This Manifestation of Death

Is different than other deaths I have had.

Death of dreams.

Death of childhood.

Death of ego.

Perhaps not that last one.

Then there is la petite mort, the little death that I succumb to in your arms, the death that causes me to speak in tongues and splay myself before you squalid in lust and lost in your embrace.

There are many kinds of death.

Sweet sweat and pushed up against a wall in the hallows of the night.

The death of fantasy for the reality of you.

The swallow of pride and the obeyance of surrender, not abeyance, but there is that too.

The arm pressed to my cheek.

The music pressed to my ears.

The French I falter reading to you wishing to impress upon you my eruditeness.

See above.

Ego.

The flicker in your eyes across the table in the noisy restaurant.

The grabbing for my hand, my body, my heat in a sea of people underneath the summer sky in Detroit and the falling away of everyone except you, in the moment, and the death of caring what other people think or feel or say or see.

The death of belief that I am anyone other than the exact, perfectly imperfect person I am.

The dying of the light and the crowing glory of it all again in the morning as you grab my hand and place it on your body.

The falter of my head against your chest.

The death of ideation of poesie.

The picture of daisies in my heart, burgundy Gerber daisies from the garden that I still wish I had not forgotten on the table in your kitchen, I would have pressed their sweet, soft, blood petals in between the pages of Rimbaud and stumbled over them while reaching for the proper pronunciation of that one French verb so illusive and slippery on my tongue.

The death of breath of my name in your mouth.

The passing of the light, the expiration of time, the roundness, the cantos singing to me in the rose garden.

A garden I frequent in different iterations at different times in my life.

How could I have known the profundity, even then, as a girl child, naive to love and sorrowed by the life I had been led on, the unknown, the hallway in the memorial landscape, the burial mounds, the skeletons of tree branches against the brazen frozen lake.

Yet.

I knew.

I know I knew.

The death of the woman child is still within me, within the circle of your arms, the hand calloused in mine, the Proustian moment, collapsed upon me.

And I have not even read Proust.

Yet.

It is there.

I have searched for you in lost time and found you now is this moment, though I know not where it will take me.

Dreamily I will search for you in the winding streets of Paris and perchance I will find you under the Metro lights on the Passy stop or in the Bellville, or in some cafe, somewhere I once wandered by footsore, tender hearted, broke and starving, broken hearted, only by being broke open, an aspirational artist killing myself to live out a country girlhood phantasmagoria.

Mayhap I will find you there.

And we will wander through Pere La Chaise and I will take you to my favorite bookstore, Le Merle Moqueur, and we will kiss with absolute abandon in the streets.

As you do.

In Paris.

Or whenever, wherever.

I am with you.

In this manifestation of death.

And all others.

I Have Forgotten

The sound of your laugh.

I cried on the way home from my meeting.

Listening to French House Music that is not supposed to make me sad.

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

You could see how that did not actually work out so well for me.

A crow landed on the porch at work today.

It sat bobbing on the thin railing staring into the patio glass doors.

Looking at me.

I was bent over picking up toys from the floor.

Matchbox cars.

Legos.

A stray ribbon from a dolls tousled red hair.

The crow looked at me.

I told him to tell you to come for me.

I know.

Fairytale stuff.

But I did it anyway.

I have forgotten the sound of your laugh.

Do you know how destroyed that makes me feel?

I have been in pain.

I am in pain.

It is all just pain.

The sunset.

You.

The moonrise.

You.

The sea swell and waves rolling into the beach.

All you.

I wrote you a letter yesterday.

I forgot to write you poetry since we have gone our ways.

Separate and apart.

But not really parted.

I realized that I had not as it was so hard, so painful.

I have ghost images of words and fragments of feelings that tell me what the poems might have been about.

You may hazard a guess.

They were sad poems.

My imaginary epistles to you.

I can’t remember how you laugh.

I can see it, I can see your smile, but I can’t hear you.

All I hear is the sound of my own sobbing in the crook of my elbow.

Head bent over the table I am writing at.

I had not thought about losing your voice.

I have pictures of you.

I look once in a while.

Until I start to cry.

Then I stop.

The picture of us in front of the fire in D.C.

Still it haunts my computer.

Still.

Pops up whenever I connect my phone to my computer.

Your face.

Mine in silhouette.

Your arm around me.

Why did I have to lose your laugh today?

Why?

I have lost so much already.

This is not a poem.

This is not a cry for help.

This is just me sad and alone crying into my hands.

While fire races up my side and burns me from the inside out.

I lost your laugh today.

I will never be the same again.

Never.

Again.

Fifteen Minute Blog

That’s about all I got tonight.

Fifteen minutes.

I almost decided to not write, but then I thought, when am I going to have the opportunity again?

I mean.

PhD full tilt boogie.

38 hours a week at my day job.

I’ve also clocked 13 hours at my internship so far this week and I have a client tomorrow as well as three on Saturday.

This is it.

Take the moment.

I could, sure, do some homework.

But.

Well.

I’m pretty on top of it right now.

I wrote a paper over the last two days at work as I was left pretty much alone during the afternoons at work with the baby (who’s really not a baby anymore, 26 months tomorrow) who has been taking these great big fat three-hour naps.

I can knock out a lot of work in three hours.

It’s been a huge gift.

When people ask me how I’m doing it, that’s really the key right now, homework while the baby naps.

