The insomniac, fretting over the airline trip her unaccompanied child will be taking to far-flung frightening places in less than two hours' time, decides the night is not meant for restfulness but in stead takes comfort in the queasy feeling slung low in her gut.
She's remembering the particular sense of dis-ease, rediscovering her Holiday Moment.
I have ocean sounds in my ear this morning
ebb twisting itself over flow...
with the image of you above me
in front of me
behind me rocking,
looking at all of me, quaking
sweating, discovering,
robustly starting,
sharing,
claiming, continuing,
given to wanting
giving in to being wanted.
I could watch the reflection
being uncovered
flesh thrusting into flesh
in the mirror again
and again
and I hear the ocean in you
There was a time, and it wasn't so long ago, that I could be very quiet. I kept most of my thoughts to myself, I stepped outside of critical conversation, I ducked. Afraid, I suppose. I'm not certain what my fear was about though. I remember my very young years in school, lining up to walk sing-file to the gymnasium or the lunchroom or on the occasional field trip.
Most of my teachers kept order in the classroom by using the "You're Special!" laminated name tags on a weekly chart, giving multiple children opportunities to shine by getting to be the leader of tasks. I have a feeling Pat Purcell (the nose-picker and otherwise most twitchy kid in the class) was a special special person so he frequently showed up as leader of one category or another, but otherwise my teachers used some arbitrary system to pick line-leader, milk passer-outer, office go-fer, chair pusher-iner.
What seems odd to me - now - is that I felt most comfortable at the end of the single-file line. It seems curious to me that even in my earliest years I was certain that I would be an incapable chair pusher-iner, resolutely accepting that Renee Bailey (the know-it-all) or Christine (the pretty girl, even when she was minus a tooth or two) or for chrissake even Danny and David Shirley (the dressed-alike twins who mugged like identical apes for class pictures) would be deserving of laminated placard tasks.
Given the benefit of hindsight I think it makes perfect sense - both in terms of plot and character development. What I can't understand is how a teacher - how a string of teachers - didn't recognize that kid at the back of the line as much by what she wasn't saying than by what she WAS saying. There's a part of me who like to talk with those teachers know what I do now. I attended Mrs. Carlson's funeral when I was in first grade - if the kindergarten teacher left that early. chances are slim that many more of them are still living and, aside from everything else, I'm not so sure HOW I'd begin finding that trail of educators now. But I do fantasize what a meeting might be like...
The fantasy begins with them each being individually delighted that I've looked them up because they've been thinking about me over all these years. I then show them a picture of my child, proudly cluck about what a fantastic kid he is, what an affable bright sweet man he is becoming. Then I tell them that he's a quiet one, my son ... in fact, so NOT troublesome, so kind and gentle he is that I've had discussions with HIS teachers, pleading with them to please encourage him, please pay attention to him - please SEE him. And I would segue from what I have done as a parent for my no-fuss son into asking what my parents asked them to do for me during those semi-annual parent/teacher conferences.
Part of their response would come as truth and fact -
"Oh, well we agreed that your skill were more advanced than those of your ape-faced, nose-picking peers. And that you definitely had a streak of Something Special so we accelerated your learning to keep up with your advanced skills by sending you to older children's' classes."
Part of their response is left for my own flight of finding- and making-peace-with-myself fancy -
"Your parents stopped in regularly, you know. Yes! They both wanted to know about your grades, of course, and the asked me to clarify what I meant by 'Is a joy to have in class'. But the truly telling reflection of your parents' affection for you was the unusual questions they asked me, such as 'Is she happy? Does she talk to you about her interests? Can you tell when she's not? How do you help her through those times? Does she have friends? How can WE help her to feel loved and Most Important? Should we encourage her to invite schoolmates over to our home?'".
Usually by this time in the fantasy conversation I begin to feel beleaguered by the amount of shit I'm slinging and call it quits somewhere in the list of 'help us help her' questions. I have a quiet moment within the still-running fantasy though - truly a magical moment where, if it was a made-for-TV movie, a blue glowing light would appear just above my head, where the music would turn tender, maybe a lone acoustical guitar perched out on a veranda at sunset in the Blue Ridge Mountains ... I have a tired but thankful posture. I say to my former instructor "I never knew they cared so much about me. And what's more, I never realized that you all saw me so clearly, even in my youngest years. I was so silly to have doubted any of you, even for a moment. I'm flabbergast at the ridiculous amount of time I've whittled away simply fussing over my doubts. Thank you. Thank you SO much for paying attention to the little quiet nice girl at the end of the single-file line."
In the fantasy I embrace my childhood teachers warmly as though we are the dearest of friends, inviting them to spend a week at my country cabin as soon as they can make time in their schedules for quiet and good wine and cheeses.
I then ask them each to bring their favorite hat along on our together-vacation so I can photograph them wearing it.
I prefer to take very broad, very liberal strokes at my wish list list-making.
