This week I sent my daughter the Christmas angel that sat upon the tree all through her childhood. I had named him Michael as he reminded me of the Arch Angel and really looked more masculine than frilly.
Of course this started me thinking about past holidays starting from my childhood. As an adult I can peer within these scenes and view them with a very different filter. Holidays were a big deal to my mother. I think it appealed to the artist within her and allowed her to be expressive in the beauty of decorating the tree and the house.
Looking back I often wonder about all the things that weren't there for the holiday. Despite the fact that my mother was usually high or drunk the appearances were all in place. It was far from normal under the pretty lights. I remember one holiday where my mother had a falling out with some of her friends. While I patiently waited for the lasagna to be done her friends spent what seemed like hours banging on the door. Not only didn't my mother answer the door, but I wasn't allowed to make any noise. As if they couldn't smell the lasagna baking? As if they didn't know my agoraphobic mother was in the apartment? What often passed for normal, I now know was far from that.
When I was 14 I went from Far Rockaway to the Bronx for Christmas. I hadn't been home since moving out in May. I had a horrible cold. I sat huddled in my Far Rockaway high school coat, with my name, Laura Joy, embroidered over my heart....nodding in and out of a fever that had started just as I sat down for the long subway ride up to my mother's. Every time the train came to a stop and the doors opened, I would look up, shivering as the icy cold wind blasted in from outside. I would take in the people that had arrived as well as those that had left. Always being aware of those around you is a suvival technique of any big city dweller.
At one point I opened my eyes to notice a man standing across from me. In his arms he had two huge bouquets of gladiolas. Summer flowers in December? Not only did this look out of place......he might as well have been holding two martian babies. Typical New York protocol was that no one made eye contact and no one commented on these hot house beauties laying in his arms.
A little while later the train came to a stop and I felt something on my lap. Startled I looked down and there was a bouquet of the gladiolas. As I was taking this in, the man said, Merry Christmas Laura Joy.....and walked off as the doors opened. Gone before I could say anything. A gift from a stranger carrying something that looked so out of place at a time where nothing grew. I looked around, no one had batted an eyelash. I looked within the paper wrapped stems....there were only more stems, nothing else.
What did that man see on my fever flushed face? What prompted him to gift me those obviously expensive flowers? When I got to my mother's and told her what had happened she lashed out at me. Not only didn't she believe me but she acted as if I had performed some sexual deviant act for the flowers.
That was the last time I went home for the holidays. My mother signed me over to the state of New York after that and moved to Los Angeles. I never again had her lasagna, although I made my own and made it without all the drama of my childhood. When I was an adult and my mother came to visit me what I realized most of all was just how afraid of everything she really was. The things she asked me about not only would I never worry about, they hadn't even concerned me as a child.
The Christmas Angel Michael that i sent to my daughter represented for me all the ways of making a holiday normal. It meant to me that I did things because I wanted to, because it filled my heart and fed my soul. The holiday meant making sure that those around me would be nurtured through my gift of cooking and the perfect orchestration of a well timed meal. I had not only recreated those early memories in my life without the sordid inappropriatness of my parents but with a confidence and love that I never saw growing up. I tried so hard because I never saw anyone go outside of their selfish needs for anyone but themself growing up. It mattered so much to me to create something of beauty and depth that wasn't about just going through the motions. With every ornament, every layer of lasagna prepared, and the final topping of the tree, I wanted to surpass the strangeness of my childhood.
I hope that Michael brings to Samantha, my daughter all of that energy and so much more. I hope that she is surrounded in her life by people that give as well as receive her love and beauty. I hope that she finds herself encompassed by souls that grow and develop themselves as individuals as well as her. I hope that when she tops her tree with that angel, he crowns her holiday with peace, love, and joy.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
PARENTING-THE NEXT GENERATION
Today is my grandson's birthday. Ethan Blue is four years old today. He calls me Nana which is adorable and I am proud to be his "nana".
When he thinks of me I wonder what details he will accumulate about who I am. I know that he realizes how close his mother is to me....we talk on the phone nearly every day. I often think about how much we soak up about other people when we're exposed to them, especially as children.
I believe children have a unique detection system. It allows us to gauge who we're around and how to act. Perhaps those children that act out the most have either little ability to detect those around them or don't care.
I remember when my daughter was born my mother insisted on being there for her arrival. My mother was there for me while I was in the hospital and when I was released from the hospital I went to her house. For some odd reason I thought I would be nurtured and I would have a safe place to recuperate. My husband was a truck driver and had left me and my new born daughter while we were still in the hospital in order to go back out on the road. I think I lasted less than a week at my mother's apartment. I told my husband, either come home and a take me home or don't bother returning for us at all.
I was having a lot of problems with my marriage and my mother was really no help. When I went back to work I asked her to watch the baby for me. That seemed to make sense, right? It wasn't going to work out she told me. She flat out refused to watch her so I told my husband he would watch her and I would work on weekends and at night. He tried to refuse but I wouldn't listen.
Unlike other families that had support unconditionally from their members I've never felt as if I could count on anyone like that. Even if someone were there for me it is very old conditioning from my parents that I carry. Everything that happened to them was first, things that happened to me were either minimized or just ignored and sometimes even ridiculed.
I was in the delivery room when Ethan came into this world. I helped bring him here. I take this relationship with him very much to heart. I often coach and counsel my daughter over the phone and I have to tell you as much as I wish I were there in person....I am so thankful that she considers me a reliable resource.
I see many things that happen between her and her son and guide her through what is important in the long run. Each and every power struggle between a child and his mother/ father is rarely about the child but about the parent. I learned this lesson way too late in parenting and now I step into that place and ask my self and now my daughter....."who is this really about"?
Children need to be loved unconditionally. This includes clear boundaries and limits. It is through this balancing act that we learn how to parent ourself, how to learn self control, and how to maneuver through the World. We are not the only ones teaching our children how to be. Children are like tuning forks, picking up the constand vibrations spoken and unspoken around them every second of the day and night. So I ask my daughter, Is this about you or about your son? Do you need to be right about this? What is it he really needs and why don't you just ask him? Each and every time I have been priviledged to facilitate what is going on between parent and child the rewards have been bountiful. Not only does Ethan respond but his reaction to being asked is profound. He expresses what the problem is. It is then my daughter's choice whether to become malleable in this instance and grasp the underlying need or to stand firm and continue fighting a needless fight. I am of the opinion that children as well as adults know what they need, they're rarely asked and then even less often listened to. We are so busy having others exert their authority over us that when do we listen to ourself? When do we learn to trust that we in fact are right?
I am so happy to be a participant as a next generation parent to my grandson. I really believe that being a first time parent is not only overwhelming it is also filled with it's own unique tunnel vision. There is little perspective to carry us out of the ocean of emotion and heated moments into a place outside of that moment of reactivity.
In the long run we need to know someone loves us just the way we are every moment of every day. This is very different from liking what someone chooses to do. You can love someone and still not like their choice. There is great power in being able to communicate that to someone. The gift in that is the person receives a safety net within which hopefully they will move to a better place on their own. Growth and development that is achieved because the individual chooses it is far great than that from someone that is doing something out of fear.
I will always be here for you Ethan and your mother. I will applaude your mistakes as well as your victories. I see enough to know that we often zig before we zag in our growth as people. I will remind your mother that she was often stubborn and what did it serve her in the long run. We are all works in progress. We are all looking for love and acceptance. We are all wandering about in the bodies of adults but still yearning for the comfort of the arms of a safe person to hold us. The lessons you have in store for us Ethan will be amazing. The challenges for us to ask of ourselves will be rewarding as well as difficult at times. You remind me that some lessons take years to come full circle and that sometimes only in the voice of a child does a lesson really hit home and resonate within our soul.
When he thinks of me I wonder what details he will accumulate about who I am. I know that he realizes how close his mother is to me....we talk on the phone nearly every day. I often think about how much we soak up about other people when we're exposed to them, especially as children.
I believe children have a unique detection system. It allows us to gauge who we're around and how to act. Perhaps those children that act out the most have either little ability to detect those around them or don't care.
I remember when my daughter was born my mother insisted on being there for her arrival. My mother was there for me while I was in the hospital and when I was released from the hospital I went to her house. For some odd reason I thought I would be nurtured and I would have a safe place to recuperate. My husband was a truck driver and had left me and my new born daughter while we were still in the hospital in order to go back out on the road. I think I lasted less than a week at my mother's apartment. I told my husband, either come home and a take me home or don't bother returning for us at all.
I was having a lot of problems with my marriage and my mother was really no help. When I went back to work I asked her to watch the baby for me. That seemed to make sense, right? It wasn't going to work out she told me. She flat out refused to watch her so I told my husband he would watch her and I would work on weekends and at night. He tried to refuse but I wouldn't listen.
