I have heard many horror stories about mean nuns. If there were any physically mean nuns in my K-12 Catholic education, at two schools, one an all girl Catholic h.s., I never witnessed nuns being mean. Only boys misbehaved and if they did, they often disappeared from our school. I have heard so many stories of nuns, and sometimes priests, cracking knuckles with rulers, using wooden paddles with air holes to increase the pain when a principal would 'spank' a rule breaker, but I never heard such stories in my K-12 years of Catholic education. My only memories of mean nuns consist of verbal abuse, which, I know quite well, can be awful but the meanest nun in my grammar school, Sister Jerome Marie, wasn't sarcastically abusive all that much. Additionally, she mostly reserved her invectives for boys.
My older brother, Chuck the Fuck, got as much negative attention from 'the nuns' as any kid in our school ever did. The nuns told my parents not to bother to send him to a Catholic h.s. because he was destined for prison, had no future and there was no point spending money to send him to a Catholic high school. This being the world Stanley Kubrick created in A Clockwork Orange, where all the nasty boys become vicious, violent cops, my bro, Chuck the Fuck, went on to become a judge. Chuck is a real shit. He beat me up when I was 1, 2, 3, 4 and then my Irish twin, eleven months younger than me, grew to be larger than Chuck. Chuck had also been beating Joe up every chance he got but once Joe saw that he, Joe, was bigger than Chuck the Fuck (my special name for the fuck), Joe told Chuck that if Chuck ever hit him or me (and I remember perking up as Joe talked, surprised he was including me in putting an end to our suffering at Chuck's nasty hand!), Joe would beat him up real good. Chuck, being a bully, was also a coward. He never beat me or Joe up after Joe set him straight. Our parents kept having kids and Chuck beat on all of them but the baby, my baby sister, my only sister. Everyone doted on our baby sister. I guess fifteen year olds, and Chuck was 15 when she was born, didn't beat on babies. Chuck the fuck beat up on Tomy, born when I was 7. Chuck punched Tom when Chuck was in college, then law school and little guy Tom in middle school and high school.
And our parents, and later when Chuck was routinely hitting Tom, our single parent dad that Chuck and Tom lived with for awhile, never once suggested to Chuck that he stop hitting his siblings.
And Chuck did not limit his bullying violence to his siblings. He just chose his outside the family victims more carefully. He only chose boys that were younger than him and had no big brothers.
What about nuns and presidential politics? How I ramble.
So. Mostly I thought of all the nuns as sweethearts, except for Sister Jerome Marie, my fifth grade teacher who was actually tough. I never heard of her hitting any student but she was mean*. On the first day of my fifth grade, with me fantasizing that God has made a mistake, was playing a trick on me and I was really in another fifth grade class, with one of the nice nuns, Sister Jerome Marie said to me, in front of our whole, overcrowded class of at least fifty students, "So you are So-and-So Fitzpatrick. I had your brother last year." I swear my teeth chattered, I was like the cowardly lion facing the Wizard of Oz for the first time, chattering and also chewing on my tail. I said nothing, just shivered. "You brother is a son of a bitch." For any non catholics reading, you might not know that a nun calling an 11 year old boy as asshole no matter what a little shit he may have been, was just not done.
I was thrilled, frightened but thrilled. I couldn't wait to tell my dad what Sister Jerome Marie had said. Dad did not ruin Chuck's day by yelling at him for being regarded as an asshole by a nun. Oh no. Dad called up one of the priests and wailed complaints about Sister Jerome Marie. Dad had a point. Nuns should not call anyone an asshole in front of children. Or in front of anyone, I guess, but dad's anger focussed on the classroom setting.
There was one nun that I never had as a teacher but I had gotten to know pretty well. For many years, my mom made me her gift to God. As my mother put it, loudly and frequently, to me and everyone in our parish that would listen, "Since my mother gave one of her children to God, for my sister Joanne is now a nun, I am going to give one of my children to God, my daughter." Every time she said it, I would think, but never said because my mom would have punished me for talking back, "Why do you want to give me away?" Sometimes I thought "You have four sons so you give away your only daughter?" Plus, mom had lost two girls in infancy, my first two sisters. Her decision to give me away to God really stung. I still think that as her only surviving girlchild for many years, with my sister that lived only coming along as I started high school, mom should have given God a son.
Since I had a vocation and the whole goddamned parish knew, for occasionally they were asked to pray for my vocation. That didn't happen often but when it did, I felt so doomed.
One tiny positive in that hellish nightmare of having a vocation, and feeling guilty about my dishonesty because I knew God had not called me to a vocation, so I was a liar!, was for many years, I had to stay after school and help Sister Mary David clean the altar and lay out the vestments for the following day's masses. It was a massive parish, swolen by the post World War II Baby Boom. The nuns were just about the only ones at the 7 a.m. mass. The 8 a.m. mass was for pious holy rolling kids, or kids with bully moms like mine. Yeah, I went to daily mass at 8 a.m., privileged to be a couple minutes late for our 8:30 school start time and then allowed to eat breakfast after I had made my First Communion. In those days, you couldn't eat three hours before communion. That changed as I got older. So I went to mass daily and stayed after school daily to sweep the marble flooring of the very big altar. Dust the alter and its holy things carefully. And hand Sister Mary David the vestments as she laid them out in reverse order for the priests could put them on in the right order without having to lift them out of their drawers. Priests were treated with great deference.
Doing this every school day for years lead to me getting to know several nuns and all the priests.
I liked the peaceful experience cleaning that altar with Sister Mary David.
I thought that by now, I would remember the name of the nun who first talked to me, and all the kids in our school, about her views of having a female president. Maybe she came around to give us a singing class now and then? I never had in in class, don't remember her cleaning altars with me.And, by the way, I think this sentence, the sentence of having a publicly declared vocation, only lasted several years. It only seemed like forever when I was 8, 9, 10, maybe 11.
Eventually my aunt the nun saved me. But right now I want to wrap this presidential commentary up.
Sister Mary Somebody must have been the choir teacher. She came around to all the classrooms regularly for something. This seems odd because Sister Mary David, the nun I knew best, was my piano teacher for years, until Sister Mary David and this nun with the female president preocupation, left the convent. Say, I wonder if they were lovers and left their marriage to God to be together? I like that. I definitely got to know the presidentially obsessed nun because I hung out with Sister Mary David.
But all the nuns knew me quite well, all saw me after school walking along with Sister Mary David, stopping to chat whenever SMD stopped to chat. And of course, being holy people, and teachers and priests, they all were very nice to me. Plus they all knew my whole family, mom dad and all sibs.
During the presidential campaign when J.F. Kennedy ran, the first Catholic to run for President, Sister Mary Somebody, took to running around saying "People keep saying when will we have a female president." Sidebar: I never heard anyone but Sister Mary Somebody suggest we should have a female president. I was mildly shocked the first time I heard such a suggestion. A female president? As if. Girls became moms, teachers, nurses or nuns.
Sister Mary Somebody had a bee in her bonnet. She would blast out her first sentence, see the line in quotes above and the, the bombast rising in her tone, "I would never want to be president and no sane female ever would." She would pause, probably for effect and she achieved good effect with the big, drawn-in breath that she slowly exhaled before she said "No woman would ever want that job. Only crazy people would want that job. Only men would want that job."
A couple of times, I even glanced around to see if the coast was clear for Sister Mary Somebody's indiscretion, to see if any priests were within earshot. I think she scanned her environment before she delivered her subversive talk about females ever becoming president.
Hilary, Sister Mary Somebody would have thought you must be out of your mind to want to be president. and I think, Hilary, that you are cray cray, a warmongering, corporate-military-industrial-complex loving lunatic.
*I know I had the highest IQ in my grade school because some numb nuts teacher told me so, forgetting, I guess, that I had several brothers attending the same school. So, although I was, for the most part, a docile girl, I lived with constant torment resulting from too many brothers. For example: we were limited to one hour of television a day. My mom, the early adaptor! My brothers and I argued daily over what we would watch for that one hour. Mom never would let me watch 'girl' shows separately because, and she was probably right, my brothers would sneak in and watch more than an hour. So it was a tightly enforced one hour. Mom solved her problem of dealing with our squabbles by declaring our television watching to be ruled by democracy, majority rules. Bu mom!, the boys are more than me and the boys never pick my shows. So every Friday night, we watched "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." And don't get me wrong, I learned to love it. I still have a slight crush on Ilia Kuriakan. But it was an acquired taste. Once my mom made up her mind with her children, she never wavered. We were only limited to one hour a day when my dad was not home. When dad was home, he watched tv as much as he wished and he liked to watch a lot. And my dad, bless him, totally understood that I was entitled to, only very rarely, get to watch a girl show, which he would gamely watch with me. Mom would always be in the background, warning my dad. "Charles, you are such a bad influenced on your children!" Anyway, long paragraph coming to an end: I snottily bragged about having the highest IQ in the school, helpfully pointing out often, to my bros, that if I had the highest, theirs was lower than mine. I loved Mr. Mildice.
After I finished 4th grade, with my 4th grade teacher seating me along side bookshelves filled with a self-study, homeschooling educational program that went up to grade 12. She had realized I was bored out of my gourd in class. She said if I kept quiet, I could work my way through the lessons. I got up to the 11th grade curriculum in those books by the end of 4th grade. That teacher got the nuns to urge my parents to send me to a gifted kids school. My parents considered that but they decided that my brother Chuck would torment the whole family in his jealousy that I had been singled out as smarter than him. When I walked into Sister Jerome Marie's class, having been assigned to my nightmare choice of 5th grade teacher -- my grade school had three classes for each grade, crammed to the rafters with boomers -- I kept praying that I was in a nightmare and over in my real life, I was starting at my new school for gifted kids. I was not particular interested in the smart label. I didn't really believe I was smart. I was interested in going to a school without Chuck. I still find it hard to believe my parents withheld the possibility of the right education for me to accommodate their eldest son, the first born penis. Please note: my parents accommodated Chuck's bad behavior, his bullying of the whole family, his terrorism, for he terrorized my parents as much as us kids, priotizing his appeasement above my education. They were afraid of him and the havoc he very likely would have wrecked on the whole family if he was always jealous that his little sister was going to a school for smart kids. They never considered, I guess, that as parents they might have exercised some parental authority, attempted to discipline Chuck.
When I was in the 7th grade, my class happened to be let out ahead of Chuck's 8th grade class. I had waited for his class to come out so I could walk home with Ellen from next door. I was facing the school doors as Chuck burst out, saw me and, as if he had carefully choreographed himself, he almost danced over to me, jumped up like a hooper ball player going to a jump shot, and smackd me in my left eye with his right hand on the way down. I had a real shiner. And the nuns told me I was a crybaby and a tattle taler when I reported Chuck's assault to them. I had a faint hope that a nun might discipline Chuck for that black eye (it didn't get black until a little later) because I knew my parents would not discipline him.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
I speak fluent weird
First, I am reminded of the time my sister, when she was about four, was having a regular check up with our family doctor. He and mom had chatted about speaking other languages. My said "I speak English and French" and our family doctor said "I speak English and German." My sister, unbidden, chirped "I speak English and I speak Foolish."
Well, it runs in the family. I speak English, I speak Spanish and I speak weird.
I was at a holiday party this week and kept finding myself seated with no one talking to me. There was one friend present who I was glad to talk to because he talked about himself and listened to me talk about me. So I surprised myself by confiding in him. I said "I know I am an introvert but I come to a party and see how I always end up seated alone and not talking to anyone and I wonder why." He said "It's the same with me. I figured out a long time ago that all the talk I was missing was talk that bored me and that was why I am missing it."
Just then, his wife came along and urged him to leave. I know her, too. And like her. She even checked in and asked me if it was okay if she pulled him away.
That little chat motivated me to go into the next room, sit next to folks engaged fervently in converaton and wait for a wave that I might surf into the converation on. What I got was talk about knitting, crocheting and quilting.When the craft portion of that scintilating exchange ended, I got a dose of petty gossip.
And I realized why I so often find myself alone at social events. And why so many people have told me, when they do get around to talking to me, that I am intense.
I am only interested in talking about what is real and meaningful to me.
I want to talk about me, hear about others, what they are doing in their lives. And, I know, the persons who talked about crocheting and knitting were talking about things that matter to them. They are lovely people that I like.
I speak fluent weird. That is who I am. So where are my kindred spirits?
tear drops keep rolling
tear drops keep rolling down my cheeks
denying my abilitly to speak
sometimes I jut can't sleep
wearing down my heart
setting me apart
I'm never gonna stop the tears from a'fallin
I'm never gonna stop myself from growing
I'm never gonna stop the tear drops from rolling
Because I'm me
Being the best me I can be
Because I'm me
denying my abilitly to speak
sometimes I jut can't sleep
wearing down my heart
setting me apart
I'm never gonna stop the tears from a'fallin
I'm never gonna stop myself from growing
I'm never gonna stop the tear drops from rolling
Because I'm me
Being the best me I can be
Because I'm me
sometimes
I have a lot of sadness and a bottomless well of tears left to cry. It's not as if all my crying has an endpoint. Crying a lot, and easily, is part of who I am. And it's an aspect of myself that I very much love. I don't want to be someone who doesn't cry.
I was someone who didn't cry for too long. I never cried in childhood, adolescent or early twenties.