It's not a simple thing to say the thing I want. I may be laughed at. I may be completely ignored. I may receive the size small instead of the large, I may get the thing that clearly indicates that someone was not listening to me (BIG personal peeve)... so I don't make the lists and try to talk about personally significant matters as infrequently as I can get away with, which really isn't all that difficult if you can manage to get a person to talk about their stuff because lord knows we all got lots of personal crap to sort through - anyone given an opening, an audience and silence will generally take it and run.
Try it. See if I'm wrong.
 How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 692,212,161 richest person on earth! |
I've been thinking about being in relationship with others: how and why we make the choices we do, how we deal (or don'€™t) with the consequences, what the next steps can be (which may or may not have any bearing on what actually happens).
I was on the floor of the lower-level room where my son tucks himself away for TV watching, computering, and other miscellaneous things mothers should not be required to keep close track of (this one doesn'€™t, at any rate). We were hanging out, watching a George Carlin video, laughing (possibly slightly more than gives positive indication of an overtly healthy mind). As we giggled and guffawed and high-fived Curious George, I poked around at the contents of items on the bottom of the bookshelf my father made for me in 1986, created after I was forcibly ejected from my parent'€™s home for the ultimate offense of loving a person deemed evil ~ sinful ~ un-loveworthy. I didn'€™t simply date him and love him, no. I continued to date and love him after my mother made her opinions and, in due time, her forbiddance frighteningly, screamingly clear. The cost of that decision - not to mention a few choices later on -€“ was energizing but ultimately fiercely destructive (for me, for him, for my sense of family) on a number of levels.
While gently using my hand as a dust bulldozer to shove layers of months-long inattentive housekeeping to the side, I uncovered an envelope mailed to me by that fellow I'™d dated back in the day. The envelope was postmarked 10 July 2000 and had affixed to it the ho-hum flag-and-a-building 33-cent postage stamp. Enclosed along with his letter was a page ripped from a J.C. Penney catalog. A lovely plus-sized blonde woman model in a periwinkle blue two-pieced outfit was slung comfortably upright in a white hammock, a pair of white slings to her left side. Her expression says "hey, I'€™m cute. Would you like to swing in my hammock with me?"€™; she'™s very appealing to me and a downright cutie. She's the gal who I'd imagine visits nursing homes on weekends, just because; who buys the extra groceries to place a few in the food pantry donation bin. On the picture he'€™d written '€˜Beth --->'™, assigning me to her characteristics. Funny ... we do sorta look the tiniest bit alike if you squint. Anyway.
The letter, written in loopy scrolling blue ballpoint pen read:
"€œDear Beth,
Hi. Ever think about going total blonde. You're much more beautiful than the JCP Modle, but you get the idea.
I understand you tried to contact me, and I'€™m puzzled as to why since you don'€™t want to be friends. Or is it from the bracelet you gave me? (I still have it), 'œThat'€™s what friends are for.'. I guess I just don'€™t understand.
You should see my new Apt. WOW! Its basicly sound proof; which I was not aware of till I went out in the hall; but it'™s a one bedroom loft Apt. with a sky light and cathedral ceiling; it has two floors since it'€™s a loft. And I love it.
Right now I'€™m still psychologicly ill and taking no calls, just writing, and I'€™m staying at my parents till I feel safe enough to go back to the Apt. without delusions. I'€™ve done some Art and a lot of Poetry since I last saw you. Its really a shame I'€™m not able to share it.
If I talk with you, will you once again burn the bridges of friendship? You hurt me, I don'™t know why -€“ If it was about the kiss, I just wanted to.
One time long ago, I asked you if I could kiss you and you said 'no, because I shouldn'™t have to be asked.' This time you kissed me, and I kissed the way I do. That'€™s it. Lisa is pregnut again. Her due date is Dec 25. And Laura will be 3, Jan 2.
Anyway I'€™d better close, take care and write me if you need to, but think about what I said.
Love Almost Always
M---"€œ
I can'€™t recall now if I responded to this letter when I ha€™d first received it. I know we talked, but I cannot recall the details of which conversation happened when. I also feel consecratedly, intensely grief-laden that I am not required to follow the basic rules of proper netiquette and common decency by asking him if I could have his permission to reprint his words here. And that is because he's dead. He was young, in his late 30s, and he'€™s fucking dead now.
I think of M--- a great deal, especially when I am struggling and want someone to just hug me, or when I'€™m insecure and want to be reached out to by another person. When I see super-excellent cloud shapes I think of him. His heart was so big, so hurtable, occasionally hittable, filled with anger and an unsteady mix of '€˜don'€™t push me'€™ and '˜please push me. Harder'€™.
I cut him off. Completely. I extricated myself from relationship with him long after we broke off our relationship, including the engagement I never had the opportunity to announce, save for meetings with the ring designer in Des Moines to create an unique wedding band from a bracelet of gold and diamonds I found several years prior. But that'€™s another story for another time, that bracelet. After our breakup turned to friendship and then friendship turned to an indefinable something else we danced back and forth around; I made clumsy attempts to reconnect with him at a level I could bear but it never seemed to be what he wanted from me: it never seemed to be enough. He wanted me back; he wanted our relationship back. He wanted me to accept his apologies. He wanted to make up. He wanted to not be crazy anymore. He wanted me, a loved person who understood the scariness of occasional mind-losing, to hold hands when he was frightened.
