I remember clearly the screaming coming from my mother's bedroom. I was four years old and I was playing with my toys in my room. Pretending again that everything was beautiful and normal. In a wisdom beyond my years I knew this was bad and getting worse. Instead of hiding in my room, I went.......the child warrior to defend......once again....my fragile mother against her girlfriend, Steve.
They were fighting and Steve hit her hard just as I came around the corner. My mother went down and Steve, realizing I was there, probably with my mouth open in horror, said to me, "Go help your mother now."
Curled up on her side, her face already bruising, she tried pushing me away. My mother was my total existance. It was my job to protect her. I knew this in my heart and soul. I knew she was fragile and I was strong. So I layed my head on her chest and tried to give her what comfort I could.
They made up later. Steve brought my mother flowers and a big box of chocolates. I remember laying on their bed while they smoked a joint. The sweet smell of marijuana swirling blue above my head....the sweet taste of the different chocolates melting in my mouth.
The adults in my life had their masks firmly back in place and it appeared all was right with the world. But inside I knew better. Through the music and the parties, the moving and dislocation, I knew there was another way to be and love and connect that wasn't built on disrespect and a power that wasn't ever balanced.
When I became a mother I remember nursing my daughter and telling her out loud that she could be anything in the World, that she could find her calling, be healthy, happy........and that she would never have to protect me against anyone. I would protect her and never forget that is my job.
Our children see us at all moments....seen and unseen to us. They feel the waves of longing or regret, lust and anger, passion and fury. Through their yet tender souls they filter what they feel and see and process it. Some of it buried for a rainy day. Some of it never to see the light of day but impacts why we are what we are. Some of it becomes a mantra as to , " I will never be like that" only to fall into the same despair and trappings of that previous generation.
Out of the box I was born and thrust into so many challenges that I never landed long enough to feel safe except within my own skin. When my children have problems and challenges I force myself to stop and remember not to give them some random safe answer but rather a tool that can serve them into their life.
I know I won't always be here to call upon, to answer, to guide, to nurture. I know that at any moment my time could be up. Not trying to be morose here but I have no guarantees, none of us do.
When it comes down to it, what does it serve you? Is it through love that you want this? Is it for your betterment? Will you be challenged by this? Or is it about control and anger and other base motivations. Each and every day we have a chance at bliss, even if it's only within our heart.
Walk out there with a purpose for I have given you skills to reason and endure and to love. Everything else perhaps is just an illusion.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Why do I know all the words and what am I to do with it?
Libra Horoscope for week of November 5, 2009
At a yard sale today, I paid a dollar for a stained, pocket-sized horoscope book with many of its pages missing. The reason I made such an odd investment is that it had a forecast for Libra for the first part of November 2009, and this forecast struck me as even more useful than the horoscope I had composed for you. As a public service, I'm providing it here. "The graceful dragonfly lives for just a few months. But a sequoia tree's time on earth can last 2,000 years. In the same way, some bonds, some creations, some worlds, endure for a mere blink in eternity, while others are destined to outfox the ravages of time. What will be the lifespan of the dream you recently hatched, Libra? It is time to decide and take action."
Need more help deciphering your riddles and enigmas? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
"If you bring forth the genius within you," said Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, "it will free you. If you do not bring forth the genius within you, it will destroy you." Is there any aspect of the genius within you that you're not bringing forth? If so, what can you do to change that?
Dreams are something that for some of us, keep returning. I can remember watching television in my mother's apartment. Alone with just the t.v. for company I would read the credits aloud. I would hear the timber and importance of my young voice. I was doing what came naturally. No one knew I did this, there was no one paying attention or wondering what I was doing or why.
When I look back I can see clearly why I was able to develop the unique talent I have for remembering music. Aside from the music my mother would play manically.......wringing out every possible drop from the vinyl, I would immediately take in the song, the lyrics. It was like breathing. The music just kept coming. Even though I had never been in love, or been broken hearted yet I understood what they were singing about. Growing up in the 70s gave me a solid ear for a lyric and a story.
I have been through many things, people, situations and a few things stay connected through it all. Music is the first one. I could and did sing out loud every chance I got. I would pitch my voice to the ones I heard. I would imitate, I would emulate, I would hear and I would receive the message. To say that music took me elsewhere is an understatement.
Music was my church, my muse, my salvation. Whether it was Sly and the Family Stone, or Firefall, Led Zeppeling or Bowie.......I listened. Yes i can name that song in three notes....they're ingrained on my soul.
Music on the radio has changed since FM of the 70s. The stations that once were highlighting all sorts of music got bought up and put out of business. Someone sanitized the airwaves. Someone decided somewhere what five songs we would have to hear over and over for eternity and which songs would be relegated to the garage in dust filled boxes with only spiders for company.
I was lucky enough to listen to radio when masters and mistresses weaved connections between bands and artists, always pushing the envelope, expanding, spinning, winding my mind to yet another place. And now? We have people that have never heard the symphonic blends of YES or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.....ones that don't know the genius of Zappa, children that only know about the Beatles because of a game.
Out of context now it is played out. The masses of people with either no memory or no musical taste grab the musical crumbs that continue to be thrown their way. Free Bird is always being played somewhere in the world, it's been mandated.
Underneath my yearning for the airwaves and doing what comes so naturally of course is the fear. Fear of failure and of course fear of success. In the scope of the world my musical knowledge means what to whom? My ability to string together a sentance much less a bunch of songs is talent in whose mind? Not the corporation, not the executives, not the people so used to the monotony of eternity being played out on the radio.
I grow weary of seeing beneath the surface only to continue to tread water in so many areas of my life, wisdom without comfort, fear without security. Why do I continue to see the world through a place that is so different from others that I feel isolated and outside of it. Is there a plan? All those years ago now, speaking out, getting in trouble, singing out, expressing myself....who knew it would go no where and sit stagnant.
Somewhere in my future is a cubicle with bad lighting and a designated break. And the band played on............
At a yard sale today, I paid a dollar for a stained, pocket-sized horoscope book with many of its pages missing. The reason I made such an odd investment is that it had a forecast for Libra for the first part of November 2009, and this forecast struck me as even more useful than the horoscope I had composed for you. As a public service, I'm providing it here. "The graceful dragonfly lives for just a few months. But a sequoia tree's time on earth can last 2,000 years. In the same way, some bonds, some creations, some worlds, endure for a mere blink in eternity, while others are destined to outfox the ravages of time. What will be the lifespan of the dream you recently hatched, Libra? It is time to decide and take action."
Need more help deciphering your riddles and enigmas? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
"If you bring forth the genius within you," said Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, "it will free you. If you do not bring forth the genius within you, it will destroy you." Is there any aspect of the genius within you that you're not bringing forth? If so, what can you do to change that?
Dreams are something that for some of us, keep returning. I can remember watching television in my mother's apartment. Alone with just the t.v. for company I would read the credits aloud. I would hear the timber and importance of my young voice. I was doing what came naturally. No one knew I did this, there was no one paying attention or wondering what I was doing or why.
When I look back I can see clearly why I was able to develop the unique talent I have for remembering music. Aside from the music my mother would play manically.......wringing out every possible drop from the vinyl, I would immediately take in the song, the lyrics. It was like breathing. The music just kept coming. Even though I had never been in love, or been broken hearted yet I understood what they were singing about. Growing up in the 70s gave me a solid ear for a lyric and a story.
I have been through many things, people, situations and a few things stay connected through it all. Music is the first one. I could and did sing out loud every chance I got. I would pitch my voice to the ones I heard. I would imitate, I would emulate, I would hear and I would receive the message. To say that music took me elsewhere is an understatement.
Music was my church, my muse, my salvation. Whether it was Sly and the Family Stone, or Firefall, Led Zeppeling or Bowie.......I listened. Yes i can name that song in three notes....they're ingrained on my soul.
Music on the radio has changed since FM of the 70s. The stations that once were highlighting all sorts of music got bought up and put out of business. Someone sanitized the airwaves. Someone decided somewhere what five songs we would have to hear over and over for eternity and which songs would be relegated to the garage in dust filled boxes with only spiders for company.