Of course I do homework at other times, but the three hours really gives me a way into staying abreast of the work.

I have plenty to do the next couple of days as well with school work, new module’s opened in one of my classes, which means obligations to post discussions and respond to others.

I have done the readings so it shouldn’t be too bad and if the baby naps well tomorrow and the mom’s out of the house, I’ll get it done.

I’m staying busy.

Maybe, sort of, on purpose.

I will say I was a little surprised today to not be as upset and sad as I thought I would.

Then again, when I have slowed down from school, work, clients, dealing with my car being in the shop for six days, OHMYGOD do I love having my car back, I have broken down pretty quick.

I’ve been very careful since the break up to not listen to certain music.

I’ve gotten caught once or twice when I was in a ride share on my way to work and the driver had something come on the stereo that knocked me for a loop.

Cue wearing my ear pods on all drives to and from where ever I was going.

As well as making sure to listen to music at work that’s very upbeat.

I’m sure there’s more grief to grieve.

I lost my best friend and we have a no contact agreement.

I have felt lonely  and lost and sad.

I have also felt some freedom I wasn’t expecting and some relief that it’s done.

Walking around last week for five and a half days knowing that I was about to break up was harrowing.

Just the relief of not having to do that is tremendous.

I haven’t looked at photos either.

And I’ve not gone looking through texts or emails.

Maybe I’m packing too much swaddling around myself.

I don’t know.

I just know that the first time we went through a break up it was so horrendously sad I walked around for days, weeks, feeling like I had been beaten.

And I couldn’t stop crying.

I have had a few moments of unbearable crying jags, but just not to the extent of last time.

I was also not practiced at the breakup.

He and I have gone through it two times officially from my side and once, in a sort of conditional way on his side.

Third times the charm I guess.

Oh.

I do sort of still hope that something miraculous will happen.

That he will decide to alter the things I asked him to alter and we’ll be together.

And I know I can’t wait around for that, it probably won’t happen, and I can’t live my life hoping.

I have to live my life in faith, I know that.

The situation I was in was untenable and I went on in for almost two years.

I’m lucky to have known the depth of love that I had but I also went through a lot of pain.

A lot.

Things were just never quite what I wanted.

Fuck.

Now I’m teary.

Shit.

I thought I’d make it through.

Oh well.

My person reminded me that it wasn’t that there was a lack of love if anything that was what made it so terrible to do, we were so in love with each other.

We’d frequently call the other the One, or soul mate, or magic, or love of my life.

So, it’s rather heartbreaking that we couldn’t get around the issues that broke us apart.

I could wish it different, but I couldn’t make it happen.

And man.

Did I try.

I really tried to be super flexible and not look at things with black and white thinking but in the end I wasn’t getting my needs met and he and I both knew it and he was guilty and sad for it and I was upset over it and it wasn’t working.

God I wish it had.

Ugh.

Now I know why I wasn’t wanting to blog.

I knew that I was going to process emotions doing this and now I’m typing and crying and the heart ache is there and it doesn’t matter what I’m playing on the stereo, it’s all love songs about him anyways.

Well, that was fun.

I just precipitated a crying jag with my head on my table.

Ugh.

I can’t really avoid myself and my emotions when I’m writing, they just naturally come up.

Sigh.

And I can have some compassion for the part of me that doesn’t want to feel and has kept mighty, mighty, mighty busy not thinking about it.

I am sad.

I am tender.

I miss him so much.

Fuck.

I miss you darling.

I miss you so bad.

Not Enough

Just not enough time to look at your face.

To memorize the lines there, the smile lines, the laugh lines, the color of your skin.

It was too long.

This time in between tasting you.

Having your kiss on my mouth.

Holding your hand in my hand.

Laughing with you while the sun streamed through the window and my heart fled out my body.

Absconded by you.

I realized later.

I hadn’t opened my eyes enough.

So love lost in the moment.

So taken with the abandon.

I forgot to look.

I forgot to get my fill.

I didn’t get enough.

I sound like a junkie, don’t I.

A little love junkie.

A little tortured and twisted and sighing in the wind.

When.

Oh.

When, will I see my baby again?

And see I must.

See I demand.

With my eyes, with my hands.

To.

Take the measure of you.

Holding images against the braille of my heart.

Reading all that lies in between the shadow and the soul.

The dark drift of my dreams and the raft of pleasure I find myself

Moored upon.

Open your eyes I tell myself.

Don’t get so damn lost.

So easy to get lost in you, in between the slipstream and the curve of your shoulder blades.

The cusp of your collar bone.

The smell of you.

Not enough time to take it all in.

Damn it.

There were things I saw though.

Oh.

Yes.

The dewy fall of a bead of sweat down the back of your neck, sweet, succulent, juicy, droplet.

I wanted to lick it off of you.

Taste you.

I watched it fall instead.

Sliding down your skin it mesmerized.

Or.

Your smile.

Searing me in half.

I did not see enough of it though.

Too busy instead kissing that mouth to take it in properly.

Astray in the lushness of your bottom lip, the holding space and the sigh of it.

I could fall down that velvet blackness and abandon myself there.

Gone.

Star dust to star dust.

Ashes to ashes.

Obliterated.

Abandoned.

Lost.

In this.

Exquisite dream.

So.

I reprimand myself.

Open your eyes.

Open them wide.

See.

See all of you.

As I am so taken with you.

Kidnapped.

