented into the spinal canal and pieces were impinging on my spinal cord and the nerve root, both. I was scheduled for emergency surgery two weeks from that day.
I was told that I could die or be paralyzed from what was happening.
All I registered that day was, "What do you know? I don't want to die after all. I really don't." My body was numb, but at last my mind and my heart had come to life. For the first time in more than six months, I cried.
What followed in the next five years were eight back operations that entailed seven months of hospitalizations, nine months in various body casts, 37 blood transfusions (before AIDS testing), traction, seven months of physical therapy; I also got married and was instant mother to two half-grown children. I had to be brought back--whatever that means--during or after surgery eleven times. And I had ten days in a Striker bed. You would think it would all be a blur, but it is not. I remember details of almost every stay, and what was done. I remember the smells, the sounds, the nurses, the pain.
But that first operation was the most dangerous. It nearly killed me, but when I finally left the hospital three weeks later, I knew that this back of mine had saved my life. I had something tangible to fight, and learned that I wanted to fight. It was not until three surgeries later, however, that I understood what it really was to feel alone, and that I found that there was something beyond my stubbornness on which I could draw,
And it was then that at last, I rediscovered Grace in my life.
*****
Off for vacation for a few days. Have a wonderful weekend, one and all.
Accidental Spring
"Accidental Spring" This began as the background for painting other papers, but became something else!
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Friday, March 23, 2012
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The slayer of Monsters Under My Bed
It was the fifties and early sixties, and, well, let's face it: most dads were not hyper-involved in the child-rearing. "Wait 'til I tell your father" or "Wait 'til your father gets home" were really the main references to dads by my friends' mothers. On the other hand, my friends' dads took them on family picnics and family outings on the Mohawk Trail or to the Big E (Springfield Mass's agricultural regional fair--a HUGE deal for people who lived within an hour and a half of the place). My dad?
"Gawd, I hate togetherness."
Yeah, but he also taught us to play tennis and never seemed to lose his temper. He built us little cars in the sand. Launched us from his shoulders into the Lake. He did more than his share of one-on-one things. Plus, I could sit in his lap when I was little, nestling into his chest and feel the gentlest hands in the world stroke my neck and shoulders. That was the thing. His voice scared me, it was so deep and rumbly, sometimes. But my daddy never harmed a hair on my head. If anything he touched me more as if I were some little miracle that might break.
He also was the one who came for every nightmare, telling us to chase those monsters away. "Tell 'em, 'BOO, Go away!' and it works every time. Under-the-bed monsters are well-known to be cowards. Otherwise, why would they wait until dark and only scare children?"
It worked!
And if the fear was nameless, he simply took me in his arms and stroked my hair and said, so very softly, "I'm here, Jetty. It's okay. You are home. I'm here."
And when he did bother to be home, he was very much there. It was just that he was away "on business" too much for a man who worked for the State. Somewhere far too young, I registered what sort of business he was away on. But, naturally, we did not speak of it with Mom, just among ourselves.
The thing is, though, my dad slayed the daymare monsters, too. For me, that monster was the "poor house." On several mornings, because I got up so early and would catch them enjoying breakfast alone, I heard them fighting about money before they knew I was there. One time it was really bad, and Mom said, "Jim, you can't drive us to the poor house! We can't live like this! I'm TIRED OF THIS, living from month to month, one disaster away from ruined! I can't." She was crying.
I walked in and simply looked at them, not knowing what to do. I was about six and had gotten up before my sister, even, who was in high school. (I loved how quiet it was first thing in the morning. I had Mommy and Daddy all to myself. Of course, I didn't think then that they would be anything other than thrilled to have me crash their only alone time!)
To make my long story longer, Daddy spoke first. "Well, snigglefritz, it's not as bad as it sounds." He sort of smiled, but his eyes didn't. And Mommy was standing at the sink.
"Where are you driving us Daddy? What's a poor house? I like my house!" I was worried.
"Your mother was using a figure of speech. You know what that is, right?"
"Words that don't mean what they sound like."
Dad shrugged and went on. "It was a grown up discussion, honey, and sometimes we just lose our tempers a little. You do that, too."
I wasn't convinced and a particular tendency I had when I felt someone was lying to me popped up. I tilted my head and looked angry at my father. "What is a poor house, Daddy, and why is Mommy crying?"
He smiled for real, which made me mad. He always did that when I was mad at him. "Daddy, it's NOT FUNNY!" I wanted to cry. The kitchen felt like the air pieces were bashing into each other.
"Honey, it's okay. Really. Tell you what. You know how I stay in the den every Saturday morning for a couple of hours with my yellow paper?"
I nodded because a couple of times I'd crept in, just to sit in his chair and be quiet. He'd let me, but I could see him writing numbers with a pencil, long columns of numbers, with words next to them. I could not read the words because he did not print. All of us could read before school because, well, I don't know. We just sort of knew how to, the way you learn how to walk or something. I had been in trouble at school in Miss Clafflin's class because I found Dick, Jane and Sally boring and said so. My friends did, too, but they knew enough to shut up.
Anyway, my dad told me he would show me what the numbers were for, so I wouldn't have to worry. Daddy always kept his word.
I still was scared, though, when he called me into the den and he had a high stool next to his desk chair, and all those papers spread out. He talked to me about numbers first, telling me to look at the farthest left number and then count how many numbers there were up to the period. "Daddy, that's a decimal point. It's only a period with letters."
He started. "How did you know that?"
"Mommy taught me."
"Then you can tell which are the biggest numbers?"
I was insulted. "Of COURSE. I am NOT a baby." Right. After all, I was in first grade now. I had projects to do for school, like the others. I could add and subtract. I knew a LOT, I informed him.
"Pardon me, snigglefritz. My mistake." He went over what the numbers meant, so much for clothes, for food, for the lights, for something called a mortgage. All of it. And when he added them up, it said how much was spent in a whole month. Then we had other figures for his income. Just two though, and they were the same. That meant he had that much money to spend.
Well, he said it was a great thing when the two figures together were bigger than all those other numbers added together.
"But they aren't, Daddy. Not this month."
"Aha, but here's what we do, Jetty." And he showed me other months, when sometimes he had more money at the end of the month, because they didn't spend it. And he could add it on. And he talked about something called credit and interest and things I really didn't get. What I did get was that he wasn't worried. That the numbers always worked in the end, and he would never ever drive me anywhere away from home where I couldn't come back again. Ever.
"There isn't a poor house?"
"No, honey. And it would be nice if the figures could match up every month, but sometimes they just don't. But that's how lots of people have to do it. And plenty of times the numbers are just fine. You can ask to look at the numbers any time and I'll show you. That's the best way not to be scared. Just know as much as you can."
For the rest of that year I asked every couple of weeks, and he started showing me how he did his taxes and that all the numbers for a whole year went onto the white papers and he had to pay those things called taxes. By about third grade, I rarely asked, but still went over the taxes, just to be sure.
It calmed me down because this was a persistent daymare for our family. Mom and Dad frequently forgot I was around and fought about that poor house a good bit. No matter what, though, Dad fought off that dragon of poverty and he allowed me to understand the fight. I was insistent on seeing those taxes again sixth grade, when my sister and brother were BOTH in school, and the fights were building weekly. He was weary of the battle, and this time he was a little scared.
"Well, this year's harder, honey, but we'll be okay. The numbers are a little worse than you're used to, but I think I've got it covered, and your sister's got a job at school, so I think..." But his voice trailed off, and I saw the worry in his eyes.
... until I chased it away with a sudden, "Dad! LOOK! You added wrong. REALLY wrong, right here!" He didn't have an adding machine. We all did math the long way. I was right. "And it makes the numbers look WAY better!"
"Good Gawd, you're right." He stood up suddenly, marched to his big chair, pulling me with him, and plopped me onto his lap, though I was a tad large for that. I didn't care. All he said was, with tears making his eyes shine, "Who's slaying the monster under the bed this time, snigglefritz? Thank you."
I breathed in the Old Spice of him and I was small again, and safe. I suddenly laughed and sat up and went, "Boo! Go away!'
And ran off to play football down by the church.
"Gawd, I hate togetherness."
Yeah, but he also taught us to play tennis and never seemed to lose his temper. He built us little cars in the sand. Launched us from his shoulders into the Lake. He did more than his share of one-on-one things. Plus, I could sit in his lap when I was little, nestling into his chest and feel the gentlest hands in the world stroke my neck and shoulders. That was the thing. His voice scared me, it was so deep and rumbly, sometimes. But my daddy never harmed a hair on my head. If anything he touched me more as if I were some little miracle that might break.