I was lucky enough to listen to radio when masters and mistresses weaved connections between bands and artists, always pushing the envelope, expanding, spinning, winding my mind to yet another place. And now? We have people that have never heard the symphonic blends of YES or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.....ones that don't know the genius of Zappa, children that only know about the Beatles because of a game.
Out of context now it is played out. The masses of people with either no memory or no musical taste grab the musical crumbs that continue to be thrown their way. Free Bird is always being played somewhere in the world, it's been mandated.
Underneath my yearning for the airwaves and doing what comes so naturally of course is the fear. Fear of failure and of course fear of success. In the scope of the world my musical knowledge means what to whom? My ability to string together a sentance much less a bunch of songs is talent in whose mind? Not the corporation, not the executives, not the people so used to the monotony of eternity being played out on the radio.
I grow weary of seeing beneath the surface only to continue to tread water in so many areas of my life, wisdom without comfort, fear without security. Why do I continue to see the world through a place that is so different from others that I feel isolated and outside of it. Is there a plan? All those years ago now, speaking out, getting in trouble, singing out, expressing myself....who knew it would go no where and sit stagnant.
Somewhere in my future is a cubicle with bad lighting and a designated break. And the band played on............
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Presenting a clean cheek
Libra Horoscope for week of October 29, 2009
At a family planning conference in Beijing, a researcher from Ghana presented testimony about tribal issues that he had in part gleaned through interviews with dead ancestors. He said that spirit mediums had acted as his "translators." When he was met with skepticism from colleagues, he was defensive. "If I only heard from the living," he explained, "I wouldn't get a very good balance." His perspective would be smart for you to adopt right now, Libra. To make the wisest decisions and take the most righteous action, draw inspiration from what has passed away as much as from what's alive and in your face. Halloween costume suggestion: a spirit medium.
Do you want to take a further look at your ever-evolving destiny? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
*
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
You’re a star -- and so am I. I’m a genius -- and so are you. Your success encourages my brilliance, and my charisma enhances your power. Your victory doesn’t require my defeat, and vice versa. Those are the rules in the New World -- quite unlike the rules in the Old World, where zero-sum games are the norm, and only one of us can win each time we play.
In the New World, you don’t have to tone down or apologize for your prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your own excellence without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you ripen more and more of your latent aptitude, you inspire the rest of us to claim our own idiosyncratic magnificence.
*
The preceding oracle comes from the revised and expanded edition of my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. You can order it at Amazon.
When I was a child my mother moved us around a lot. Let me expand on that.......when I match up records, school reports, addresses I see that we rarely made it a full year anywhere. I was a resilient child and felt it was my job to watch out for my mother. When we were on the East Coast I wound up at my grandparents house. Sometimes with my mother, sometimes without.
It was a small apartment. I remember the sound of clocks ticking. Small clocks in every place, ticking in sequence, so that when the apartment settled down, my breathing could find a rhythm within the ticking of those clocks.
I was the center of attraction on those visits. I think my mother was at some point allowed to run off as she did and leave me there. My grandfather would take me into his arms and kiss me tenderly, his eyes shining and i would say that his cheeks scratched.
I had no father, no uncle, no male influence whatsoever and his sandpaper cheek was so different from my world. He never took offense but took me into the bathroom. He made a great show of putting a clean towel on the closed lid of the toilet seat. And then he would begin......
There was a ritual involved here that I didn't know at the time extended beyond me and him at that moment. It followed him back into his very youth I am sure, when he first shaved. I was too young to ask who showed him how to shave, I didn't care....he was doing this for me.
He lathered the brush into the cup with the special action.....lathering up his face...looking at my watching him, transfixed and in total wonderment to see this process. He let me in on this very personal ritual where no one else had. My mother never let me see her without her 'face' on in the morning....so this was even more special to me.
My grandfather took blade to his face and stroked the growth off. He worked his way around his face......sometimes smiling down at me. Then he would rinse off his remaining soap and present his cheek for the final test..........
A kiss on his cleanly shaven face was perfection. His nod of acceptance of my approval and then we would move on to something else. He always had a special chair for me, a small rocking chair when I was little, and something more age appropriate when I got older.
He sliced my oranges into small eighths for me. He made me cherry soda from syrup and seltzer. He took me for long walks and showed me off to the neighborhood store owners that knew him. He kept me moving along with a tenderness and love that I really miss.
I never remember him asking me about what went on with my mother. I don't think he needed to ask or could handle what our life was like away from him. He allowed me to be in the moment with him. He never talked about my father being gone, my mother's strange life choices, or the fact that nothing was as he would have liked it to be for me. Instead he lavished me with attention and made me feel special.
Whatever he saw going on he kept from me and I am sure gave my mother an earful. Sometimes I think it caused her to pause for a bit but something else would come up and we'd be packing again to leave once more for some other place that she felt would work out better.
My grandfather was a man who came from Poland on his own. As far as I know his family went to Canada and he came to New York City. He was a furrier and supported the unionization of his shop and eventually became the steward. He worked very hard and when my grandmother died he re-married a woman he had known from his town in Poland. She talked him into moving into a brand new place. These huge high riseses called C0-op City in the Bronx. Everything was new in that place. There were no antiques, no subway near by, no Van Gogh prints hung all over the living room walls. This was the beginning of the end for his life.
I can see now that it was also the last of some things for me as well. After his death to say that my mother's life spiraled out of control is putting it mildly. Within three years of his death I was gone from her home permanently. Never to return.
I wish I could remember more now about my time with him. I remember his strength, his protection, that I didn't have to take care or watch out for him and that I could relax with him. I remember that he did things in a certain way and that too gave me comfort. I do remember that he never acted in a way that didn't put me first or into consideration most.
The other adults in my life were so centered on themselves but not my grandfather. Whatever he had seen in his life was not visited upon me either in story or in manner and for that I am so thankful. Instead he allowed me to be with him. I have always been a talker and he must have let me babble on for I don't remember him ever making me be quiet.
I imagine having my mother as a daughter must have been some experience for him. I think he probably financed our moves from place to place. I think as long as she had me she knew she had a manipulative card to throw into the mix. I respect how he moved from Poland and not only came to America but learned the language and the ways of the land. I respect how he tried to protect me from the past. Maybe the ticking of all those clocks kept him mindful of how our choices are moving us along no matter what.
At a family planning conference in Beijing, a researcher from Ghana presented testimony about tribal issues that he had in part gleaned through interviews with dead ancestors. He said that spirit mediums had acted as his "translators." When he was met with skepticism from colleagues, he was defensive. "If I only heard from the living," he explained, "I wouldn't get a very good balance." His perspective would be smart for you to adopt right now, Libra. To make the wisest decisions and take the most righteous action, draw inspiration from what has passed away as much as from what's alive and in your face. Halloween costume suggestion: a spirit medium.
Do you want to take a further look at your ever-evolving destiny? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
*
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
You’re a star -- and so am I. I’m a genius -- and so are you. Your success encourages my brilliance, and my charisma enhances your power. Your victory doesn’t require my defeat, and vice versa. Those are the rules in the New World -- quite unlike the rules in the Old World, where zero-sum games are the norm, and only one of us can win each time we play.
In the New World, you don’t have to tone down or apologize for your prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your own excellence without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you ripen more and more of your latent aptitude, you inspire the rest of us to claim our own idiosyncratic magnificence.
*
The preceding oracle comes from the revised and expanded edition of my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. You can order it at Amazon.
When I was a child my mother moved us around a lot. Let me expand on that.......when I match up records, school reports, addresses I see that we rarely made it a full year anywhere. I was a resilient child and felt it was my job to watch out for my mother. When we were on the East Coast I wound up at my grandparents house. Sometimes with my mother, sometimes without.
It was a small apartment. I remember the sound of clocks ticking. Small clocks in every place, ticking in sequence, so that when the apartment settled down, my breathing could find a rhythm within the ticking of those clocks.
I was the center of attraction on those visits. I think my mother was at some point allowed to run off as she did and leave me there. My grandfather would take me into his arms and kiss me tenderly, his eyes shining and i would say that his cheeks scratched.