Once I started crying, in my first therapy with my marriage counselor turned individual therapist, I cried every second of every session for a couple years. Then I began to not cry through the whole session. I had been thinking therapy meant crying so when I stopped crying, I told my doctor, I was afraid I was no longer healing. He invited me to reconsider. He said he thought I was crying a bit less because I was healing. I liked that. I still do. But I am still a frequent cryer. No mileage for that.
a xmas story about my daughter
For my daughter's second Christmas, I invited all her dad's relatives over for Christmas Eve dinner. We lived in his hometown at the time and all my relatives were five hundred miles away. My ex's family initially acted weird about my invitation, their feathers seemingly ruffled that some interloper was hijacking the family holiday. I had chosen Christmas Eve because I knew the whole clan gathered at the matriarch's home for Christmas Day dinner. And I would have been just fine if no one came.
The sisters, my ex's four shrew sisters, consulted and decided maybe I was not being a bitch to host my ex's grandparents, parents, four sisters and their spouses for those who had any that year and his brother, his wife, and his niece and nephews.
I planned carefully, checking with my mother-in-law to be sure I didn't cook any of her sacred holiday cows. She did turkey so I did a pork loin roast.
I fussed especially over dessert. I wanted it to be something holiday-y but distinct. I pored over cookbooks and magazines. I settled on a recipe for some snowballs.
I did not realize at the time that everything I said to my husband as I planned and fretted to get everything right, he told is family. There was a background greek chorus critiquing every choice I even considered.
They did not approve of my dessert choice. Or the pork loin. Or the fact that I planned to give all the children gifts but not any adults. This criticism I still don't get. They exchanged gifts on Christmas day, going so far as to make all the little kids wait until Christmas evening after dinner to open their gifts. I thought giving each of the kids a small, inexpensive toy was a nice touch. I still do.
I gave my nephew Nick a small periscope, one designed to be used underater. The eye of that periscope could be turned so the child could view around corners or from under the water in the pool.Nick, who was as adorable as any little boy I have known, soon got into running around the house, then spying with his periscope around corners. It was a gift for all to see his joy.
I don't remember what I got Nick's sister Carrie, Nick's brother Matt or my own daughter Rosie.
Rosie was 18 months old, walking, not talking so anyone but me could understand her.
Rosie's great grandfather, on her dad's side of course, was from Croatia. He had emigrated during a round of genocide in Yugoslavia to work in the meat packing houses of South Omaha. He was Catholic but I often questioned his Catholicism. I always had an instinct his maternal grandparents, who spoke with thick accents even after living in this country fifty years or more, had crossed over, that they had been another religion and converted to Catholicism in their underinformed belief that whatever faith they had had in Yugoslavia would not be welcome in America. Who knows? They were so far from my notions I had of Catholics, and, trust me, I knew Catholics, having gone to Catholic schools K-12, with my aunt the nun entering her final vows the day after she stood as my godmother at my christening. Having a nun in the family wasn't quite as good as having a priest but my aunt the nun was what we had. My aunt, parenthetically, left the convent after 47 years. I am sure about the number of years because she became a nun when I was christened and she left the convent t marry a divorced Episcopal priest when I was 47. That's a good story.
Her husband had been married when they met and fell instantly in love. They decided Bill had to keep his vows to his wife, that they could not be together. My aunt went to be a missionary in Guatemala, partly to serve selflessly, partly for adventure I think and partly to grieve at a remove from Bill. A couple years in the Guatemalan jungle and Bill appeared with a free pass to marry my aunt. His wife, happily for all, had decided she was a lesbian. Bill had a a free exit and could remarry guilt-free. Episcopalians don't reject divorce the way the formal Catholic church does. Most Catholics I know are divorced, then remarry, but it is all sorta ignored.
I just looked up at my post title: a xmas story about my daughter.
As we readied for that Christmas Eve party, with our own dear angel glad in a purple velour pants suit looking like a pale lavendar angel to us, my husband looked out our patio doors and saw a dead bird whose head had gotten caught in the peep hole of a bird house in our backyard. He said "I better remove that. If my grandpa sees it, he will be spooked. He is very superstitious." I thought but did not say "You seem pretty superstitious yourself" but I also felt some fondness, seeing how eager my husband was to please his grandpa.
I learned that one of that family's Christmas traditions was that Crotian grandpa gave all the small children money at Christmas. He handed out small amounts of cash to all the kids, with my purple angel included. She could barely walk. And the purple velour pants suit had no pockets. I don't think any of her clothes had pockets at the time. Babies didn't need pockets. And I tended to buy clothes for her with simple lines, never ascribing to the practice of dressing up little girls in frills.
I had stepped out of the kitchen, stepped away from the last minute rush of getting food out onto the table when I saw her great-grandpa hand her two rolled-up one dollar bills. She rushed away from him, as if she wanted to get away before anyone decided to take that money back. Clearly she knew money was a fine thing to have and she demonstrated that she had seen people, probably her father, put money in a pocket.
As my tiny purple, velour, beatific, and toddling awkwardly angel walked away from her great grandpa's gift distribution line, she tried repeatedly to stuff those two dollars into a pocket. I watcher her father step in to tell her she had no pocket. Then I stepped in and suggested she might put the two dollars in her dad's pocket, and trust him to give it back.
She was too young to want to actively spend the money. The other kids were all old enough to decide to spend it on candy. I don't recall her dad ever fussing with her about spending the money.
Her father and I separated a few weeks later. He may have revived that two dollar gift but I doubt it. He did not tend to think of small things.
Here I am, 32 years later, remembering Rosie rushing through my living room, trying to stuff those two dollars into a nonexistent pocket.
It is such a small memory.
It was such a wonderful moment, the kind of small, wonderful moments that add up to a wonderful life.
I began to keep a look out for clothes that would fit her that had pockets. And thus began our foray in Oshkosh b'Gosh pastel corduroy overalls. They had pockets and were, imho, adorbs.
Rosie, I miss and love you. I know someone is giving you gifts as wonderful and as magical as those two folded one dollar bills. The gift, of course, was the love of her great grandpa and being included with the big kids and the magic of Christmas still alive, I hope, for most children.
No Christmas these days for me. So I spelunk in my memories.
The sisters, my ex's four shrew sisters, consulted and decided maybe I was not being a bitch to host my ex's grandparents, parents, four sisters and their spouses for those who had any that year and his brother, his wife, and his niece and nephews.
I planned carefully, checking with my mother-in-law to be sure I didn't cook any of her sacred holiday cows. She did turkey so I did a pork loin roast.
I fussed especially over dessert. I wanted it to be something holiday-y but distinct. I pored over cookbooks and magazines. I settled on a recipe for some snowballs.
I did not realize at the time that everything I said to my husband as I planned and fretted to get everything right, he told is family. There was a background greek chorus critiquing every choice I even considered.
They did not approve of my dessert choice. Or the pork loin. Or the fact that I planned to give all the children gifts but not any adults. This criticism I still don't get. They exchanged gifts on Christmas day, going so far as to make all the little kids wait until Christmas evening after dinner to open their gifts. I thought giving each of the kids a small, inexpensive toy was a nice touch. I still do.
I gave my nephew Nick a small periscope, one designed to be used underater. The eye of that periscope could be turned so the child could view around corners or from under the water in the pool.Nick, who was as adorable as any little boy I have known, soon got into running around the house, then spying with his periscope around corners. It was a gift for all to see his joy.
I don't remember what I got Nick's sister Carrie, Nick's brother Matt or my own daughter Rosie.
Rosie was 18 months old, walking, not talking so anyone but me could understand her.
Rosie's great grandfather, on her dad's side of course, was from Croatia. He had emigrated during a round of genocide in Yugoslavia to work in the meat packing houses of South Omaha. He was Catholic but I often questioned his Catholicism. I always had an instinct his maternal grandparents, who spoke with thick accents even after living in this country fifty years or more, had crossed over, that they had been another religion and converted to Catholicism in their underinformed belief that whatever faith they had had in Yugoslavia would not be welcome in America. Who knows? They were so far from my notions I had of Catholics, and, trust me, I knew Catholics, having gone to Catholic schools K-12, with my aunt the nun entering her final vows the day after she stood as my godmother at my christening. Having a nun in the family wasn't quite as good as having a priest but my aunt the nun was what we had. My aunt, parenthetically, left the convent after 47 years. I am sure about the number of years because she became a nun when I was christened and she left the convent t marry a divorced Episcopal priest when I was 47. That's a good story.
Her husband had been married when they met and fell instantly in love. They decided Bill had to keep his vows to his wife, that they could not be together. My aunt went to be a missionary in Guatemala, partly to serve selflessly, partly for adventure I think and partly to grieve at a remove from Bill. A couple years in the Guatemalan jungle and Bill appeared with a free pass to marry my aunt. His wife, happily for all, had decided she was a lesbian. Bill had a a free exit and could remarry guilt-free. Episcopalians don't reject divorce the way the formal Catholic church does. Most Catholics I know are divorced, then remarry, but it is all sorta ignored.
I just looked up at my post title: a xmas story about my daughter.
As we readied for that Christmas Eve party, with our own dear angel glad in a purple velour pants suit looking like a pale lavendar angel to us, my husband looked out our patio doors and saw a dead bird whose head had gotten caught in the peep hole of a bird house in our backyard. He said "I better remove that. If my grandpa sees it, he will be spooked. He is very superstitious." I thought but did not say "You seem pretty superstitious yourself" but I also felt some fondness, seeing how eager my husband was to please his grandpa.
I learned that one of that family's Christmas traditions was that Crotian grandpa gave all the small children money at Christmas. He handed out small amounts of cash to all the kids, with my purple angel included. She could barely walk. And the purple velour pants suit had no pockets. I don't think any of her clothes had pockets at the time. Babies didn't need pockets. And I tended to buy clothes for her with simple lines, never ascribing to the practice of dressing up little girls in frills.
I had stepped out of the kitchen, stepped away from the last minute rush of getting food out onto the table when I saw her great-grandpa hand her two rolled-up one dollar bills. She rushed away from him, as if she wanted to get away before anyone decided to take that money back. Clearly she knew money was a fine thing to have and she demonstrated that she had seen people, probably her father, put money in a pocket.
As my tiny purple, velour, beatific, and toddling awkwardly angel walked away from her great grandpa's gift distribution line, she tried repeatedly to stuff those two dollars into a pocket. I watcher her father step in to tell her she had no pocket. Then I stepped in and suggested she might put the two dollars in her dad's pocket, and trust him to give it back.
She was too young to want to actively spend the money. The other kids were all old enough to decide to spend it on candy. I don't recall her dad ever fussing with her about spending the money.
Her father and I separated a few weeks later. He may have revived that two dollar gift but I doubt it. He did not tend to think of small things.
Here I am, 32 years later, remembering Rosie rushing through my living room, trying to stuff those two dollars into a nonexistent pocket.
It is such a small memory.
It was such a wonderful moment, the kind of small, wonderful moments that add up to a wonderful life.
I began to keep a look out for clothes that would fit her that had pockets. And thus began our foray in Oshkosh b'Gosh pastel corduroy overalls. They had pockets and were, imho, adorbs.
Rosie, I miss and love you. I know someone is giving you gifts as wonderful and as magical as those two folded one dollar bills. The gift, of course, was the love of her great grandpa and being included with the big kids and the magic of Christmas still alive, I hope, for most children.
No Christmas these days for me. So I spelunk in my memories.
Friday, December 18, 2015
The Art of the Steal: Hilary and DNC
I can't express how outraged I am by the DNC's stunt to block Bernie Sander's campaign from access to its own data, which it has paid to use on the DNC database and serverse. Most of Bernie's data is private to his campaign.
This so clearly smacks of cheating. The last debate, absurdly schedule on the Saturday evening just before Xmas when most are at holiday parties and not home watching tv, and right after Bernie's two big boosts with a major union endorsement and hitting 2,000,000 donors.
Can Bernie access those donors to ask them all to write and call the DNC about this skullduggery?
It is all but unbelievable. This fits perfectly with Hilary's sneakiness, which she has shown all her life. She had her own professional grade server while Secretary of State, violating the State Department rules if now the law and I believe it violates the law. After her sycophants scrubbed that server, we'll never know what she had on there that she wanted to hide.
How do we know Hill's campaign, which had the same firewall breach on the same poorly run database, access private data from other campaigns? We don't because Wasserman Schulz, Hilary's failed campaign manager from 2008, is in control. Wasserman Schulz acts like an overcompensating dick, doing everything she can to give Hillary special favors and everything she can to block Bernie.
Wasserman Schulz is not just blocking Bernie. She is blocking democracy when she blocks the will of millions of Americans who support Bernie.
Ack!
Go to DNC website and voice your objection to this outrageous block, denying Bernie's campaign access to their own data, a service they have paid handsomely for.
This so clearly smacks of cheating. The last debate, absurdly schedule on the Saturday evening just before Xmas when most are at holiday parties and not home watching tv, and right after Bernie's two big boosts with a major union endorsement and hitting 2,000,000 donors.
Can Bernie access those donors to ask them all to write and call the DNC about this skullduggery?
It is all but unbelievable. This fits perfectly with Hilary's sneakiness, which she has shown all her life. She had her own professional grade server while Secretary of State, violating the State Department rules if now the law and I believe it violates the law. After her sycophants scrubbed that server, we'll never know what she had on there that she wanted to hide.
How do we know Hill's campaign, which had the same firewall breach on the same poorly run database, access private data from other campaigns? We don't because Wasserman Schulz, Hilary's failed campaign manager from 2008, is in control. Wasserman Schulz acts like an overcompensating dick, doing everything she can to give Hillary special favors and everything she can to block Bernie.