He also was the one who came for every nightmare, telling us to chase those monsters away. "Tell 'em, 'BOO, Go away!' and it works every time. Under-the-bed monsters are well-known to be cowards. Otherwise, why would they wait until dark and only scare children?"
It worked!
And if the fear was nameless, he simply took me in his arms and stroked my hair and said, so very softly, "I'm here, Jetty. It's okay. You are home. I'm here."
And when he did bother to be home, he was very much there. It was just that he was away "on business" too much for a man who worked for the State. Somewhere far too young, I registered what sort of business he was away on. But, naturally, we did not speak of it with Mom, just among ourselves.
The thing is, though, my dad slayed the daymare monsters, too. For me, that monster was the "poor house." On several mornings, because I got up so early and would catch them enjoying breakfast alone, I heard them fighting about money before they knew I was there. One time it was really bad, and Mom said, "Jim, you can't drive us to the poor house! We can't live like this! I'm TIRED OF THIS, living from month to month, one disaster away from ruined! I can't." She was crying.
I walked in and simply looked at them, not knowing what to do. I was about six and had gotten up before my sister, even, who was in high school. (I loved how quiet it was first thing in the morning. I had Mommy and Daddy all to myself. Of course, I didn't think then that they would be anything other than thrilled to have me crash their only alone time!)
To make my long story longer, Daddy spoke first. "Well, snigglefritz, it's not as bad as it sounds." He sort of smiled, but his eyes didn't. And Mommy was standing at the sink.
"Where are you driving us Daddy? What's a poor house? I like my house!" I was worried.
"Your mother was using a figure of speech. You know what that is, right?"
"Words that don't mean what they sound like."
Dad shrugged and went on. "It was a grown up discussion, honey, and sometimes we just lose our tempers a little. You do that, too."
I wasn't convinced and a particular tendency I had when I felt someone was lying to me popped up. I tilted my head and looked angry at my father. "What is a poor house, Daddy, and why is Mommy crying?"
He smiled for real, which made me mad. He always did that when I was mad at him. "Daddy, it's NOT FUNNY!" I wanted to cry. The kitchen felt like the air pieces were bashing into each other.
"Honey, it's okay. Really. Tell you what. You know how I stay in the den every Saturday morning for a couple of hours with my yellow paper?"
I nodded because a couple of times I'd crept in, just to sit in his chair and be quiet. He'd let me, but I could see him writing numbers with a pencil, long columns of numbers, with words next to them. I could not read the words because he did not print. All of us could read before school because, well, I don't know. We just sort of knew how to, the way you learn how to walk or something. I had been in trouble at school in Miss Clafflin's class because I found Dick, Jane and Sally boring and said so. My friends did, too, but they knew enough to shut up.
Anyway, my dad told me he would show me what the numbers were for, so I wouldn't have to worry. Daddy always kept his word.
I still was scared, though, when he called me into the den and he had a high stool next to his desk chair, and all those papers spread out. He talked to me about numbers first, telling me to look at the farthest left number and then count how many numbers there were up to the period. "Daddy, that's a decimal point. It's only a period with letters."
He started. "How did you know that?"
"Mommy taught me."
"Then you can tell which are the biggest numbers?"
I was insulted. "Of COURSE. I am NOT a baby." Right. After all, I was in first grade now. I had projects to do for school, like the others. I could add and subtract. I knew a LOT, I informed him.
"Pardon me, snigglefritz. My mistake." He went over what the numbers meant, so much for clothes, for food, for the lights, for something called a mortgage. All of it. And when he added them up, it said how much was spent in a whole month. Then we had other figures for his income. Just two though, and they were the same. That meant he had that much money to spend.
Well, he said it was a great thing when the two figures together were bigger than all those other numbers added together.
"But they aren't, Daddy. Not this month."
"Aha, but here's what we do, Jetty." And he showed me other months, when sometimes he had more money at the end of the month, because they didn't spend it. And he could add it on. And he talked about something called credit and interest and things I really didn't get. What I did get was that he wasn't worried. That the numbers always worked in the end, and he would never ever drive me anywhere away from home where I couldn't come back again. Ever.
"There isn't a poor house?"
"No, honey. And it would be nice if the figures could match up every month, but sometimes they just don't. But that's how lots of people have to do it. And plenty of times the numbers are just fine. You can ask to look at the numbers any time and I'll show you. That's the best way not to be scared. Just know as much as you can."
For the rest of that year I asked every couple of weeks, and he started showing me how he did his taxes and that all the numbers for a whole year went onto the white papers and he had to pay those things called taxes. By about third grade, I rarely asked, but still went over the taxes, just to be sure.
It calmed me down because this was a persistent daymare for our family. Mom and Dad frequently forgot I was around and fought about that poor house a good bit. No matter what, though, Dad fought off that dragon of poverty and he allowed me to understand the fight. I was insistent on seeing those taxes again sixth grade, when my sister and brother were BOTH in school, and the fights were building weekly. He was weary of the battle, and this time he was a little scared.
"Well, this year's harder, honey, but we'll be okay. The numbers are a little worse than you're used to, but I think I've got it covered, and your sister's got a job at school, so I think..." But his voice trailed off, and I saw the worry in his eyes.
... until I chased it away with a sudden, "Dad! LOOK! You added wrong. REALLY wrong, right here!" He didn't have an adding machine. We all did math the long way. I was right. "And it makes the numbers look WAY better!"
"Good Gawd, you're right." He stood up suddenly, marched to his big chair, pulling me with him, and plopped me onto his lap, though I was a tad large for that. I didn't care. All he said was, with tears making his eyes shine, "Who's slaying the monster under the bed this time, snigglefritz? Thank you."
I breathed in the Old Spice of him and I was small again, and safe. I suddenly laughed and sat up and went, "Boo! Go away!'
And ran off to play football down by the church.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
It does not stop
I ran outa laughing... Well. Not entirely, but for now. The septic tank filled in three weeks. I saw and heard my ownself. Water streaming into the thousand gallon tank through the seams. So I have to have a grinder pump and hook up to the sewer which is uphill from my house and will require, oh, about 110 feet of hosing. NOW.
So. If someone. I mean, WHEN someone buys this house, they will have a brand new roof AND one half the house hooked up to the sewer for them, though they will have the lien with the purchase. Still. We'll have done the hook up.
I want to hide. Good thing I got all that back disability pay so that I could pay for a roof AND a sewer hook up. Just how, precisely I'm going to LIVE if we do not sell the house in the next five months, now that is another problem.
So I guess the water gods are still displeased. I have rattled ice cubes in their honor. I sprayed myself with the kitchen sink sprayer and sang, "I love the rainy nights..." I ran around in the pouring rain and danced, playing my tambourine, and singing, "I'm SINGIN' in the rain."
I painted my "Heaven's Garden" painting in WATER COLOR.
So now I am washing dishes in my dishpan and emptying that into JAY's sink. (Different, fully functional tank for that side of the house.) I will do my laundry in his machine when he is at work, and then use my own dryer.
I will rock back and forth making random baby babble sounds.
And I'll simply hope I have the money to cover this and someone will want our wonderful 2800 square foot home with a beautiful bedroom plus office 580 sq. ft. in-law apartment. And tiled/hardwood new ground level family room with sun nook behind it, plus laundry and full bath. With my gardens that I dug all by myself over the last twenty years. Someone. So. All of you please do your dance to the water gods dances, or, yes, go ahead and pray to Yaweh. Or cross your fingers... maybe your toes as well, though that can be uncomfortable. Or just laugh along with me and hope I keep finding ways to laugh.
And I'll plug along. I don't think I will have to announce in the blog if the house sells. I think you will hear the whoops clear across the world. Maybe I should go the gym pool this weekend... Or the desert? Maybe I should work on my desert painting?
Oy.
So. If someone. I mean, WHEN someone buys this house, they will have a brand new roof AND one half the house hooked up to the sewer for them, though they will have the lien with the purchase. Still. We'll have done the hook up.
I want to hide. Good thing I got all that back disability pay so that I could pay for a roof AND a sewer hook up. Just how, precisely I'm going to LIVE if we do not sell the house in the next five months, now that is another problem.
So I guess the water gods are still displeased. I have rattled ice cubes in their honor. I sprayed myself with the kitchen sink sprayer and sang, "I love the rainy nights..." I ran around in the pouring rain and danced, playing my tambourine, and singing, "I'm SINGIN' in the rain."