Dazzled.

Captivated.

Enchanted.

Enthralled.

And.

Beguiled.

All the damn things.

All of them.

So.

Let me say it one more time.

So I dare not forget.

Open your eyes baby girl.

There is so much to see and see it all you must.

Imprints of you on the backs of my eyelids.

In the narrative of my blood.

Standing there.

Just waiting.

Waiting for me to see.

Waiting for me to see.

All.

Of you.

 

 

 

 

Day One

And the weather Gods shone down on me and my scooter.

Yes.

It stopped raining in time for me to ride to work.

It did indeed rain a little too, but not until I was already at the job and inside and then it passed and I was able to make the entire day without getting wet.

Although I feel pretty chilled.

I was going to go and do yoga after I got back from doing the deal and I just didn’t have it in me, if I did, I’d be doing yoga right now instead of doing my blog, but I just needed to take it easy and slowly get into my groove.

I went to bed early enough to actually get a full eight hours and though I had some anxiety last night as I was figuring stuff out, figuring stuff out, what fucking ever, I fell off pretty quick.

I was tired from not getting a full night’s sleep after the New Year’s Eve dance.

I fell out when I got into bed.

Grateful I gave myself the extra time this morning.

Because even with navigation and looking at the map three or four or five hundred times I still got lost.

Not horribly so.

But just enough that I had to pull over on my scooter three times to check the navigation.

I was literally within three blocks of the house and I missed the turn and did a loop around and it’s a bit squirrelly in that particular neighborhood, some odd one ways and small side streets, so I was super grateful I had given myself the extra time to figure out where the fuck I was going.

I got there.

And super happy to report that there’s not time restriction on the street parking, I can park my scooter anywhere, although I was also offered the option of parking in the driveway blocking the garage.

So that’s nice.

Tomorrow, if it rains, I take a car.

It’s up and down a lot of hills.

Plus.

Today was technically a holiday, which neither the family or I realized.

I realized when I was on the way over, no traffic.

I mean.

None.

Then it hit me, when a holiday falls on a Sunday, the Monday is considered an off holiday, all the schools go back tomorrow.

So I got the whole family today.

Mom, dad, friend visiting from Finland, and the three children.

6 years.

4 years.

And.

2 days old.

Yes.

Two days old.

Such a little peanut!

Tomorrow it will be me and the mom and the dad and the baby as the two oldest go to school.  I’ll get all the paper work and taxes and stuff worked out.

Today I just got used to being in the house and I also got to go with the middle girl to the Upper Noe Valley Rec Center.

Dad and the oldest boy were working on a project and mama and the baby had a nap.

The friend visiting will be gone soon and dad will go back to work and then it looks like me, the mom, the baby, and then I will do pick up from school.

I might do drop off once in a while too, not quite sure how that’s going to work yet.

Tomorrow the dad will do drop off.

So instead of coming in at 9 a.m. I’ll go in at 10 a.m. and work until 6p.m.

I am hoping that once we get it all figured out I will have a set schedule.

I’m not the greatest at hopping all around.

I’d like to know so that I can schedule myself and doing the deal into a routine that allows me to get some commitments and be accountable to my recovery.

Hella important to me.

Until that happens, might be a week or two, I’m going to be flexible, because I can, and the baby is such a wee little mite he’ll be with mom and I think the dad has off for a few weeks from work to help too.

It’s a full house.

But.

It’s a nice house and I’m grateful for the job and the experience and getting to know a new family.

“Wait!  You’re leaving?” The little girl said to me as I was wrapping up what tomorrow schedule was going to be with the mom.

“Don’t go!  I’m going to miss you!”

Glad to know that I’m already missed.

That made me happy, and I the oldest asked me if I was going to be coming back tomorrow and I said I sure would and if it was ok with him, I’d be picking him up at school tomorrow.

It was ok with him.

I went to put on my jacket and get my stuff and the little girl came over and said, “I’ve decided that you should stay and we should have a slumber party.”

Oh my god.

I love it.

“I think that’s a great idea!” I exclaimed, “but I didn’t bring my pajamas, do you think we could have a slumber party another day?”

She decided it would be so.

Granted, of course, we had or moments.

“I don’t love you,” she said to me at one point today when we were out at the park and I could tell it was time to go home to lunch, hungry, angry (new baby taking all of mama’s time, new strange nanny), lonely (her brother stayed with dad), tired, it was nap time and though she, according to mom and dad doesn’t really nap much, she fell asleep in the stroller on the way back to the house.

I scooped her up, carried her in, got her out of her rain gear and polka dot boots and mom got her settled.

I told her later, “_________ you don’t have to love me, we can start with like and see what happens, ok?”

And then we had a unicorn and dog picnic, played with stamps and Play Doh and told each other stories.

“I have never heard you play like that before,” her dad said to her when she went to show him something.

I felt really good hearing that, the little tone of awe in his voice, the comfort that was there, noted, his child felt comfortable with me and playful and crawled in my lap and snuggled and we talked and held hands and she asked me to find her tickle spots and did I have any and what did the stars on my neck mean and could she wear my glasses?

It was a very sweet first day and I feel that I will make it through my two-week trial without too much struggle.

Really, I think I passed the test today in flying colors when I got asked to stay over night and have a slumber party.

Probably even before that.

Now.

It’s just a matter of getting used to the commute and the timing and when I can get to yoga, I do want to make sure I’m getting to a least one class during the week.