I had no father, no uncle, no male influence whatsoever and his sandpaper cheek was so different from my world. He never took offense but took me into the bathroom. He made a great show of putting a clean towel on the closed lid of the toilet seat. And then he would begin......
There was a ritual involved here that I didn't know at the time extended beyond me and him at that moment. It followed him back into his very youth I am sure, when he first shaved. I was too young to ask who showed him how to shave, I didn't care....he was doing this for me.
He lathered the brush into the cup with the special action.....lathering up his face...looking at my watching him, transfixed and in total wonderment to see this process. He let me in on this very personal ritual where no one else had. My mother never let me see her without her 'face' on in the morning....so this was even more special to me.
My grandfather took blade to his face and stroked the growth off. He worked his way around his face......sometimes smiling down at me. Then he would rinse off his remaining soap and present his cheek for the final test..........
A kiss on his cleanly shaven face was perfection. His nod of acceptance of my approval and then we would move on to something else. He always had a special chair for me, a small rocking chair when I was little, and something more age appropriate when I got older.
He sliced my oranges into small eighths for me. He made me cherry soda from syrup and seltzer. He took me for long walks and showed me off to the neighborhood store owners that knew him. He kept me moving along with a tenderness and love that I really miss.
I never remember him asking me about what went on with my mother. I don't think he needed to ask or could handle what our life was like away from him. He allowed me to be in the moment with him. He never talked about my father being gone, my mother's strange life choices, or the fact that nothing was as he would have liked it to be for me. Instead he lavished me with attention and made me feel special.
Whatever he saw going on he kept from me and I am sure gave my mother an earful. Sometimes I think it caused her to pause for a bit but something else would come up and we'd be packing again to leave once more for some other place that she felt would work out better.
My grandfather was a man who came from Poland on his own. As far as I know his family went to Canada and he came to New York City. He was a furrier and supported the unionization of his shop and eventually became the steward. He worked very hard and when my grandmother died he re-married a woman he had known from his town in Poland. She talked him into moving into a brand new place. These huge high riseses called C0-op City in the Bronx. Everything was new in that place. There were no antiques, no subway near by, no Van Gogh prints hung all over the living room walls. This was the beginning of the end for his life.
I can see now that it was also the last of some things for me as well. After his death to say that my mother's life spiraled out of control is putting it mildly. Within three years of his death I was gone from her home permanently. Never to return.
I wish I could remember more now about my time with him. I remember his strength, his protection, that I didn't have to take care or watch out for him and that I could relax with him. I remember that he did things in a certain way and that too gave me comfort. I do remember that he never acted in a way that didn't put me first or into consideration most.
The other adults in my life were so centered on themselves but not my grandfather. Whatever he had seen in his life was not visited upon me either in story or in manner and for that I am so thankful. Instead he allowed me to be with him. I have always been a talker and he must have let me babble on for I don't remember him ever making me be quiet.
I imagine having my mother as a daughter must have been some experience for him. I think he probably financed our moves from place to place. I think as long as she had me she knew she had a manipulative card to throw into the mix. I respect how he moved from Poland and not only came to America but learned the language and the ways of the land. I respect how he tried to protect me from the past. Maybe the ticking of all those clocks kept him mindful of how our choices are moving us along no matter what.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Dream a little dream of the World
Fifty years ago Rod Serling had a little show called the Twilight Zone. In a time when the censors still had jobs to protect the public he veiled social, economic, and religious commentary under the guise of science fiction. What those shows were really showing us was our selves. All of our darkness, all of our worst inclinations, all of our fears played out in a short scenario that made me think.
"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. "
He made a career out of posing the question, "What if?". I bring you to that superb show to bring up a few points. The World isn't ending, the sky isn't falling, the greatest Depression ever known to mankind isn't about to happen. What is going on are huge wake up calls. Invitations if you will for human beings to engage and fix what is wrong right in front of them.
All the doomsayers that want me to believe that the End is near aren't truly paying attention and funny, they don't have children. Why are those two things importnat? Because we as a species are capable of heinous acts and love so deep that it stuns me. What is actually happening is an invitation to make the World work. That doesn't involve a profit and loss sheet, a thick bank account, or an imported car.
We are being invited to indulge in the age old dance of Bliss. We have feasted on the empty calories of profiteers, the poor substitute for intimacy veiled in pornography, the isolation from the Earth itself by only encountering food already packaged. Consumers have to cut back, the headlines scream, but they don't have to cut back on love, or sharing, or kindness. See the pendulum swings both ways. The post apocalyptic world doesn't ever have to come to pass. We don't need that big of a time out.
I am sick of hearing that people don't know what to do in these times of crisis. Not sure where to find a miracle? Think about indoor plumbing, of a perfect latte', of the sound of children laughing. None of these things have to stand alone without common sense. Sinse when did They get to rule the world? Conspiracy theories make for a wonderful plot and yes I can see shadows beneath the greasy veneer of the heads of states.
What do I then say to my children? Hey don't bother to dream or fix anything cause the Banks don't care. Don't bother to worry about falling in love because you'll never be able to afford a house or the power to turn on the lights? Don't bother to get a job for you'll only spend your life making profits for the Corporations? Hey while you're at it, just give up living right this second. For all THOSE experts out there really have insight into the mysteries of people, places and things.
Give me a fucking break. Human beings are dense but also fragile in their ability to be touched. I vote that we create things that can continue to inspire and stir the human spirit. That we as a species understand that we're all in class all the time....that everything that comes before YOU is an invitation to make it better, deeper, wiser.
I want my children to know that while the experts are debating on our future and laying out theories of negligence that some of us are still questing for the truth within us.....that is not in a bottle, not in a pamphlet, not from a burning bush. What if you wake up tomorrow and you still have to exist and the World is still there? Shine it up people and dream!
"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. "
He made a career out of posing the question, "What if?". I bring you to that superb show to bring up a few points. The World isn't ending, the sky isn't falling, the greatest Depression ever known to mankind isn't about to happen. What is going on are huge wake up calls. Invitations if you will for human beings to engage and fix what is wrong right in front of them.
All the doomsayers that want me to believe that the End is near aren't truly paying attention and funny, they don't have children. Why are those two things importnat? Because we as a species are capable of heinous acts and love so deep that it stuns me. What is actually happening is an invitation to make the World work. That doesn't involve a profit and loss sheet, a thick bank account, or an imported car.
We are being invited to indulge in the age old dance of Bliss. We have feasted on the empty calories of profiteers, the poor substitute for intimacy veiled in pornography, the isolation from the Earth itself by only encountering food already packaged. Consumers have to cut back, the headlines scream, but they don't have to cut back on love, or sharing, or kindness. See the pendulum swings both ways. The post apocalyptic world doesn't ever have to come to pass. We don't need that big of a time out.
I am sick of hearing that people don't know what to do in these times of crisis. Not sure where to find a miracle? Think about indoor plumbing, of a perfect latte', of the sound of children laughing. None of these things have to stand alone without common sense. Sinse when did They get to rule the world? Conspiracy theories make for a wonderful plot and yes I can see shadows beneath the greasy veneer of the heads of states.
What do I then say to my children? Hey don't bother to dream or fix anything cause the Banks don't care. Don't bother to worry about falling in love because you'll never be able to afford a house or the power to turn on the lights? Don't bother to get a job for you'll only spend your life making profits for the Corporations? Hey while you're at it, just give up living right this second. For all THOSE experts out there really have insight into the mysteries of people, places and things.
Give me a fucking break. Human beings are dense but also fragile in their ability to be touched. I vote that we create things that can continue to inspire and stir the human spirit. That we as a species understand that we're all in class all the time....that everything that comes before YOU is an invitation to make it better, deeper, wiser.