I painted my "Heaven's Garden" painting in WATER COLOR.
So now I am washing dishes in my dishpan and emptying that into JAY's sink. (Different, fully functional tank for that side of the house.) I will do my laundry in his machine when he is at work, and then use my own dryer.
I will rock back and forth making random baby babble sounds.
And I'll simply hope I have the money to cover this and someone will want our wonderful 2800 square foot home with a beautiful bedroom plus office 580 sq. ft. in-law apartment. And tiled/hardwood new ground level family room with sun nook behind it, plus laundry and full bath. With my gardens that I dug all by myself over the last twenty years. Someone. So. All of you please do your dance to the water gods dances, or, yes, go ahead and pray to Yaweh. Or cross your fingers... maybe your toes as well, though that can be uncomfortable. Or just laugh along with me and hope I keep finding ways to laugh.
And I'll plug along. I don't think I will have to announce in the blog if the house sells. I think you will hear the whoops clear across the world. Maybe I should go the gym pool this weekend... Or the desert? Maybe I should work on my desert painting?
Oy.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Update and my Christmas Tree
Thank you for the inquiries about my health. I have had some difficult news about the spinal issues and am simply working on learning to function in spite of them AND accommodating them as necessary. Sometimes this means finding the boundaries by crashing into them and then needing a few days to deal with the repercussions, but, well, that's the only way I know to learn my limitations.
I have to find them.
Super stores would appear to be my main downfall. I cannot make it through a super grocery store, so I will not go to them any more. I have had several dear friends suggest I use a motorized cart, but I think that this maybe shows most graphically how I feel I need to approach the challenges of new damage in both the thoracic and cervical spine.
I will not sit down unless there is no choice. There are other stores in which I can shop, and while they cost a bit more money, they allow me to stand, to walk, to complete my shopping, to get the items upstairs all on my own. THEN I can recuperate for a couple of hours. Psychologically, that choice to use the motorized chair is a symbol for me. I do not judge anyone for choosing the chair.
But for now? I need to keep my legs moving when and however I can.
My absence here is simply a reflection of my turning my attention to physical survival and adaptation. The pain is horrible, yes... but there are medications that help, and I am learning to use my yoga and breathing to control my own response to what pain remains because I choose NOT to have large doses of the meds.
I am decorating my tree. What used to be a two day process is a four-day one, but it is a beautiful process for me. Ninety per cent of the ornaments on my tree are gifts and/or symbols of people I love. David is a drummer... an old love who remains a dear, dear friend. I have a stained glass "present" ornament he gave me thirty years ago, and three drum sets friends have given me. Jim--the brother of whom I rarely write--played the trombone. I keep an ornament that reminds me of the best of him. He had a best and I choose to keep that nugget. My sister played the clarinet, Jack played the banjo. Jamie and R, the guitar. I have my two guitars and I choose to keep R. on my tree, despite the way he treated me. My tree represents the best of people I love, and when I look I try to focus on that. I have gifts from Gail, from Paige and Judy, Nancy, Sue, Martha... ornaments that were my parents', ornaments from both sets of grandparents' trees. There is the reindeer in her glitter dress, leaping... my tutu'd flamingo, Santa on a chicken, a glitter pig riding the moon, a rocking cow. I have blown glass holly and a hobby horse. I have glass icicles that will be the finishing garnish, replacing the lead tinsel of my youth. One hundred fifty of them will go on tonight, near lights. With a finishing touch of 100 tiny balls on the tips. They make the tree float at night.
My tree represents joy to me. I have modes of transportation, every musical instrument known, right down to an accordion. I have beautiful Santas and dopey ones, I have a castle and a house, tinkerbell and the tin man. Raggedy Andy. I gave Raggedy Ann to my counselor the Christmas after Jessie died, and she gave me a blown glass bell from Bermuda. I have a flute; Jessie played the flute. And a little boy playing soccer, the way Jay did. So many bits that make me think of them all...
And all of it is my mother and father.
My tree is love; the season is love to me. If anything can bring me out of the losses of the last few years, can help me believe that there will be joy in the years ahead, my tree will do it. The recollections of my family Christmases, of my beloved sister.
Fetching the stockings at the top of the stairs. Daddy's socks were long. We hung them by the chimney, but Santa put them at the top of the stairs. Jean Ellen got them, told the boys it was time, and the four of us piled on her big bed, to open the stockings, to laugh... to give my parents' an extra hour's rest on the craziest day of our year...
But that's for another week.
For now, thank you one and all, for the concern, and for making me feel that my writing offers gifts to more than myself. I have to go work on my tree some more. I cannot find just the right place for my hooker flamingo in her polka dotted dress. I mean, you can't put her just anywhere. And my glitter frog prince... I was given him as a reminder that maybe one day the amphibian would change.
Not so much, but I don't care. I JUST love that damned frog just fine.
Uh-oh... then there is the high heeled puce green boot with the red feather fur at its top... the problem with having the tree at the top of the stairs, is there is no longer any "back of the tree!" Elvis can be seen, even in toward the trunk. And this boot? OH. Wait. There's a spot just above Santa on a Chicken, three branches from the pig wrapped in a string of lights... never mind.
Later.
I have to find them.
Super stores would appear to be my main downfall. I cannot make it through a super grocery store, so I will not go to them any more. I have had several dear friends suggest I use a motorized cart, but I think that this maybe shows most graphically how I feel I need to approach the challenges of new damage in both the thoracic and cervical spine.
I will not sit down unless there is no choice. There are other stores in which I can shop, and while they cost a bit more money, they allow me to stand, to walk, to complete my shopping, to get the items upstairs all on my own. THEN I can recuperate for a couple of hours. Psychologically, that choice to use the motorized chair is a symbol for me. I do not judge anyone for choosing the chair.
But for now? I need to keep my legs moving when and however I can.
My absence here is simply a reflection of my turning my attention to physical survival and adaptation. The pain is horrible, yes... but there are medications that help, and I am learning to use my yoga and breathing to control my own response to what pain remains because I choose NOT to have large doses of the meds.
I am decorating my tree. What used to be a two day process is a four-day one, but it is a beautiful process for me. Ninety per cent of the ornaments on my tree are gifts and/or symbols of people I love. David is a drummer... an old love who remains a dear, dear friend. I have a stained glass "present" ornament he gave me thirty years ago, and three drum sets friends have given me. Jim--the brother of whom I rarely write--played the trombone. I keep an ornament that reminds me of the best of him. He had a best and I choose to keep that nugget. My sister played the clarinet, Jack played the banjo. Jamie and R, the guitar. I have my two guitars and I choose to keep R. on my tree, despite the way he treated me. My tree represents the best of people I love, and when I look I try to focus on that. I have gifts from Gail, from Paige and Judy, Nancy, Sue, Martha... ornaments that were my parents', ornaments from both sets of grandparents' trees. There is the reindeer in her glitter dress, leaping... my tutu'd flamingo, Santa on a chicken, a glitter pig riding the moon, a rocking cow. I have blown glass holly and a hobby horse. I have glass icicles that will be the finishing garnish, replacing the lead tinsel of my youth. One hundred fifty of them will go on tonight, near lights. With a finishing touch of 100 tiny balls on the tips. They make the tree float at night.
My tree represents joy to me. I have modes of transportation, every musical instrument known, right down to an accordion. I have beautiful Santas and dopey ones, I have a castle and a house, tinkerbell and the tin man. Raggedy Andy. I gave Raggedy Ann to my counselor the Christmas after Jessie died, and she gave me a blown glass bell from Bermuda. I have a flute; Jessie played the flute. And a little boy playing soccer, the way Jay did. So many bits that make me think of them all...
And all of it is my mother and father.
My tree is love; the season is love to me. If anything can bring me out of the losses of the last few years, can help me believe that there will be joy in the years ahead, my tree will do it. The recollections of my family Christmases, of my beloved sister.
Fetching the stockings at the top of the stairs. Daddy's socks were long. We hung them by the chimney, but Santa put them at the top of the stairs. Jean Ellen got them, told the boys it was time, and the four of us piled on her big bed, to open the stockings, to laugh... to give my parents' an extra hour's rest on the craziest day of our year...
But that's for another week.
For now, thank you one and all, for the concern, and for making me feel that my writing offers gifts to more than myself. I have to go work on my tree some more. I cannot find just the right place for my hooker flamingo in her polka dotted dress. I mean, you can't put her just anywhere. And my glitter frog prince... I was given him as a reminder that maybe one day the amphibian would change.