Unlike other families that had support unconditionally from their members I've never felt as if I could count on anyone like that. Even if someone were there for me it is very old conditioning from my parents that I carry. Everything that happened to them was first, things that happened to me were either minimized or just ignored and sometimes even ridiculed.
I was in the delivery room when Ethan came into this world. I helped bring him here. I take this relationship with him very much to heart. I often coach and counsel my daughter over the phone and I have to tell you as much as I wish I were there in person....I am so thankful that she considers me a reliable resource.
I see many things that happen between her and her son and guide her through what is important in the long run. Each and every power struggle between a child and his mother/ father is rarely about the child but about the parent. I learned this lesson way too late in parenting and now I step into that place and ask my self and now my daughter....."who is this really about"?
Children need to be loved unconditionally. This includes clear boundaries and limits. It is through this balancing act that we learn how to parent ourself, how to learn self control, and how to maneuver through the World. We are not the only ones teaching our children how to be. Children are like tuning forks, picking up the constand vibrations spoken and unspoken around them every second of the day and night. So I ask my daughter, Is this about you or about your son? Do you need to be right about this? What is it he really needs and why don't you just ask him? Each and every time I have been priviledged to facilitate what is going on between parent and child the rewards have been bountiful. Not only does Ethan respond but his reaction to being asked is profound. He expresses what the problem is. It is then my daughter's choice whether to become malleable in this instance and grasp the underlying need or to stand firm and continue fighting a needless fight. I am of the opinion that children as well as adults know what they need, they're rarely asked and then even less often listened to. We are so busy having others exert their authority over us that when do we listen to ourself? When do we learn to trust that we in fact are right?
I am so happy to be a participant as a next generation parent to my grandson. I really believe that being a first time parent is not only overwhelming it is also filled with it's own unique tunnel vision. There is little perspective to carry us out of the ocean of emotion and heated moments into a place outside of that moment of reactivity.
In the long run we need to know someone loves us just the way we are every moment of every day. This is very different from liking what someone chooses to do. You can love someone and still not like their choice. There is great power in being able to communicate that to someone. The gift in that is the person receives a safety net within which hopefully they will move to a better place on their own. Growth and development that is achieved because the individual chooses it is far great than that from someone that is doing something out of fear.
I will always be here for you Ethan and your mother. I will applaude your mistakes as well as your victories. I see enough to know that we often zig before we zag in our growth as people. I will remind your mother that she was often stubborn and what did it serve her in the long run. We are all works in progress. We are all looking for love and acceptance. We are all wandering about in the bodies of adults but still yearning for the comfort of the arms of a safe person to hold us. The lessons you have in store for us Ethan will be amazing. The challenges for us to ask of ourselves will be rewarding as well as difficult at times. You remind me that some lessons take years to come full circle and that sometimes only in the voice of a child does a lesson really hit home and resonate within our soul.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Willpower
Libra Horoscope for week of October 7, 2010
"Dear Rob: A professional astrologer who read my chart told me that I have no willpower and that there is basically nothing I can do to change that. Any suggestions? I'm feeling helpless and passive at a time when I could really benefit from standing up for myself. - Listless Libra." Dear Libra: What the supposedly professional astrologer told you is totally inaccurate. No one's chart, ever, in the history of the world, indicates that they have no willpower. Astrology doesn't speak in such stupid ways. Besides that, you and the Libran tribe will soon have an excellent window of opportunity to bolster your willpower. The fun begins now and lasts until at least November 18. Get ready!
What is the obvious secret you can't quite see? How could you turn your challenges into daily gifts for yourself? For clues to mysteries like these, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
In Frederick Buechner's book On the Road with the Archangel, the star is the archangel Raphael. This supernatural helper has a tough gig: gathering the prayers of human beings and delivering them to God. Here's how he describes the range of pleas he hears: "There are prayers of such power that you might say they carry me rather than the other way around. There are prayers so apologetic and shamefaced and half-hearted that they all but melt away in my grasp like sad little flakes of snow. Some prayers are very boring."
Compose a prayer that's so powerful and entertaining that it could thrill an archangel.
"Definitions of willpower on the Web:
•self-control: the trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn"
It's funny to me that the word 'willpower' should come up in my horoscope during my birthday week. After all, isn't life about one's power to accomplish what their innermost desires are? I have seen plenty of people who are living a lie, a soft modification of what is expected from those around them.....all those messages from people that may not even be here any longer. We carry them around inside of us like a festering postule, waiting for the correct situation to explode it's poison all throughout our systems.
The times I have exerted my greatest willpower over my life was in direct conflict with someone standing in my way. A parent, a spouse, an employer, a stranger. It is my experience that something inside of me rings clear and loud then I find myself gathering boxes and going to yet the next place to place my head upon a pillow.
Sometimes willpower for me has meant actual self preservation. Sometimes it was to protect someone else. Women often think of willpower in connection to dieting, controlling what goes into their mouth so they never vary from the expected picture of some stranger on Madison Ave. , that has deemed what beauty actually looks like.
As I have gotten older the concept of willpower, strength, beauty, and character have all changed. I do not know what someone will choose to do based on what they look like......but I will learn what they are about by what they choose to do.
Raising a child involves a lot of will and struggles until one day the parent realizes they are fighting the wrong person. I have led a life full of example and will and it is my job to allow my children to know that their will is right for them. I catch myself often wondering why I am reacting to something my son wants to do. It isn't cause his will is wrong, but that my fear kicks in. I tell him, I'm afraid you 'll get hurt. Oh that quick handsome grin meets me and he assures me, like most youthful people that it is quite safe. He is usually right, he is safe but I have seen the swiftness of lessons dealt in a manner of seconds, things changing forever. An outside will warping what everyone thought they had control over.
These days my willpower is to know and remember why I fought in the first place. To hold onto how my beliefs came to be to begin with. It is a very unique path that was laid out for me early on. I very often had a will that defied reason based on so many things I couldnt even begin to explain to anyone including myself. These days I know my willpower is tempered with time, and experience, and reason, and yes, a touch of fear.
I hope the days to come show my will to be true and remain focused....that I continue to guide those around me without ego or malice....and that I am allowed to find peace and comfort once again.
"Dear Rob: A professional astrologer who read my chart told me that I have no willpower and that there is basically nothing I can do to change that. Any suggestions? I'm feeling helpless and passive at a time when I could really benefit from standing up for myself. - Listless Libra." Dear Libra: What the supposedly professional astrologer told you is totally inaccurate. No one's chart, ever, in the history of the world, indicates that they have no willpower. Astrology doesn't speak in such stupid ways. Besides that, you and the Libran tribe will soon have an excellent window of opportunity to bolster your willpower. The fun begins now and lasts until at least November 18. Get ready!
What is the obvious secret you can't quite see? How could you turn your challenges into daily gifts for yourself? For clues to mysteries like these, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
In Frederick Buechner's book On the Road with the Archangel, the star is the archangel Raphael. This supernatural helper has a tough gig: gathering the prayers of human beings and delivering them to God. Here's how he describes the range of pleas he hears: "There are prayers of such power that you might say they carry me rather than the other way around. There are prayers so apologetic and shamefaced and half-hearted that they all but melt away in my grasp like sad little flakes of snow. Some prayers are very boring."
Compose a prayer that's so powerful and entertaining that it could thrill an archangel.
"Definitions of willpower on the Web:
•self-control: the trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn"
It's funny to me that the word 'willpower' should come up in my horoscope during my birthday week. After all, isn't life about one's power to accomplish what their innermost desires are? I have seen plenty of people who are living a lie, a soft modification of what is expected from those around them.....all those messages from people that may not even be here any longer. We carry them around inside of us like a festering postule, waiting for the correct situation to explode it's poison all throughout our systems.
The times I have exerted my greatest willpower over my life was in direct conflict with someone standing in my way. A parent, a spouse, an employer, a stranger. It is my experience that something inside of me rings clear and loud then I find myself gathering boxes and going to yet the next place to place my head upon a pillow.
Sometimes willpower for me has meant actual self preservation. Sometimes it was to protect someone else. Women often think of willpower in connection to dieting, controlling what goes into their mouth so they never vary from the expected picture of some stranger on Madison Ave. , that has deemed what beauty actually looks like.
As I have gotten older the concept of willpower, strength, beauty, and character have all changed. I do not know what someone will choose to do based on what they look like......but I will learn what they are about by what they choose to do.