I want my children to know that while the experts are debating on our future and laying out theories of negligence that some of us are still questing for the truth within us.....that is not in a bottle, not in a pamphlet, not from a burning bush. What if you wake up tomorrow and you still have to exist and the World is still there? Shine it up people and dream!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Corina and the Cougars
Ahhhhhhh the 80s. A decade that for some was the highlight of their lives......for me was filled with a sense of complete and total confusion. The fashion.......ummm I am not covering my body with a million crosses, a la Madonna. The music.....give me some real bass and a genuine organ please!!
However in the 80's I became a mother and got married. Yes. In that order. I attempted to keep the house in a pristine condition. I tried to care about my husband's shirts being perfect. I was a stranger in a strange land. I remember it well.
When the ten year anniversary of being together with my daughter's father was coming up, I remember a deep dread...an urging... a restlessness that was going off. I had to DO something. I had to leave. There was no more talking about it, no more hiding from it, no more waiting for it to all turn out better. When I realized that I couldn't stand to hear my husband breathing next to me in bed at night, it was time to GO.
I moved back to my roots, San Jose, California. I moved in with my then best friend Patty. I was sick to my stomach most of the time. I was free, I was separated, I was scared. I focused on my then very young daughter. Together we would figure it out. Looking back it was more like the blind leading the blind....but that didn't stop me.
I had my cosmetologist's license and decided I hated doing women's hair. I don't want a picture of someone who has 1. perfect hair and 2. professional stylists to make their hair look like that in the picture. So I did nails and I loved it. I could talk and make women's nails look amazing. To say I had a knack for those two things was putting it mildly.
My ex hadn't given me the only thing I asked for when leaving.......our '68 Chevy Suburban, affectionately called THE BEAST. So I looked for a salon that was reasonably close to where I lived. I soon found a job in an upscale nail salon at Bernal and Santa Teresa Blvd. My life was moving forward.
The owner was a woman named Corina. She was in her very early 40s. She was hispanic, curvy, beautiful and insecure as the day is full of light. She didn't have any training in cosmetology or in people but she talked her very rich husband into investing in this shop so she could indulge her little fantasy of a mini boutique in the front and nail stations within the salon itself. She had amazing taste in the decor. No really! Green emerald marble graced the entrance. The walls a soft pink. The chairs deep and luxurious. It was a lovely salon. A few problems though.
Whenever Corina arrived she pulled a lot of focus. She expected to be fawned over by other women. She expected to put on her little show of designer name dropping and shallow banter. She expected other women to be as driven by material possessions as herself.
This job allowed me for the first time to understand that all women are connected in ways that we're not with men. Up until this time a lot of my friends were men and before that boys. I liked how the male species acted, how they were good company, how I could make friends and not worry about how to precede with anything as messy and emotional entanglement. As long as my male friends were treated like my brothers, I got to enjoy friendships that were wonderous and plentiful. This all changed when my livelihood was estrogen driven.
What would I talk to women about? I was touching strangers.....I wouldn't sit in silence for 45 minutes. So I did what I always resort to. I was myself. I broke the ice right away. What I learned was that I attracted a very special, ecclectic, group of women to me. The not only became my loyal customers....but my sisters. Childbirth, heartbreak, tough luck, Yeah I understood these beings. It forever has changed how I deal with women.
I remember it was my birthday. I was turning 29 and my boss, Corina insisted on taking me out to celebrate. She had a girlfriend who we would now call a Cougar. She was an established artist and connesiuer of younger men. She came along for the 'fun'. These women were way further along the female story than I was. Both had been marred and re-married. They had both made sure they married UP the second time. Only to find themselves hornier and more medicated than in their youth.
They took me to a singles club after dinner. The music was mostly from the pop 60's and early 70's. And the men? Well they all looked like someone's ex-husband who stopped caring and stopped living. To me these people all smelled of desperation and really bad cocaine. I wanted out of their in the worse way. I wasn't even 30 yet and I was really popular. Hungry doesn't even begin to describe the actions of the men that came over to hit on me. I finally begged Corina and her friend to drop me off at my familiar haunt to play pool and flirt with someone within my own species.
I remember Corina telling me a story about her youth growing up in the Barrio. When she met her current husband, Len, she told him she didn't know how to cook and refused to clean. So he got a housekeeper and a cook. She was bored while he was out taking care of business. She had a membership to the gym but instead of going, she would complain about her rapidly thickening thighs. She dressed well and expected everyone to take notice of her and her red mercedes. Remember my truck, The Beast? She asked me not to park in front of the shop, it didn't look good for business.
While I had close, meaningful interactions with my clients......I would hear Corina and her very affluent friends complain about their lives. While I was scraping my way into my new life, I would hear them talk about the trips, the jewels, the medications that did NOTHING to appease their appetites or their souls. One by one, these women lost their husbands to women that would make a home, that would cook a meal, that would bare their not perfect breasts and that actually needed that man in their life. Corina's husband fell in love with a woman named Guadelupe who cooked and cleaned. Cornina lost everything, the house, the business, and yes, the red mercedes.
I don't think it had to do with anything other than these women, even when handed everything on a platinum platter knew when to be satisfied, when to be happy, when to be content with what was right before them. It was a lesson that I internalized. What I was seeing wasn't about men that wanted a woman to know her place. They wanted and craved women who knew who they were and could contribute something more than just a credit card bill at the end of the month. Some of those women had every whim and desire handed to them : Nose too big? Breasts too small? Never traveled? Never had expensive clothing touch your skin? All of it and more was taken care of and yet, still a deep, aching hole existed within these women.
I am now the age that Corina and her Cougar friend were then. I haven't met a man that would indulge me like that. In fact I haven't met anyone at all. I haven't forgotten the lessons of Corina and her gaggle of sycophantic friends. I haven't forgotten that when a person in a relationship is actually prosperous that he or she needs to be nurtured too. That when a gift comes into your life don't be so empty that you can't enjoy it, thrive in it, and build more happiness. Thank you to those pre-Cougars.
However in the 80's I became a mother and got married. Yes. In that order. I attempted to keep the house in a pristine condition. I tried to care about my husband's shirts being perfect. I was a stranger in a strange land. I remember it well.
When the ten year anniversary of being together with my daughter's father was coming up, I remember a deep dread...an urging... a restlessness that was going off. I had to DO something. I had to leave. There was no more talking about it, no more hiding from it, no more waiting for it to all turn out better. When I realized that I couldn't stand to hear my husband breathing next to me in bed at night, it was time to GO.
I moved back to my roots, San Jose, California. I moved in with my then best friend Patty. I was sick to my stomach most of the time. I was free, I was separated, I was scared. I focused on my then very young daughter. Together we would figure it out. Looking back it was more like the blind leading the blind....but that didn't stop me.
I had my cosmetologist's license and decided I hated doing women's hair. I don't want a picture of someone who has 1. perfect hair and 2. professional stylists to make their hair look like that in the picture. So I did nails and I loved it. I could talk and make women's nails look amazing. To say I had a knack for those two things was putting it mildly.
My ex hadn't given me the only thing I asked for when leaving.......our '68 Chevy Suburban, affectionately called THE BEAST. So I looked for a salon that was reasonably close to where I lived. I soon found a job in an upscale nail salon at Bernal and Santa Teresa Blvd. My life was moving forward.
The owner was a woman named Corina. She was in her very early 40s. She was hispanic, curvy, beautiful and insecure as the day is full of light. She didn't have any training in cosmetology or in people but she talked her very rich husband into investing in this shop so she could indulge her little fantasy of a mini boutique in the front and nail stations within the salon itself. She had amazing taste in the decor. No really! Green emerald marble graced the entrance. The walls a soft pink. The chairs deep and luxurious. It was a lovely salon. A few problems though.
Whenever Corina arrived she pulled a lot of focus. She expected to be fawned over by other women. She expected to put on her little show of designer name dropping and shallow banter. She expected other women to be as driven by material possessions as herself.
This job allowed me for the first time to understand that all women are connected in ways that we're not with men. Up until this time a lot of my friends were men and before that boys. I liked how the male species acted, how they were good company, how I could make friends and not worry about how to precede with anything as messy and emotional entanglement. As long as my male friends were treated like my brothers, I got to enjoy friendships that were wonderous and plentiful. This all changed when my livelihood was estrogen driven.