Not so much, but I don't care. I JUST love that damned frog just fine.
Uh-oh... then there is the high heeled puce green boot with the red feather fur at its top... the problem with having the tree at the top of the stairs, is there is no longer any "back of the tree!" Elvis can be seen, even in toward the trunk. And this boot? OH. Wait. There's a spot just above Santa on a Chicken, three branches from the pig wrapped in a string of lights... never mind.
Later.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Looking for Signs, Listening for that “Still Small Voice”
New twists in the road this week...
Four times this week I have been visited by an enormous, white-throated stag. I think his antlers have ten points. Until now I have never seen one, let alone at the edge of my yard. And I've seen no does here since about 1994, when more houses were built in this area.
He came first last week, on the Monday when R. blew my world apart. Funny thing. R. said, when I'd mentioned it, that he wanted to think that was him, watching over me. Perhaps I should have listened to the small voice in me that jumped when he said that. It asked, "Why would I need a buck when I have you?" Not so much. But I think he meant it at the time. It's in retrospect we see other things...
But then, I did not see him again--the buck, I mean--until this week. He came on Wednesday morning, Thursday at dusk, and this morning, at dawn. Two out of three times, he seemed to hear me upstairs here, in my kitchen. I stared down at him as he drank from the brook at the culvert, and he looked up at me. We locked stares for a slow five or six counts, then he bounded off, down away from the street,, into the wetlands and woods. Even that is odd. Mostly the deer used to be on their way UP from my house, to cross the street and follow the wetlands to a town sanctuary. The woods cut across town several miles, so they have a good run.
But there he has been. I want so much to believe what I read in Native American lore, and even in Celtic lore. The stag is a power totem/symbol. He watches over the creatures in his kingdom. He is a transcendent figure, a harbinger of love, of peace, of grace. He gives strength to transcend pain. And he has appeared during two pivotal weeks of my life. I wonder if I dream him... then I wonder whether that matters. ... And I need strength, and some sense that I am safe. No. I have seen him. I don't think my mind is playing that sort of trick.
Last week, I lost the promise of a love I'd never known in my life. It was a time of anger, pain, abject grief, confusion. I felt torn apart inside. That, on the heels of realizing my career as I knew was pretty well destroyed. I cannot say I handled that well. I didn't. In fact, there are times I don't believe I was myself at all. I think I went through it pretty quickly, but that's mostly because, at 57 I just don't have the time to waste on something I will not ever understand from my perspective alone. It is a relationship that spans more than forty years, whether or not this latest permutation was short. It can only be understood when there is conversation. I haven't the luxury of angst, or of trying to figure it out any more.
But then this week? I have been having odd spasms in legs and arms. My right hand keeps going numb. I had another headache that lasted three days. I went through the initial phase of applying for disability--have to finish up the application this weekend, then let my lawyer do her thing. But I called the doctor Tuesday. After writing the last angry note in, yes, desperation--I just wanted to figure it out still, at that point, and I was so frustrated and angry. Feh. I am human. I mess up. But I tried to find closure through anger, which is never, EVER a good way to go.
But almost immediately after I hit send, I made the appointment with my doctor.
And I will be having new tests. There may be problems in another part of the central nervous system. There is reason for real worry.
As if there weren't enough reason for worry? And I realized that I had no time for anger. Or hurt. In the space of a sleepless night, I realized that I had to turn everything around, and I had to do it now. I wrote about my grandmother, after my buck appeared again. YES, I will think of him as mine. It is egocentric, and perhaps silly. But sometimes seeing good signs can help. He is so beautiful.
And I began to write to R. My friends would not be pleased. They want me to stay angry. They feel I never get mad enough for long enough, but I disagree. It is not that I do not have reason. It's that it will cause me more pain. It will close doors I do not choose to close, from my end. It will keep me stuck in that place where I pound my head against the wall, trying to understand what will never make sense... because it just doesn't make sense.
Not everything does, though. And matters of the heart have nothing to do with logic. I had to get quiet. I had to stop the static of my friends, of my pain, and find the center that is me. I am human and I don't stay in that place, but I've found it again. And I will stay in it longer and longer, if I give it time. Love. Peace. Gathering the troops for a rough time ahead.
It is hard. Since April I have had three very big dreams placed in my hand, and snatched away without warning. And my spine seems hellbent on attacking me. I call the pain Louise. I named it years ago, when I had pain management therapy. My father's mother's named Louise. She was not a nice lady, though she loved us in her way. She was one of those women who holds grudges. She was the first to give pies to the poor through the church, but would criticize the women for being too fat. Kind to everyone but her husband. And her daughter-in-law. She resented that her daughter moved to Alaska, but my father understood why.
He once said that he thought that all three kids were conceived by fission, because he never saw them kiss. He and my mother used to shudder visibly when they talked about Grandma and Grandpa's marriage through their eyes. I just thought they didn't like each other all that much, but I was very small. When Grandpa commit convoluted suicide because he tried to dig a basement in the cottage--shoveling dirt by the hour and carrying it outside--with a heart condition, Dad always thought that "Paw just couldn't see another ten to fifteen years cooped up with Ma."
I thought that was mean. But maybe he was right.
I mean, Grandma mourned the day her catalog no longer sold whalebone corsets. I was twelve! Tied up and rigid, my daddy's mom.
But she also taught me how to cook, how to sew, and let me make a total mess all over the cottage living room on rainy days. She taught me canasta. She introduced me to a world of books about nature, about life in the old days. She was the one who told wonderful stories about life in the "Skinnah girls house." About old-fashioned weddings, and jelly jars, and how the girls saved bits of handmade lace from their wedding gowns, night gowns, and dresses special for Sundays. She had a rhythm of her own, and her stories sang like a creaky Boston Rocker, and made rainy days fly by. When I was small, I loved to ask her about her childhood.
I grew out of her in a far more serious way. Through her meanness to my mother, her snappishness at Jack, through her manipulation to get Jack and me to tell secrets about our parents, to confess to her about things she did not approve of... I learned a lot about the kind of person I did not want to be. I valued her. I loved her as a child, but grew to learn she could not be trusted. I respected her because she was there. She was a part of me. She made me stronger and some of who I am. But I did not have to like her.And I never, ever wanted to be all buttoned down and tight, closed off to the sweetness of life. And to be safe in the world, to have all things go as expected, to have everything look right--these were her goals, so much of the time. And if things did not suit her, it was never her doing--someone of us, particularly my mom or my brothers, had always let here down. Not that she would complain, mind you. Nothing, to her, was pure joy. There was always something not quite good enough. And once disappointed, she punished for years. I thought it must be so hard to be Granny. There was a heart in there, but so protected by thorns, it was next to impossible to find.
I named the pain Louise. My middle name. I'm named after her, something for which my father will never be forgiven. EVER. This pain is part of me, whether I want it or not. It has taught me lessons and I can only accept that it's here, and learn to live around it, in spite of it... and, if I work really hard, because of it. And deep within, below the thorns, the pain has been a gift. I needed it to grow strong, to battle something other than myself. To stop trying to kill myself, and get up and live, instead.
But Louise is growing stronger these days, and it would seem there are new lessons to be learned. I do not want them. But it would seem, I will be getting these "gifts" anyway. For now, though? I don't have to like it or look for anything other than why Louise is shouting me, and attacking from all directions. I'll figure the rest out later.
So I wrote R. today, but I may have written too late. My anger may have been the last he could bear to read. I hope not. I hope he could see I had reasons and the right to write. I hope he cared enough to read, but it's okay, regardless.
When we throw love out into the universe we have to accept that we may never know whether it is received. I miss the man. The friend. I had found myself writing something funny, totally forgetting for those five minutes, that he is gone. As I said, I am not wholly in my right mind. But I realized in time... I miss my friend far more than the man who would be my love. It's not wanting all or nothing. It's wanting the best of who we are together, and we were always friends. I realized this week that I would not have been able to go on anyway. That friendship's all I have the strength to offer now anyway, and leaning's not an option.
I need to stand on my own through this. Leaning on someone this soon isn't right. My ex-husband courted me in the hospital, and he wanted me to need him. He wanted me to stay needy, and turned away as I grew to be stronger. I do not want to be loved because I am in need. I want to be strong. I want to be loved for my strength, and supported for that. It's a little different, I think. We all want to lean sometimes, but it isn't the place to start. Not for me. Not again. And it seems just wrong to ask or expect support in a time like this, of anyone newly back in my life. I would have asked him to let us step back for a time. Irony hurts.