Raising a child involves a lot of will and struggles until one day the parent realizes they are fighting the wrong person. I have led a life full of example and will and it is my job to allow my children to know that their will is right for them. I catch myself often wondering why I am reacting to something my son wants to do. It isn't cause his will is wrong, but that my fear kicks in. I tell him, I'm afraid you 'll get hurt. Oh that quick handsome grin meets me and he assures me, like most youthful people that it is quite safe. He is usually right, he is safe but I have seen the swiftness of lessons dealt in a manner of seconds, things changing forever. An outside will warping what everyone thought they had control over.
These days my willpower is to know and remember why I fought in the first place. To hold onto how my beliefs came to be to begin with. It is a very unique path that was laid out for me early on. I very often had a will that defied reason based on so many things I couldnt even begin to explain to anyone including myself. These days I know my willpower is tempered with time, and experience, and reason, and yes, a touch of fear.
I hope the days to come show my will to be true and remain focused....that I continue to guide those around me without ego or malice....and that I am allowed to find peace and comfort once again.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Growing Beyond My Father
My cousin's daughter is home from college and had her wisdom teeth pulled. With some down time on her hands she's going through pictures and asked if I had any of my father. My father is her mom's father's brother. Follow that? Good.
I pull out the album of Nicky and bring it to her and sit there sipping my coffee while she goes through it. She kept commenting as to how handsome my father was. Yes very handsome was my reply. This got me thinking, as usual, and so here I am again.
My father is one of the more colorful characters in our family. I may have shared this before but it's hard to explain that he wasn't just that quirky, weird uncle. This was a guy that shouldn't have been left alone with young children. He was the guy you wouldn't leave your new wife around. This was the guy you wouldn't trust with the pin to your ATM. This was the guy you wouldn't trust to come home with the paycheck to pay the rent, bills, etc.... He may have made an intersting family member as long as it wasn't your father.
I remember he always had a woman in his life. She was always beautiful, smart, busty, and dependent on him. My father was a satyr, a pervert, and obscene to the core. He never knew what to do about having a daughter, so he didn't. He only knew how to honor his mother, and to conquer every vagina he came in contact with. I never felt safe around this man.....ever.
Very hard to be connected to someone you couldn't trust ever. When I was in high school and he would come and visit me at my uncle's house, they would write down his license plate number. Why didn't they just tell me the truth? I really would have stopped seeking him out and pretending he was someone I needed in my life. People get way too caught up in the whole, well he or she is your_____________ fill in significant relationship.
So now that I am older I see the big hole that not knowing my father and not having a good male in my life has left. When I was younger I wouldn't have known a good man if he was standing right in front of me. I spent way too much time being thrilled because 'he liked me'. I brain stopped there. Really it did. I didn't look to see if he was functional, on probation, literate, or stable. I made every excuse for someone if he was interested in me. After all I spent most of my life, childhood, alone.
When I tell you that I've been winging it for years, I am NOT exaggerating. Of course I gathered info about good men from literature and the movies. And of course, from music. Oh if I could only meet a man that could write a lyric like Bob Seger or Bob Dylan, even Neil Young. I thought to myself, I would be so happy. I don't know what men like that are like to live with. Who knows except those closest to them.
I have become the outspoken, confident, curious woman I am today in spite of the lack of positive male attention I got in my youth. I hope to one day encounter a man that is balanced and sweet, stable and fun, amoung other things on my list. A man that won't disappear when an ermegency arrises. A man that won't give up at the first sign of my pms. A man that won't come rushing in dreaming of a future together only to realize it's too much like work to actually be in a relationship. What I have learned about men was actually from being friends with them and not in a sexual way. I have learned over time that people gravitate toward one another for different reasons.
Sometimes the purpose is to work on a project, work or personally related. Sometimes men are around because they won't steal my boyfriend and are easy to get along with. Sometimes men are in my life because the heat between us was so explosive it would have been insane not to taste and explore it.
I know that a lot of my life I had a very strong internal experience with myself. I learned early on that I could count on me. My therapist once told me that I had a very strong internal parent. Good thing considering my actual parents acted more like children than I did.
So Nicky although you never cared to learn what it was like to be my father....I am moving on past your bizarre legacy of coke induced orgies and small scams. I am growing beyond your strange cryptic letter, your insistance that I always looked just like my mother, and that I would never amount to anything. I am healing beyond the fact that you didn't want to be a part of my childhood, teen years, young adult life or even know my children.
I will one day experience....love, and value a good man. I know this in my heart. I know he lives and breathes somewhere and at night when he lays his head on his pillow he is reaching out to me, unknown still to his existance and kissing me good night. I know there is a yin to my yang or yang to my yin....I can't ever remember which is which. I know there is a man that may not love coffee in the morning but will understand and accept my bliss in my first sip. I know there is someone that I will be able to love and trust, honor and defend, nuture and confide in. I know he will be my friend, my lover, my sounding board. He will know my craziness of my youth and admire my persistance in moving on. I know I deserve this in spite of you Nicky. That big hole you left in my life doesnt need to remain so.
I pull out the album of Nicky and bring it to her and sit there sipping my coffee while she goes through it. She kept commenting as to how handsome my father was. Yes very handsome was my reply. This got me thinking, as usual, and so here I am again.
My father is one of the more colorful characters in our family. I may have shared this before but it's hard to explain that he wasn't just that quirky, weird uncle. This was a guy that shouldn't have been left alone with young children. He was the guy you wouldn't leave your new wife around. This was the guy you wouldn't trust with the pin to your ATM. This was the guy you wouldn't trust to come home with the paycheck to pay the rent, bills, etc.... He may have made an intersting family member as long as it wasn't your father.
I remember he always had a woman in his life. She was always beautiful, smart, busty, and dependent on him. My father was a satyr, a pervert, and obscene to the core. He never knew what to do about having a daughter, so he didn't. He only knew how to honor his mother, and to conquer every vagina he came in contact with. I never felt safe around this man.....ever.
Very hard to be connected to someone you couldn't trust ever. When I was in high school and he would come and visit me at my uncle's house, they would write down his license plate number. Why didn't they just tell me the truth? I really would have stopped seeking him out and pretending he was someone I needed in my life. People get way too caught up in the whole, well he or she is your_____________ fill in significant relationship.
So now that I am older I see the big hole that not knowing my father and not having a good male in my life has left. When I was younger I wouldn't have known a good man if he was standing right in front of me. I spent way too much time being thrilled because 'he liked me'. I brain stopped there. Really it did. I didn't look to see if he was functional, on probation, literate, or stable. I made every excuse for someone if he was interested in me. After all I spent most of my life, childhood, alone.
When I tell you that I've been winging it for years, I am NOT exaggerating. Of course I gathered info about good men from literature and the movies. And of course, from music. Oh if I could only meet a man that could write a lyric like Bob Seger or Bob Dylan, even Neil Young. I thought to myself, I would be so happy. I don't know what men like that are like to live with. Who knows except those closest to them.
I have become the outspoken, confident, curious woman I am today in spite of the lack of positive male attention I got in my youth. I hope to one day encounter a man that is balanced and sweet, stable and fun, amoung other things on my list. A man that won't disappear when an ermegency arrises. A man that won't give up at the first sign of my pms. A man that won't come rushing in dreaming of a future together only to realize it's too much like work to actually be in a relationship. What I have learned about men was actually from being friends with them and not in a sexual way. I have learned over time that people gravitate toward one another for different reasons.
Sometimes the purpose is to work on a project, work or personally related. Sometimes men are around because they won't steal my boyfriend and are easy to get along with. Sometimes men are in my life because the heat between us was so explosive it would have been insane not to taste and explore it.
I know that a lot of my life I had a very strong internal experience with myself. I learned early on that I could count on me. My therapist once told me that I had a very strong internal parent. Good thing considering my actual parents acted more like children than I did.
So Nicky although you never cared to learn what it was like to be my father....I am moving on past your bizarre legacy of coke induced orgies and small scams. I am growing beyond your strange cryptic letter, your insistance that I always looked just like my mother, and that I would never amount to anything. I am healing beyond the fact that you didn't want to be a part of my childhood, teen years, young adult life or even know my children.
I will one day experience....love, and value a good man. I know this in my heart. I know he lives and breathes somewhere and at night when he lays his head on his pillow he is reaching out to me, unknown still to his existance and kissing me good night. I know there is a yin to my yang or yang to my yin....I can't ever remember which is which. I know there is a man that may not love coffee in the morning but will understand and accept my bliss in my first sip. I know there is someone that I will be able to love and trust, honor and defend, nuture and confide in. I know he will be my friend, my lover, my sounding board. He will know my craziness of my youth and admire my persistance in moving on. I know I deserve this in spite of you Nicky. That big hole you left in my life doesnt need to remain so.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
My fortress and no you may not have the security code.