What would I talk to women about? I was touching strangers.....I wouldn't sit in silence for 45 minutes. So I did what I always resort to. I was myself. I broke the ice right away. What I learned was that I attracted a very special, ecclectic, group of women to me. The not only became my loyal customers....but my sisters. Childbirth, heartbreak, tough luck, Yeah I understood these beings. It forever has changed how I deal with women.
I remember it was my birthday. I was turning 29 and my boss, Corina insisted on taking me out to celebrate. She had a girlfriend who we would now call a Cougar. She was an established artist and connesiuer of younger men. She came along for the 'fun'. These women were way further along the female story than I was. Both had been marred and re-married. They had both made sure they married UP the second time. Only to find themselves hornier and more medicated than in their youth.
They took me to a singles club after dinner. The music was mostly from the pop 60's and early 70's. And the men? Well they all looked like someone's ex-husband who stopped caring and stopped living. To me these people all smelled of desperation and really bad cocaine. I wanted out of their in the worse way. I wasn't even 30 yet and I was really popular. Hungry doesn't even begin to describe the actions of the men that came over to hit on me. I finally begged Corina and her friend to drop me off at my familiar haunt to play pool and flirt with someone within my own species.
I remember Corina telling me a story about her youth growing up in the Barrio. When she met her current husband, Len, she told him she didn't know how to cook and refused to clean. So he got a housekeeper and a cook. She was bored while he was out taking care of business. She had a membership to the gym but instead of going, she would complain about her rapidly thickening thighs. She dressed well and expected everyone to take notice of her and her red mercedes. Remember my truck, The Beast? She asked me not to park in front of the shop, it didn't look good for business.
While I had close, meaningful interactions with my clients......I would hear Corina and her very affluent friends complain about their lives. While I was scraping my way into my new life, I would hear them talk about the trips, the jewels, the medications that did NOTHING to appease their appetites or their souls. One by one, these women lost their husbands to women that would make a home, that would cook a meal, that would bare their not perfect breasts and that actually needed that man in their life. Corina's husband fell in love with a woman named Guadelupe who cooked and cleaned. Cornina lost everything, the house, the business, and yes, the red mercedes.
I don't think it had to do with anything other than these women, even when handed everything on a platinum platter knew when to be satisfied, when to be happy, when to be content with what was right before them. It was a lesson that I internalized. What I was seeing wasn't about men that wanted a woman to know her place. They wanted and craved women who knew who they were and could contribute something more than just a credit card bill at the end of the month. Some of those women had every whim and desire handed to them : Nose too big? Breasts too small? Never traveled? Never had expensive clothing touch your skin? All of it and more was taken care of and yet, still a deep, aching hole existed within these women.
I am now the age that Corina and her Cougar friend were then. I haven't met a man that would indulge me like that. In fact I haven't met anyone at all. I haven't forgotten the lessons of Corina and her gaggle of sycophantic friends. I haven't forgotten that when a person in a relationship is actually prosperous that he or she needs to be nurtured too. That when a gift comes into your life don't be so empty that you can't enjoy it, thrive in it, and build more happiness. Thank you to those pre-Cougars.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The continued search for bliss and other perilous journeys
Libra Horoscope for week of September 17, 2009
"The soft-minded person always fears change," said one of my favorite transformers, Martin Luther King Jr. "For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea." The corollary to King's pronouncement is that changes are less likely to be painful if you're not afraid of them. According to my astrological analysis, Libra, none of that stuff will be an issue for you in the coming weeks. As you slip into a phase of riotous growth, I expect you will have abundant access to previously dormant reserves of courage and tough-mindedness.
So something occured to me the other day. I stood outside of myself and thought about the subjects that I have been writing about and or sharing for a while now. I had a few things I wanted to throw out there. I am not always consumed with the pain of the past, I am not always worried about the future, and I often laugh at the most ridiculous things, including myself.
I am thankful for all the Laura's that have existed before me for without all of her, I could not be here in this moment. It is a blessing to be given strange and unusual experiences to not only survive but to then have the insight to process and perhaps help another soul on its journey.
In my youth I was perpetually a Pollyanna for I really believed there was a happy ending, that good overcomes evil, and that love witll find a way. I still hold this to be true I am just now more clear headed(sober) than ever before in my life and am growing up again, still, and perpetually.
I took the stance of observer very often in situations. I didn't have to DO it to learn it, but later on, doing it provided experiences that nothing else could touch. Lately over and over I say to myself, now what? what's next? am I lost or just in a holding pattern? how do I trust that everything is as it should be?
For those of you that know me well, everything has always revolved around a song. Music was my teacher, my sanctuary, my friend, and my church. My spirit has benefited from the stories, and melodies that I have had the benefit to experience. I think my son wouldn't exist today if , all those years ago I hadn't come upon his father listening to Bob Dylan in the garage full blast. I always gleamed from the smallest connections the deepest attempts of relationships. Whether it was a friend, a relative, or a lover, I would get in there, try my best and then take my wounds and move on.
I hope, I desire, I want to experience Life from a more healed place. Both externally and internally. I want this coming year to be about the bliss again, the beauty of it all, and yes my core belief in the rightness of most of LIfe.
Wish me luck please......."Keep me searching for a heart of gold, and I'm getting old".
"The soft-minded person always fears change," said one of my favorite transformers, Martin Luther King Jr. "For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea." The corollary to King's pronouncement is that changes are less likely to be painful if you're not afraid of them. According to my astrological analysis, Libra, none of that stuff will be an issue for you in the coming weeks. As you slip into a phase of riotous growth, I expect you will have abundant access to previously dormant reserves of courage and tough-mindedness.
So something occured to me the other day. I stood outside of myself and thought about the subjects that I have been writing about and or sharing for a while now. I had a few things I wanted to throw out there. I am not always consumed with the pain of the past, I am not always worried about the future, and I often laugh at the most ridiculous things, including myself.
I am thankful for all the Laura's that have existed before me for without all of her, I could not be here in this moment. It is a blessing to be given strange and unusual experiences to not only survive but to then have the insight to process and perhaps help another soul on its journey.
In my youth I was perpetually a Pollyanna for I really believed there was a happy ending, that good overcomes evil, and that love witll find a way. I still hold this to be true I am just now more clear headed(sober) than ever before in my life and am growing up again, still, and perpetually.
I took the stance of observer very often in situations. I didn't have to DO it to learn it, but later on, doing it provided experiences that nothing else could touch. Lately over and over I say to myself, now what? what's next? am I lost or just in a holding pattern? how do I trust that everything is as it should be?
For those of you that know me well, everything has always revolved around a song. Music was my teacher, my sanctuary, my friend, and my church. My spirit has benefited from the stories, and melodies that I have had the benefit to experience. I think my son wouldn't exist today if , all those years ago I hadn't come upon his father listening to Bob Dylan in the garage full blast. I always gleamed from the smallest connections the deepest attempts of relationships. Whether it was a friend, a relative, or a lover, I would get in there, try my best and then take my wounds and move on.
I hope, I desire, I want to experience Life from a more healed place. Both externally and internally. I want this coming year to be about the bliss again, the beauty of it all, and yes my core belief in the rightness of most of LIfe.
Wish me luck please......."Keep me searching for a heart of gold, and I'm getting old".
Monday, September 14, 2009
I am officially resigned as a daughter
Libra Horoscope for week of September 10, 2009
"My first demand is that you weed out the wishy-washy wishes and lukewarm longings that keep you distracted from your burning desires. My second demand is that you refuse to think that anyone else knows better than you what dreams will keep your life energy humming with maximum efficiency and beauty. Now please repeat the following assertions about 20 times: "I know exactly what I want. I know exactly what I don't want. I know exactly what I kind of want but I won't waste my time on it any more because it sidetracks me from working on what I really really want." From Free Will Astrology
When I was 13 I faced some pretty hard decisions. In looking back to that time in my life, I realize in a lot of ways how much easier it was to be clear in what I wanted. I wanted to be free from the extremes of my mother's existance. Well I got what I wished for. I left her home, her moods, her twists and turns of the truth. I left abuse and neglect. I left what little security I knew. I left someone that didn't trust me, didn't know me, and didn't know how to put me first before her.