Wasserman Schulz is not just blocking Bernie. She is blocking democracy when she blocks the will of millions of Americans who support Bernie.
Ack!
Go to DNC website and voice your objection to this outrageous block, denying Bernie's campaign access to their own data, a service they have paid handsomely for.
The Art of the Feminine
something I really liked about my daughter
As a teenager, she never told me the race or ethnicity of people in her life that I tended to not meet. Then something would happen, I would meet them and find out a gal pal of hers was Asian, a guy she was seeing was Middle Eastern. She didn't want me meeting anyone but it could not always be avoided.
One time when she did tell me a guy's race: she was waiting for the walk light at a lighted interssection downtown. A much older African American male hit on her, asking her to go out with him. She was always an amazingly confident flirt. I have never flirted. I was in humble amazement at how effortlessly she did it, although I also saw how it could be risky. If the wrong guy thinks her casual, fun, flirting at age fourteen was a serious signal of interest, she could get in trouble. For the most part, she was just well-skilled at flirting, keeping a light tone that few men interpreted as serious flirting.
When this particular black guy hit her on the street, she said, she didn't speak initially. She just waved him off. The guy became a bit abusive, haranguing her for being racist, for not dating black men. She figured he was in his mid-to-late twenties. She was fourteen or fifteen, but, as a former acquaintance remarked when he saw a photo of her at fourteen, she had a 'nice bod'. She danced 30 hours a week and was voluptuous. Even skinny, she had full breasts, curvey hips. Voluptuous. Hot.
When this man kept haranguing her and her, she thought, polite waving him off didn't get him to desist, she said "I'm fourteen." He moved on.
I think it was when she told me the story of the aforementioned black guy hitting on her on Hennepin Avenue outside her dance company, she told me that I should expect her to marry a black man. "They are more attractive than white men," she said. I was proud that she said it and I kept my thoughts to myself, although neither of us were very successful at hiding are real thoughts from one another. We knew one another well enough to know what the other thought, whether they said it aloud or not. My real thought was that she might find black guys hotter but she cared too much about fitting in and her ideas of what constituted status to marry one. I think she knew it would not have upset me if she had chosen a nonwhite spouse or either gender, although she has made it clear she doesn't give one good goddamn what I think about her at all. Still, it looks like she is dating a wealthy white young man in construction engineer, a field related to her work in real estate development. She always has attracted wealthy lovers, even when she dabbled with chicks. I wonder if she still sometimes has chick lovers. And I bet it would irritate her that I use the word chick as I am. This is how I talk and I get to be me. One thing about being free of any need to please my daughter, I am free to be me, free to slake off any whisper of opprobrium. She has made it clear: she disapproves of me so much that she has concocted a fantasy that I am, as she put it last February, "severely mentally ill". Usually 'severely mentally ill' involves psychosis and I have not had a single moment of psychosis. Depression is my greatest flaw and that is not 'severely mentally ill'.
She had a dance girlfriend in those days who was half-Asian, half-white. I forget the girl's name. I think this girl tried to hide her racial identify. She dyed her hair bleach blonde, plucked her eyebrows so they were almost nonexistent. I met her many times, had no idea she was not white. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that I felt empathy for the young teen who seemed to deliberately hide she was Asian. I totally didn't get she was Asian until my daughter finally told me.
I don't know why my daughter did not mention her friends' races when she told me stories about them. Did she think I would care?
The only thing I cared about, in terms of who she hung out with, was I didn't like her hanging out with much older friends, which she did increasingly, but pretend to me they were her age. Race. Ethnicity. These did not matter. But when she proudly passed herself off as much older and would socialize in the city, pretending she was at dance practice but was actually out partying with men in their late twenties, her passing herself off as older, that I minded.
One time when she did tell me a guy's race: she was waiting for the walk light at a lighted interssection downtown. A much older African American male hit on her, asking her to go out with him. She was always an amazingly confident flirt. I have never flirted. I was in humble amazement at how effortlessly she did it, although I also saw how it could be risky. If the wrong guy thinks her casual, fun, flirting at age fourteen was a serious signal of interest, she could get in trouble. For the most part, she was just well-skilled at flirting, keeping a light tone that few men interpreted as serious flirting.
When this particular black guy hit her on the street, she said, she didn't speak initially. She just waved him off. The guy became a bit abusive, haranguing her for being racist, for not dating black men. She figured he was in his mid-to-late twenties. She was fourteen or fifteen, but, as a former acquaintance remarked when he saw a photo of her at fourteen, she had a 'nice bod'. She danced 30 hours a week and was voluptuous. Even skinny, she had full breasts, curvey hips. Voluptuous. Hot.
When this man kept haranguing her and her, she thought, polite waving him off didn't get him to desist, she said "I'm fourteen." He moved on.
I think it was when she told me the story of the aforementioned black guy hitting on her on Hennepin Avenue outside her dance company, she told me that I should expect her to marry a black man. "They are more attractive than white men," she said. I was proud that she said it and I kept my thoughts to myself, although neither of us were very successful at hiding are real thoughts from one another. We knew one another well enough to know what the other thought, whether they said it aloud or not. My real thought was that she might find black guys hotter but she cared too much about fitting in and her ideas of what constituted status to marry one. I think she knew it would not have upset me if she had chosen a nonwhite spouse or either gender, although she has made it clear she doesn't give one good goddamn what I think about her at all. Still, it looks like she is dating a wealthy white young man in construction engineer, a field related to her work in real estate development. She always has attracted wealthy lovers, even when she dabbled with chicks. I wonder if she still sometimes has chick lovers. And I bet it would irritate her that I use the word chick as I am. This is how I talk and I get to be me. One thing about being free of any need to please my daughter, I am free to be me, free to slake off any whisper of opprobrium. She has made it clear: she disapproves of me so much that she has concocted a fantasy that I am, as she put it last February, "severely mentally ill". Usually 'severely mentally ill' involves psychosis and I have not had a single moment of psychosis. Depression is my greatest flaw and that is not 'severely mentally ill'.
She had a dance girlfriend in those days who was half-Asian, half-white. I forget the girl's name. I think this girl tried to hide her racial identify. She dyed her hair bleach blonde, plucked her eyebrows so they were almost nonexistent. I met her many times, had no idea she was not white. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that I felt empathy for the young teen who seemed to deliberately hide she was Asian. I totally didn't get she was Asian until my daughter finally told me.
I don't know why my daughter did not mention her friends' races when she told me stories about them. Did she think I would care?
The only thing I cared about, in terms of who she hung out with, was I didn't like her hanging out with much older friends, which she did increasingly, but pretend to me they were her age. Race. Ethnicity. These did not matter. But when she proudly passed herself off as much older and would socialize in the city, pretending she was at dance practice but was actually out partying with men in their late twenties, her passing herself off as older, that I minded.
water gift on BART
Yesterday, riding BART back to Berkeley from SF, I began to cough. The first cough caught me a bit off guard so I did not cover up the cough completely, although I did cough into my sleeve. The woman seated next to me pulled up her scarf, clearly doing so to avoid inhaling any germs my cough might have spread.
When I kept coughing, I did a better job of covering my cough. And I sat there considering whether I should tell the woman next to me that my cough was about a dry throat and that I didn't have any illness.
I usually have a water bottle with me at all time. Yesterday I deliberately left my water bottle at home. I was doing a Rainbow Grocery run, which entails a heavy load on the trip home. Sometimes I bring my shopping cart but, believing I was only going to buy Himalayan pink salt and oatmeal, I left the cart at home. And I left my water bottle at home.
By the time I was riding back to Berkeley, I had not had any water for a few hours. A dry cough resulted.
Suddenly the woman next to me offered me a 12 ounce bottle of water, the store-bought, prepacked kind. I never buy such bottles of water. I use reusable water bottles. I happily accepted her offer, even joking, after my first sip, "I assume you don't want this back."
Then she and I struck up a conversation on health, health care and nutrition. I think we got there because I said I had left my water bottle at home to make my Rainbow run. She had never heard of Rainbow and used to be a professional chef. She was reading a magazine about fine cooking on BART. When I told her about the amazing bulk department at Rainbow, and then listed the things I bought, seguing into a conversation about food, nutrition and the endless spices, grains, nuts, olives, etc sold bulk at Rainbow was natural. I learned she has about as many health challenges as I do and at least as much, if not more, distrust of allopathic doctors. Like me, she figures out what she needs, tries to get her health needs met with food.
It was fun, comparing notes and finding out that although we have different health issues, we actually have about the same nutrition restrictions.
It was a pleasant chat on a long train ride from the Mission to downtown Berkeley.
I was caught up in the conversation so it wasn't until I was walking home from my BART stop that I wondered if that woman's being had picked up on my thoughts and energy in which I had sat there wondering if I should assure her that I was coughing because I needed water, that I was not coughing up flu virus or cold germs.
I think she did pick up on my energy, my vibration.
I am steadily amazed when people who seem so savvy to me about something as fundamental as nutrition yet they continue to buy cheap, bottled in plastic, water. Don't they care about plastic in oceans?! Haven't they heard of interbeing, a hot buzz word these days.
That water was great.
As often happens when I am on BART alone and I strike up an engaging conversation, I very nearly missed my stop. I leapt up just before the doors closed at my stop.
Then I stepped out to find a friend riding BART to Oakland.
It is fairly unusual for me to run into people I know. People who have lived in the same place all their lives don't understand how long it can take to knit the kind of community ties where one regularly runs into people they know.
When I kept coughing, I did a better job of covering my cough. And I sat there considering whether I should tell the woman next to me that my cough was about a dry throat and that I didn't have any illness.
I usually have a water bottle with me at all time. Yesterday I deliberately left my water bottle at home. I was doing a Rainbow Grocery run, which entails a heavy load on the trip home. Sometimes I bring my shopping cart but, believing I was only going to buy Himalayan pink salt and oatmeal, I left the cart at home. And I left my water bottle at home.
By the time I was riding back to Berkeley, I had not had any water for a few hours. A dry cough resulted.
Suddenly the woman next to me offered me a 12 ounce bottle of water, the store-bought, prepacked kind. I never buy such bottles of water. I use reusable water bottles. I happily accepted her offer, even joking, after my first sip, "I assume you don't want this back."
Then she and I struck up a conversation on health, health care and nutrition. I think we got there because I said I had left my water bottle at home to make my Rainbow run. She had never heard of Rainbow and used to be a professional chef. She was reading a magazine about fine cooking on BART. When I told her about the amazing bulk department at Rainbow, and then listed the things I bought, seguing into a conversation about food, nutrition and the endless spices, grains, nuts, olives, etc sold bulk at Rainbow was natural. I learned she has about as many health challenges as I do and at least as much, if not more, distrust of allopathic doctors. Like me, she figures out what she needs, tries to get her health needs met with food.
It was fun, comparing notes and finding out that although we have different health issues, we actually have about the same nutrition restrictions.
It was a pleasant chat on a long train ride from the Mission to downtown Berkeley.
I was caught up in the conversation so it wasn't until I was walking home from my BART stop that I wondered if that woman's being had picked up on my thoughts and energy in which I had sat there wondering if I should assure her that I was coughing because I needed water, that I was not coughing up flu virus or cold germs.
I think she did pick up on my energy, my vibration.
I am steadily amazed when people who seem so savvy to me about something as fundamental as nutrition yet they continue to buy cheap, bottled in plastic, water. Don't they care about plastic in oceans?! Haven't they heard of interbeing, a hot buzz word these days.
That water was great.
As often happens when I am on BART alone and I strike up an engaging conversation, I very nearly missed my stop. I leapt up just before the doors closed at my stop.
Then I stepped out to find a friend riding BART to Oakland.
It is fairly unusual for me to run into people I know. People who have lived in the same place all their lives don't understand how long it can take to knit the kind of community ties where one regularly runs into people they know.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
F.E.A.R. has two meanings
Only love is real. Fear is a projection of our human imperfection. It is our task in this life to be only love, which does not allow us to fear. Trust. Radical trust.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
false gift alarm & the curse of hope
On Christmas Eve 2009*, a now-former friend gifted me some homemade biscotti. It was such a touching, loving gesture. I just teared up a bit as I remembered how I felt when he called to announce he would like to drop off a gift. And now I am crying because he now shuns me. Once I love someone, it's forever -- relationships can change but I don't like to lose people I have loved. Sure life circumstances can pull one away from someone they love but this guy has made a willful choice, a deliberate rejection. He never loved me, he said he did but he could not have, for he would not have severed all ties with me if he had ever loved me.
*I remember the year because it was my first year in the home I live in.
Those tiny biscotti were the only Christmas gift I had received from anyone from the year my daughter dumped me, 2002, up until 2009. Since then, a couple friends have given me a bit of money as Christmas gifts. Maggie used to give me something I wanted, like once I wanted speakers for my iPod. And once I wanted an Amazon Kindle and she gave me one. Great, loving kindness behind those gifts but, I realized after Geo gave me those homemade cookies, that I associate Christmas with surprise gestures of love, which is what a surprise gift is. Oh, I welcome the planned, practical gifts. I miss being surprised and, although I try not to acknowledge this longing, I realized today that I long to be given another surprise Christmas gift from someone who loves me. What the heck is the point of trying to avoid acknowledging what one feels. I know better. I feel what I feel and denying what I feel clogs my being.
Today, returning home from my writers' group, I found three different notices for packages from Fed Ex. I wasn't expecting anything. While I still believed that the three separate slips, all left on the same day within a few hours, might represent separate packages, I knew they could all be for the same package, I realized I have this longing for a thoughtful, loving Christmas gift with an element of caring surprise. Like that long ago biscotti.