The last thing I want in my life is to burden my son with me, and we may have some options that will limit that. And I have to believe that my stag came for a reason, one I just don't understand. And perhaps R. came for a reason that I'll understand with time. I don't mean that some puppeteer is in the sky, messing with my life. I use the phrase "for a reason" more metaphorically.
I think I mean that perhaps the lessons that these things have to offer will come with time. And if that small voice in me is saying over and over, "All will be well. There are no lies here," perhaps I should listen. I read Jo's blog today about listening to that voice that warns us. I think we should listen to us when it clearly says "THIS IS RIGHT."
It said that when R. came back to me. All is well. This is right. It says it still, beneath the anger and pain. So I let go of ALL of it today, in the only way I can. I wrote it. I left the door open because to slam it, so that I have supposed control? That is to be someone else. I can let go only with a door wide open, and trust that only my friend will ever come in. If he chooses never to come, so be it. But I felt as if a weight had been lifted from me, so that's the best I can do.
I have done this before; I write. It's who I am; it's what I do. Love beats control, it beats fear. And every time I panic about the money, that voice says, "No. Just stop." And when the pain in my hand catches me off guard and I tip over the water onto my work, it says, "Just breathe. Just breathe."
And I do. I am afraid for my future, but as two friends said, "Even if you are in poverty, you will not fly off the face of the earth. You are not alone."
And my buck stared up at the house, but I was at a different window. I smiled inside. That deer is mine, and he's watching over me, telling me I can do all of this with grace. I named the pain Louise. But Helen is in me, too.
And my mother's and my sister's blue eyes loving me, from wherever their souls have flown. And my daddy's arms and Old Spice cheek enfold me still. And I will let R. go, and the still small voice reminds me, friends, in my life, are the ones who always come back... in their time, in their way. I have to trust the marvelous boy in the man. I have to trust myself. I must stop listening to everyone else. And I will bask in the love of the twelve--the women friends who are in my life. Give where I can, but for now, this time, receive their love--and ask them to let go of their anger, too.
I have had loss. I have had pain. I have had dreams disappear just as they became real. I have never had so much of it happen in so short a time. And the consequences this time are far greater. I may lose my home or my independence or both. And the pain will not go away. The old dreams are gone, and I will need to find some new ones. But not today. I don't have to figure it all out today. There is a poetry chap book to work on, two paintings to finish. I have an application to finish. There still is a little time before it all hits too hard. I must use it well.
There will be lessons enough in all this; I need not rush them. I must rest. I must gather myself inside, be still, and listen.
And, of course, write. It's what I do; it's who I am.
Four times this week I have been visited by an enormous, white-throated stag. I think his antlers have ten points. Until now I have never seen one, let alone at the edge of my yard. And I've seen no does here since about 1994, when more houses were built in this area.
He came first last week, on the Monday when R. blew my world apart. Funny thing. R. said, when I'd mentioned it, that he wanted to think that was him, watching over me. Perhaps I should have listened to the small voice in me that jumped when he said that. It asked, "Why would I need a buck when I have you?" Not so much. But I think he meant it at the time. It's in retrospect we see other things...
But then, I did not see him again--the buck, I mean--until this week. He came on Wednesday morning, Thursday at dusk, and this morning, at dawn. Two out of three times, he seemed to hear me upstairs here, in my kitchen. I stared down at him as he drank from the brook at the culvert, and he looked up at me. We locked stares for a slow five or six counts, then he bounded off, down away from the street,, into the wetlands and woods. Even that is odd. Mostly the deer used to be on their way UP from my house, to cross the street and follow the wetlands to a town sanctuary. The woods cut across town several miles, so they have a good run.
But there he has been. I want so much to believe what I read in Native American lore, and even in Celtic lore. The stag is a power totem/symbol. He watches over the creatures in his kingdom. He is a transcendent figure, a harbinger of love, of peace, of grace. He gives strength to transcend pain. And he has appeared during two pivotal weeks of my life. I wonder if I dream him... then I wonder whether that matters. ... And I need strength, and some sense that I am safe. No. I have seen him. I don't think my mind is playing that sort of trick.
Last week, I lost the promise of a love I'd never known in my life. It was a time of anger, pain, abject grief, confusion. I felt torn apart inside. That, on the heels of realizing my career as I knew was pretty well destroyed. I cannot say I handled that well. I didn't. In fact, there are times I don't believe I was myself at all. I think I went through it pretty quickly, but that's mostly because, at 57 I just don't have the time to waste on something I will not ever understand from my perspective alone. It is a relationship that spans more than forty years, whether or not this latest permutation was short. It can only be understood when there is conversation. I haven't the luxury of angst, or of trying to figure it out any more.
But then this week? I have been having odd spasms in legs and arms. My right hand keeps going numb. I had another headache that lasted three days. I went through the initial phase of applying for disability--have to finish up the application this weekend, then let my lawyer do her thing. But I called the doctor Tuesday. After writing the last angry note in, yes, desperation--I just wanted to figure it out still, at that point, and I was so frustrated and angry. Feh. I am human. I mess up. But I tried to find closure through anger, which is never, EVER a good way to go.
But almost immediately after I hit send, I made the appointment with my doctor.
And I will be having new tests. There may be problems in another part of the central nervous system. There is reason for real worry.
As if there weren't enough reason for worry? And I realized that I had no time for anger. Or hurt. In the space of a sleepless night, I realized that I had to turn everything around, and I had to do it now. I wrote about my grandmother, after my buck appeared again. YES, I will think of him as mine. It is egocentric, and perhaps silly. But sometimes seeing good signs can help. He is so beautiful.
And I began to write to R. My friends would not be pleased. They want me to stay angry. They feel I never get mad enough for long enough, but I disagree. It is not that I do not have reason. It's that it will cause me more pain. It will close doors I do not choose to close, from my end. It will keep me stuck in that place where I pound my head against the wall, trying to understand what will never make sense... because it just doesn't make sense.
Not everything does, though. And matters of the heart have nothing to do with logic. I had to get quiet. I had to stop the static of my friends, of my pain, and find the center that is me. I am human and I don't stay in that place, but I've found it again. And I will stay in it longer and longer, if I give it time. Love. Peace. Gathering the troops for a rough time ahead.
It is hard. Since April I have had three very big dreams placed in my hand, and snatched away without warning. And my spine seems hellbent on attacking me. I call the pain Louise. I named it years ago, when I had pain management therapy. My father's mother's named Louise. She was not a nice lady, though she loved us in her way. She was one of those women who holds grudges. She was the first to give pies to the poor through the church, but would criticize the women for being too fat. Kind to everyone but her husband. And her daughter-in-law. She resented that her daughter moved to Alaska, but my father understood why.
He once said that he thought that all three kids were conceived by fission, because he never saw them kiss. He and my mother used to shudder visibly when they talked about Grandma and Grandpa's marriage through their eyes. I just thought they didn't like each other all that much, but I was very small. When Grandpa commit convoluted suicide because he tried to dig a basement in the cottage--shoveling dirt by the hour and carrying it outside--with a heart condition, Dad always thought that "Paw just couldn't see another ten to fifteen years cooped up with Ma."
I thought that was mean. But maybe he was right.
I mean, Grandma mourned the day her catalog no longer sold whalebone corsets. I was twelve! Tied up and rigid, my daddy's mom.
But she also taught me how to cook, how to sew, and let me make a total mess all over the cottage living room on rainy days. She taught me canasta. She introduced me to a world of books about nature, about life in the old days. She was the one who told wonderful stories about life in the "Skinnah girls house." About old-fashioned weddings, and jelly jars, and how the girls saved bits of handmade lace from their wedding gowns, night gowns, and dresses special for Sundays. She had a rhythm of her own, and her stories sang like a creaky Boston Rocker, and made rainy days fly by. When I was small, I loved to ask her about her childhood.