I was very clear on what I needed from her from then on. Then I became a mother. Very often I parented in direct opposition of what I had not been given. I was very clear about appropriate boundaries, about putting my children first, and about trying to make the best decisions with less than desirable amounts of information. I often operated from a place of pitch black. I had no real relationships, whether partnerships or parenting to model from. In many ways this out of the box thinking served me and I hope my children.
After living in foster care, in a group home, with relatives I learned a few lessons very clearly. It was always, and still is, important to really mean what I said. Children know otherwise even when they don't know what something is called. It permeates our psyche. And if the adults in your world are full of shit, then that vast darkness of lies and deceptions looms like a behemoth in your home.
So we fast forward to a few weeks ago. I received a package in the mail from a lawyer. My mother had been put in an assisted living facility. They were appointing her a temporary guardian. She didn't pass the mental status exam. She couldn't manipulate anyone into believing she could or should continue to live on her own.
In my hands I had a certified documentation of her physical and mental status'. For a moment it felt like a burden had been lifted off of me. Someone else would finally know it wasn't my fault when I was 13 and left her home. And the irony hit me full on. I still cared more about her and being right than about what happened to me. NO one blamed me for her neglect. But that old tape of caretaking for her fragile self still reared its ugly head.
I felt lots of swirling conflicting emotions: How could she be all alone at the end of her life, how could I not find a way to go and 'rescue' her, how could she have allowed her life to come to such a staggering desolate place? It goes on and on within me.
And then the clarity comes singing through. She is an adult. This is the very clear result of her life lived on her terms and by her decisions. When I was a child, helpless with no one to help me but me........she didn't base anything on what was best for me. She chose to think of it as me betraying her. She lost her slave, her housekeeper, her shopper. Did she ever really feel the loss of losing her daughter?
My son said to me, very clearly, "She isn't your mommy! Stop waiting for one" And then when he saw the raw pain and shock on my face he softly added, "You are my mommy, and Samantha's mommy, and Ethan's Nana". You chose to do the best you could and never turn your back on us.
Today is the hearing to determine the rights of my mother's guardianship. I will not be present. I will not be appointed guardian. I will not be subjected to more manipulation by her. She is in better hands by those more qualified to deal with her and her issues than I am. I relinquish my rights as her daughter in my clarity unlike all those years ago when she gave up her parental rights for me.
"My first demand is that you weed out the wishy-washy wishes and lukewarm longings that keep you distracted from your burning desires. My second demand is that you refuse to think that anyone else knows better than you what dreams will keep your life energy humming with maximum efficiency and beauty. Now please repeat the following assertions about 20 times: "I know exactly what I want. I know exactly what I don't want. I know exactly what I kind of want but I won't waste my time on it any more because it sidetracks me from working on what I really really want." From Free Will Astrology
When I was 13 I faced some pretty hard decisions. In looking back to that time in my life, I realize in a lot of ways how much easier it was to be clear in what I wanted. I wanted to be free from the extremes of my mother's existance. Well I got what I wished for. I left her home, her moods, her twists and turns of the truth. I left abuse and neglect. I left what little security I knew. I left someone that didn't trust me, didn't know me, and didn't know how to put me first before her.
I was very clear on what I needed from her from then on. Then I became a mother. Very often I parented in direct opposition of what I had not been given. I was very clear about appropriate boundaries, about putting my children first, and about trying to make the best decisions with less than desirable amounts of information. I often operated from a place of pitch black. I had no real relationships, whether partnerships or parenting to model from. In many ways this out of the box thinking served me and I hope my children.
After living in foster care, in a group home, with relatives I learned a few lessons very clearly. It was always, and still is, important to really mean what I said. Children know otherwise even when they don't know what something is called. It permeates our psyche. And if the adults in your world are full of shit, then that vast darkness of lies and deceptions looms like a behemoth in your home.
So we fast forward to a few weeks ago. I received a package in the mail from a lawyer. My mother had been put in an assisted living facility. They were appointing her a temporary guardian. She didn't pass the mental status exam. She couldn't manipulate anyone into believing she could or should continue to live on her own.
In my hands I had a certified documentation of her physical and mental status'. For a moment it felt like a burden had been lifted off of me. Someone else would finally know it wasn't my fault when I was 13 and left her home. And the irony hit me full on. I still cared more about her and being right than about what happened to me. NO one blamed me for her neglect. But that old tape of caretaking for her fragile self still reared its ugly head.
I felt lots of swirling conflicting emotions: How could she be all alone at the end of her life, how could I not find a way to go and 'rescue' her, how could she have allowed her life to come to such a staggering desolate place? It goes on and on within me.
And then the clarity comes singing through. She is an adult. This is the very clear result of her life lived on her terms and by her decisions. When I was a child, helpless with no one to help me but me........she didn't base anything on what was best for me. She chose to think of it as me betraying her. She lost her slave, her housekeeper, her shopper. Did she ever really feel the loss of losing her daughter?
My son said to me, very clearly, "She isn't your mommy! Stop waiting for one" And then when he saw the raw pain and shock on my face he softly added, "You are my mommy, and Samantha's mommy, and Ethan's Nana". You chose to do the best you could and never turn your back on us.
Today is the hearing to determine the rights of my mother's guardianship. I will not be present. I will not be appointed guardian. I will not be subjected to more manipulation by her. She is in better hands by those more qualified to deal with her and her issues than I am. I relinquish my rights as her daughter in my clarity unlike all those years ago when she gave up her parental rights for me.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Vanquishing the past and making peace with the future
"Libra Horoscope for week of August 27, 2009
Years ago, a TV sitcom called The Andy Griffith Show ran for seven seasons on CBS. Its star, Any Griffith, played a mild-mannered sheriff in a small town in North Carolina. His sidekick was Barney Fife, a bumbling deputy with a sweet disposition. Shortly after he left the show, Griffith had a dream in which he thrashed and pummeled his co-star. When he asked his psychiatrist about the meaning of this dream violence, the shrink speculated that he was trying to kill off his old image. I recommend that exact strategy to you now, Libra. Don't actually wreak any real-life mayhem. Rather, see if you can have a dream or two in which you destroy a symbol of the life you're ready to leave behind. "
There is a place within us all that screams for love and acceptance. I believe it is this very loud place which drives us to seek companionship with others, intimacy, and friendship. It is our ego that gets stroked by the charming lilt of someone's compliment, a raising of an eyebrow, an open stare which makes us preen and cast aside our better senses for something a lot less grounded.
I have accepted and learned about myself that I have spent way too much time alone. From the time I was a young child I was solitary. My often addicted, narcissistic mother saw my intelligence as something she created. My acceptance was through a series of astounding statements that wow'd my mother and her equally high friends. To say that I was a trippy little kid was putting it mildly. I was ancient at age ten. Already living through a decade of my mother's moods and addiction.
Books were my brothers and sisters. Music was my church. And balance was something I strived very hard for. And after all the churning of trauma had finally stilled within me, and I stood in a place of total compliance in front of G-d and I cried, I understand, I AM NOT ALONE. I am yet still.
Others around me go about finding destiny and sympathy, laughter and compliance, faith and coercion. I have often laughingly said that if you take a thousand men and stick them in a room, I will not only connect with but relate to the most fractured one. Not just casually but on such an intimate level that it draws him to me in a rapture he had never before experienced. To be understood and accepted is what we yearn at the deepest parts of our souls for.
So after all these years it is still that I yearn for someone to 'get' me, to understand me, to yearn for me, to crave me, to lust for me, to make room for me, to care for me. I can build all the peace around me that I want but the one that will come crashing through it all I fear, may not be whole and learned but brash and commanding. He won't have learned his lessons but endured and shoved down his pain till it fused into something so cynical all I can do is laugh at its ability to repel and attract me.
A man that hasn't been disappointed or discarded will never, I fear, understand where I have come from and what I have chosen to over come. A whole person, not fractured into a billion pieces, will only blink at me in horror when I tell my story over and over again, spinning it out, the pulp fiction feel of the characters that were my childhood.