They were anise biscotti, very tiny and I think he gave me six of those tiny cookies. He gave me so few because I have diabetes and avoid sugar. Maybe he was merely being stingy but to think that, I would have to be stingy. I prefer to believe what he said, that he knew I didn't eat much sugar so he had only given me a few. Back then, I still ate some sugar, believing I was Type II but now that I know I am Type I, I never buy any food with sugar. I do, very infrequently, eat something sweet offered to me by a host or hostess. Sometimes the leader of our writers' group puts out chocoalte candy -- just nuts with a few bits of chocolate. I dive for those. I resist her Oreo cookies, like she had out today. I resist the crackers: sugar-spiking carbs in a highly processed thing like a cracker. Today, I did not go for the cookies. I ate some nuts and, oh what a treat, a tiny bit of cambazola. I had not had that kind of cheese in years. I never have been into buying expensive cheese and now I avoid dairy pretty much all the time. But cambazola? What a treat!
So. My three package slips. One of them had even been put on my apartment door. As soon as I had the thought "maybe one of these slips is a surprise Christmas gift" I had two intense emotional reactions. I was delighted, happy, feeling some of the mystery that Christmas held for me as a child as I awaited Santa's gifts. I was, oh so fleetingly, excited at the idea that someone had sent me a surprise Xmas gift. My parents always overindulged their kids with Christmas gifts and I did the same with Rosie. She would have huge piles of gifts and I would have one from her. My mom always gifted me money, which I usually spent on Rosie.
I have not been loved enough. Buddhists and many new age type thinkers would say I am unloved because I don't love myself. Maybe. I don't think that is why I am unloved. I think I am unloved because this time I am paying back some bitching past karma. I believe this incarnation has a destiny of unhappiness in this life. Woe is me, eh?
So I called Fed Ex, read off the three tickets. All three were for the same package. And the package was a delivery I had forgotten, some bandages I use to keep a medication patch on my skin. In my swimming, the medication patch tends to fall off and the company that makes this drug offers these free patches that keep them on. Bandages.
No Christmas present for me. I guess I am not a good girl. Unloved except by the Cosmic All.
In recent years, friends check in to see that I have something to do on Christmas but no one has asked me if I have Christmas plans or invited me to join them, not since Rosie left me. It is as if the whole human community has decided to reject me along with Rosie. I am used to being alone on all holidays but hope, that thing with feathers, floats and drifts. Holidays usually shut out the Elijahs of this world. I hear, all the time, about chosen families, people who form bonds and celebrate holidays with their friends as a chosen family. I have never found that kind of community and I have no family. So no Christmas for me this year, although, hope being the eternal curse that it is, as I write 'no Christmas for me this year' I notice whispers in my being floating like feathers. Hope afloat!
Last year, a friend invited me to go to the free-on-Christmas Jewish museum. Then she tread me to lunch at the deli in the museum. I quite enjoyed that tiny, overpriced chopped liver on rye.
Nah. The only Christmas I'm gonna get this year is the few minutes in which I held out a belief that maybe someone had sent me a surprise. I enjoyed that fleeting excitement. I must say. Maybe I can let that be enough, let that floating feather suffice. Love what comes?
I am ashamed to write this but I will: one flickering thought, very fleeting, that left so fast I almost didn't notice I thought it, was "maybe Rosie send me a Christmas gift". Fantasy. Grief.
No cookies, no shared meal and no surprise gifts.
*I remember the year because it was my first year in the home I live in.
Those tiny biscotti were the only Christmas gift I had received from anyone from the year my daughter dumped me, 2002, up until 2009. Since then, a couple friends have given me a bit of money as Christmas gifts. Maggie used to give me something I wanted, like once I wanted speakers for my iPod. And once I wanted an Amazon Kindle and she gave me one. Great, loving kindness behind those gifts but, I realized after Geo gave me those homemade cookies, that I associate Christmas with surprise gestures of love, which is what a surprise gift is. Oh, I welcome the planned, practical gifts. I miss being surprised and, although I try not to acknowledge this longing, I realized today that I long to be given another surprise Christmas gift from someone who loves me. What the heck is the point of trying to avoid acknowledging what one feels. I know better. I feel what I feel and denying what I feel clogs my being.
Today, returning home from my writers' group, I found three different notices for packages from Fed Ex. I wasn't expecting anything. While I still believed that the three separate slips, all left on the same day within a few hours, might represent separate packages, I knew they could all be for the same package, I realized I have this longing for a thoughtful, loving Christmas gift with an element of caring surprise. Like that long ago biscotti.
They were anise biscotti, very tiny and I think he gave me six of those tiny cookies. He gave me so few because I have diabetes and avoid sugar. Maybe he was merely being stingy but to think that, I would have to be stingy. I prefer to believe what he said, that he knew I didn't eat much sugar so he had only given me a few. Back then, I still ate some sugar, believing I was Type II but now that I know I am Type I, I never buy any food with sugar. I do, very infrequently, eat something sweet offered to me by a host or hostess. Sometimes the leader of our writers' group puts out chocoalte candy -- just nuts with a few bits of chocolate. I dive for those. I resist her Oreo cookies, like she had out today. I resist the crackers: sugar-spiking carbs in a highly processed thing like a cracker. Today, I did not go for the cookies. I ate some nuts and, oh what a treat, a tiny bit of cambazola. I had not had that kind of cheese in years. I never have been into buying expensive cheese and now I avoid dairy pretty much all the time. But cambazola? What a treat!
So. My three package slips. One of them had even been put on my apartment door. As soon as I had the thought "maybe one of these slips is a surprise Christmas gift" I had two intense emotional reactions. I was delighted, happy, feeling some of the mystery that Christmas held for me as a child as I awaited Santa's gifts. I was, oh so fleetingly, excited at the idea that someone had sent me a surprise Xmas gift. My parents always overindulged their kids with Christmas gifts and I did the same with Rosie. She would have huge piles of gifts and I would have one from her. My mom always gifted me money, which I usually spent on Rosie.
I have not been loved enough. Buddhists and many new age type thinkers would say I am unloved because I don't love myself. Maybe. I don't think that is why I am unloved. I think I am unloved because this time I am paying back some bitching past karma. I believe this incarnation has a destiny of unhappiness in this life. Woe is me, eh?
So I called Fed Ex, read off the three tickets. All three were for the same package. And the package was a delivery I had forgotten, some bandages I use to keep a medication patch on my skin. In my swimming, the medication patch tends to fall off and the company that makes this drug offers these free patches that keep them on. Bandages.
No Christmas present for me. I guess I am not a good girl. Unloved except by the Cosmic All.
In recent years, friends check in to see that I have something to do on Christmas but no one has asked me if I have Christmas plans or invited me to join them, not since Rosie left me. It is as if the whole human community has decided to reject me along with Rosie. I am used to being alone on all holidays but hope, that thing with feathers, floats and drifts. Holidays usually shut out the Elijahs of this world. I hear, all the time, about chosen families, people who form bonds and celebrate holidays with their friends as a chosen family. I have never found that kind of community and I have no family. So no Christmas for me this year, although, hope being the eternal curse that it is, as I write 'no Christmas for me this year' I notice whispers in my being floating like feathers. Hope afloat!
Last year, a friend invited me to go to the free-on-Christmas Jewish museum. Then she tread me to lunch at the deli in the museum. I quite enjoyed that tiny, overpriced chopped liver on rye.
Nah. The only Christmas I'm gonna get this year is the few minutes in which I held out a belief that maybe someone had sent me a surprise. I enjoyed that fleeting excitement. I must say. Maybe I can let that be enough, let that floating feather suffice. Love what comes?
I am ashamed to write this but I will: one flickering thought, very fleeting, that left so fast I almost didn't notice I thought it, was "maybe Rosie send me a Christmas gift". Fantasy. Grief.
No cookies, no shared meal and no surprise gifts.
do you know what the birds are singing?
" Once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. He said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.” So, sometimes with art, it is important just to look."
Marina Abramović
morocco
I had carefully planned my semester in Spain, including buying a three-month Eurailpass that kicked in after the semester was over. I had intended to do my European tour.
My home university had a program in Grenada, home to the Alhambra, the result of the Moors, or Muslims, having ruled Spain for a few centuries long ago. Grenada is also known for its flamenco bars. The really authentic flamenco bars were in caves in the hillsides above Grenada.
I had arrived in Grenada a few days before the other students. I was going to be living with a family but was staying in an inexpensive hotel until my move-in date. Eager to explore this new, exotic place, I went out for tapas one late afternoon.
Most Americans now know about tapas as small plate food offerings but tapas have been a tradition in Spain since forever. Bars offered tapas cheaply as a Spanish version of happy hour.
I went to a bar that was well known for its tapas. Tapas were an interesting and, in 1975, a cheap way to have dinner. I have rarely gone into bars in my whole life. In hindsight, it surprises me to recall that I went into a bar for tapas. But it was for the tapas.
Plus, as a young blonde female in Spain, I was constantly besieged with attention from men. Spanish men, like Mexican and Colombian men, where I had also lived and studied, were much more openly aggressive towards women than they were in the states. Maybe I went to that tapas bar because I was so used to the catcalling I heard wherever I went that I had inured myself to the behavior.
So I went into the bar, ordered some food and a cute Spanish guy offered to buy me a drink. I said yes. He insisted on paying for my tapas as well as the drink. When I was done eating, he asked me if I would like to see one of Grenada's oldest flamenco bars.
"Of course," I said in spanish. Por cierto. Claro que si!
So we walked to his car and he drove me out of Grenada up into the hills. We went to a flamenco bar, a tiny cave that had been wired for electricity. There was seating for, at most, 20 people. The small space surprised me. I had imagined a place known for flamenco dancing would have a performance area and a lot more floor space. In this flamenco bar, a man and woman danced the flamenco, with the woman skillfully making a kind of music with the clappers she used so expertly with her hands as she and the man danced. Their stomping also was a kind of music. They danced right alongside tables where customers sat drinking very expensive drinks. It was cosy and it sure seemed like an authentic experience of 'real' flamenco.
After awhile, the guy asked me if I would like to go somewhere more romantic. My Spanish was fluent by then, after a year and a half in Latin America and having studied it for many years so I did not misunderstand him. I did not misunderstand the words he spoke. I misunderstood his meaning, his intention.
"Yes, I'd like to go somewhere more romantic" I said, assuming he was suggesting we go to a quieter bar and have a drink. The in-your-face flamenco stomping was noisy. I soon learned that by 'more romantic' he meant a place we could have sex.
He drove me even further up into the hills above Grenada, pulled off to the side of a road. I was in the middle of no where and no one in the world knew where I was but that guy. When he turned off his car, he let me know he had pulled over to have sex. I said I didn't want to have sex. He punched me in my right eye, cracking me pretty good. I looked around, realized I was in the middle of no where and that guy could have killed me, dumped me out of his car and no one would know how my body got there or even my name, because he could have removed my identification along with my purse.
So I let him have sex with me but it was rape.
When he dropped me off at my hotel, he asked me if I wanted to see him again. Saying nothing, I slammed the car door as hard as I could and went into my hotel.
When I told my professor, someone I had a close relationship with, about my rape, that professor shocked and hurt me when he said "Oh, don't tell anyone about getting raped. If word gets out, it might ruin my program, less students will sign up for next semester if they know a student was raped."
Next I told him that I was withdrawing from the program and returning to the states.
My Eurailpass was no good for three more months and I didn't want to stay in Spain. I wanted to have some travel adventure before I returned home so I decided to go to Morocco.
I loved train travel in Spain. People always brought food into the cars. Passenger trains in Spain are different than American trains. They consist of a series of compartments with a bench on either side. There are no big, open cars with rows of seating. The whole train is small rooms lined on either side with benches. And everyone in each room tended to talk to one another, pull out whatever food they brought and shared with everyone.
I remember my train ride from Grenada to Tarifa, the town where the ferry would take me to Morocco. I saw olive groves outside the train windows the entire trip. I had not been aware that Spain grew olives and was known for its olive oil.
When I got off the train in Tarifa, a young Japanese college student, Isao Tamashiro, approached me, speaking in excellent English. He said "I have noticed you speak Spanish well. I don't speak it. Would you help me figure out where to find an inexpensive hotel, get directions to one, ask around and help me?"
Of course I agreed. We both had backpacks. We ended up trudging around a bit, stopping for lunch as well as stopping at a couple hotels before we settled on one. By the time we chose the hotel, Isao had suggested we share a room with twin beds, to save money. I agreed.
I had intended to just spend that night in Tarifa and then get on the ferry to Tangier but Isao said we might never be in Tarifa again. He suggested we stay.
I have no memory of Tarifa, other than the hotel room. It must not have been very interesting, or else it simply paled after Grenada, which had been a capital for the Muslims during the centuries they ruled Southern Spain. The Moorish influence was much more exotic to me than anything I had seen in my Latin American travels. Madrid, of course, was a capital of western culture. Madrid had seemed like just another city, similar to the cites I had seen in Colombia and Mexico but with more modernity.
My home university had a program in Grenada, home to the Alhambra, the result of the Moors, or Muslims, having ruled Spain for a few centuries long ago. Grenada is also known for its flamenco bars. The really authentic flamenco bars were in caves in the hillsides above Grenada.
I had arrived in Grenada a few days before the other students. I was going to be living with a family but was staying in an inexpensive hotel until my move-in date. Eager to explore this new, exotic place, I went out for tapas one late afternoon.