I grew out of her in a far more serious way. Through her meanness to my mother, her snappishness at Jack, through her manipulation to get Jack and me to tell secrets about our parents, to confess to her about things she did not approve of... I learned a lot about the kind of person I did not want to be. I valued her. I loved her as a child, but grew to learn she could not be trusted. I respected her because she was there. She was a part of me. She made me stronger and some of who I am. But I did not have to like her.And I never, ever wanted to be all buttoned down and tight, closed off to the sweetness of life. And to be safe in the world, to have all things go as expected, to have everything look right--these were her goals, so much of the time. And if things did not suit her, it was never her doing--someone of us, particularly my mom or my brothers, had always let here down. Not that she would complain, mind you. Nothing, to her, was pure joy. There was always something not quite good enough. And once disappointed, she punished for years. I thought it must be so hard to be Granny. There was a heart in there, but so protected by thorns, it was next to impossible to find.
I named the pain Louise. My middle name. I'm named after her, something for which my father will never be forgiven. EVER. This pain is part of me, whether I want it or not. It has taught me lessons and I can only accept that it's here, and learn to live around it, in spite of it... and, if I work really hard, because of it. And deep within, below the thorns, the pain has been a gift. I needed it to grow strong, to battle something other than myself. To stop trying to kill myself, and get up and live, instead.
But Louise is growing stronger these days, and it would seem there are new lessons to be learned. I do not want them. But it would seem, I will be getting these "gifts" anyway. For now, though? I don't have to like it or look for anything other than why Louise is shouting me, and attacking from all directions. I'll figure the rest out later.
So I wrote R. today, but I may have written too late. My anger may have been the last he could bear to read. I hope not. I hope he could see I had reasons and the right to write. I hope he cared enough to read, but it's okay, regardless.
When we throw love out into the universe we have to accept that we may never know whether it is received. I miss the man. The friend. I had found myself writing something funny, totally forgetting for those five minutes, that he is gone. As I said, I am not wholly in my right mind. But I realized in time... I miss my friend far more than the man who would be my love. It's not wanting all or nothing. It's wanting the best of who we are together, and we were always friends. I realized this week that I would not have been able to go on anyway. That friendship's all I have the strength to offer now anyway, and leaning's not an option.
I need to stand on my own through this. Leaning on someone this soon isn't right. My ex-husband courted me in the hospital, and he wanted me to need him. He wanted me to stay needy, and turned away as I grew to be stronger. I do not want to be loved because I am in need. I want to be strong. I want to be loved for my strength, and supported for that. It's a little different, I think. We all want to lean sometimes, but it isn't the place to start. Not for me. Not again. And it seems just wrong to ask or expect support in a time like this, of anyone newly back in my life. I would have asked him to let us step back for a time. Irony hurts.
The last thing I want in my life is to burden my son with me, and we may have some options that will limit that. And I have to believe that my stag came for a reason, one I just don't understand. And perhaps R. came for a reason that I'll understand with time. I don't mean that some puppeteer is in the sky, messing with my life. I use the phrase "for a reason" more metaphorically.
I think I mean that perhaps the lessons that these things have to offer will come with time. And if that small voice in me is saying over and over, "All will be well. There are no lies here," perhaps I should listen. I read Jo's blog today about listening to that voice that warns us. I think we should listen to us when it clearly says "THIS IS RIGHT."
It said that when R. came back to me. All is well. This is right. It says it still, beneath the anger and pain. So I let go of ALL of it today, in the only way I can. I wrote it. I left the door open because to slam it, so that I have supposed control? That is to be someone else. I can let go only with a door wide open, and trust that only my friend will ever come in. If he chooses never to come, so be it. But I felt as if a weight had been lifted from me, so that's the best I can do.
I have done this before; I write. It's who I am; it's what I do. Love beats control, it beats fear. And every time I panic about the money, that voice says, "No. Just stop." And when the pain in my hand catches me off guard and I tip over the water onto my work, it says, "Just breathe. Just breathe."
And I do. I am afraid for my future, but as two friends said, "Even if you are in poverty, you will not fly off the face of the earth. You are not alone."
And my buck stared up at the house, but I was at a different window. I smiled inside. That deer is mine, and he's watching over me, telling me I can do all of this with grace. I named the pain Louise. But Helen is in me, too.
And my mother's and my sister's blue eyes loving me, from wherever their souls have flown. And my daddy's arms and Old Spice cheek enfold me still. And I will let R. go, and the still small voice reminds me, friends, in my life, are the ones who always come back... in their time, in their way. I have to trust the marvelous boy in the man. I have to trust myself. I must stop listening to everyone else. And I will bask in the love of the twelve--the women friends who are in my life. Give where I can, but for now, this time, receive their love--and ask them to let go of their anger, too.
I have had loss. I have had pain. I have had dreams disappear just as they became real. I have never had so much of it happen in so short a time. And the consequences this time are far greater. I may lose my home or my independence or both. And the pain will not go away. The old dreams are gone, and I will need to find some new ones. But not today. I don't have to figure it all out today. There is a poetry chap book to work on, two paintings to finish. I have an application to finish. There still is a little time before it all hits too hard. I must use it well.
There will be lessons enough in all this; I need not rush them. I must rest. I must gather myself inside, be still, and listen.
And, of course, write. It's what I do; it's who I am.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Where We Head When We Heal
Prism Women ©2002
Tucked in dark corners to collect dust
What are prisms but broken glass?
Yet strung gleaming, spinning in the light?
Sun-dancers
Diamond-catchers
Rainbow-throwers.
Every shining cut casts the spectrum,
Each twirl offers a rainbow dance.
Then our gray days spin wonder.
Each polished cut hordes our light
To toss, teasing with every turn.
The trick to being a prism is to face the light,
Polish all the cuts,
Then let the magic happen.
†††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††
This may be kind of short tonight. It's strange when the old ways no longer work. I have allowed my heart to be completely accessible for the first time in my life, having saved some part of it to come out again when I thought I would be safe at last. Turns out that I was mistaken, and that my heart was even less safe with him. And with having every corner of my life vulnerable, this particular misstep on my part has taken a toll.
We can, as I said, reach a wall and feel there is nothing left. And I don't know that I can find a way to keep my home. And I really have no idea how I will make a living at all, and the disability application process is appallingly slow--I've been through it twice before. I worked my way off it twice before. Not this time.
I think that this is where it is all so hard. I've reached the end of my back's getting better. And losing my home ... I can't even talk about that fear. And losing the career that I worked so hard to create, the career that my central nervous system could handle for so long. At this time of life, it is hard to create another. To have no retirement. To have no health insurance within the next three months. Possibly to lose one's home.
This, my friends, is why this man's desertion, his betrayal hurts to the core and has had such an impact. It was the hope he created that is the hardest to lose. No hope is better than false hope. I was foolish; he was worse. But it's the timing of the thing, that has made it so very hard. It's done; he's gone. Faster than he arrived he's done. And I have to get on with this life.
Then I thought about my friends, my "laundry eagles" who are hovering around me now, closing ranks. The flock is here. They call; they send notes. They let me know I am better than any man who would betray and leave me. They tell me all the things to make me remember I'm whole. We talk about Christmas and children and chocolate. We laugh about nothing at all. They make me remember to shine, these women. All by myself, to shine.
The strength of their love begins to sink in. They tell me he's stupid to leave, that he's weak and he's blind if he cannot see he's left the best woman behind. And I smile. These are not things that I say to myself, they are things I find hard to believe. They tell me I'll find a way to fly, to earn my own way, to do anything I want. My friends think I will soar. They think that I am better than I ever believe of myself.
That's what women do, when the men feed and just leave. We close ranks. We lift one another up, put her on a pedestal and unabashedly worship while she heals. I turned 50 in 2002, and it was a difficult year... among difficult years. One of my friends, when she read this poem said, "Well, that's the thing Jetty. You have so many cuts, you are the brightest prism of the bunch." Lucky me ... or maybe I am. Too soon to feel that just yet.
My women friends are busy polishing just now. This newest cut is so sharp and so new, they are busy polishing the sides, smoothing the edge so that I stop cutting myself in all this pain. They won't let me go back into hiding, I'm afraid. They keep drawing me out, reminding me that I will always have a home, or perhaps I'll have twelve and just move from place to place. The Gypsy Jet, they call her. I offer to take my tambourine. We laugh and for moments at a time, I forget the ache, and just be.
And here is this heart of mine, that he so carefully drew out, looked at from every direction, kissed, held, promised to cherish for life... and kicked to the side of the road. Here it is. And now I have written about putting it away. Tying the whole mess up in a box and throwing in a closet. I did that with the horrors for years, the ones I have only hinted at yet. I did it before, like an artist. I could reduce a memory to a bit of tissue and stuff it where I could not see or feel or hear or taste the pain, where it was dead to me. I am an expert at stuffing the pain. And that's what I'd done with this man before, this love of my life. I stuck him far away so I barely remembered his name. And here I am again, ready to put it all away.