Normal ? Secure? Sane? He would sit and think like so many others that surely I must have inherited some even tiny bit of that crazy. For who on Earth would do all the work it takes not to be a cruel, selfish, unaware hedonist so that she could get hers. After all one often thinks they're due it right?
What kind of adult goes through life thinking that good will overcome evil, that sanity will balance psychosis, that love will find a way?
I don't want a man that has remained broken as a partner. I don't want to be strong for him only. I don't want to convince a man that there is something greater out there than all of us. I don't want to battle with someone about the right thing to do, no matter how small. I want someone to come to me that knows better than me, that can teach me how to be strong and still carry pain, that survival and healing are possible, that stepping away from the role of victim doesn't have to leave you in a place so narrow that one can only peer through the narrowest of slats.
I have no shame in who i am now or who I have ever been. I don't want to be controled or told that I don't know something because of his previous experience with women who are less than. I want a parnter that understands about choosing the path of Light, of being born good and choosing to stay there no matter what.
I want a partner that not only is proud of my enduring strength but will never feel threatened by it because he has an abundance of his own. I want an adult.
Years ago, a TV sitcom called The Andy Griffith Show ran for seven seasons on CBS. Its star, Any Griffith, played a mild-mannered sheriff in a small town in North Carolina. His sidekick was Barney Fife, a bumbling deputy with a sweet disposition. Shortly after he left the show, Griffith had a dream in which he thrashed and pummeled his co-star. When he asked his psychiatrist about the meaning of this dream violence, the shrink speculated that he was trying to kill off his old image. I recommend that exact strategy to you now, Libra. Don't actually wreak any real-life mayhem. Rather, see if you can have a dream or two in which you destroy a symbol of the life you're ready to leave behind. "
There is a place within us all that screams for love and acceptance. I believe it is this very loud place which drives us to seek companionship with others, intimacy, and friendship. It is our ego that gets stroked by the charming lilt of someone's compliment, a raising of an eyebrow, an open stare which makes us preen and cast aside our better senses for something a lot less grounded.
I have accepted and learned about myself that I have spent way too much time alone. From the time I was a young child I was solitary. My often addicted, narcissistic mother saw my intelligence as something she created. My acceptance was through a series of astounding statements that wow'd my mother and her equally high friends. To say that I was a trippy little kid was putting it mildly. I was ancient at age ten. Already living through a decade of my mother's moods and addiction.
Books were my brothers and sisters. Music was my church. And balance was something I strived very hard for. And after all the churning of trauma had finally stilled within me, and I stood in a place of total compliance in front of G-d and I cried, I understand, I AM NOT ALONE. I am yet still.
Others around me go about finding destiny and sympathy, laughter and compliance, faith and coercion. I have often laughingly said that if you take a thousand men and stick them in a room, I will not only connect with but relate to the most fractured one. Not just casually but on such an intimate level that it draws him to me in a rapture he had never before experienced. To be understood and accepted is what we yearn at the deepest parts of our souls for.
So after all these years it is still that I yearn for someone to 'get' me, to understand me, to yearn for me, to crave me, to lust for me, to make room for me, to care for me. I can build all the peace around me that I want but the one that will come crashing through it all I fear, may not be whole and learned but brash and commanding. He won't have learned his lessons but endured and shoved down his pain till it fused into something so cynical all I can do is laugh at its ability to repel and attract me.
A man that hasn't been disappointed or discarded will never, I fear, understand where I have come from and what I have chosen to over come. A whole person, not fractured into a billion pieces, will only blink at me in horror when I tell my story over and over again, spinning it out, the pulp fiction feel of the characters that were my childhood.
Normal ? Secure? Sane? He would sit and think like so many others that surely I must have inherited some even tiny bit of that crazy. For who on Earth would do all the work it takes not to be a cruel, selfish, unaware hedonist so that she could get hers. After all one often thinks they're due it right?
What kind of adult goes through life thinking that good will overcome evil, that sanity will balance psychosis, that love will find a way?
I don't want a man that has remained broken as a partner. I don't want to be strong for him only. I don't want to convince a man that there is something greater out there than all of us. I don't want to battle with someone about the right thing to do, no matter how small. I want someone to come to me that knows better than me, that can teach me how to be strong and still carry pain, that survival and healing are possible, that stepping away from the role of victim doesn't have to leave you in a place so narrow that one can only peer through the narrowest of slats.
I have no shame in who i am now or who I have ever been. I don't want to be controled or told that I don't know something because of his previous experience with women who are less than. I want a parnter that understands about choosing the path of Light, of being born good and choosing to stay there no matter what.
I want a partner that not only is proud of my enduring strength but will never feel threatened by it because he has an abundance of his own. I want an adult.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Waiting in the foyer
I can remember the hallway. It was a tiny foyer in that Bronx apartment. It was large enough for two steps and an umbrella stand, which there wasn't. There was a glass paned door which led into the apartment. I had come home from being at the park and was locked out of the apartment.
I sat in that foyer and waited. I thought about myself. I thought about running away and tried to envision living in the streets. I thought about my father, living in California. I remember going from one parent to the next and the rage may have been different but the level of sickness always one upping the other. I thought about my grandfather, dead now for a few years and how things were spiraling out of control.
I thought about what would happen if, when she finally unlocked the door, she would do if I wasn't there. If I just disappeared......never to be heard from again. The fear of leaving what I knew was overwhelming and completely like being on a planet where I was the only one. There was in that foyer only me and the fear that surrounded and permeated me. How could the neighbors not smell the fear? How could the people walking by on the street not know what was happening behind this door?
A stranger would only see a 13 year old girl sitting in a small vestibule, looking so unhappy and forlorn. I wasn't being beat, or berated. Being shut out wasn't a crime was it? The silence of the hours ticking off wasn't heineous. I told myself this as a quarter hour turned into two hours and two hours turned into four and four hours turned into six.
What would I do and where would I go? I rationalized. I bargained with G-d. Please just take me out of this and put me somewhere that I could be free. I wasn't bad, I didn't mean any harm....I only wanted to love, be loved and listen to music.
Finally she came to the glass door and unlocked it and went back into her room and locked her bedroom door. I used the rest room and went into the kitchen to eat. The silence in the apartment was like a fortress in itself. There was only her and myself but the silence filled it as if there was another person.
I knew deep within my soul something was wrong this time. Something had broke, was fractured, was so beyond repair that I had to THINK. What to do?
This was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and all those days she never came out of her bedroom. She didn't answer her bedroom door. But I wasn't being hurt, no one was beating me, there was NO visable threat to me. And yet I was slowly convincing myself that the silence was somehow ok and that soon, very soon, it would pass and all would be better.
I remember calling the social worker in charge of our case. I remember the feel of the phone in my hand as I lifted it to my ear. I remember depositing the coins. I remember dialing and leaving a detailed message telling on her. Speaking of being alone with someone not responding to the knocks on the door. The hours passing.
I told how she must wish for me to just disappear and never return and how I didn't know where to go or what to do. I didn't collude with my captor, I told how terrified I was that no one would ever come for me. I remember blurting it all out.
I was taken the next day to a foster home. I remember feeling so strong..so righteous, so clear about her being wrong and me being right. I remember taking my precious am/fm cassette player that I had got for my birthday. I remember taking my clothes, most the colour blue. I remember never wanting to see her again, to worry about what she was doing on the other side of the door, and being free.
The foster family had given me the upstairs converted attic bedroom that had once belonged to their now married daughter. The walls were lined with the most amazing cedar wood, and the panels of wood went sideways...long blonde planks shot through with red.
After I was there for a week I feel sick. I had a fever that went on for three days. My fever was high and I remember being delirious. The foster mom was close by. I was seeing things that weren't there. What I remember most about that fever was that when it broke it was as if that chapter of my life and who I had been in the Bronx was now closed. I would never again be her vulnerable daughter. I would never again have to come last or not at all. I would never again be told or do anything that didn't make sense to me even if it was for my own good.