It will all suss out.

Until then.

I think I’ll probably have another early night.

And more hot tea.

Yay!

Made it through my first day.

Happy.

Happy.

Joy.

Joy.

Can’t Figure It Out

Because there is nothing to figure out.

I know I have written about this before.

I just struck me hard today when I was doing some reading for school.

Yeah.

I know.

Take a break.

However.

I really wanted to get caught up on the reading that I didn’t have fully done from this past weekend; I have a couple of whopper big papers due the next round of classes and I want to have the reading done and organized in my head.

I got up early today.

Earlier than the last three days, four days, I’m a little lost as far as what day it is, they are all bleeding together.

All I know is that Friday will be an amazing thing to get to.

Next Saturday will be my first day off in two weeks.

Two weeks.

My employers asked me if I had a good weekend.

Sure.

I went to school for 29 hours after working a full week of work and then turned around to do a nine-hour shift today.

And it was a short shift.

It usually goes 9.5 hours on Mondays.

I had a great weekend!

Bwahahahaha.

No.

Really.

It was actually a lot of work, but it was so good to see some of the people in my cohort, I just have made some extraordinary friends there.

I have, I have.

And though I didn’t want to be at work, Mondays are my longest day, they are also, in some ways my most relaxed.

I only have one charge.

Her parents are gone the entire day.

And.

She naps.

Heavenly baby naps.

So I actually did do homework.

I wasn’t going to bring my Psychopathology books with me.

I really wasn’t.

I was going to give myself some down time.

But then I thought, you’ll be pissed when you get a fat baby nap and you don’t have some homework to kick through, it’ll feel like wasted time.

You know me.

I hate wasting time.

I need to learn how to though, I do know that.

Anyway.

I had a sweet, lovely morning with her, we danced, we read books, we went for a walk around the block on her little push tricycle.

It was adorable.

Then I put her down for naps, had lunch, made some tea and got into the reading.

I kicked through two chapters of Psychoanalytic Case Formulation.

Don’t be jealous.

Hella sexy read.

Then.

I started reading my Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice book.

I know.

I know you want to read them.

It’s ok.

You can borrow them when I’m done.

Heh.

I was struck as I sat on the couch fiddling around with my hair how I have changed so much and grown so much and then I was thinking about a condition that we were studying in class over the weekend.

Trichotillomania.

Huh.

Obsessive hair pulling.

Some people can’t stop pulling out their eyebrows or eyelashes.

Some can’t stop pulling out their hair.

I used to be a hair twirler.

I did not know that until my mom told me, years ago, that when I was little I would obsessively twist my hair until I gave myself bald spots.

I just about burst into tears.

I still do it on occasion.

And it’s a self-soothing response to stress.

It’s also extraordinarily indicative of trauma in the client’s history.

All the things I used to do to deal with the pain of being me.

Pulling out my hair.

Stopped that.

I don’t actually remember when I stopped, but I did.

I also know that during a very stressful point in my sobriety and recovery I was working with someone who pointed out to me that I was twirling my hair and he hadn’t seen me do that before and wondered out loud what that was about.

I didn’t know at the time, but I found it comforting and I will do it once in a while now.

I have noticed that I do it when I am reading for class.

I also notice a few other habits that I didn’t use to correlate to anything at all.

Like.

Oh.

Fuck, this is embarrassing, but whatever.

In the interest of science, er, I mean, my blog.

I used to exhibit pretty bad excoriation.

Excoriation (skin-picking) disorder.

I know.

REALLY SEXY.

I’ll stop soon.

I promise.

Maybe.

It has faded, but it was a slow fade.

I started with my mom doing it to me, she’d pick at my acne when I started going through adolescence, then I picked it up, I am surprised I don’t have acne scars.

I used to have pretty bad acne too.

Still get it on the odd day, but it’s pretty much gone, worked its way out of my system by the time I had two years of sobriety.

I had a horrible habit around it.

I would pick at my fingers too, bite my nails, peel off the cuticle around my nails, oh so many hang nails.

Also.

Yes.

A trauma survivor response.

So much fucking trauma.

And that’s when the reading hit home.

And made my chest tight and also, shit, fuck, motherfucker, holy mother of god, I finally figured it out.

Well.

Hahaha.

I figured out why I am always trying to figure it out.

I have had an inkling of it.

But it all just fell into my lap.

I was reading about trauma, shocker, I am going to be reading a lot about trauma and I need to remind myself that I also get to do a lot of sweet self-care for myself and although I recognize my resilience and it is extraordinary, there are still ways for me to be gentle.

I mean I have had some big time information come into my life regarding my family and family of origin in the last few weeks.

I have seen it ripple out into the world in odd and interesting ways.

Some sweet, some strange, some uncomfortable.

All sorts of information and wilding things falling out of the wood work.

Amazing.

Then.

As I sat reading, twirling my hair, scratching at the back of my neck, why is it so itchy?

I had a huge aha moment.

Oh my god.

The reading is re-traumatizing me.

Great.

Which is to be expected.

It’s just stirring stuff up from the bottom of the pot.

It’s all good though, I realized what was happening because I had read about the ways in which trauma can manifest itself psychodynamically.

Oh.

And all the other ways I have coped in the past popped into my head and that I have stopped doing them.

I stopped!

Do you have any clue how amazing that is?

I do.

I put down cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, all forms of processed flour.