Libra Horoscope for week of July 1, 2010
Have you been doing a lot of sweating and grunting from sheer exertion in 2010? Have you thrown yourself conscientiously into the hardest, smartest labor you've ever enjoyed? I hope so, because that would suggest you're in rapt alignment with this year's cosmic rhythms. It would mean that you have been cashing in on the rather sublime opportunities you're being offered to diligently prove how much you love your life. The next six months will provide you with even more and better prods, Libra, so please find even deeper reserves of determination. Intensify your commitment to mastering the work you came to this planet to do.
I have been thinking a lot about walls......fortresses......boundaries. We all have them. Some people are clearer about their boundaries than others. I have been thinking lately about how some people get to be within my walls....under the radar....all defenses down. Those people are few and far between.
I wasn't taught boundaries. I had to learn them on the run...off the cuff....and as I am sometimes so fond of saying, Right upside my head. I have erected walls for my fortress that are strong and necessary and long overdue. Anyone that says they don't need walls are either completely walked all over or someone else's door mat. I have no desire to be either of those.
I don't go around buidling these walls on purpose....rather it is when someone tries to come close that they smack right into one that I even become aware of them.... Sometimes after someone hits one of my walls I hear the all to familiar exclamation of, Why don't you lighten up and have some fun....Why don't you try and be more fun.....Why don't you live in the now, take a chance, doing something daring....and on and on it goes.....
At these moments I see, very clearly that this person or people don't know me at all. Me? The original wild child? The girl that had no fear, that didn't know there was a hardship she couldnt break down or at least get high through? Me, who had no idea what it was to really be there for myself when no one else was going to? Me....The person who laughed for the blissful sake of laughter while making love....while seeing the ocean....while starting her life over yet again. That girl?
Well she is now a woman and if you hit one of my walls it is your problem not mine. I don't have to let you in, give you the security code, or a sledge hammer. I don't have to explain to you why you hurt me, why you expect everything to be handed to you immediately, why I am so stubborn. I don't have to and won't settle. I won't doubt myself that I am less than beautiful because I don't fit your idea of a perfect woman. I will NOT question why you can't get close to me when someone else may be able to waltz right through and snuggle up close.
I know that walls and boundaries are there for my protection not yours. I know that i am the one with the difficult past, the narcissistic parents, the foster homes, the orphanage, the bad relationships, the overwhelmeing responsibiilities with no one cheering me from the sidelines. My stuff....mine mine mine. Yes my baggage. All of it. Downsized....opened up....gone through...processed....and accepted by me. You want it to be all sugar and sweet and nice? Find someone else to play with. Please do yourself a favor but don't expect me to live my life by a timeline that satisfies you in some quick easy way.
I know my way around myself better than anyone else so don't expect me to minimize my existance to make you feel better. My life is a full time job....that's what my Aunt Carol always tells me....so please make sure that your life is your full time job. I am capable of blowing up, getting rid of , or giving you the security codes into my fortress but when it feels right to me, not any time sooner.
When I lay my head down on my pillow at night I am alone. Still alone. I don't know if and when that will change. I do know that in order for me to remain on this side of sanity I can not pretend that my pillows are an actual breathing, comforting person next to me. I do not like pseudo-intimacy. Very often I find that people around me are sucking up that illusion like a free slurpy day at 7.11. I want so much to be connected to someone real and strong and here.....but I ask myself, at what cost? The answer is usually at little cost for I don't want to sacrifice my comfort in who I am to exchange it for a basket full of self doubt.
That is the difference between me now and me 20 years ago. I will not settle for a lesser version of truth about myself, what I have to give, and more importantly what I am able to receive.
The walls remain in tact until something tangible, concrete, and so real it takes my breathe away appears......Then the trumpets will sound, the drawbridge will come down, and you will be welcomed in..... all the way in...with no hesitation or reservation.
Have you been doing a lot of sweating and grunting from sheer exertion in 2010? Have you thrown yourself conscientiously into the hardest, smartest labor you've ever enjoyed? I hope so, because that would suggest you're in rapt alignment with this year's cosmic rhythms. It would mean that you have been cashing in on the rather sublime opportunities you're being offered to diligently prove how much you love your life. The next six months will provide you with even more and better prods, Libra, so please find even deeper reserves of determination. Intensify your commitment to mastering the work you came to this planet to do.
I have been thinking a lot about walls......fortresses......boundaries. We all have them. Some people are clearer about their boundaries than others. I have been thinking lately about how some people get to be within my walls....under the radar....all defenses down. Those people are few and far between.
I wasn't taught boundaries. I had to learn them on the run...off the cuff....and as I am sometimes so fond of saying, Right upside my head. I have erected walls for my fortress that are strong and necessary and long overdue. Anyone that says they don't need walls are either completely walked all over or someone else's door mat. I have no desire to be either of those.
I don't go around buidling these walls on purpose....rather it is when someone tries to come close that they smack right into one that I even become aware of them.... Sometimes after someone hits one of my walls I hear the all to familiar exclamation of, Why don't you lighten up and have some fun....Why don't you try and be more fun.....Why don't you live in the now, take a chance, doing something daring....and on and on it goes.....
At these moments I see, very clearly that this person or people don't know me at all. Me? The original wild child? The girl that had no fear, that didn't know there was a hardship she couldnt break down or at least get high through? Me, who had no idea what it was to really be there for myself when no one else was going to? Me....The person who laughed for the blissful sake of laughter while making love....while seeing the ocean....while starting her life over yet again. That girl?
Well she is now a woman and if you hit one of my walls it is your problem not mine. I don't have to let you in, give you the security code, or a sledge hammer. I don't have to explain to you why you hurt me, why you expect everything to be handed to you immediately, why I am so stubborn. I don't have to and won't settle. I won't doubt myself that I am less than beautiful because I don't fit your idea of a perfect woman. I will NOT question why you can't get close to me when someone else may be able to waltz right through and snuggle up close.
I know that walls and boundaries are there for my protection not yours. I know that i am the one with the difficult past, the narcissistic parents, the foster homes, the orphanage, the bad relationships, the overwhelmeing responsibiilities with no one cheering me from the sidelines. My stuff....mine mine mine. Yes my baggage. All of it. Downsized....opened up....gone through...processed....and accepted by me. You want it to be all sugar and sweet and nice? Find someone else to play with. Please do yourself a favor but don't expect me to live my life by a timeline that satisfies you in some quick easy way.
I know my way around myself better than anyone else so don't expect me to minimize my existance to make you feel better. My life is a full time job....that's what my Aunt Carol always tells me....so please make sure that your life is your full time job. I am capable of blowing up, getting rid of , or giving you the security codes into my fortress but when it feels right to me, not any time sooner.
When I lay my head down on my pillow at night I am alone. Still alone. I don't know if and when that will change. I do know that in order for me to remain on this side of sanity I can not pretend that my pillows are an actual breathing, comforting person next to me. I do not like pseudo-intimacy. Very often I find that people around me are sucking up that illusion like a free slurpy day at 7.11. I want so much to be connected to someone real and strong and here.....but I ask myself, at what cost? The answer is usually at little cost for I don't want to sacrifice my comfort in who I am to exchange it for a basket full of self doubt.
That is the difference between me now and me 20 years ago. I will not settle for a lesser version of truth about myself, what I have to give, and more importantly what I am able to receive.
The walls remain in tact until something tangible, concrete, and so real it takes my breathe away appears......Then the trumpets will sound, the drawbridge will come down, and you will be welcomed in..... all the way in...with no hesitation or reservation.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Legacy
Libra Horoscope for week of June 24, 2010
What have you lost in recent months, Libra? This week begins a phase when you will have the potential to not exactly recover it, but rather to re-create it on a higher level. Maybe a dream that seemed to unravel was simply undergoing a reconfiguration, and now you're primed to give it a new and better form of expression. Maybe a relationship that went astray was merely dying so it could get resurrected, with more honesty and flexibility this time around.
On June 22 my son turned 16. As I saw him go through his day sorting and shuffling through what it meant to him to be 16 I of course was thinking of something else.
As many days as Dylan has in his life he will know some things about what brought him to this life and some events will remain forever in the backround.....to fade to a softness much like an old pair of jeans, well worn and a colour far beyond its original hue.
I know that when Dylan looks at me he sees his mom. He sees me in all my strength as well as my weaknesses. He sees me as someone that tells him stories about how wild my life was coming up in this world without all of the details. I know that he worries about me and he wishes that someone had come into our life not just to love me but also to claim him as his own. I know that for all the choices I made to keep us safe there were many mistakes I made.