Only now I don't know how.
I have lost the ability to hide. I have lost the knack with turning the phrase to make what is poison palatable. I think to put all those parts back in a box would kill something more precious still. He woke up all this love in me, all this sparkling faith that life could be good. He said he wanted just to make it so I would not have to worry, so that I could get up every day and CHOOSE to write or to paint, without having to worry about keeping my home. Such a pretty wish from him. Yes. There is bitterness here... but there's something else I've not named.
Perhaps the only way I can salvage my soul from the damage is to keep that sparkling heart. I loved without conditions, without artifice. For once in my life I did not hold back, I did not pretend, I lived in each moment with him.
The cut that he made is so deep in this newly revealed heart, this child's soul who finally came out to dance. He cut her; I bleed. But the women work on just the same. She is not doing too well, but I think... I think perhaps ... she has a name to me, a child in me, the part I would let no one see. I think I must let her stay here.
Little Rita has come out at last. The quiet, somber, big-eyed child who sat up with the dying,
who turned on her brother when he did his worst, and simply asked him, "WHY?" So he ran.
who dropped the knife, choosing not to attack her attacker,
who closed her sister's eyes.
This child came out for this man who is gone. She slipped her hand in his, one sunny afternoon, certain of his love, of his honesty, certain that this man was her home. She had waited for him to come back; and he did. Never once did she think he would leave ... again. And this tiny child, with the strength of the mighty has, for the first time in my life, been walking through my life with me for six weeks. Since the first time he was here, when she came out only twice, she's appeared only when I needed strength to walk with grace through times when I had none to give. She would come. But mostly she stayed in the shadows, rarely daring to come out just to breathe. I have loved having her out. She does different things with paint. She takes no crap from him or anyone at all. Rita dances without moving at all.
And now she's been ripped open again.
But something's changed; I tried to start putting her back into that box, to that cold, gray place, she shouted me down. She clung to my dress. She begged me to stay with the lights. I told her I didn't want her to hurt any more, that we just can't take the pain, but she made me turn and look.
"LOOK AT THE LIGHTS!" My little girl screamed and I turned and I saw and I cried.
Paige, Martha, Judy, Andrea, Laura, Sue, Linda, Sue G., Nancy, Ann, Gail, Martha L.,
Came the Dozen, Dancing
Twirling, laughing, throwing rainbows every where...
skipping toward us
with tea and with cookies,
with puff quilts and stories,
with hairbrushes and pillows,
coming toward us with nothing but love.
I think I need Rita with me now. I think I need to not stuff one single thing anywhere at all. For the first time in my life, there are no secrets left.
And I am terrified.
And I am heart-broken.
And I am weary to beneath my core.
I am revealed.
I cannot allow his abandonment to cover this newest light.
The women will polish,
But we are finally whole.
No matter what the pain ahead, or loss.
No matter where we make our home,
The women will help us heal.
... and we will dance rainbows at last.
Tucked in dark corners to collect dust
What are prisms but broken glass?
Yet strung gleaming, spinning in the light?
Sun-dancers
Diamond-catchers
Rainbow-throwers.
Every shining cut casts the spectrum,
Each twirl offers a rainbow dance.
Then our gray days spin wonder.
Each polished cut hordes our light
To toss, teasing with every turn.
The trick to being a prism is to face the light,
Polish all the cuts,
Then let the magic happen.
†††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††
This may be kind of short tonight. It's strange when the old ways no longer work. I have allowed my heart to be completely accessible for the first time in my life, having saved some part of it to come out again when I thought I would be safe at last. Turns out that I was mistaken, and that my heart was even less safe with him. And with having every corner of my life vulnerable, this particular misstep on my part has taken a toll.
We can, as I said, reach a wall and feel there is nothing left. And I don't know that I can find a way to keep my home. And I really have no idea how I will make a living at all, and the disability application process is appallingly slow--I've been through it twice before. I worked my way off it twice before. Not this time.
I think that this is where it is all so hard. I've reached the end of my back's getting better. And losing my home ... I can't even talk about that fear. And losing the career that I worked so hard to create, the career that my central nervous system could handle for so long. At this time of life, it is hard to create another. To have no retirement. To have no health insurance within the next three months. Possibly to lose one's home.
This, my friends, is why this man's desertion, his betrayal hurts to the core and has had such an impact. It was the hope he created that is the hardest to lose. No hope is better than false hope. I was foolish; he was worse. But it's the timing of the thing, that has made it so very hard. It's done; he's gone. Faster than he arrived he's done. And I have to get on with this life.
Then I thought about my friends, my "laundry eagles" who are hovering around me now, closing ranks. The flock is here. They call; they send notes. They let me know I am better than any man who would betray and leave me. They tell me all the things to make me remember I'm whole. We talk about Christmas and children and chocolate. We laugh about nothing at all. They make me remember to shine, these women. All by myself, to shine.
The strength of their love begins to sink in. They tell me he's stupid to leave, that he's weak and he's blind if he cannot see he's left the best woman behind. And I smile. These are not things that I say to myself, they are things I find hard to believe. They tell me I'll find a way to fly, to earn my own way, to do anything I want. My friends think I will soar. They think that I am better than I ever believe of myself.
That's what women do, when the men feed and just leave. We close ranks. We lift one another up, put her on a pedestal and unabashedly worship while she heals. I turned 50 in 2002, and it was a difficult year... among difficult years. One of my friends, when she read this poem said, "Well, that's the thing Jetty. You have so many cuts, you are the brightest prism of the bunch." Lucky me ... or maybe I am. Too soon to feel that just yet.
My women friends are busy polishing just now. This newest cut is so sharp and so new, they are busy polishing the sides, smoothing the edge so that I stop cutting myself in all this pain. They won't let me go back into hiding, I'm afraid. They keep drawing me out, reminding me that I will always have a home, or perhaps I'll have twelve and just move from place to place. The Gypsy Jet, they call her. I offer to take my tambourine. We laugh and for moments at a time, I forget the ache, and just be.
And here is this heart of mine, that he so carefully drew out, looked at from every direction, kissed, held, promised to cherish for life... and kicked to the side of the road. Here it is. And now I have written about putting it away. Tying the whole mess up in a box and throwing in a closet. I did that with the horrors for years, the ones I have only hinted at yet. I did it before, like an artist. I could reduce a memory to a bit of tissue and stuff it where I could not see or feel or hear or taste the pain, where it was dead to me. I am an expert at stuffing the pain. And that's what I'd done with this man before, this love of my life. I stuck him far away so I barely remembered his name. And here I am again, ready to put it all away.
Only now I don't know how.
I have lost the ability to hide. I have lost the knack with turning the phrase to make what is poison palatable. I think to put all those parts back in a box would kill something more precious still. He woke up all this love in me, all this sparkling faith that life could be good. He said he wanted just to make it so I would not have to worry, so that I could get up every day and CHOOSE to write or to paint, without having to worry about keeping my home. Such a pretty wish from him. Yes. There is bitterness here... but there's something else I've not named.
Perhaps the only way I can salvage my soul from the damage is to keep that sparkling heart. I loved without conditions, without artifice. For once in my life I did not hold back, I did not pretend, I lived in each moment with him.
The cut that he made is so deep in this newly revealed heart, this child's soul who finally came out to dance. He cut her; I bleed. But the women work on just the same. She is not doing too well, but I think... I think perhaps ... she has a name to me, a child in me, the part I would let no one see. I think I must let her stay here.
Little Rita has come out at last. The quiet, somber, big-eyed child who sat up with the dying,
who turned on her brother when he did his worst, and simply asked him, "WHY?" So he ran.
who dropped the knife, choosing not to attack her attacker,
who closed her sister's eyes.
This child came out for this man who is gone. She slipped her hand in his, one sunny afternoon, certain of his love, of his honesty, certain that this man was her home. She had waited for him to come back; and he did. Never once did she think he would leave ... again. And this tiny child, with the strength of the mighty has, for the first time in my life, been walking through my life with me for six weeks. Since the first time he was here, when she came out only twice, she's appeared only when I needed strength to walk with grace through times when I had none to give. She would come. But mostly she stayed in the shadows, rarely daring to come out just to breathe. I have loved having her out. She does different things with paint. She takes no crap from him or anyone at all. Rita dances without moving at all.
And now she's been ripped open again.