I remember the foyer and the waiting and the pleading for something else to happen cause that wasn't fair. And it wasn't. I know that I didn't do anything to deserve it. I don't want to feel like I am locked out of anything and I don't want to ever forget how strong I was to tell and leave and trust that nothing worse could possibly happen.
I sat in that foyer and waited. I thought about myself. I thought about running away and tried to envision living in the streets. I thought about my father, living in California. I remember going from one parent to the next and the rage may have been different but the level of sickness always one upping the other. I thought about my grandfather, dead now for a few years and how things were spiraling out of control.
I thought about what would happen if, when she finally unlocked the door, she would do if I wasn't there. If I just disappeared......never to be heard from again. The fear of leaving what I knew was overwhelming and completely like being on a planet where I was the only one. There was in that foyer only me and the fear that surrounded and permeated me. How could the neighbors not smell the fear? How could the people walking by on the street not know what was happening behind this door?
A stranger would only see a 13 year old girl sitting in a small vestibule, looking so unhappy and forlorn. I wasn't being beat, or berated. Being shut out wasn't a crime was it? The silence of the hours ticking off wasn't heineous. I told myself this as a quarter hour turned into two hours and two hours turned into four and four hours turned into six.
What would I do and where would I go? I rationalized. I bargained with G-d. Please just take me out of this and put me somewhere that I could be free. I wasn't bad, I didn't mean any harm....I only wanted to love, be loved and listen to music.
Finally she came to the glass door and unlocked it and went back into her room and locked her bedroom door. I used the rest room and went into the kitchen to eat. The silence in the apartment was like a fortress in itself. There was only her and myself but the silence filled it as if there was another person.
I knew deep within my soul something was wrong this time. Something had broke, was fractured, was so beyond repair that I had to THINK. What to do?
This was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and all those days she never came out of her bedroom. She didn't answer her bedroom door. But I wasn't being hurt, no one was beating me, there was NO visable threat to me. And yet I was slowly convincing myself that the silence was somehow ok and that soon, very soon, it would pass and all would be better.
I remember calling the social worker in charge of our case. I remember the feel of the phone in my hand as I lifted it to my ear. I remember depositing the coins. I remember dialing and leaving a detailed message telling on her. Speaking of being alone with someone not responding to the knocks on the door. The hours passing.
I told how she must wish for me to just disappear and never return and how I didn't know where to go or what to do. I didn't collude with my captor, I told how terrified I was that no one would ever come for me. I remember blurting it all out.
I was taken the next day to a foster home. I remember feeling so strong..so righteous, so clear about her being wrong and me being right. I remember taking my precious am/fm cassette player that I had got for my birthday. I remember taking my clothes, most the colour blue. I remember never wanting to see her again, to worry about what she was doing on the other side of the door, and being free.
The foster family had given me the upstairs converted attic bedroom that had once belonged to their now married daughter. The walls were lined with the most amazing cedar wood, and the panels of wood went sideways...long blonde planks shot through with red.
After I was there for a week I feel sick. I had a fever that went on for three days. My fever was high and I remember being delirious. The foster mom was close by. I was seeing things that weren't there. What I remember most about that fever was that when it broke it was as if that chapter of my life and who I had been in the Bronx was now closed. I would never again be her vulnerable daughter. I would never again have to come last or not at all. I would never again be told or do anything that didn't make sense to me even if it was for my own good.
I remember the foyer and the waiting and the pleading for something else to happen cause that wasn't fair. And it wasn't. I know that I didn't do anything to deserve it. I don't want to feel like I am locked out of anything and I don't want to ever forget how strong I was to tell and leave and trust that nothing worse could possibly happen.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Truth Is
When I was younger I was highly motivated by a very just cause: the Truth. It seems that I was always surrounded with the spinning altered reality of my young life, influenced by insane acts and desperate moves. I became aware at a very early age of the importance of what I was often told and the Truth. They rarely met up correctly and so I built a defense system structured to help me deal with the gap.
Lately no matter where I go back to, the story reads worse and worse. My story, my childhood, and eventually my choices. I write this today to flesh out the weirdness of it all still, again, and to spin it around and around, wondering will it ever sit comfortably.
What happens when your tormenter is old and frail and can no longer care for herself? What happens when I just want the Truth? What happens when every time I meet a new person and retell the tales of experience, it gets 'curiouser and curiouser' ?
The Truth is that I was abandonded long ago, left to my own choices, devices, and experiences. I didn't know about damage, dysfunction, co-dependence. Those words become the files for the experiences after the fact. All those a ha moments. The Truth is that I was born into a place of neither priveldge or beauty but rather of experience. If there is a legacy to me, it is of perspective and endurance.
The Truth is I never knew how alone I was, how frightened I should be, or how angry I could have been at what didn't take place in spite of what did. The Truth is that when you're a child of the World and not of your parents you gleen love out of the tiniest places, you believe the most charismatic people, you experience high highs and low lows of friendships and predators sometimes one and the same. The Truth is that I was old before I could learn how to be free, that I could 'see' more than most, that a time of innnocence for me meant finding shelter, hanging my crystals in the window, and cooking a great meal, and being held at night by someone that I loved.
The Truth is that while many people are not betrayed by their parents, I was. The Truth is that while people grow up slowly and progressively with encouragement, I was left to grasp at what felt right in a narrow place of strangers. The Truth is that no matter what I achieve, who I become, and what impact I have on the World, I come from a very fractured place.
The Truth is that I wasn't created in broken pieces. I have a strong soul, a keen survivor's sense and a deep need to make things right. The Truth is that I have mostly always felt alone and didn't know how much I wouldn't fit in, how difficult relationships would become, and how deep my needs are.
The Truth is that I am doing the best I can, that I believe in love, and want my children to understand why I came to do some of things that I did.
The Truth is that no matter how I present myself, my children know more of me than even I know about for they know me from the inside out. I hope to process some tales and connect more dots for myself as well as others. The Truth is that my journey, process, experiences can provide a purpose for others to see, and learn, and feel.
Lately no matter where I go back to, the story reads worse and worse. My story, my childhood, and eventually my choices. I write this today to flesh out the weirdness of it all still, again, and to spin it around and around, wondering will it ever sit comfortably.
What happens when your tormenter is old and frail and can no longer care for herself? What happens when I just want the Truth? What happens when every time I meet a new person and retell the tales of experience, it gets 'curiouser and curiouser' ?
The Truth is that I was abandonded long ago, left to my own choices, devices, and experiences. I didn't know about damage, dysfunction, co-dependence. Those words become the files for the experiences after the fact. All those a ha moments. The Truth is that I was born into a place of neither priveldge or beauty but rather of experience. If there is a legacy to me, it is of perspective and endurance.
The Truth is I never knew how alone I was, how frightened I should be, or how angry I could have been at what didn't take place in spite of what did. The Truth is that when you're a child of the World and not of your parents you gleen love out of the tiniest places, you believe the most charismatic people, you experience high highs and low lows of friendships and predators sometimes one and the same. The Truth is that I was old before I could learn how to be free, that I could 'see' more than most, that a time of innnocence for me meant finding shelter, hanging my crystals in the window, and cooking a great meal, and being held at night by someone that I loved.
The Truth is that while many people are not betrayed by their parents, I was. The Truth is that while people grow up slowly and progressively with encouragement, I was left to grasp at what felt right in a narrow place of strangers. The Truth is that no matter what I achieve, who I become, and what impact I have on the World, I come from a very fractured place.
The Truth is that I wasn't created in broken pieces. I have a strong soul, a keen survivor's sense and a deep need to make things right. The Truth is that I have mostly always felt alone and didn't know how much I wouldn't fit in, how difficult relationships would become, and how deep my needs are.
The Truth is that I am doing the best I can, that I believe in love, and want my children to understand why I came to do some of things that I did.
The Truth is that no matter how I present myself, my children know more of me than even I know about for they know me from the inside out. I hope to process some tales and connect more dots for myself as well as others. The Truth is that my journey, process, experiences can provide a purpose for others to see, and learn, and feel.
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