I am going to start a new blog by the above name. Anyone can write in and ask me questions, or make statements, swear and carry on, give me quotes or just fuck with my head. I will respond.
Month: November 2014
Leave it and let them
Leave it alone. As Emily says to her dog “leave it”.
Deep, deep inside, I want to heal the rift between Em and Kate. I want Kate to understand Emily’s pain. I want her to truly begin to perceive the pain she has caused. I want to rub her nose in it a little so she can smell, taste, ingest this indigestible mass, this teratoma.
When I meddle (or muddle), I seem to make it worse for Em because then Kate contacts Em and says I don’t know what and gets Em upset.
Leave it. I need to leave it and let them.
Bee lore
Went for a walk in Fort Ward today. Clear and cold. I sat on a bench in the sun for a while with my eyes closed listening to the wavelets on the rocky beach below. I heard a sound I wasn’t expecting—buzzing. A bee flew by. I said to myself—the last bee of the season. Then I thought—is that true—is there a last bee in the season and then they go off and hibernate, or die or whatever.
Turns out there are all kinds of bees who do all different things in winter. Some die and some bee clusters include a cossetted queen bee who crawls deep within the hive and is surrounded by layers of worker bees who fan the queen to keep her warm. As the fanning bees exhaust themselves, they move out to the edges and new bees replace them. Isn’t that clever?
Straw into gold
Pain shapes you and unhinges you.
Emily called last night. She had been at work yesterday and saw a young lady who looked and acted like Kate when we visited Kate in White Plains.
Em had a visceral, truly visceral reaction. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that action—vomiting—speaks for itself. get rid of the poison. Puke it up. Puke it out.
When will this be over. Never.
Pain shapes you. Like that broken bowl—we have been pieced back together and in many ways we are more beautiful broken and glued than we would be unbroken. Maybe not beautiful, but more interesting. I am broken and now I am repaired, I am restored.
We cannot undo the past. No amount of anger and pushing Kate away will make her stay away. Like some raw clay vessel, we have been abraded, embossed, marked with the ravages of Kate’s illness. We still hold water but some of our seams are a bit stressed.
Our job is to live with our history. People have lived with a lot worse. Our job is to turn our history into something remarkable. Shit into shinola, ladies and gents. Straw into gold.
This bowl, this leaf
If I could heal all of us, I would.
If I could mend this bowl
this life
this leaf or branch
I would.
Gladly.
I have neither the expertise
or the skill
to make the pieces match,
these fragile bits
of this and that
that have come apart.
If I could mend this bowl
of grief
I would.
Spots on their souls
Today—Kate came over to do her laundry—I helped her get out a few bad spots. I get an inordinate amount of pleasure helping my children get spots out of their clothes, doing their laundry,cleaning up. I can handle household chores. My mother taught me.
Emily called while Kate was here. Emily had been at work today and saw a young girl (13) who reminded her of Kate. She looked like Kate, acted like Kate, was waving her arms around as her mother pushed her around in a wheelchair.
This destroyed Emily. She got sick, she threw up and left work early. Emily was sobbing.
I got off the phone. I did my best with Emily but what do you say—I’m so sorry Em, I’m so sorry. Go into therapy, do the work with a trauma therapist, offload all this shit that sits in your soul and move on with your life.
Then Kate asked me what was going on and I told her. Kate said, oh I wish I could remember, I wish I could erase this all, I wish Emily could see me as I am now and not the way I was then….and on and on.
We can’t go back.
Kate and Emily have to find their own way with this. I cannot do this. I cannot tell Emily—hey this nightmare is over, Kate is well and moving on with her life. She may not be normal, but she’s not dying.
Em is still stuck in then. Kate has moved on as best as she is able and Em is stuck in then.
It is so easy to say—find a therapist and do the work and get through it. What??
I have had the opportunity of being here, now. I can see Kate change. I can hear Kate change. I can know the sea change she has been through and honor it and know that Kate is forever altered by what she went through.
Em and Tess only know what they know. Their last view of Kate was a skeleton. Their last view of Kate was this manipulative, death’s head that ruined their lives.
They are trying to rebuild from that and they want no part of Kate. Can you blame them? No.
And yet, until they can come to terms with what our life became during those oh so formative years that we spent dealing with Kate, with Rob, with me, there will be no moving forward. There will be forward movement, but no rest, no respite, no end.
I want an end to this shit but until we all come out of it, I cannot come out of it. I can only continue to pick up the pieces.
What we need is here
The Wild Geese
by Wendell Berry
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
What do I know?
“You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics,or your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”—T.H. White
I was trembling in my anatomies just reading this.
I talked to Kate this morning. She is fearful of my blog(the original one)being read by people because it might poison her chances of moving on in her life. I in no way want to turn readers against Kate. I was using my writing as a way to explore my own reactions, irrationalities, and pain. If anything it is my attempt to learn—to examine, to become more empathetic and less victimized.
This is so fucking complex.
What do I know? Things begun in innocence can cause mayhem.
Hello. Yes, this is Dog 