But something's changed; I tried to start putting her back into that box, to that cold, gray place, she shouted me down. She clung to my dress. She begged me to stay with the lights. I told her I didn't want her to hurt any more, that we just can't take the pain, but she made me turn and look.
"LOOK AT THE LIGHTS!" My little girl screamed and I turned and I saw and I cried.
Paige, Martha, Judy, Andrea, Laura, Sue, Linda, Sue G., Nancy, Ann, Gail, Martha L.,
Came the Dozen, Dancing
Twirling, laughing, throwing rainbows every where...
skipping toward us
with tea and with cookies,
with puff quilts and stories,
with hairbrushes and pillows,
coming toward us with nothing but love.
I think I need Rita with me now. I think I need to not stuff one single thing anywhere at all. For the first time in my life, there are no secrets left.
And I am terrified.
And I am heart-broken.
And I am weary to beneath my core.
I am revealed.
I cannot allow his abandonment to cover this newest light.
The women will polish,
But we are finally whole.
No matter what the pain ahead, or loss.
No matter where we make our home,
The women will help us heal.
... and we will dance rainbows at last.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Today is Better
Phoenix © 1992, 2009
No room for desperation in the ruins of my heart;
I must be strong.
I am strong from my core that holds my infinite flame;
I have a flame.
It holds passions beyond desire.
Beyond ruins of tortured body,
I am more beautiful than Hippolyta;
I have the Amazon soul.
No room for desperation in this soul where burns my flame;
Only love.
From love born in faith in beauty beyond mirrors;
I see only light.
My soul has no need for mirrors.
It spreads joy,
without begging for a feeding of the flame.
My soul is no stranger to waiting;
It can dance by itself.
I am the patience of mountains;
with my flame, from my soul, I can wait.
I have seen this soul; it is worth the wait.
From the ruins it rises, whole.
Born July 25, 1992, She rises again, today.
I wrote this the day after I confronted my ex-husband about the fact that I had figured out that he was leaving me, not thinking about it. He was busy running around fixing exterior lights. I had asked him to go to the Home Depot to get an indoors ladder the day before. He fought me about it, saying I would kill myself on it. I looked at him and half-smiled, saying, "You won't though."
He came home without one, saying, "They didn't have any." Our son was en route to Indiana, to go back to school. Jessie was still working, still home for another two weeks.
I went into the basement and saw him busy trying to fix something I'd asked him about for weeks--and replacing ALL the ceiling lights. "Fixing the lights will not keep me all safe and Fine when you leave. You ARE leaving, right?"
He turned and blanched. He began to shake. "Yes."
"You had no intention to stay, to work on things."
"No. But I'm moving into Jay's room down here, so you can get acclimated."
"ACCLIMATED?" I screamed. Next to me was the Hoover Upright, Beats as It Sweeps. Mind you, I was fresh out of the hospital for my tenth round of back crap. I picked it up with one hand, and then with both, I THREW It at him.
He looked so surprised when he caught it.
That was the one moment of laughter in two months of hell, but laugh we did.
And then I went straight to a friend's house, with the words, "Be sure you've figured out where you are going to live when I com back." Not a problem, since he'd already moved his girlfriend into her own apartment.
But I wrote this poem when I came home the next day. I turned some sort of a corner and was resolved. I felt I was stronger in my pinky finger, than he was in his whole being, and I started to plan. I enrolled in the classes I'd wanted, regardless of my circumstances. I took steps to make sure I'd be okay for a while. I was determined to succeed, to fly despite the SOB.
And I did... I flew.
Yesterday was difficult, beyond words. Primarily I felt afraid of where I may wind up. Of whether I will find financial solutions in time. Of whether or not my latest DOWN-tick with my back will level off for some years. Afraid that the beginnings of an awakening for this woman's heart (Dormant for ten years, hiding for far longer) would fizzle into nothing again. Oh, hell. Fear is fear is fear.,
I was simply stone-cold, paralyzed with fear. I am not going to make it pretty or worry about the sound of that. It was numbing and horrible.
But by midnight, so much was better. So much. Words from friends. Words from a couple of readers. And some strange resolve inside. I found the poem at 2:00 a.m. This poem from another time, another era. Yet it has been something I have returned to at other times, the losses of Jessie, my nephew, my brother, two of my dearest friends, and my sister. When I have once before thought I would lose everything and a friend gave me enough of a lifeline to be able to breathe, to think.
I return to the Phoenix and Hippolyta. Rising from ashes, whole... and the strength of a mighty woman. I never longed to be a sylph, even when our image of beauty was a model named Twiggy, all bone and eyes. Nope Not for me. I wanted to be STRONG. I wanted to stand tall, but be, most definitely, a woman.
I read this poem aloud, there in the dark, perhaps three times. Perhaps more. Don't know, don't care.
Today is better.
There are no answers today. All that has changed is me. Perhaps that's all that needs to change.
No room for desperation in the ruins of my heart;
I must be strong.
I am strong from my core that holds my infinite flame;
I have a flame.
It holds passions beyond desire.
Beyond ruins of tortured body,
I am more beautiful than Hippolyta;
I have the Amazon soul.
No room for desperation in this soul where burns my flame;
Only love.
From love born in faith in beauty beyond mirrors;
I see only light.
My soul has no need for mirrors.
It spreads joy,
without begging for a feeding of the flame.
My soul is no stranger to waiting;
It can dance by itself.
I am the patience of mountains;
with my flame, from my soul, I can wait.
I have seen this soul; it is worth the wait.
From the ruins it rises, whole.
Born July 25, 1992, She rises again, today.
I wrote this the day after I confronted my ex-husband about the fact that I had figured out that he was leaving me, not thinking about it. He was busy running around fixing exterior lights. I had asked him to go to the Home Depot to get an indoors ladder the day before. He fought me about it, saying I would kill myself on it. I looked at him and half-smiled, saying, "You won't though."
He came home without one, saying, "They didn't have any." Our son was en route to Indiana, to go back to school. Jessie was still working, still home for another two weeks.
I went into the basement and saw him busy trying to fix something I'd asked him about for weeks--and replacing ALL the ceiling lights. "Fixing the lights will not keep me all safe and Fine when you leave. You ARE leaving, right?"
He turned and blanched. He began to shake. "Yes."
"You had no intention to stay, to work on things."
"No. But I'm moving into Jay's room down here, so you can get acclimated."
"ACCLIMATED?" I screamed. Next to me was the Hoover Upright, Beats as It Sweeps. Mind you, I was fresh out of the hospital for my tenth round of back crap. I picked it up with one hand, and then with both, I THREW It at him.
He looked so surprised when he caught it.
That was the one moment of laughter in two months of hell, but laugh we did.
And then I went straight to a friend's house, with the words, "Be sure you've figured out where you are going to live when I com back." Not a problem, since he'd already moved his girlfriend into her own apartment.
But I wrote this poem when I came home the next day. I turned some sort of a corner and was resolved. I felt I was stronger in my pinky finger, than he was in his whole being, and I started to plan. I enrolled in the classes I'd wanted, regardless of my circumstances. I took steps to make sure I'd be okay for a while. I was determined to succeed, to fly despite the SOB.
And I did... I flew.
Yesterday was difficult, beyond words. Primarily I felt afraid of where I may wind up. Of whether I will find financial solutions in time. Of whether or not my latest DOWN-tick with my back will level off for some years. Afraid that the beginnings of an awakening for this woman's heart (Dormant for ten years, hiding for far longer) would fizzle into nothing again. Oh, hell. Fear is fear is fear.,
I was simply stone-cold, paralyzed with fear. I am not going to make it pretty or worry about the sound of that. It was numbing and horrible.
But by midnight, so much was better. So much. Words from friends. Words from a couple of readers. And some strange resolve inside. I found the poem at 2:00 a.m. This poem from another time, another era. Yet it has been something I have returned to at other times, the losses of Jessie, my nephew, my brother, two of my dearest friends, and my sister. When I have once before thought I would lose everything and a friend gave me enough of a lifeline to be able to breathe, to think.
I return to the Phoenix and Hippolyta. Rising from ashes, whole... and the strength of a mighty woman. I never longed to be a sylph, even when our image of beauty was a model named Twiggy, all bone and eyes. Nope Not for me. I wanted to be STRONG. I wanted to stand tall, but be, most definitely, a woman.
I read this poem aloud, there in the dark, perhaps three times. Perhaps more. Don't know, don't care.
Today is better.
There are no answers today. All that has changed is me. Perhaps that's all that needs to change.
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