I no longer have stage four cystic acne, I don’t pull my hair out, and I don’t pick at my cuticles, I stopped biting my nails years ago and I have to say it is a small and beautiful gift to myself that I go and get them done.

I am proud of my nails.

My hair.

And of course, I have moments, trembling with the need to change and soothe and self-sabotage when I want to cut it all the fuck off.

I know that I won’t.

But it pops up.

All the things that pop up.

The last one, the one that I have been saving, since I figure I lost most of my readership a while back as this is not a sexy, sexy blog, is that “figuring it out” is a psychodynamic symptom of a child that has suffered severe trauma or sexual abuse.

Check.

Not to be tongue in cheek, but to move this along, I realized that I kept having this recurring pattern, all my life I have been trying to figure it out.

Breaking my own heart trying to figure it out, even when I was told again and again, “figure it out is not a slogan,” or good luck with that, or that there was no “figuring it out” to drop that.

That I have been standing banging my head on a wall for years and years trying to figure it out.

Because if I can figure out what is wrong with me, I can fix me.

I can fix what ever it is in me that didn’t know how to stop what was happening to me, that if I figure it out the same thing won’t happen to me again, I won’t get hurt, I have figured out what is wrong with me, why I destroyed so much and then I can get on with the getting on of life and be ok and like.

I don’t know, have a boyfriend or something.

Except.

That I didn’t do anything wrong.

I don’t have to fix something that I didn’t break.

It wasn’t broken because of me.

How can a four-year old be accountable to that?

Childlike, I blamed myself for my grandmother’s divorce, my mothers separation and subsequent divorce from my father, that I was the reason I was being abused.

I was the whistleblower.

But.

It was still my fault.

I brought the house of cards tumbling down.

Like all abused children I believed that there was something wrong with me, and in this believing I persevered with a hope, that if I could figure it out I could change it and the abuse would stop.

A four-year old cannot be held to that.

A four-year old doesn’t know how to cross the street without holding an adults hand.

“Come on baby, we’re running away from home, momma’s mean,” I said to my two-year old sister, taking her by the hand and walking out the door.

We walked around the block.

I had been told to never cross the street without holding an adults hand.

That’s how my mom found me, walking around in circles.

That is how I found me.

In this circular pattern of thinking for so fucking long.

I can’t fix me.

I was never broken.

I didn’t cause it, I can’t cure it, I can’t change it.

I can just accept it.

Which is not approval, by the way.

It was just what happened.

I can, however, be of service and take it in stride and let it go.

I can let my heart fill up with love.

I can say it stops here.

And something new grows forward.

Something amazing.

Me.

More and more fully myself.

I am so excited.

Seriously.

I know this seems implausible.

But I am relieved.

It finally landed.

I finally got it.

I can stop trying to figure it out.

The relief.

Well.

The relief is huge.

And I am blessed.

Graced.

Grateful.

And loved.

So very.

Very.

Loved.

 

I Think I Need

To write some inventory.

I am mad right now.

I am fucking livid.

I am pissed at the lover who basically bailed and said tomorrow night.

Not cool.

I’m annoyed with Comcast and the pop up window on my computer.

I am tired of work and trying to figure it out.

I can’t.

I am annoyed with the airlines and trying to book a flight and arrange the deal and figure out what makes most sense.

I am fucking livid with God.

FUCK YOU GOD.

REALLY.

I’m just mad.

Mad.

Mad.

I suspect it’s been there for days.

I know it has, when it’s this big and sitting this high in my throat that is, it’s like collateral damage anger, anger that is rooted in super old fears, seeping out from old wounds re-opened.

I can’t quite get it out of my system and really what I want to do is scream.

SCREAM.

Scream and flail and kick and scream some more.

I don’t care for it when I get this angry, it’s hard to navigate through it with any kind of grace.

I am tired of watching the entire fucking world pair up and not I.

I am sick of trying to figure it out.

I am tired of working so hard to work so hard.

I just want to throw it all in the sea.

Not myself, but all the things.

Like.

If I could afford to I’d smash my laptop right now.

l am that fucking pissed.

I am mad at my body.

I am angry beyond words at the violence I have been exposed to and been handed to deal with.

Oh.

I am sure I will grow through the experience.

Fuck you too, “growth.”

I’m tired of that as well.

I can’t actually remember the last time I was this mad.

Oh.

Wait.

Yes.

Haha.

I can.

It was a few years ago.

I did yell out loud too.

Now that I recall it.

I know the anger will pass, it usually does and it is a good indicator of places I need to grow through and I know that the anger usually masks a lot of fear.

I am afraid, once again, that I am broken beyond repair, that no matter how much work I do I will still get stuck.

I am stuck.

I really don’t like being stuck.

This process.

This here.

This writing.

It’s my way of getting unstuck.

The fear that I am not enough is so deep in the grain it can feel like it will overtake me and nothing can save me from the annihilation of myself and my life.

I’m not having ideation, suicidal or otherwise, it’s just the emotions working themselves out and I’ve always been uncomfortable with anger.

I suspect that it’s not all mine either.

Work was really challenging.

A lot of temper tantrums.

Bigger and more intense than I have seen in the past, from both the boys and it’s hard holding my own against them.

I feel like some of the emotion is just from that.

Leaked out on me.

Both the boys had whopper temper tantrums.

I was able to walk through them both, but it took just about everything I had left for the week out of me.