Most Americans now know about tapas as small plate food offerings but tapas have been a tradition in Spain since forever. Bars offered tapas cheaply as a Spanish version of happy hour.
I went to a bar that was well known for its tapas. Tapas were an interesting and, in 1975, a cheap way to have dinner. I have rarely gone into bars in my whole life. In hindsight, it surprises me to recall that I went into a bar for tapas. But it was for the tapas.
Plus, as a young blonde female in Spain, I was constantly besieged with attention from men. Spanish men, like Mexican and Colombian men, where I had also lived and studied, were much more openly aggressive towards women than they were in the states. Maybe I went to that tapas bar because I was so used to the catcalling I heard wherever I went that I had inured myself to the behavior.
So I went into the bar, ordered some food and a cute Spanish guy offered to buy me a drink. I said yes. He insisted on paying for my tapas as well as the drink. When I was done eating, he asked me if I would like to see one of Grenada's oldest flamenco bars.
"Of course," I said in spanish. Por cierto. Claro que si!
So we walked to his car and he drove me out of Grenada up into the hills. We went to a flamenco bar, a tiny cave that had been wired for electricity. There was seating for, at most, 20 people. The small space surprised me. I had imagined a place known for flamenco dancing would have a performance area and a lot more floor space. In this flamenco bar, a man and woman danced the flamenco, with the woman skillfully making a kind of music with the clappers she used so expertly with her hands as she and the man danced. Their stomping also was a kind of music. They danced right alongside tables where customers sat drinking very expensive drinks. It was cosy and it sure seemed like an authentic experience of 'real' flamenco.
After awhile, the guy asked me if I would like to go somewhere more romantic. My Spanish was fluent by then, after a year and a half in Latin America and having studied it for many years so I did not misunderstand him. I did not misunderstand the words he spoke. I misunderstood his meaning, his intention.
"Yes, I'd like to go somewhere more romantic" I said, assuming he was suggesting we go to a quieter bar and have a drink. The in-your-face flamenco stomping was noisy. I soon learned that by 'more romantic' he meant a place we could have sex.
He drove me even further up into the hills above Grenada, pulled off to the side of a road. I was in the middle of no where and no one in the world knew where I was but that guy. When he turned off his car, he let me know he had pulled over to have sex. I said I didn't want to have sex. He punched me in my right eye, cracking me pretty good. I looked around, realized I was in the middle of no where and that guy could have killed me, dumped me out of his car and no one would know how my body got there or even my name, because he could have removed my identification along with my purse.
So I let him have sex with me but it was rape.
When he dropped me off at my hotel, he asked me if I wanted to see him again. Saying nothing, I slammed the car door as hard as I could and went into my hotel.
When I told my professor, someone I had a close relationship with, about my rape, that professor shocked and hurt me when he said "Oh, don't tell anyone about getting raped. If word gets out, it might ruin my program, less students will sign up for next semester if they know a student was raped."
Next I told him that I was withdrawing from the program and returning to the states.
My Eurailpass was no good for three more months and I didn't want to stay in Spain. I wanted to have some travel adventure before I returned home so I decided to go to Morocco.
I loved train travel in Spain. People always brought food into the cars. Passenger trains in Spain are different than American trains. They consist of a series of compartments with a bench on either side. There are no big, open cars with rows of seating. The whole train is small rooms lined on either side with benches. And everyone in each room tended to talk to one another, pull out whatever food they brought and shared with everyone.
I remember my train ride from Grenada to Tarifa, the town where the ferry would take me to Morocco. I saw olive groves outside the train windows the entire trip. I had not been aware that Spain grew olives and was known for its olive oil.
When I got off the train in Tarifa, a young Japanese college student, Isao Tamashiro, approached me, speaking in excellent English. He said "I have noticed you speak Spanish well. I don't speak it. Would you help me figure out where to find an inexpensive hotel, get directions to one, ask around and help me?"
Of course I agreed. We both had backpacks. We ended up trudging around a bit, stopping for lunch as well as stopping at a couple hotels before we settled on one. By the time we chose the hotel, Isao had suggested we share a room with twin beds, to save money. I agreed.
I had intended to just spend that night in Tarifa and then get on the ferry to Tangier but Isao said we might never be in Tarifa again. He suggested we stay.
I have no memory of Tarifa, other than the hotel room. It must not have been very interesting, or else it simply paled after Grenada, which had been a capital for the Muslims during the centuries they ruled Southern Spain. The Moorish influence was much more exotic to me than anything I had seen in my Latin American travels. Madrid, of course, was a capital of western culture. Madrid had seemed like just another city, similar to the cites I had seen in Colombia and Mexico but with more modernity.
Various Portents by Alice Oswald
this is my official favorite Xmas poem. Ms. Oswald is a British poet who does a lot of gardening,sees nature more clearly than most.
Various Portents
Various stars. Various kings.Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,Much cold, much overbearing darkness.
Various long midwinter Glooms.Various Solitary and Terrible Stars.Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.
More than one North Star, more than one South Star.Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems,Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thicknesses of Dark,Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth.
Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,Works of wonder and/or water, snowflakes, stars of frost . . .
Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes,Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness,Various 5,000-year-old moon maps,Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in braille.
Various gods making beautiful works in bronze,Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains,And all sorts of drystone stars put together without mortar.Many Wisemen remarking the irregular weather.
Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers,Watches of wisp of various glowing spindles,Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac,Seafarers tossing, tied to a star . . .
Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of EveningBlowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
you will turn into Stars
Even if your life is now a cage.
… Little by little, You will turn into Stars.
Little by little, You will turn into
The whole Sweet, Amorous Universe.
Love will surely burst you Wide Open
Into an unfettered, booming New Galaxy...
✣ Rumi
what is 'past' is still there
In the spiritual sense, what is ‘past’ has not really passed away but is still there. In physical life men have this conception in regard to Space only. If you stand in front of a tree, then go away and look back at it later on, the tree has not disappeared; it is still there. In the spiritual world it is so in regard to Time. If you experience something at one moment, it has passed away the next so far as physical consciousness is concerned; spiritually conceived, it has not passed away. You can look back at it just as you looked back at the tree. Richard Wagner showed that he had knowledge of this, in the remarkable words: “ Time here becomes Space ”. It is an occult fact that in the spiritual world there are distances which do not come to expression on the physical plane. That an event is past means simply that it is farther away from us. I want you to bear this in mind.Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 182 – The Dead Are With Us – Nuremburg, February 10, 1918
mattering matters
One factor that shows promise in at least partially softening the “social stress” of getting old and becoming invisible to members of the opposite sex: mattering. Mattering refers to the degree to which people feel they are an important part of the world around them. People with a high sense of mattering feel that others think about them, seek their advice, or care about what happens to them. A sense of mattering could come from a variety of sources. Being subject to social invisibility because one naturally ages and devalued, both for one's companionship and wisdom, along with the fact that many men don't consider women over a certain age 'fuckable' or even 'datable' because many men will only date women that the men perceive will enhance the male's image with others.
And, for me, my only child has invisibled me, making it clear I don't matter. I feel invisible. I especially am aware of this when I attend conferences. Every conference has an opening and I have grown accustomed to watching how pretty much everyone in attendance looks around to see who is 'here'. S many men go blank when they scan past older or heavier women, the invisible women to them. It's an odd feeling, to see someone blanking you out even as their eyes scan by your image across the room; it is as if they hit a reject button and say aloud "This woman doesn't matter".
I want to matter to others and I don't. Not much. Not enough.
Mattering matters.
Monday, December 14, 2015
holy time with an angel
When Rosie was an infant, I breastfed her. I loved the time we spent together in the middle of the night. I have heard a lot of grousing about nighttime feedings of newborns but never understood the complaining. My then-husband wouldn't even hear Rosie. I would hear her as she just began to stir her body. She seldom needed to cry out for I would be on the move towards her when she just began to move to wake herself up, to get to the point of calling out for me. Note: I did not consider the sounds she made when she was hungry as crying. She was communicating with me, not crying. If I had not always rushed to her side and waited until she got worked up, made her wait while hungry, that would have been crying.
Rosie did not cry much as a baby.
So I would arise and be at her side, in the room next to ours, almost instantly. I'd change her diapers. The diaper changing table felt like a holy altar. I swear she was more beautiful, more dazzling, more radiantly wonderful in the middle of the night, her little hands and mouth moving, her body wiggling a bit, her deep, big, dark brown eyes taking 'everything' in. And I was pretty much her everything in these moments. She knew the room, which was static. Like her, I was moving, my being radiating before her and she was paying the same close attention to me as her.
I usually talked, cooing and soothing in the of the night, more chatty in the day time. As I changed her, I tried to kiss at least each foot, each hand, sometimes all ten fingers, less often all ten toes. Hard to kiss each teeny tiny toe separately, ya know?
Oh wow, those middle of the night diaper changes were such holy times with my daughter.
After I changed her, I would go into our third bedroom, which had two twin beds for houseguests we never had except when each of my parents, separately for they were divorced, trekked to our home to meet their first grandchild. My sister, then fourteen, came with my mom. Those were the only times while I lived in that house that the guestbeds were used by guests.
While I nursed Rosie, I would nurse her in one of those guest beds, often falling asleep with her, sleeping alongside her for some time before stirring and returning her to bed. I always knew my time with her was limited, that her infancy was flying by, that these sacred times would not last long.
I think most mothers understand their babies as I did. Her dad used to make fun of me when I said I knew what she wanted or needed. Once, on my first official Mother's Day, he had forgotten to make any reservations. I was happy to stay home. I didn't want to face a long wait in a crowded restaurant. And his failure to plan to celebrate by making a reservation demonstrated to me that he didn't really care either. He rarely took me out to eat by then. We were unhappy together, only happy together about Rosie. He placed a lot of weight on what other people might think, even when no one in the world would ever know how he might have behaved. If he had not taken his wife out for Mother's Day brunch, esp if his wife did not particularly want to go, who would know? And wasn't Mother's day, ahem, about pleasing the mom, making her the special focus of the day?
I dallied that first Mother's Day, hoping he'd forget about taking me out. He was so OCD, doggedly stubborn once an idea took hold. Finally, around 2 pm (how fascinating that I remember these times) he said "That's it, we're going, I just called So-and-So and they said the wait for a table is not too long, that we should be seated by three, including our drive time. Come on, let's go."
I said "If we are seated in about an hour, that is just when Rosie will be wanting to eat. You don't like me to breastfeed her in public. And I don't want to go, not when I know she'll be hungry just as we are seated."
"You must be out of your fucking mind if you think I believe for one minute that you know when that baby is going to be hungry."
I thought, but did not say, "You have no idea who she is or who I am or what kind of bond I have with this baby, your baby. You could have such a bond if you weren't a workaholic. If you knew her at all, you would understand her as I do. She's going to want to eat in about an hour and I know this because I've been nursing her for the past ten months."
I was hurt by his scornful dismissal of my bond with our baby. I see that I am lapsing into referring to her collective as 'our' baby. If I ever slipped when we were still together and said 'my baby' or 'my daughter' he would become furious, verbally berate me for what sometimes seemed like hours, repeating the same insults over and over. I had adapted during the few years of our marriage, trying to accomodate his obsessive behavior.
For example, if he started to lecture me, which he did often, and I interrupted him, he would have to start all over, repeating virtually verbatim everything he had said until I had interrupted him. And by interrupted him' I mean I might have tried to participate in what I wrongly thought was a conversation. It took me awhile to learn he did not converse when anger. He angrily, abusively attacked and criticized me, but in his mind he was teaching me lessons, telling me what was wrong so I could contort myself into being someone else. I would have converted to that someone else, just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, but whatever he wanted always morphed into something else. If I capitulated on one thing, he wanted to bully me into another capitulation.
It was a weary, miserable time in my life. And in his, I suppose.
I had told him during the pregnancy that I would not allow our baby to grow up with him being openly abusive towards me, that I would not let my baby see his or her mother being mistreated and learn that was ever acceptable. And I did leave him when she was about eighteen months old. It took me awhile to get it together to leave. First I was so dumbstruck by the bliss of motherhood and then I was afraid of filing, of challenging him.
He would regularly take me into the shower stall of our master bath, with her bedroom door closed, our bedroom door closed, the bathroom door closed and then the shower door closed. He said he wanted all those closed doors between us and the baby for my lectures because he didn't want her to pick up on the energy of what he said. And here is what he said, repeating this lecture virtually verbatim many nights until he finally scared the beejesus out of me long enough that I fled. He would say "If you sue for custody, you will lose. You don't have any money and my sister the medical doctor has money and she wants to raise Rosie with me. She has promised to pay all my legal fees and she and I are going to raise Rosie. I will crush you if you ask for custody but if for some unforeseeable reason, you end up with custody here is what will happen. Someday, down the road a bit, so no one suspects me, you are going to be awakened one night and the horror will begin. I won't go into detail of what the men I will hire are going to do to you. I will just say that I will instruct them to mutilate you and torture you but make sure you live, so you have to live as the mutilated monster you are inside. I will hire pros. No one will suspesct me for I will wait, bide my time. Don't ask for custody or you will regret it."
He really did say that to me many nights, often daily, in the final, most miserable weeks of that marriage, when we both knew it was miserably over but each of us, I guess, waiting to decide on what moves we would make. He finally forced my hand. He called me from work one day and said "I am sending my mother and my sister the medical doctor over to the house to get Rosie. If you resist, my sister the medical doctor will call the police and have you hospitalized for a 72 hour psych hold. Have the baby dressed and ready."