I know that all those years ago when I looked into his father's eyes and saw something shift firmer inside of himself that I was linked to that person. I know that I was to have a child with him....it was just so powerful between us. Ten years from when we met to the day his father died was all that man had left to live. I knew that protecting my children is my job to do alone. I long ago stopped crying in the middle of the night wishing someone stronger than myself would come along and shoulder some of the burden with me.
Some things aren't meant to be.
Dylan has no idea how restless I was in my youth....how curious....how open and wild I really was. He doesn't have to know. In order to give him what he really needed to grow......security, consistancy, a foundation.....I needed to tether myself down and learn how to just be. I couldn't and wouldn't take him through my romantic searches for ultimate love and satisfaction....that's not fair to him. I refused to have him come second to my personal needs....after all, I saw first hand how that feels to always be secondary to an adult's driving force to feel important.
When Dylan speaks to me of events with an insight that is with the wisdom of a sage......I am moved by his existence. Not because he is a product from me and his father but rather, because he exists and I am proud that he chose to have me as his mother.
He will stumble and fall, he will crack and mend, he will grow and falter....and his father opted for many different reasons to allow a disease to consume him and take him from us. Every smile, every turn in the journey of Dylan's childhood, every sick night, every parent teacher conference, sleep over, crush, call from a teacher............all of it.....I responded to with all of my soul.
I know there have been times when we didn't have enough to eat, or he needed new clothes, bike, books, etc...but I've done the best I could do with less insight about how families are supposed to work and more insight as to what is really important to the development of a human being. All creature comforts are window dressings and I wouldn't deny him any of them but without the love and support and belief in who you are from at least one person is priceless.
I am not saying "oh look at me and what i sacrificed for my son". NO!!!!!!! I am saying look at what I helped bring into the world and how lucky am I to have experienced this?
What a gift children are. Their souls trusted to us to keep them safe and help them discover what path they may choose to be on. How lucky I am to be in the company of the bright lights that are my daughter and my son.
Every time I was alone as a child.....lost and abandonded.....afraid and neglected......ignored and forgotten.....pushed aside and discounted was all worth it so that I could always remember to tell my children how important they are to me, how much they matter, how proud I am of them no matter what.
Funny to think that my legacy to them both isn't about money or priceless heirlooms but strength and music......love and searching....seeing inside and processing and assessing everything.
" I looked at you
You looked at me
I smiled at you
you smiled at me
And we're on our way
No we can't look back, babe
Yeah we're on our way
And we can't turn back"
What have you lost in recent months, Libra? This week begins a phase when you will have the potential to not exactly recover it, but rather to re-create it on a higher level. Maybe a dream that seemed to unravel was simply undergoing a reconfiguration, and now you're primed to give it a new and better form of expression. Maybe a relationship that went astray was merely dying so it could get resurrected, with more honesty and flexibility this time around.
On June 22 my son turned 16. As I saw him go through his day sorting and shuffling through what it meant to him to be 16 I of course was thinking of something else.
As many days as Dylan has in his life he will know some things about what brought him to this life and some events will remain forever in the backround.....to fade to a softness much like an old pair of jeans, well worn and a colour far beyond its original hue.
I know that when Dylan looks at me he sees his mom. He sees me in all my strength as well as my weaknesses. He sees me as someone that tells him stories about how wild my life was coming up in this world without all of the details. I know that he worries about me and he wishes that someone had come into our life not just to love me but also to claim him as his own. I know that for all the choices I made to keep us safe there were many mistakes I made.
I know that all those years ago when I looked into his father's eyes and saw something shift firmer inside of himself that I was linked to that person. I know that I was to have a child with him....it was just so powerful between us. Ten years from when we met to the day his father died was all that man had left to live. I knew that protecting my children is my job to do alone. I long ago stopped crying in the middle of the night wishing someone stronger than myself would come along and shoulder some of the burden with me.
Some things aren't meant to be.
Dylan has no idea how restless I was in my youth....how curious....how open and wild I really was. He doesn't have to know. In order to give him what he really needed to grow......security, consistancy, a foundation.....I needed to tether myself down and learn how to just be. I couldn't and wouldn't take him through my romantic searches for ultimate love and satisfaction....that's not fair to him. I refused to have him come second to my personal needs....after all, I saw first hand how that feels to always be secondary to an adult's driving force to feel important.
When Dylan speaks to me of events with an insight that is with the wisdom of a sage......I am moved by his existence. Not because he is a product from me and his father but rather, because he exists and I am proud that he chose to have me as his mother.
He will stumble and fall, he will crack and mend, he will grow and falter....and his father opted for many different reasons to allow a disease to consume him and take him from us. Every smile, every turn in the journey of Dylan's childhood, every sick night, every parent teacher conference, sleep over, crush, call from a teacher............all of it.....I responded to with all of my soul.
I know there have been times when we didn't have enough to eat, or he needed new clothes, bike, books, etc...but I've done the best I could do with less insight about how families are supposed to work and more insight as to what is really important to the development of a human being. All creature comforts are window dressings and I wouldn't deny him any of them but without the love and support and belief in who you are from at least one person is priceless.
I am not saying "oh look at me and what i sacrificed for my son". NO!!!!!!! I am saying look at what I helped bring into the world and how lucky am I to have experienced this?
What a gift children are. Their souls trusted to us to keep them safe and help them discover what path they may choose to be on. How lucky I am to be in the company of the bright lights that are my daughter and my son.
Every time I was alone as a child.....lost and abandonded.....afraid and neglected......ignored and forgotten.....pushed aside and discounted was all worth it so that I could always remember to tell my children how important they are to me, how much they matter, how proud I am of them no matter what.
Funny to think that my legacy to them both isn't about money or priceless heirlooms but strength and music......love and searching....seeing inside and processing and assessing everything.
" I looked at you
You looked at me
I smiled at you
you smiled at me
And we're on our way
No we can't look back, babe
Yeah we're on our way
And we can't turn back"
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Not being a drag
May has always been a difficult month for me. I didn't realize this until many years had passed. Things just always seemed to blow up all over my life in the month of May. In my early years this was directly linked to my mother having a difficult time in the month of May. Could have been her inability to deal with her birthday each year....I'm not sure, I never asked her. I don't believe I would have gotten a straight answer from her about it.
Whenever I was placed in foster homes it was in the month of May. A few years I didn't finish my grade because, well, it was so close to the end of the year and after all, I was a smart student. I was thrust into another home, another family, another situation.
The month of May, when the air is warm and the flowers are in bloom and the possibility of bad weather has usually passed, that is when I would gain yet another situation, survive another upheavel.
Memorial Day weekend especially holds memories of drawing lines between me and those that would harm me.....of preserving myself against all odds....of no longer being someone's victim.
Some cotton type webbing must have coccooned me from the depth of pain and truth that I only now have begun to realize. I was so happy to be out of certain situations and I was so sure that the future could ONLY hold great, shiney things, that I had no idea what had actually happened to me.
I believed there was a love waiting just for me.....a home that I would be secure within, friends that I would love and nurture......and music that would play through all of the joyous bliss that would be my life because I had survived.
I am not as bitter as this reads....I need you to know that. I am so much inside my own head that I just keep turning it all around from yet another angle to look at. Life didn't turn out the way I had dreamed because I wasn't really living in my reality. I had no idea how incapable I really was of having anything close to normal. I pushed away and pretended that everything was all right and most of all, that I was whole....complete...and not fractured.
Someone recently told me, and not in a nice way, that I think too much and that I am such a 'fucking drag'. As much as I don't like some of reality, I need to stay closer to it than some that I've known. I learned at a very young age that playing and being carefree wasn't a safe place for me. As misfortunate as this may be, I can be playful and loving but only when I feel safe. Ignore making me feel safe and you'll never see that side of me. I am not going to apologize for needing that to be in place. I used to feel bad for what I needed and why I needed it. If someone won't understand than move along and play somewhere else. I have enough to deal with as it is.
I still believe in many beautiful things....every afternoon when the sun hits my crystals just right, the rainbows that dance across my room fill me with delight and pleasure. My plants that surround me, growing and thriving reassure me that I am in touch with something outside of myself that is in fact, good. My children and grandson's laughter and intelligence continue to delight and astound me. My feet are planted as firmly as they need to be, and there is yet a spark within my heart of hope that a happy ending or at least an interlude exists for me.
Whenever I was placed in foster homes it was in the month of May. A few years I didn't finish my grade because, well, it was so close to the end of the year and after all, I was a smart student. I was thrust into another home, another family, another situation.
The month of May, when the air is warm and the flowers are in bloom and the possibility of bad weather has usually passed, that is when I would gain yet another situation, survive another upheavel.