And kapow.

I was kaput.

Then the cancellation tonight, which was fine, really, I realized, oh look, I had expectations.

I expected to get laid after work tonight.

And that poof.

Disappeared.

And then I thought.

Fuck.

I’m supposed to be working through these emotions, I probably need to process out the enormous amount of historical trauma that I was informed about and all the ramifications thereof.

Not to stare at it, but to let it work its way out of my body.

Boy howdy.

Is it working its way out.

I will, of course, do more writing after this.

The big stuff, the inventory.

The fears list, the I’m mad at God list.

And I’ll get to work it out.

Like always.

And it will be fine and then I can get down to the other work.

All the fucking homework.

All of it.

I am not helpless.

And.

Ah.

I am not as angry as when I started this blog.

I feel better just for getting some of the vitriol out via the keyboard.

I will also feel better when I take care of buying my ticket back to Wisconsin for Christmas.

It looks like I’m probably going to catch a red-eye out on the 23rd and get in early the 24th.

I’m going to fly back the 30th.

Which reminds me.

I need to get a hold of the new family and let them know that I set my official end date with my current family at December 23rd.

That I am further going to take that next week off and I’ll be fully available to start on January 2nd.

Get my ducks in a row and not have to be too concerned about it any longer.

I’m thinking about that spiritual axiom, the one about being disturbed, and I know that all these feelings have to do with my idea of how my life should look.

Not how it looks.

Not that it is pretty fucking incredible when I give myself to get out of my myopic world view, because it is.

I am disturbed and therein lies the rub and the relief.

If there is no one else to blame, if it is all about me, well, then, I can fix that.

I have a simple kit of spiritual tools.

I just need to pick them up and use them.

I’ll be making a list and checking it twice.

I promise.

No more angry blog.

Just some writing for other eyes, some tea, and some bed time.

Good night.

Sleep tight.

Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

Those fuckers have gnarly teeth.

Seriously.

 

Doing The Work

And doing the homework while doing the work.

I did both today.

I did a lot today.

It was a day.

Tomorrow will be a day too.

All the days.

All the work.

Letting out slow, long breath and waiting for the tea pot to boil.

It was a good day at work.

It was a good day to do a lot of work.

I’m done with it for the moment and need a reprieve, which will look an awful lot like watching Project Runway and chilling out with an apple after I finish this blog.

I have done enough.

And.

I remind myself that I am enough.

That I am resilient and strong and I have come through so much to be where I am at and I am grateful that I have been carried to a place where I can see that.

It stops with me.

I thought today, a couple of times.

Then.

I thought.

What if that’s just another way of me trying to protect me?

How about I change instead.

How about I look at the trans-generational traumas in my family on my father’s side and on my mother’s side as the things that have made me the diamond that I am.

“Sometimes God uses a heavy hand to create a beautiful thing,” she told me as I sobbed my way through my first real inventory over a decade ago now.

The pressure it takes to create a diamond from the black morass of sadness I was created.

The crucible that holds me I cannot even begin to list all the ways and hows of it.

The secrets and shame and the wildness and the wrong.

The places I have tried to hide and not be found.

I always was.

I always knew.

I know now and it is a deep sadness, but also a formidable strength.

I sometimes can get tired trying to process it all.

“You had this conversation while you were at work?” He asked me aghast on the phone.

I did.

I had a very deep, but not totally deep, there were layers of things left unsaid and things that I still have questions about, but I got what I needed and I could trace the wellsprings of it farther back than I had first suspected.

High temperatures, high drama, high pressures.

I had some clue, but then I had no clue.

And yet, I knew all along.

In fact.

I had avoided making this particular call as I wasn’t sure I really wanted to open the can of worms.

“Sometimes going to far into a genogram can be hard for a client to deal with,” my advisor said to me as I showed him some of the work I had done.

Um.

Yeah.

And there’s so much more.

It’s like a legacy of pain that just rolls through my family.

It is astounding and deep and yet.

I feel that somehow or other I have gotten out, gotten over to the other side and I am looking at it from a distance.

Yet.

There are these ways that I react to the world and there are these defenses I have that I would like to let go of, to open myself up to more life, to not be fearful that I will be shattered again and need to begin again.

The things that worked for me, the safety defenses, they don’t work so much anymore.

And “it stops with me,” in the way that I have used it is not working.

No partner, no relationship, no children.

Because that way I wouldn’t pass it down.

It would really stop with me.

Ultimately that kind of isolation hurts me too.

It’s a solution and a defense that needs to change.

Grateful for the awareness.

Now to wade through the acceptance part and the forgiveness part and get to the action part.

Not sure exactly what action to take, except that right in front of me and to take the suggestions that others have to give me and to not carry the secret or the shame of it that curdles inward and hurts worse than shining the light on it.

Oh.

There are nooks and crannies I’m not too compelled to go spelunking in, at least not right yet, not right now.

I don’t need to stare at my past, I can just look, take it in, and accept it.

And remind myself that acceptance is not approval.

Fuck no

I fucking hella disapprove of the shit that went down.

I do not, I do not, I do not.

That being said, I can’t change it at all.

Although having a different perspective and hearing about some of the things in my family history definitely cast a different light on things.

So much compassion for the human experience.

And that I’m not dead.

For fucks sake.

Or in some straight jacket or in a gutter with a needle in my arm.

The noise of it all.