I got the baby dressed and ready all right. I bundled her up and drove to the airport without doing more than grabbing my diaper bag. I was terrified that my mother-in-law and sister-in-law would show up before I got away. And I knew my former sister-in-law would actually try to get me under a 72 hour hold, although since I had a psychologist, I could have him contacted and he would have stopped any 72 hour hold nonsense. But my baby would have been subjected to some crazy scenes.
I learned that my husband had cancelled all our credit cards and closed our checking account. I went to withdraw some money from our brokerage account, which we kept with his brother who was a broker. And his brother and the brother's boss refused to give me my money, even when I pointed out that as joint owner of the account, they could not legally refuse me. They did.
Then I thought of one way to get an airplane ticket to my mom's. We had credit at the local department store. I guessed, accurately, that he would have forgotten about that credit card and also have forgotten that the store had a travel department. I went in there with my infant and got my plane ticket.
His sister and mother rushed to the airport and tried to get the local police to stop me but with no court order, they had no authority to act. A nice stewardess came to my seat and said "There are some police at the gate, with your sister-in-law and they would like you to leave the plane or at least give them your baby." Then she whispered "United Airlines has no court order so we cannot and will not force you off the plane. If I were you, I would not go. no one can force you and the folks out there are acting crazy." I loved her.
My plane to Pittsburg had a short layover in Chicago. My sister-in-law the medical doctor had called the Chicago police, too, telling them she was a medical doctor, I was a wild woman and a child's welfare was at stake.
Once again, a United Airlines stewardess came to my seat to tell me that police were at the gate, asking UA to remove me but without a court order, and saying something about the rules of flight travel, the stewardess told me UA had no authority to order me off the plane, that I had done nothing wrong and my baby seemed just fine. Again, this stewardess, different from the first, whispered 'Don't get off. They can't make you get off, we won't make you get off and I don't know what is going on but you and your baby seem just fine." I loved her too.
It is easy, more than thirty years later, to remember those crazy threats my ex made, about the horror of mutilation by hired villains awaited me if I sought custody and removed my child from that state, which I did as soon as a judge said I could do so. It took a few years and cost a fortune that destabilized me financially and careerwise but a judge finally did give me permission to remove my minor child from the jurisdiction of that state. Of course I left. He stalked me all the time, and his family stalked me. Developing evidence, my sister-in-law the medical doctor called that stalking.
Gee, I have gotten so far away from the treat I sat down to give myself. I was going to write about one very sweetly happy memory from Rosie's earliests months.
Once in awhile, I would hear that she was awake but she was not ready to eat. She was awake and being with herself in the dark. Brand new to this world, I guess she did not have clear distinctions between night and day. Who was to say she should not awaken in the dark and coo to herself?
She would sometimes awaken, coo for a half hour, even longer, melodious notes up and down in tone and on and on. It was a bit like a bird song but more glorious than any bird. It was my baby daughter, my perfect angel. She awakened and sang to herself, age two months, age three months, several times. I have often wished I taped some of her night singing, her wordless cooing music.
Her father was hard of hearing and never heard her, cooing, crying or anything, in the middle of the night. Which was fine by me. Those nighttime times with my Rosie were some of the best moments I have had in this life. Those times alone were worth all the heartache of losing her.
Sing, my sweet baby. Billow and coo.
Once, I brought her into a beauty shop to get a much-needed hair cut. Like many new moms, I let a few things go while I was absorbed with my new baby but finally, I made that haircut appointment. I carried her into the shop in the car seat, put her at the station next to me so she could see me. And she did her cooing singing the whole time we were in that shop. All the women in the shop gathered around her to listen. Many said they had never heard a baby billow and coo like that. Everyone said "she must be a very happy baby to sing this way, I've never heard anything like it" and "None of my children ever did this" and "Oh, how prescious and how blessed you are."
My baby. My happy billing and cooing angel.
What happened to that angel?
Rosie did not cry much as a baby.
So I would arise and be at her side, in the room next to ours, almost instantly. I'd change her diapers. The diaper changing table felt like a holy altar. I swear she was more beautiful, more dazzling, more radiantly wonderful in the middle of the night, her little hands and mouth moving, her body wiggling a bit, her deep, big, dark brown eyes taking 'everything' in. And I was pretty much her everything in these moments. She knew the room, which was static. Like her, I was moving, my being radiating before her and she was paying the same close attention to me as her.
I usually talked, cooing and soothing in the of the night, more chatty in the day time. As I changed her, I tried to kiss at least each foot, each hand, sometimes all ten fingers, less often all ten toes. Hard to kiss each teeny tiny toe separately, ya know?
Oh wow, those middle of the night diaper changes were such holy times with my daughter.
After I changed her, I would go into our third bedroom, which had two twin beds for houseguests we never had except when each of my parents, separately for they were divorced, trekked to our home to meet their first grandchild. My sister, then fourteen, came with my mom. Those were the only times while I lived in that house that the guestbeds were used by guests.
While I nursed Rosie, I would nurse her in one of those guest beds, often falling asleep with her, sleeping alongside her for some time before stirring and returning her to bed. I always knew my time with her was limited, that her infancy was flying by, that these sacred times would not last long.
I think most mothers understand their babies as I did. Her dad used to make fun of me when I said I knew what she wanted or needed. Once, on my first official Mother's Day, he had forgotten to make any reservations. I was happy to stay home. I didn't want to face a long wait in a crowded restaurant. And his failure to plan to celebrate by making a reservation demonstrated to me that he didn't really care either. He rarely took me out to eat by then. We were unhappy together, only happy together about Rosie. He placed a lot of weight on what other people might think, even when no one in the world would ever know how he might have behaved. If he had not taken his wife out for Mother's Day brunch, esp if his wife did not particularly want to go, who would know? And wasn't Mother's day, ahem, about pleasing the mom, making her the special focus of the day?
I dallied that first Mother's Day, hoping he'd forget about taking me out. He was so OCD, doggedly stubborn once an idea took hold. Finally, around 2 pm (how fascinating that I remember these times) he said "That's it, we're going, I just called So-and-So and they said the wait for a table is not too long, that we should be seated by three, including our drive time. Come on, let's go."
I said "If we are seated in about an hour, that is just when Rosie will be wanting to eat. You don't like me to breastfeed her in public. And I don't want to go, not when I know she'll be hungry just as we are seated."
"You must be out of your fucking mind if you think I believe for one minute that you know when that baby is going to be hungry."
I thought, but did not say, "You have no idea who she is or who I am or what kind of bond I have with this baby, your baby. You could have such a bond if you weren't a workaholic. If you knew her at all, you would understand her as I do. She's going to want to eat in about an hour and I know this because I've been nursing her for the past ten months."
I was hurt by his scornful dismissal of my bond with our baby. I see that I am lapsing into referring to her collective as 'our' baby. If I ever slipped when we were still together and said 'my baby' or 'my daughter' he would become furious, verbally berate me for what sometimes seemed like hours, repeating the same insults over and over. I had adapted during the few years of our marriage, trying to accomodate his obsessive behavior.
For example, if he started to lecture me, which he did often, and I interrupted him, he would have to start all over, repeating virtually verbatim everything he had said until I had interrupted him. And by interrupted him' I mean I might have tried to participate in what I wrongly thought was a conversation. It took me awhile to learn he did not converse when anger. He angrily, abusively attacked and criticized me, but in his mind he was teaching me lessons, telling me what was wrong so I could contort myself into being someone else. I would have converted to that someone else, just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, but whatever he wanted always morphed into something else. If I capitulated on one thing, he wanted to bully me into another capitulation.
It was a weary, miserable time in my life. And in his, I suppose.
I had told him during the pregnancy that I would not allow our baby to grow up with him being openly abusive towards me, that I would not let my baby see his or her mother being mistreated and learn that was ever acceptable. And I did leave him when she was about eighteen months old. It took me awhile to get it together to leave. First I was so dumbstruck by the bliss of motherhood and then I was afraid of filing, of challenging him.
He would regularly take me into the shower stall of our master bath, with her bedroom door closed, our bedroom door closed, the bathroom door closed and then the shower door closed. He said he wanted all those closed doors between us and the baby for my lectures because he didn't want her to pick up on the energy of what he said. And here is what he said, repeating this lecture virtually verbatim many nights until he finally scared the beejesus out of me long enough that I fled. He would say "If you sue for custody, you will lose. You don't have any money and my sister the medical doctor has money and she wants to raise Rosie with me. She has promised to pay all my legal fees and she and I are going to raise Rosie. I will crush you if you ask for custody but if for some unforeseeable reason, you end up with custody here is what will happen. Someday, down the road a bit, so no one suspects me, you are going to be awakened one night and the horror will begin. I won't go into detail of what the men I will hire are going to do to you. I will just say that I will instruct them to mutilate you and torture you but make sure you live, so you have to live as the mutilated monster you are inside. I will hire pros. No one will suspesct me for I will wait, bide my time. Don't ask for custody or you will regret it."
He really did say that to me many nights, often daily, in the final, most miserable weeks of that marriage, when we both knew it was miserably over but each of us, I guess, waiting to decide on what moves we would make. He finally forced my hand. He called me from work one day and said "I am sending my mother and my sister the medical doctor over to the house to get Rosie. If you resist, my sister the medical doctor will call the police and have you hospitalized for a 72 hour psych hold. Have the baby dressed and ready."
I got the baby dressed and ready all right. I bundled her up and drove to the airport without doing more than grabbing my diaper bag. I was terrified that my mother-in-law and sister-in-law would show up before I got away. And I knew my former sister-in-law would actually try to get me under a 72 hour hold, although since I had a psychologist, I could have him contacted and he would have stopped any 72 hour hold nonsense. But my baby would have been subjected to some crazy scenes.
I learned that my husband had cancelled all our credit cards and closed our checking account. I went to withdraw some money from our brokerage account, which we kept with his brother who was a broker. And his brother and the brother's boss refused to give me my money, even when I pointed out that as joint owner of the account, they could not legally refuse me. They did.
Then I thought of one way to get an airplane ticket to my mom's. We had credit at the local department store. I guessed, accurately, that he would have forgotten about that credit card and also have forgotten that the store had a travel department. I went in there with my infant and got my plane ticket.
His sister and mother rushed to the airport and tried to get the local police to stop me but with no court order, they had no authority to act. A nice stewardess came to my seat and said "There are some police at the gate, with your sister-in-law and they would like you to leave the plane or at least give them your baby." Then she whispered "United Airlines has no court order so we cannot and will not force you off the plane. If I were you, I would not go. no one can force you and the folks out there are acting crazy." I loved her.
My plane to Pittsburg had a short layover in Chicago. My sister-in-law the medical doctor had called the Chicago police, too, telling them she was a medical doctor, I was a wild woman and a child's welfare was at stake.
Once again, a United Airlines stewardess came to my seat to tell me that police were at the gate, asking UA to remove me but without a court order, and saying something about the rules of flight travel, the stewardess told me UA had no authority to order me off the plane, that I had done nothing wrong and my baby seemed just fine. Again, this stewardess, different from the first, whispered 'Don't get off. They can't make you get off, we won't make you get off and I don't know what is going on but you and your baby seem just fine." I loved her too.
It is easy, more than thirty years later, to remember those crazy threats my ex made, about the horror of mutilation by hired villains awaited me if I sought custody and removed my child from that state, which I did as soon as a judge said I could do so. It took a few years and cost a fortune that destabilized me financially and careerwise but a judge finally did give me permission to remove my minor child from the jurisdiction of that state. Of course I left. He stalked me all the time, and his family stalked me. Developing evidence, my sister-in-law the medical doctor called that stalking.
Gee, I have gotten so far away from the treat I sat down to give myself. I was going to write about one very sweetly happy memory from Rosie's earliests months.
Once in awhile, I would hear that she was awake but she was not ready to eat. She was awake and being with herself in the dark. Brand new to this world, I guess she did not have clear distinctions between night and day. Who was to say she should not awaken in the dark and coo to herself?
She would sometimes awaken, coo for a half hour, even longer, melodious notes up and down in tone and on and on. It was a bit like a bird song but more glorious than any bird. It was my baby daughter, my perfect angel. She awakened and sang to herself, age two months, age three months, several times. I have often wished I taped some of her night singing, her wordless cooing music.
Her father was hard of hearing and never heard her, cooing, crying or anything, in the middle of the night. Which was fine by me. Those nighttime times with my Rosie were some of the best moments I have had in this life. Those times alone were worth all the heartache of losing her.
Sing, my sweet baby. Billow and coo.
Once, I brought her into a beauty shop to get a much-needed hair cut. Like many new moms, I let a few things go while I was absorbed with my new baby but finally, I made that haircut appointment. I carried her into the shop in the car seat, put her at the station next to me so she could see me. And she did her cooing singing the whole time we were in that shop. All the women in the shop gathered around her to listen. Many said they had never heard a baby billow and coo like that. Everyone said "she must be a very happy baby to sing this way, I've never heard anything like it" and "None of my children ever did this" and "Oh, how prescious and how blessed you are."
My baby. My happy billing and cooing angel.
What happened to that angel?
isn't my daughter beautiful?
Does she ever think of me? Does she wonder if I am safe, warm and dry? Does she have any loving memories of me? I sit with these questions always but my questions pierce me more sharply this time of year.
On Christmas Day, while she is, no doubt, being her dazzlingly vivacious self with whoever she is with, does she have any thoughts of me?