Memorial Day weekend especially holds memories of drawing lines between me and those that would harm me.....of preserving myself against all odds....of no longer being someone's victim.
Some cotton type webbing must have coccooned me from the depth of pain and truth that I only now have begun to realize. I was so happy to be out of certain situations and I was so sure that the future could ONLY hold great, shiney things, that I had no idea what had actually happened to me.
I believed there was a love waiting just for me.....a home that I would be secure within, friends that I would love and nurture......and music that would play through all of the joyous bliss that would be my life because I had survived.
I am not as bitter as this reads....I need you to know that. I am so much inside my own head that I just keep turning it all around from yet another angle to look at. Life didn't turn out the way I had dreamed because I wasn't really living in my reality. I had no idea how incapable I really was of having anything close to normal. I pushed away and pretended that everything was all right and most of all, that I was whole....complete...and not fractured.
Someone recently told me, and not in a nice way, that I think too much and that I am such a 'fucking drag'. As much as I don't like some of reality, I need to stay closer to it than some that I've known. I learned at a very young age that playing and being carefree wasn't a safe place for me. As misfortunate as this may be, I can be playful and loving but only when I feel safe. Ignore making me feel safe and you'll never see that side of me. I am not going to apologize for needing that to be in place. I used to feel bad for what I needed and why I needed it. If someone won't understand than move along and play somewhere else. I have enough to deal with as it is.
I still believe in many beautiful things....every afternoon when the sun hits my crystals just right, the rainbows that dance across my room fill me with delight and pleasure. My plants that surround me, growing and thriving reassure me that I am in touch with something outside of myself that is in fact, good. My children and grandson's laughter and intelligence continue to delight and astound me. My feet are planted as firmly as they need to be, and there is yet a spark within my heart of hope that a happy ending or at least an interlude exists for me.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Visiting other's lives
Libra Horoscope for week of May 20, 2010
"All 26 of Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories about Tarzan are set in Africa, but he never once visited that continent. And Bram Stoker didn't feel the need to travel to the Transylvanian region of Romania in order to write about it in his novel Dracula. But I don't recommend this approach to you in the coming weeks, Libra. If you want to cultivate something new in your life by drawing on an exotic influence, I think you should immerse yourself in that exotic influence, at least for a while. If you want to tap into the inspiration available through an unfamiliar source, you need to actually be in the presence of that unfamiliar source. "
When I was a child I remember feeling free and happy.....full of light and joy...I thought my existence was perfect. I can remember that place before Life showed her cracks and tarnish.....before the depth of madness and neglect came for an extended stay and wouldn't leave. I only loved my mother truly and deeply and was her champion and protector. I was five years old.
Some of you know about the years that followed, circumstances beyond my doing....some of you know me from later on. I want you to know that I was so totally unprepared for the Truth about what was going on around me that perhaps it needed to become so extreme.
I became aware of a huge wrongness that permeated my life.....and I began ot assert what I felt was right and good. The summer I left home for good I filled with love and music and friendship. I stood in the face of despair and not only did I defy that despair, I blew it up.
I had become a visitor into other people's lives. I was an unwanted house guest deemed necessary because I was a child, because the law said so, because family obligations spoke up. I became a professional witness into other people's lives. With that view came some extras.
I remember being upstairs alone in my foster family's house. It was sweltering outside, humid and oppressive with July's heat in New York. Everyone was downstairs in the converted basement. I was in the upstairs bathroom and that room was ice cold. There was no air conditioning....this was before central heat and air existed. I KNEW something was wrong in that room. I felt it whenever I was in it. These are the things that I got as a gift for being a visitor into other's lives. Why didn't anyone else feel the cold in that room? Why didn't the adults fix it? Something was very very wrong in that bathroom. As children do, I kept my mouth shut about it, never complaining or making a fuss. Trying to not be there, trying to blend in, disappear. That of course was impossible....I wouldn't know how to disappear if my life depended on it but I digress.
Eventually I found out why the bathroom was so cold and why my foster parents had started taking in foster children. My foster father was a big, strong, Italian retired NYPD. By the time I met him, Sonny, was the owner of an auto shop. He and his wife Teresa had three children of their own. I learned about their fourth child....the oldest son....their pride and joy. He had overdosed in that upstairs bathroom. I felt his spirit there the entire time I lived with that family. All pictures of that oldest son were gone. And a series of needy children paraded through their home, being housed and sheltered, fed and raised. That family was deemed suitable to raise other people's children when they had a huge hole in their lives. Of course no one else felt him but me.
I forget how many places I moved into and out of as a child......even into young adulthood. The idea of living in one place a person's entire life was beyond me. Packing 'my hopes inside a matchbox' became second nature to me. So much that I waited for things to end so I could move on. When that didn't happen on its own, I would move events along so that once again I was thrust into a new situation.
I find no fault or place blame with anyone who I lived with. I see now that we all do the best we can, share what we have with those that have less than we do, and try to hold onto normality as best we can. My many visits into other people's families gave me some safety and a lot of fear of rejection.
It is ironic to me that I wanted to have a place to grow into and have roots to grow my own family but had not one tool in which to accomplish that. I had no idea how to find a stable, secure partner that I could rely on much less partner me in the true ways I needed. So I did what I knew how to do from such a young age........I made the most out of the smallest and deemed that good enough.
You know it wasn't good enough....there was no stability, no security, no partnering. I didn't know that I was bringing a talent to only visit a situation....a relationship....a life.....not actually have it as my own.
And so when you're speaking to me of fond childhood memories.....rooted in your secure place please try and remember that I really only visited those places you got to live within for your entire childhood. I am happy you had all of that and so much more. I wouldn't have it any other way......but please don't forget I only visited my childhood and got to be an observer.
"All 26 of Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories about Tarzan are set in Africa, but he never once visited that continent. And Bram Stoker didn't feel the need to travel to the Transylvanian region of Romania in order to write about it in his novel Dracula. But I don't recommend this approach to you in the coming weeks, Libra. If you want to cultivate something new in your life by drawing on an exotic influence, I think you should immerse yourself in that exotic influence, at least for a while. If you want to tap into the inspiration available through an unfamiliar source, you need to actually be in the presence of that unfamiliar source. "
When I was a child I remember feeling free and happy.....full of light and joy...I thought my existence was perfect. I can remember that place before Life showed her cracks and tarnish.....before the depth of madness and neglect came for an extended stay and wouldn't leave. I only loved my mother truly and deeply and was her champion and protector. I was five years old.
Some of you know about the years that followed, circumstances beyond my doing....some of you know me from later on. I want you to know that I was so totally unprepared for the Truth about what was going on around me that perhaps it needed to become so extreme.
I became aware of a huge wrongness that permeated my life.....and I began ot assert what I felt was right and good. The summer I left home for good I filled with love and music and friendship. I stood in the face of despair and not only did I defy that despair, I blew it up.
I had become a visitor into other people's lives. I was an unwanted house guest deemed necessary because I was a child, because the law said so, because family obligations spoke up. I became a professional witness into other people's lives. With that view came some extras.
I remember being upstairs alone in my foster family's house. It was sweltering outside, humid and oppressive with July's heat in New York. Everyone was downstairs in the converted basement. I was in the upstairs bathroom and that room was ice cold. There was no air conditioning....this was before central heat and air existed. I KNEW something was wrong in that room. I felt it whenever I was in it. These are the things that I got as a gift for being a visitor into other's lives. Why didn't anyone else feel the cold in that room? Why didn't the adults fix it? Something was very very wrong in that bathroom. As children do, I kept my mouth shut about it, never complaining or making a fuss. Trying to not be there, trying to blend in, disappear. That of course was impossible....I wouldn't know how to disappear if my life depended on it but I digress.
Eventually I found out why the bathroom was so cold and why my foster parents had started taking in foster children. My foster father was a big, strong, Italian retired NYPD. By the time I met him, Sonny, was the owner of an auto shop. He and his wife Teresa had three children of their own. I learned about their fourth child....the oldest son....their pride and joy. He had overdosed in that upstairs bathroom. I felt his spirit there the entire time I lived with that family. All pictures of that oldest son were gone. And a series of needy children paraded through their home, being housed and sheltered, fed and raised. That family was deemed suitable to raise other people's children when they had a huge hole in their lives. Of course no one else felt him but me.
I forget how many places I moved into and out of as a child......even into young adulthood. The idea of living in one place a person's entire life was beyond me. Packing 'my hopes inside a matchbox' became second nature to me. So much that I waited for things to end so I could move on. When that didn't happen on its own, I would move events along so that once again I was thrust into a new situation.