The machinery of the monsters that clanks down the hall to stumble upon me hiding in the shadows.

I will not have it.

I will not live underneath that banner of fright.

So.

I heal.

Soft and slow.

Gently I go.

It’s the only way.

Compassion and gentleness for myself and awareness that this does take time, perhaps my whole damn life, and that’s ok too, I shall always be seeking and that, that I do believe, is what will make my life that much fuller and richer and deeper and more experiential.

I am not numb.

Granted I am a little tired.

Granted I would like to make a phone call and say.

Come over, hold me, make it all better.

But there is no one to call that can make it all better.

All better is between me and my God.

And so far.

Well.

Things are going ok.

Really.

They are.

And when they are not, I know where to turn and I know that my feelings are fleeting, they pass, the sadness will be followed by joy or awe or discomfort or all of hundreds of other feeling states.

Feelings are not facts and they won’t kill me.

What I hope is that I can lose a little more of my rigidity and become more flexible while not losing myself or my self care.

Find me in the rooms with art.

Find me with flowers in my hair.

Find me with children strewn across my lap, warm, and a sweet and wearing footie pajamas and listening to me read stories.

Find me with love in my heart.

Find me with my heart on my sleeve.

Find me loving, lovable and worthy of love.

Yes.

Love.

Find me there.

In that field of fallen stars, like fireflies in the grass, at the dusk of this purpled twilight of pain and gray sadness a silent reprieve of pearl light and luminous joy, a flower blooming, a remonstrance of family and a flying laugh, a wallop of joy, a holler of thunder in this church of pain.

The doors flung open.

My heart too big to be contained.

Or.

Restrained.

No more.

My.

Love.

Restrain me no more.

Virgin Bicycle Run

That is my news today.

For the first time since my ankle injury on June 5th I rode a bicycle.

My playa bicycle.

And it was a little rusty and a little scary, but I did it!

Yay.

The ride was short.

I was looking for friends and either I got the address wrong or they weren’t around the spot there were supposed to be at 8 p.m. this evening.

I suppose it’s the thought that counts and it also speaks to the general chaos that happens out here when you are trying to locate a person, place, or thing, you often get lost, waylaid, bump into someone else, fall into a rabbit hole and you’re suddenly across the playa at a twerking party at HEAT.

Huh?

Yeah.

That’s happening any minute now.

I was invited, even though I can’t really twerk nor would I if the occasion rose, not my style so much.

I can shake my ass, I just can’t drop it like it’s hot any more.

I might drop it and not be able to pick it back up.

I may dress like a twelve-year-old on a shopping spree at Hot Topic, but my body is that of a 41-year-old woman and there are some things it just doesn’t do so well anymore.

I would go and observe, I really am tempted to see it.

There’s something about the idea of watching a bunch of drunken guys off DPW and Gate crew twerking that arouses every single bone of curiosity in my body, but it’s across the playa and I don’t have bicycle lights on my stead.

I do have lights.

I thought once the sun set and I couldn’t locate the village I was looking for that I would just ride back to camp, hook up my bike lights and head out and take some photographs and see the art as it’s being built up then swing by HEAT and see the boys twerk it out.

I got back and took the lights out of the package and realized that the guy at the store was not joking when he said that it would take about a half hour or so to hook them up.

I got wheel rim lights that roll a pattern and I am quite excited to see how they look–purple and pink hearts spinning around my front wheel, but there’s just not enough light to try to hook up a bicycle light contraption that also has 25 BLACK zip ties.

No way.

I pulled it out look at the instructions and read all sixteen of them and put it away.

I may pull a damsel in distress and find a boy to help me put the lights on my bike.

I am not so mechanically inclined.

I am, however, inclined to have them set up, so that is a must do for tomorrow.

It was a long day, 8a.m. until about 7:30 p.m. with the family.

I did get a break around lunch time, the alternating parents, nanny, and nap time with visits to the Commissary worked well enough today that I was actually able to get in a nap snack.

I didn’t think I would be able to fall asleep, I wasn’t really tired, but when the papa said I could take a little longer as he had a bit of down time before he had to head out to the 2p.m. meeting, I went to the Bambi and looked around my space.

I could read a book.

I could do some writing.

I could lie down and take a nap.

Even if I didn’t sleep it would be rest.

And.

It was too hot to go out and wander playa.

Especially since I discovered that my parasol was broken in transit.

Sad face.

What is a Poppins without a parasol?

I posted a message about having someone bring me one in and got a sweet note from a dear friend that she’ll bring me one, but I may have to scavenge up something before she gets here–this upcoming Saturday–I am going to need one and I know how disoriented I was when I was a virgin getting around, it may take my friend a day or two to find me.

Shit.

I know the city and I couldn’t find the people I went looking for tonight–despite having visited the camp every single year for the last seven burns–so to expect a virgin burner to locate me in a crowded city for a parasol drop off might be challenging.

Then again, I could get to her where she’s at.

Ack.

Anyway.

That’s a massive ways a way in the future.

Anything that is outside what I am doing tomorrow is a long ways off and not worth my bother to think about.

The focus for me is to get my bicycle lights on my rig so that I can leave camp and have a vehicle to mosey about in.

I have camped before where I had some limited access to golf carts but despite being right next to a string of them I won’t be getting access for evening joy rides.

I asked last year and got the thumbs down.

I won’t bother to ask this year.