I don't believe she does.
I think of her. She seems to have a great job, a great boyfriend and a great life so I feel certain she is safe, warm and dry.
the unforgiving darkness
I am in the unforgiving darkness, slogging through, up to my hips and higher in muck.
bingo for buddha 7/22/07
Each Sunday, I try to take a slightly different path from my home to the farmers' market. I pretend I live in an era in which I belong to a community. I pretend the rare passersby (very few people walk in suburbia) are real neighbors. How might I get to know these someones? People all around me and not a friend to drink.
Today I struck gold. There is a Buddhist temple a block or two away. A gigantic Buddhist temple, surrounded by a fence. The backside of the temple and its many outbuildings are fenced-in and unwelcoming. It looked so dull to me before this morning. I actually thought it was some kind of storage facility for the City of Mountain View.
Today, all the gates were wide open and all the expansive grounds hidden behind the usual fence were covered with booths for a fair. People selling all kinds of crafts, gim-cracks, Buddhist stuff like books and Buddhas and, of course, food booths galore.
'My' temple was having a festival. I could play bingo for the Buddha! I strolled all the way through it. It's crowded. Just like any other festival, people go there with clusters of friends and family and they hang out with the clusters they arrived with. I long to ask people to gather in a circle and have a dialogue amongst us all. Everyone was friendly. I mean, Buddhists. Most folks were Asian. Lots of immigrants, based on all the accents and unfamiliar languages I overheard. Lots of friendly nods, smiling eyes.
There was only so much conversation I could squeeze out while paying for the teriyaki chicken. The price list for the teriyaki chicken lists the price per piece. One piece equals $3.50 (it is a fundraiser for Buddha). Two pieces equals $7.00. The price list goes all the way up to thirty pieces for $105.00. I asked the lady if anyone had bought thirty pieces. She laughed and said "You first one? We are ready!" A nice moment but I left as lonely as ever. How funny that they listed the price for one piece, two piece, three pieces and all the way up to 100. I guess whoever made that price sign wanted it to be easy for the workers at that booth to tally sales. If you wanted 53 pieces, no problem. Just look it up on the price list. Easy peasy.
People so near, still so far from me. Sigh.
I like having a Buddhist temple in my little world. That has to be good karma.
Today I struck gold. There is a Buddhist temple a block or two away. A gigantic Buddhist temple, surrounded by a fence. The backside of the temple and its many outbuildings are fenced-in and unwelcoming. It looked so dull to me before this morning. I actually thought it was some kind of storage facility for the City of Mountain View.
Today, all the gates were wide open and all the expansive grounds hidden behind the usual fence were covered with booths for a fair. People selling all kinds of crafts, gim-cracks, Buddhist stuff like books and Buddhas and, of course, food booths galore.
'My' temple was having a festival. I could play bingo for the Buddha! I strolled all the way through it. It's crowded. Just like any other festival, people go there with clusters of friends and family and they hang out with the clusters they arrived with. I long to ask people to gather in a circle and have a dialogue amongst us all. Everyone was friendly. I mean, Buddhists. Most folks were Asian. Lots of immigrants, based on all the accents and unfamiliar languages I overheard. Lots of friendly nods, smiling eyes.
There was only so much conversation I could squeeze out while paying for the teriyaki chicken. The price list for the teriyaki chicken lists the price per piece. One piece equals $3.50 (it is a fundraiser for Buddha). Two pieces equals $7.00. The price list goes all the way up to thirty pieces for $105.00. I asked the lady if anyone had bought thirty pieces. She laughed and said "You first one? We are ready!" A nice moment but I left as lonely as ever. How funny that they listed the price for one piece, two piece, three pieces and all the way up to 100. I guess whoever made that price sign wanted it to be easy for the workers at that booth to tally sales. If you wanted 53 pieces, no problem. Just look it up on the price list. Easy peasy.
People so near, still so far from me. Sigh.
I like having a Buddhist temple in my little world. That has to be good karma.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
a dream of somebody I used to know
I dreamt that I was out walking in Berkeley, as I do daily. I plan to see Chiraq, the new Spike Lee movie set in my home city of Chicago. This movie is only showing, at least in the East Bay, at the Elmwood Theater along College. I had intended to go today, walk there, walk back. After the relatively heavy rain overnight, with water pleasantly gushing along gutters all over town when I went to a brunch party this morning, the sun came out. Suddenly, a great day for walking in sunshine!
So I had intended to walk to see Chiraq. Then I dozed off. Now that it is dark, I'll go another day. I am comfortable walking in the dark in Berkeley. I just prefer being out in daylight.
So. I was dozing, asleep here in my home, but in my dream, I was walking along College Avenue, having just left the movie theater. I had gone with a friend and he and I were choosing where to eat.
We went up the west side of College Avenue a couple blocks and we walking 'back' on the east side of College, taking out time, enjoying the date. All dream. It seems so real to me as I write about it. Maybe my being transported over to College Ave and, in an alternate reality, went to the movie.
One reason I am drawn to the film is I want to see aspects of Chicago I never knew well but I have still seen. I knew Chicago quite well, because my dad knew it well. and I grew up on the South Side, which is a completely different city than the North Side. I am sure the city is different in ways I don't know for blacks but I have seen the poverty stricken neighborhoods portrayed in the film. I guess in my being, I was already drifting through the streets of Chicago as I was imagining seeing the movie.
Walking along the east side of College, I passed a restaurant that had its windows open to the warm late afternoon, little 'keyholes' on either side of the restaurant's entrance, with tables tucked into the keyhole. As I came to this particular restaurant, I thought I saw someone I used to know. I looked once, then did a doubletake. Yep, it was him. I was going to keep on walking, not acknowledge him for this person has shunned me for years, screening my phone calls. He has shown me a foul temper many times and even in a dream, when I thought I saw him a few inches away from me, just on the other side of a railing separating the sidewalk from the table and chair where he was seated, I instantly resolved to keep walking in silence and not to acknowledge I had seen him.
He saw me also and he was unable to restrain his temper. Such behavior actually fits my occasional experience of him. Although he liked to complain and criticize me, even having the unenlightened gall to tell me I didn't do my personal work (how could he have done his personal work if he was going around projecting what another's work should be and further projecting that it was not done?! This is a question I pondered to him and he never responded and, once again, I am forgetting that I only saw him in a nap dream.).
In the dream, I saw him and looked away, kept moving. I did decide we would not try to get a table at that particular restaurant but I thought no more of him. I am talking about a few seconds, at most, of a dream.
When it registered with him that I was passing, he gasped loudly in a tone I experienced as anger. He removed any doubt, for me, that he was angry by jumping up from his seat, throwing his napkin on the table. He threw it as hard as he could, but a cloth napkin does not throw hard and I sensed that it angered him that the napkin had landed silently. In my dream, he was giving off lots of angry energy. He jumped out of his chair thew down the napkin forcefully and then began he to run towards the inner part of the restaurant, as if he were going to exit the restaurant to angrily yell at me. The woman he was with, along with a couple other humans that did not come into focus in my dream, looked up questioningly. If they are dating, this dream couple, she must know about his temper. He didn't have to do anything. I had not spoken to him, had intentionally avoided eye contact and I had done my best to give no inkling that I had seen him. No matter. He had seen me and he was angry. Of course this is my dream so it's not about him. At most, it is about my experience of him, of his anger. And it is about the pain I still feel over his severing even the bond of acquaintances. I know his rejection of me is about him but obviously it's still working me.
I don't recall having ever dreamt about this man before. I don't dream much about people I know in this world. I don't recall many dreams, only when they are vivid. The sting I felt as this dream version of this guy became angry with me for existing, for walking the earth and inadvertently running into him was intense. And I know what the pain is about. He dumped me in anger and I want him to be my friend, to express regret over the choices he made in relation to me and to start anew. I guess my dream was signaling to me that he is not going to let go of his anger. I need to do what I did in the dream: avoid his anger.
I don't know what happened next because I woke up when he jumped up and threw down his napkin. I woke up because when he jumped up, my being started. I felt alarm that he was jumping up from his table and coming angrily to me, to yell at me. I awoke when I felt fear of that anger.
Chiraq is about gang violence in Chicago. Chicago's crooked mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, who suppressed a video of an off-duty cop popping sixteen bullets into a kid who was walking away from the cop and not any threat to the murdering cop. A real journalist sued under the Freedom of Info Act after the city flat-out refused a couple dozen FOI requests for the video, a public record the public has a right to see. Rahm ordered the city prosecutor, the city police department and his own underlings to suppress the video because he faced a close vote for his re-election. He had initially won on a campaign pledge to reduce violent crime. He was afraid, apparently, that a video of a cop killing a kid for absolutely no reason, it might affect his vote. Then his city attorney negotiated a five million dollar settlement with the murdered kid's family, extracting their agreement not to make the video public. Thank goodness for that real journalist and the judge who ordered the video released. The cop was immediately charged with first degree murder and Rahm, seeking to deflect the intense criticism of him that has arisen, fired the top cop. Rahm also seems to have a foul temper, ya know?!!
Rahm vociferously objected to the name of Spike Lee's latest art work, his new movie Chiraq. Of course Lee's title points to the senseless dangers in Iraq, a clever comparison of the gang culture in Chicago, which is a product of our larger, unjust culture, similar to how Iraq's culture has now been very negatively impacted by our culture's interference. I love it that Rahm thought he could bully a filmmaker into changing the name of his art. And I have always loved Spike Lee's work, ever since "She's Gotta Have It". His "Do the Right Thing" is a major artistic achievement.
So I've been dreamily anticipating the film, anticipating seeing familiar sights in the city I grew up in and, well, just fancifully looking forward.
My glimpse of heaven appearaed in my dream, but not in heavenly fashion. His anger, the way he was instantly huffing angry loud breaths, jumped up, threw down his napkin so hard I jumped (in my dreamy way).
And then I woke up. I was not in Chiraq. I was not in the presence of ill temper.
It seemed so real. A faint part of me wonders if i went to the movie, did see him but did not consciously notice him, so then I dreamt I saw him.
Like an art film only my dream.
So I had intended to walk to see Chiraq. Then I dozed off. Now that it is dark, I'll go another day. I am comfortable walking in the dark in Berkeley. I just prefer being out in daylight.
So. I was dozing, asleep here in my home, but in my dream, I was walking along College Avenue, having just left the movie theater. I had gone with a friend and he and I were choosing where to eat.
We went up the west side of College Avenue a couple blocks and we walking 'back' on the east side of College, taking out time, enjoying the date. All dream. It seems so real to me as I write about it. Maybe my being transported over to College Ave and, in an alternate reality, went to the movie.
One reason I am drawn to the film is I want to see aspects of Chicago I never knew well but I have still seen. I knew Chicago quite well, because my dad knew it well. and I grew up on the South Side, which is a completely different city than the North Side. I am sure the city is different in ways I don't know for blacks but I have seen the poverty stricken neighborhoods portrayed in the film. I guess in my being, I was already drifting through the streets of Chicago as I was imagining seeing the movie.
Walking along the east side of College, I passed a restaurant that had its windows open to the warm late afternoon, little 'keyholes' on either side of the restaurant's entrance, with tables tucked into the keyhole. As I came to this particular restaurant, I thought I saw someone I used to know. I looked once, then did a doubletake. Yep, it was him. I was going to keep on walking, not acknowledge him for this person has shunned me for years, screening my phone calls. He has shown me a foul temper many times and even in a dream, when I thought I saw him a few inches away from me, just on the other side of a railing separating the sidewalk from the table and chair where he was seated, I instantly resolved to keep walking in silence and not to acknowledge I had seen him.
He saw me also and he was unable to restrain his temper. Such behavior actually fits my occasional experience of him. Although he liked to complain and criticize me, even having the unenlightened gall to tell me I didn't do my personal work (how could he have done his personal work if he was going around projecting what another's work should be and further projecting that it was not done?! This is a question I pondered to him and he never responded and, once again, I am forgetting that I only saw him in a nap dream.).
In the dream, I saw him and looked away, kept moving. I did decide we would not try to get a table at that particular restaurant but I thought no more of him. I am talking about a few seconds, at most, of a dream.
When it registered with him that I was passing, he gasped loudly in a tone I experienced as anger. He removed any doubt, for me, that he was angry by jumping up from his seat, throwing his napkin on the table. He threw it as hard as he could, but a cloth napkin does not throw hard and I sensed that it angered him that the napkin had landed silently. In my dream, he was giving off lots of angry energy. He jumped out of his chair thew down the napkin forcefully and then began he to run towards the inner part of the restaurant, as if he were going to exit the restaurant to angrily yell at me. The woman he was with, along with a couple other humans that did not come into focus in my dream, looked up questioningly. If they are dating, this dream couple, she must know about his temper. He didn't have to do anything. I had not spoken to him, had intentionally avoided eye contact and I had done my best to give no inkling that I had seen him. No matter. He had seen me and he was angry. Of course this is my dream so it's not about him. At most, it is about my experience of him, of his anger. And it is about the pain I still feel over his severing even the bond of acquaintances. I know his rejection of me is about him but obviously it's still working me.
I don't recall having ever dreamt about this man before. I don't dream much about people I know in this world. I don't recall many dreams, only when they are vivid. The sting I felt as this dream version of this guy became angry with me for existing, for walking the earth and inadvertently running into him was intense. And I know what the pain is about. He dumped me in anger and I want him to be my friend, to express regret over the choices he made in relation to me and to start anew. I guess my dream was signaling to me that he is not going to let go of his anger. I need to do what I did in the dream: avoid his anger.