I find no fault or place blame with anyone who I lived with. I see now that we all do the best we can, share what we have with those that have less than we do, and try to hold onto normality as best we can. My many visits into other people's families gave me some safety and a lot of fear of rejection.
It is ironic to me that I wanted to have a place to grow into and have roots to grow my own family but had not one tool in which to accomplish that. I had no idea how to find a stable, secure partner that I could rely on much less partner me in the true ways I needed. So I did what I knew how to do from such a young age........I made the most out of the smallest and deemed that good enough.
You know it wasn't good enough....there was no stability, no security, no partnering. I didn't know that I was bringing a talent to only visit a situation....a relationship....a life.....not actually have it as my own.
And so when you're speaking to me of fond childhood memories.....rooted in your secure place please try and remember that I really only visited those places you got to live within for your entire childhood. I am happy you had all of that and so much more. I wouldn't have it any other way......but please don't forget I only visited my childhood and got to be an observer.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
My grandmother, Minnie
Libra Horoscope for week of May 6, 2010
When a girl is born, her ovaries already contain all the eggs she will ever have. What this means, of course, is that a part of you was in your grandmother's womb as well as in your mother's. Now would be an excellent time to celebrate that primal fact. Your connection with your mother's mother is especially important these days. I suggest you meditate on what gifts and liabilities you received from her (genetic and otherwise), and how you might be able to make better use of the gifts even as you take steps to outwit the liabilities.
The other morning I was all revved up and ready to write about my mother. Yes. I was going to open that sealed box and sift through it and purge even more. A few things interrupted me and this morning I read this insightful bit from Rob Brezsney's Free Will Astrology site.
Fascinating to turn instead to what came before the pain and abandonment this year and think about my maternal grandmother. Her real name was Maya, but my grandfather called her Minnie, yes like the Cab Callaway song, Minnie the Moocher. I can't tell you about all the times I spent with her fondly. I was my grandfather, David's pride and joy. Minnie stayed clear of that. I don't believe it wasn't because she had no interest in me, she did, I felt her love. I believe it was more because she saw clearly how much my grandfather needed the relationship with me. To say he doted on me would be putting it mildly. He was the only man I can think of that really spoiled me, but this isn't about him.
I know that Minnie came from Russia. Her and her brothers and sisters lived on a farm there. She told my mother stories of hiding in the haystacks from the soldiers. Minnie and her immediate family all got to America which tells me they had some money and left before things made it impossible for them to go. I can remember pieces of Minnie.......her sitting in the kitchen alone, plucking feathers from the chicken from the butcher...her love of jigsaw puzzles...her absolute acceptance of my being with them when my mother would drop me off and leave.
I remember sleeping in her bed......her and my grandfather had separate beds in the same room with a table in between. All the pillows and duvet covers were made by her. I can still remember the quills of the goose feathers from the pillows and down comforter that kept me warm.
The back of their apartment faced the El(elevated subway) on Gunhill Road in the Bronx. Minnie used to put out tins of food for the stray cats. Their apartment was filled with Van Gogh prints in the living room. I would stare at the prints for hours, absorbing the manic energy that was beneath even the simple sunflower picture. The apartment was always clean.
I remember the phone ringing in the middle of the night. That was the beginning of the end of life as I knew it. My grandmother had died. I didn't get to say goodbye, although grief became a permanent house guest in my mother's life. Nothing was explained to me, not even when we went to the cemetary.
I remember looking at my mother's legs in stockings and thinking how strange it was to see her so devastated. I absorbed it all, as I usually did in my childhood with no explanation, no comfort, no insight. I was along for the ride and we arrived after the service ended. My mother speaking yiddish over her mother's grave....lamenting that she should have listened to her mother....I was witnessing the deluge of regret, guilt, and remorse of a nacissist. My mother would soon push her regrets away and make everything about her once again.
Very soon after that my grandfather moved to Co-op City. These were immense buildings built that could be owned, the first condominiums. He had re=married a woman from the same town as he was in Poland. Gone was Van Gogh. Gone was the down comforters and pillows of my childhood. Gone was the quiet way that I was allowed to have special time with my grandfather. His new wife, Hannah, was beyond territorial. She was ALWAYS present on my visits to my grandfather. Hovering, listening, vying for attention. She wanted David all to herself and no granddaughter was about to share in that.
My mother often told me that my grandparents had lived beyond frugally, as many people escaping wars and harsh economic times did. My step grandmother had the best of everything in their new condominium. She also changed my grandfather's will so that no one would benefit but her.
I was ten years old, visiting my grandfather and his wife while my mother was hospitialized for a suicide attempt. David suffered a heart attack and died. His wife packed me up and dropped me off at the hospital where my mother was and left me there.
Gone forever were my grandparents. I now know that whenever my mother was in crisis she called and they bailed her out of trouble with money to move, relocate, start over. It didn't matter the reason, my mother had me and my grandparents wouldn't turn their back on her as long as I was there. I doubt my mother ever thought about when her parents would be gone and that she wouldn't see a penny of her parents' savings. Our life spiraled downward after that without the strength and foundation of Minnie and David to steady my mother and I.
What I remember most about my grandmother was a steady perserverance, and inner strength in the way she carried her small frame....the way she looked you in the eye and could SEE you. I am thankful for all the time she gave to me and my grandfather, she must have known that without a father or substitute I would need him so much more than most children.
So on this Mother's Day I would like to honor Minnie......russian farmgirl, immigrant to New York, seamstress in the garment district, mother of Harold and Grace, wife of David, and grandmother to me. Rest in Peace Minnie and thank you for carrying me safely into existence.
When a girl is born, her ovaries already contain all the eggs she will ever have. What this means, of course, is that a part of you was in your grandmother's womb as well as in your mother's. Now would be an excellent time to celebrate that primal fact. Your connection with your mother's mother is especially important these days. I suggest you meditate on what gifts and liabilities you received from her (genetic and otherwise), and how you might be able to make better use of the gifts even as you take steps to outwit the liabilities.
The other morning I was all revved up and ready to write about my mother. Yes. I was going to open that sealed box and sift through it and purge even more. A few things interrupted me and this morning I read this insightful bit from Rob Brezsney's Free Will Astrology site.
Fascinating to turn instead to what came before the pain and abandonment this year and think about my maternal grandmother. Her real name was Maya, but my grandfather called her Minnie, yes like the Cab Callaway song, Minnie the Moocher. I can't tell you about all the times I spent with her fondly. I was my grandfather, David's pride and joy. Minnie stayed clear of that. I don't believe it wasn't because she had no interest in me, she did, I felt her love. I believe it was more because she saw clearly how much my grandfather needed the relationship with me. To say he doted on me would be putting it mildly. He was the only man I can think of that really spoiled me, but this isn't about him.
I know that Minnie came from Russia. Her and her brothers and sisters lived on a farm there. She told my mother stories of hiding in the haystacks from the soldiers. Minnie and her immediate family all got to America which tells me they had some money and left before things made it impossible for them to go. I can remember pieces of Minnie.......her sitting in the kitchen alone, plucking feathers from the chicken from the butcher...her love of jigsaw puzzles...her absolute acceptance of my being with them when my mother would drop me off and leave.
I remember sleeping in her bed......her and my grandfather had separate beds in the same room with a table in between. All the pillows and duvet covers were made by her. I can still remember the quills of the goose feathers from the pillows and down comforter that kept me warm.
The back of their apartment faced the El(elevated subway) on Gunhill Road in the Bronx. Minnie used to put out tins of food for the stray cats. Their apartment was filled with Van Gogh prints in the living room. I would stare at the prints for hours, absorbing the manic energy that was beneath even the simple sunflower picture. The apartment was always clean.
I remember the phone ringing in the middle of the night. That was the beginning of the end of life as I knew it. My grandmother had died. I didn't get to say goodbye, although grief became a permanent house guest in my mother's life. Nothing was explained to me, not even when we went to the cemetary.
I remember looking at my mother's legs in stockings and thinking how strange it was to see her so devastated. I absorbed it all, as I usually did in my childhood with no explanation, no comfort, no insight. I was along for the ride and we arrived after the service ended. My mother speaking yiddish over her mother's grave....lamenting that she should have listened to her mother....I was witnessing the deluge of regret, guilt, and remorse of a nacissist. My mother would soon push her regrets away and make everything about her once again.
Very soon after that my grandfather moved to Co-op City. These were immense buildings built that could be owned, the first condominiums. He had re=married a woman from the same town as he was in Poland. Gone was Van Gogh. Gone was the down comforters and pillows of my childhood. Gone was the quiet way that I was allowed to have special time with my grandfather. His new wife, Hannah, was beyond territorial. She was ALWAYS present on my visits to my grandfather. Hovering, listening, vying for attention. She wanted David all to herself and no granddaughter was about to share in that.