It’s the bike or nothing.

If I go to bed on the early side of town tonight and skip napping during my break, should I get another break, I will take the time to set up the bike lights then.

That way when I get done with my shift I can go out and cruise.

I  will also locate where my people are at and arrange to see them for real tomorrow night.

Then a playa bicycle cruise under the stars with a spinning wheel of hearts to lead the way.

Sounds like a date with Destiny.

I like it.

Anyone care to join me I should be available around 9 p.m. tomorrow evening for a bike ride to deep playa to watch the stars fall down the sky.

I will be lit up and ready to roll.

Being of Service Even When I Don’t Know

Where I am going.

I was lost.

Yeah.

That.

I get lost pretty quick.

I had thought I had it all figured out, not really, but I at least had the place mapped out on my phone, I was cranking down Piedmont Avenue on my bike looking for the turn I needed to make when I heard,

“CARMEN!”

I had no clue who it was, but I whipped a u-turn and turned my bike around.

There, a friendly face waving from the car.

“Where are you going?”

“1300 Grand Ave,” I replied with a grin, it’s nice to run into folks when you are lost.

“You’re going the wrong way,” she said and smiled.

“Of course I am,” I laughed.

“I can give you a ride,” she said.

“I don’t think my bike will fit in the back of your car, the front wheel is not a quick release,” I said scanning the back seat, “do the seats flip down?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “well, how about you ride your bike to my house, I live really close, then you can lock it up there and we’ll head over together?”

“Perfect.” I hopped into my pedals and whirled back down Piedmont the opposite direction of where I was going.

Arriving concurrent with her, I’m fast, and she got stuck at a light, I situated my bike, locked her up, and off we went, headed out to see some fellows in my new town.

It felt a lot better than last week, I was pretty cultured shocked and wonked out and I felt myself today, really myself for the first time since I have been back.

I am feeling CARMEN.

I am not jet lagged.

I am not having any more culture shock and my thoughts are now all in English again.

I am also digging on the sunshine.

Man, I get seasonal depression, yeah, chuckle now, that’s right, I wintered in Paris with its dark, grey, cold winter.  Makes great fodder for the depression.  I am lucky it did not get worse than it did.

Of course, I know that one of the best things for the depression, seasonal and the clinical anxiety and regular old depression I was diagnosed with six years ago, is exercise.

I walked a lot today, about two hours between pushing the stroller and walking the dog.

And I got on the bike and kicked out another 45 minutes or so, what with getting turned around.  The exercise really gets my head in a good place.  I am not a gym rat and walking and bike riding are where it’s at for me.

Good thing I will be doing plenty of it in the near future.

Tomorrow I will be heading into the city to iron out the details with the other two families that want me to do a nanny share.  Four families.  I am going to be working for four families.  Two days a week in San Francisco and two days a week in Oakland.

Actually a nice little balance between keeping my ties with friends in San Francisco and getting into the community here.

Hopefully the babies in the city will have a better start out to their weeks than I have had with the little monkey here.  Poor pumpkin has been sick all week.

Three diaper changes today with explosive yellow yuck.

I joked with her after the third change of clothes, “you are just a fashionista, that’s what’s going on, you want to have three full wardrobe changes, don’t you?”

Thank God for bubbles.

She is not a bath baby, does not like getting wet and lifted her little white frog legs away from the water like it was acid.

“Look! Bubbles!” I emphasized and splashed them higher with my hands.

“Bubbles?” She said wary, looking at the white froth.

“Bubbles.” I said with enthusiasm and lowered her little bum into the sink full of warm water.

She still cried.

Diarrhea is not fun for anyone.

Not the nanny, not the little monkey pants either.

Ah, yes 40-year-old woman blogs about poo.

Yup.

“Your going to have triplets,” my friend said tonight as we pulled out of the lot.  “I mean, really, look at all the practice you are getting.”

“Something, man, is coming out of this, I mean, I know there’s a good reason why I am doing this yet again,” I replied.

I don’t even have any cares about it right now.

Who cares?

I am a great nanny.  I am good with babies and toddlers and I like drawing, and singing, dancing, and taking long walks in the park and being outside.  I like that my tattoos are colorful and I use them to teach numbers and letters and colors and shapes.

“Star.”

“Bunny.”

“Pink.”

“Butterfly.”

There’s a great reason I am a nanny again, and I don’t have to know what it is or why.

Do I want to always be a nanny?

Nope.

I want to be a writer.

Oh, wait, I am doing that right now.

I am a writer.

The nanny bit makes it possible for me to do this.  The hours work for me, the money is not going to make me wealthy, but it is going to sustain me, and I get to sing and dance and make funny faces and hey if I fart, they think it’s hysterical.

Name me one other job where if you say “excuse me, I tooted,” your co-workers are going to hoot with laughter and clap their hands in glee.

Sure, I want an adult job, with benefits, and more money, and maybe some prestige, but when I look around at the beautiful children I have gotten to be graced with having in my life and how strong and funny and brilliant they are, to have been even a small part of that is a great gift.

Huge.

And if I do have twins or triplets, or even just one, I will have a solid foundation on which to build.  I cannot imagine that most parents have gotten to have the boot camp training that I have had in this venue.

Not to say that I am not looking out there for other work, I am, but until the book deal happens or Burning Man hires me, come on you know you want to, I am being taken care of.

Even when I get lost.

Most especially then.