I don't know what happened next because I woke up when he jumped up and threw down his napkin. I woke up because when he jumped up, my being started. I felt alarm that he was jumping up from his table and coming angrily to me, to yell at me. I awoke when I felt fear of that anger.
Chiraq is about gang violence in Chicago. Chicago's crooked mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, who suppressed a video of an off-duty cop popping sixteen bullets into a kid who was walking away from the cop and not any threat to the murdering cop. A real journalist sued under the Freedom of Info Act after the city flat-out refused a couple dozen FOI requests for the video, a public record the public has a right to see. Rahm ordered the city prosecutor, the city police department and his own underlings to suppress the video because he faced a close vote for his re-election. He had initially won on a campaign pledge to reduce violent crime. He was afraid, apparently, that a video of a cop killing a kid for absolutely no reason, it might affect his vote. Then his city attorney negotiated a five million dollar settlement with the murdered kid's family, extracting their agreement not to make the video public. Thank goodness for that real journalist and the judge who ordered the video released. The cop was immediately charged with first degree murder and Rahm, seeking to deflect the intense criticism of him that has arisen, fired the top cop. Rahm also seems to have a foul temper, ya know?!!
Rahm vociferously objected to the name of Spike Lee's latest art work, his new movie Chiraq. Of course Lee's title points to the senseless dangers in Iraq, a clever comparison of the gang culture in Chicago, which is a product of our larger, unjust culture, similar to how Iraq's culture has now been very negatively impacted by our culture's interference. I love it that Rahm thought he could bully a filmmaker into changing the name of his art. And I have always loved Spike Lee's work, ever since "She's Gotta Have It". His "Do the Right Thing" is a major artistic achievement.
So I've been dreamily anticipating the film, anticipating seeing familiar sights in the city I grew up in and, well, just fancifully looking forward.
My glimpse of heaven appearaed in my dream, but not in heavenly fashion. His anger, the way he was instantly huffing angry loud breaths, jumped up, threw down his napkin so hard I jumped (in my dreamy way).
And then I woke up. I was not in Chiraq. I was not in the presence of ill temper.
It seemed so real. A faint part of me wonders if i went to the movie, did see him but did not consciously notice him, so then I dreamt I saw him.
Like an art film only my dream.
do it anyway: take risks
I've posted this before but I love it so here it is again. I have a high risk tolerance.
civilization falling
From my friend Gideon:
It is crucial that people understand that the changes that are taking place today will not allow them to live as they have done in the past. The egotism that has resulted in vast inequity, monstrous brutality, and exclusive sectarianism will only worsen to its ultimate climax of war and self destruction if individuals everywhere do not turn their attention to the spiritual impulses that flooding the earth today. Spirit does not compel. It seeks those with good will, with open minds and hearts, who are willing to embrace a new (though eternal), more comprehensive understanding of the earth, humanity and the cosmos. It knows no person, no race, no gender, no religion, no church, no political party, no government, no legal system, no corporate structure, nor any of the hallmarks that define our current materialistic times. It does know the essential being of humankind which far transcends modern concepts and definitions. And it does know how to accomplish the practical realization of that essential being. Rudolf Steiner called the practical application of spiritual insight into earthly matters "Spiritual Science".
It is crucial that people understand that the changes that are taking place today will not allow them to live as they have done in the past. The egotism that has resulted in vast inequity, monstrous brutality, and exclusive sectarianism will only worsen to its ultimate climax of war and self destruction if individuals everywhere do not turn their attention to the spiritual impulses that flooding the earth today. Spirit does not compel. It seeks those with good will, with open minds and hearts, who are willing to embrace a new (though eternal), more comprehensive understanding of the earth, humanity and the cosmos. It knows no person, no race, no gender, no religion, no church, no political party, no government, no legal system, no corporate structure, nor any of the hallmarks that define our current materialistic times. It does know the essential being of humankind which far transcends modern concepts and definitions. And it does know how to accomplish the practical realization of that essential being. Rudolf Steiner called the practical application of spiritual insight into earthly matters "Spiritual Science".
From Steiner:
"What must be emphasized over and over again is the need there is today for things to be taken with deep seriousness. This goes against the grain. People choose to believe that things will continue in the same way. No, they will not.
If life continues without the stimuli that come from the spiritual world, industry can go on, banks can be in existence and universities where all the sciences are taught, other professions can be developed — but everything will lead to decadence, to barbarism, to the fall of civilization.
Those who are not willing to apply in practical life what can come out of Spiritual Science are working, not for ascent but for decline. And the majority of people today want decline and simply delude themselves into the belief that an ascent can still come out of it."
"What must be emphasized over and over again is the need there is today for things to be taken with deep seriousness. This goes against the grain. People choose to believe that things will continue in the same way. No, they will not.
If life continues without the stimuli that come from the spiritual world, industry can go on, banks can be in existence and universities where all the sciences are taught, other professions can be developed — but everything will lead to decadence, to barbarism, to the fall of civilization.
Those who are not willing to apply in practical life what can come out of Spiritual Science are working, not for ascent but for decline. And the majority of people today want decline and simply delude themselves into the belief that an ascent can still come out of it."
I am Rilke's Panther
I am the most depressed I have ever been, and depression is my oldest, most frequently seen, friend. And I have been depressed this time much longer than ever before. And I don't think I am ever going to get to the end of this bout because my depression is situational, the result of losses I cannot accept.
Paradoxically, I am numb, yes, but I am also in excrutiating pain.
I often think "This is it, I'm a goner" but way in the back of my conscious mind, I whisper to myself "you test your glucose, inject insulin as needed, take your meds and eat healthfully, a part of you is still caring for you, all is not lost' but such thoughts enter, pierce me and, poof!, they re gone, like in Rilke's poem The Panther:
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.
Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.
My faintly subtle sense that I am still taking care of myself enters, rushes down through my whole being, plunges into the core of me and is gone.~ Rainier Maria Rilke, The Panther
Saturday, December 12, 2015
get me rewrite -- PUHleaze!
a Gaelic blessing
Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you
Deep peace of the light of the world to you
Deep peace to you
kindle compassion
"Spirit Triumphant! Flame through the weakness of faltering, fainthearted souls! Burn up egoism, kindle compassion, so that selflessness, the lifestream of humanity, may flow as the wellspring of spiritual rebirth!" — Rudolf Steiner
Thursday, December 10, 2015
she's gone
I'm headed to the Midwest this week to visit my family of origin. My baby brother, my baby sister, niece, nephew. Thinking about family from many angles. I would like to be hermetically sealed off from wanting family or community in my life. I don't know what people are for but I sure wish I would stop yearning to connect with them.
My mother is spending a week at my sister's. A few weeks ago, some doctor declared that mom has dementia. It's interesting to watch my family cope with mom's decline from a distance. Mom has had dementia for a few years now but my siblings have struggled to accept it. Then when some stranger, a new doctor, gives mom the stamp of dementia, suddenly my siblings have accepted it. Mom is gone, they say. Just now my sister said that the person I am angry with is gone.
My mother is spending a week at my sister's. A few weeks ago, some doctor declared that mom has dementia. It's interesting to watch my family cope with mom's decline from a distance. Mom has had dementia for a few years now but my siblings have struggled to accept it. Then when some stranger, a new doctor, gives mom the stamp of dementia, suddenly my siblings have accepted it. Mom is gone, they say. Just now my sister said that the person I am angry with is gone.
the edge of anger
Recently, my former friend Geo once wrote to me and said he 'supported' me in my anger. He encouraged me to explore the furthest edges of my anger. I loved it. I don't think anyone outside of therapy has ever encouraged me to live into my anger. I know a lot about sitting in the fire of my own anger. I've done a lot of it. But, gosh, it was fine to be encouraged to be angry. Most folks in this culture seem to think anger is always bad. Anger is a human emotion. Emotions are okay. It is what we do with the anger that matters. It is unwise, I think, to deny anger when it arises.
In my meditation practice, I aspire to watch thoughts and sensations arise and then watch them pass away. Arising. Passing away. Arising. Passing away. I have seen anger approaching me, like a tornado moves across the prairie. I have been caught up in the twister. Tornados of my anger have left a lot of damage. Yes, I have hurt people in anger. Yes, I have hurt myself with it.
Initially, I experienced Geo's encouragement to explore the furthest edges of my anger as a good thing. As I sat with my anger, I noticed a new stream of thought. I began to hear an inner urge to do something different with my anger. I also kept getting the urge to contact a friend and ask for help. I know I can move a lot of energy by talking to people but I have not created many relationships. There aren't too many people I can call to verbalize my inner process. I've used therapists for this much of my life but I am trying to get my needs met with friends instead of paid friends. I don't think I should have to get professional help to be human. I need help being human. Collaboration between humans is part of nature's plan.
So I started to sit with the idea of talking to someone, to get help being me. Calling a friend might seem ordinary but it is not to me. I have lived without intimate relationships for a long time. Sometimes I don't know what people are for. In many ways, I don't know anything about relationship. I have been deeply lonely for a long time, a spy in the house of normal. Most of the emotional intimacy I have known has been toxic. I've been afraid of recreating more toxicity so I have chosen isolation.
Somehow, miraculously, I have still managed to collect a few very fine friends. Geo, as he once brutally said, we were never friends, just two people who met at a conference is not and, according to him, him ever was my friend.
So here I am, lost in the land of dysfunction squared. I don't have a cell phone. I have little privacy.
I loved Geo and I love his, apparenatly disingenuous, support of my anger. Geo, by the way, showed me some of the most hair-trigger and sometimes viciously unkind anger I have ever experienced. He actually wrote to me, more than once, that there was 'no question' that I had hurt him more than he hurt me. All ego, that guy. I wrote back, suggesting that hurt, like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder. He
In my meditation practice, I aspire to watch thoughts and sensations arise and then watch them pass away. Arising. Passing away. Arising. Passing away. I have seen anger approaching me, like a tornado moves across the prairie. I have been caught up in the twister. Tornados of my anger have left a lot of damage. Yes, I have hurt people in anger. Yes, I have hurt myself with it.
Initially, I experienced Geo's encouragement to explore the furthest edges of my anger as a good thing. As I sat with my anger, I noticed a new stream of thought. I began to hear an inner urge to do something different with my anger. I also kept getting the urge to contact a friend and ask for help. I know I can move a lot of energy by talking to people but I have not created many relationships. There aren't too many people I can call to verbalize my inner process. I've used therapists for this much of my life but I am trying to get my needs met with friends instead of paid friends. I don't think I should have to get professional help to be human. I need help being human. Collaboration between humans is part of nature's plan.
So I started to sit with the idea of talking to someone, to get help being me. Calling a friend might seem ordinary but it is not to me. I have lived without intimate relationships for a long time. Sometimes I don't know what people are for. In many ways, I don't know anything about relationship. I have been deeply lonely for a long time, a spy in the house of normal. Most of the emotional intimacy I have known has been toxic. I've been afraid of recreating more toxicity so I have chosen isolation.
Somehow, miraculously, I have still managed to collect a few very fine friends. Geo, as he once brutally said, we were never friends, just two people who met at a conference is not and, according to him, him ever was my friend.
So here I am, lost in the land of dysfunction squared. I don't have a cell phone. I have little privacy.
I loved Geo and I love his, apparenatly disingenuous, support of my anger. Geo, by the way, showed me some of the most hair-trigger and sometimes viciously unkind anger I have ever experienced. He actually wrote to me, more than once, that there was 'no question' that I had hurt him more than he hurt me. All ego, that guy. I wrote back, suggesting that hurt, like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder. He
an eggplant sofa
I used to own a very dark, plush, purple sofa. The very dark purple was called eggplant. I loved this sofa. It had a big hump arching across the back. Right down the middle of the hump, was a dark, plush, eggplant seam. I loved that seam. There were lots of seams and I loved them all but I loved the one down the middle best.
I could put this sofa at the end of my bed (I live in a studio apartment). Then I would have a little conversation nook. I could sit on that sofa sometimes instead of on my blue recliner. I love my blue recliner. It belonged to Peggy's mom. Ethel's recliner. The recliner is shabby and soiled. My eggplant sofa was like new when I gave it away. I gave it away when I left the Midwest.
When I bought that sofa, Rosie wanted me to get a red plush sofa. She was a freshman in college. I was furnishing my grad school apartment. I still had money. I almost ordered the red one, to please her. But then, right there in the furniture store, my inner voice told me that Rosie was never going to live at home again and this was my sofa. "Get the eggplant", my inner voice said to me. Rosie whined a bit that I didn't go with red, which, pleasantly enough, actually increased my pleasure in the purple.
Gosh, I loved that sofa. I want it back.
I could put this sofa at the end of my bed (I live in a studio apartment). Then I would have a little conversation nook. I could sit on that sofa sometimes instead of on my blue recliner. I love my blue recliner. It belonged to Peggy's mom. Ethel's recliner. The recliner is shabby and soiled. My eggplant sofa was like new when I gave it away. I gave it away when I left the Midwest.
When I bought that sofa, Rosie wanted me to get a red plush sofa. She was a freshman in college. I was furnishing my grad school apartment. I still had money. I almost ordered the red one, to please her. But then, right there in the furniture store, my inner voice told me that Rosie was never going to live at home again and this was my sofa. "Get the eggplant", my inner voice said to me. Rosie whined a bit that I didn't go with red, which, pleasantly enough, actually increased my pleasure in the purple.
Gosh, I loved that sofa. I want it back.