I cannot take staring into the puckered superficial face of decisions I made toward the end of his life. I believe it is an unwise move to live the next section(s) of my life in an unexamined happy lala-world state, but the guilt I continue to bear feels so soggy, so heavy. It's like tasting a mouth-watering dessert ... a little is so good ~ too much is sickening. Yeah, the examination process of my personal accountability and my continuing grief is a little like that.
Today I'€™m so sorry. I hope there is a spiritual part of him hovering close by because I'€™d like to think that by my whispering these admissions now he can find a way to forgive me. I'€™m not sure what I would say if he was still alive, but I'm certain it would be a hell of a lot more than I did back when I knew everything; before he offed himself, centuries before George Carlin help me forget for an afternoon.
"But this is uncomfortable!" her student complained.
"Ahh, my dear you're trying too hard."
"The trick", the instructor continued, "is to become flexible enough with your daily practice here such that you will learn to bend without breaking".
After time had passed, she eventually decided to leave her heart on the outside.
She thought it might help others to have a visual representation of how much of the tender green she had lost but more importantly, how much she still had to offer.
It also was reported to have had a positive effect on her ability to withstand the wind and weather.
There was a time when knights slew the dragons, when damsels and lords fervently practiced each stroke in the 'courtly love' primer, when time plod slowly.
Now the dragon has risen up, taking the pointed sword into his wild webbed wing, jousting in a contest against no one for the prize of nothing.
Touche~
I have returned from a very spoiling, overindulgently delightful visit with a dear friend. She is so good to me and ranks high among the things I have worked, without hard work, to preserve as necessary and good in my life.
We spent part of an afternoon in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. but I don't consider that particular visit a tourist gig. The emotional component of bigness, vastness, tinyness, frail and humbleness ... I don't tend to get centered from tourist stops: I do here.
Shiver me timbers, don't you chickadees worry - speaking of birds and berries and little animals that make themselves terribly difficult to photograph... of the three (meaning wrens, chickadees and sparrows, okay add yellow finches and one other sweet fat little bird for which I have no official name yet) the chickadee is by far the most nervous of the bunch. Flit flit flit. Nervous little critters, they are. Maybe they feel a keen connection to the mourning dove, who are now officially shootable for that ginormous shrimp-sized portion of meat they provide. Mourning doves are some of my mother's favorite birds and by proxy, mine. They don't provide much of a hunting challenge. Quit shooting them, let's just stop shall we?
Anyway, I'm heading to D.C. for a mini-vacation-that-isn't-truly-a-vacation from this very strange and interesting life of mine for a few days of indulgent attention paid by a close friend. I am insisting on National Cathedral time. Other than that? I could give a shit where we go or what we do. I like her, I like spending time together and we invariably get into mischief together. That's what spending time should be about.
I'm turning 38 on Friday.
Who'd have thought I'd live to see it?
There's something worth pondering over a few quiet moments at a memorial exhibit.
Be kind to one another and miss me just a little.
I've been laughing and weeping (mostly weeping) while finding the most elementally important connection between myself, my fellow Americans, and the fellowship of humans really trying - HARD - to make purposefully peaceful loving caring decisions. Like not voting for Bush last week.
We didn't do enough.
Some of our ballots were either ranked less important or were not counted.
The implications of what seemed like teeny choices I did or didn't make? I am beginning to better understand the implications of my choices... they were huge. They were global.
I don't think anyone can lead a balanced life if she is only giving of herself or if he steals his energy from one important 'emotional' bank to feed another (i.e. never see the family in order to rabblerouse). But I can try to do differently in the coming months, and years until the next election.
Allow yourself to be open to forgiveness. And never hesitate to cop to your own fuckups, especially to the people who could most (along with you) benefit from your confession.
Absolution comes with a price, but it needn't be an act you disavow in favor of your fear.
Sorry Everybody
Let us pause in life's pleasures to count its many tears
While we all sop sorrow with the poor:
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears
Oh! Hard times, come again no more
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more:
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door:
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh!! Hard times, come again no more.
'Tis a sigh that is wafted across teh troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave.
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.
-Stephen C. Foster
"Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about - or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions."
-Parker Palmer, excerpted from 'Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer. ~Plutarch, Moralia
I cannot find graciousness in my heart today. I can't breathe either.
My president, the man who appears to be the person who will continue to be in charge of my country for another four years, was willing to throw me - ME - on top of the fire as a sacrifice to appease the fears of immovable right wingers everywhere. That is unforgiveable.
I've been burned and have sustained severe nerve damage. I'm worried. I'm sick. I want my own self-contolled morphine IV drip because it appears that Nurse Bush certainly isn't going to be offering me pain relief.