My mother often told me that my grandparents had lived beyond frugally, as many people escaping wars and harsh economic times did. My step grandmother had the best of everything in their new condominium. She also changed my grandfather's will so that no one would benefit but her.
I was ten years old, visiting my grandfather and his wife while my mother was hospitialized for a suicide attempt. David suffered a heart attack and died. His wife packed me up and dropped me off at the hospital where my mother was and left me there.
Gone forever were my grandparents. I now know that whenever my mother was in crisis she called and they bailed her out of trouble with money to move, relocate, start over. It didn't matter the reason, my mother had me and my grandparents wouldn't turn their back on her as long as I was there. I doubt my mother ever thought about when her parents would be gone and that she wouldn't see a penny of her parents' savings. Our life spiraled downward after that without the strength and foundation of Minnie and David to steady my mother and I.
What I remember most about my grandmother was a steady perserverance, and inner strength in the way she carried her small frame....the way she looked you in the eye and could SEE you. I am thankful for all the time she gave to me and my grandfather, she must have known that without a father or substitute I would need him so much more than most children.
So on this Mother's Day I would like to honor Minnie......russian farmgirl, immigrant to New York, seamstress in the garment district, mother of Harold and Grace, wife of David, and grandmother to me. Rest in Peace Minnie and thank you for carrying me safely into existence.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
I'ts Ok......this is me
Libra Horoscope for week of January 28, 2010
My theory is that right now the whole world is in love with you. In some places, this simmering adoration is bordering on infatuation. Creatures great and small are more apt than usual to recognize what's beautiful and original about you. As a result, wonders and marvels are likely to coalesce in your vicinity. Is there anything you can do to ensure that events unfold in ways that will yield maximum benefits for everyone concerned? Yes: Be yourself with as much tender intensity as you can muster.
Last week I tried to remember how I used to be so buoyant.....positive......forward thinking. Something occurred to me in a flash. When I was growing up I had no idea how bad things were. I surrounded myself with a shield of 'one day's' and 'when I grow up". This distinct outlook carried me from one situation to the next.......always trying to gleem out one more reason why it was happening to ME. Always searching for where I belonged......what group I could be a part of......where I fit in.
I've known for a long time now that I am a 'betweener' ........always on the cusp of realizing something......always on the fringe.....still on the outside looking in. Moving from place to place.....from family to family......gave me a sense of there being something just ahead......if only I waited everything would be ok. But this was never home.....there were no roots......it was actually chaos and pain and destruction all around me. So filled with the belief that all would turn out right in my World I made great appearances of normalcy. I had relationships....jobs......children.....friends......all the appearances of a life being made. I tried so hard to fulfill a deep longing within myself to make the family I never had......to be the parent I never received.......to be the friend that never let you down.
To my daughter and son......I know for a fact they know this about me. That through my complete ignorance of how the Real World worked I raised them both with as much love and strength as I could find......that I protected them the best I could.....that I never promised them anything that I wasn't prepared to follow through on. Experiencing motherhood forever changed me......for the better, I believe. If there is a 1000 ways to wash dishes I had personally seen at least 20 ways to make families. I became an expert on how to not make waves for fear of being removed from whatever stability I had found at that moment. What I didn't know in raising my children was that through their childhoods I was growing up once again. And realizing the depth of what was really done to me.
It wasn't until choice after choice was made by me.......putting my children first that I realized how lonely I really was growing up. After committing myself to keeping us safe I saw again and again that rarely did anyone put me first in their life. This became so apparrent that I turned inward and decided to face the World alone for there must be no place for me.....no home....no mate.....just an endless stream of enduring crises and solutions.
This was so very wrong.....I will know what it is to be loved primarily and not just obligatory. I will find my place and purpose in the World. It's not to late to discover anything and everything. I am not on the outside of anything except what I choose to remain outside of. How many years do those people that neglected me get to keep imparting their pain? No more !
So I have decided to go back to playing my little game of pretending there is a light at the end of the tunnel...that the story turns out happily ever after.....that every song ever written holds deep connections and truth for me.....that there are signs from the Universe talking to me from random places.....that good overcomes evil.....that I was born to be loved and to be able to love in the deepest capacity possible. I have decided that in my lifetime I get to experience all of it.......everything .....and perhaps....just maybe I got a lot of the bad stuff out of the way when my belief wasn't tarnished just yet....when my soul sang a song to me of longing and truth because for me.....well that is my right.
I used to laugh at many things including myslef......I used to believe that 'love will find a way'......I used to hold to my heart the unwavering truth that i was right within the worst situations.....because I was. I have spent my entire life trying to be a good person......trying to do the right thing sometimes for the wrong people.....trying to uphold some inner code that only was being whispered to me. And by now I believe it's apparrent that this is who I am.....
I am going to try really hard to not forget the bliss I found out of not enduring but in living from one moment to the next......that no matter where I used to wake up and within what circumstances I found myself in......I found the glory and beauty of just existing and being alive. This is truly the gift we each hold within us......the ability to find and share our deepest love with ourself and the World. And if someone doesn't want my love that's ok....someone else will.
My theory is that right now the whole world is in love with you. In some places, this simmering adoration is bordering on infatuation. Creatures great and small are more apt than usual to recognize what's beautiful and original about you. As a result, wonders and marvels are likely to coalesce in your vicinity. Is there anything you can do to ensure that events unfold in ways that will yield maximum benefits for everyone concerned? Yes: Be yourself with as much tender intensity as you can muster.
Last week I tried to remember how I used to be so buoyant.....positive......forward thinking. Something occurred to me in a flash. When I was growing up I had no idea how bad things were. I surrounded myself with a shield of 'one day's' and 'when I grow up". This distinct outlook carried me from one situation to the next.......always trying to gleem out one more reason why it was happening to ME. Always searching for where I belonged......what group I could be a part of......where I fit in.
I've known for a long time now that I am a 'betweener' ........always on the cusp of realizing something......always on the fringe.....still on the outside looking in. Moving from place to place.....from family to family......gave me a sense of there being something just ahead......if only I waited everything would be ok. But this was never home.....there were no roots......it was actually chaos and pain and destruction all around me. So filled with the belief that all would turn out right in my World I made great appearances of normalcy. I had relationships....jobs......children.....friends......all the appearances of a life being made. I tried so hard to fulfill a deep longing within myself to make the family I never had......to be the parent I never received.......to be the friend that never let you down.
To my daughter and son......I know for a fact they know this about me. That through my complete ignorance of how the Real World worked I raised them both with as much love and strength as I could find......that I protected them the best I could.....that I never promised them anything that I wasn't prepared to follow through on. Experiencing motherhood forever changed me......for the better, I believe. If there is a 1000 ways to wash dishes I had personally seen at least 20 ways to make families. I became an expert on how to not make waves for fear of being removed from whatever stability I had found at that moment. What I didn't know in raising my children was that through their childhoods I was growing up once again. And realizing the depth of what was really done to me.
It wasn't until choice after choice was made by me.......putting my children first that I realized how lonely I really was growing up. After committing myself to keeping us safe I saw again and again that rarely did anyone put me first in their life. This became so apparrent that I turned inward and decided to face the World alone for there must be no place for me.....no home....no mate.....just an endless stream of enduring crises and solutions.
This was so very wrong.....I will know what it is to be loved primarily and not just obligatory. I will find my place and purpose in the World. It's not to late to discover anything and everything. I am not on the outside of anything except what I choose to remain outside of. How many years do those people that neglected me get to keep imparting their pain? No more !
So I have decided to go back to playing my little game of pretending there is a light at the end of the tunnel...that the story turns out happily ever after.....that every song ever written holds deep connections and truth for me.....that there are signs from the Universe talking to me from random places.....that good overcomes evil.....that I was born to be loved and to be able to love in the deepest capacity possible. I have decided that in my lifetime I get to experience all of it.......everything .....and perhaps....just maybe I got a lot of the bad stuff out of the way when my belief wasn't tarnished just yet....when my soul sang a song to me of longing and truth because for me.....well that is my right.
I used to laugh at many things including myslef......I used to believe that 'love will find a way'......I used to hold to my heart the unwavering truth that i was right within the worst situations.....because I was. I have spent my entire life trying to be a good person......trying to do the right thing sometimes for the wrong people.....trying to uphold some inner code that only was being whispered to me. And by now I believe it's apparrent that this is who I am.....
I am going to try really hard to not forget the bliss I found out of not enduring but in living from one moment to the next......that no matter where I used to wake up and within what circumstances I found myself in......I found the glory and beauty of just existing and being alive. This is truly the gift we each hold within us......the ability to find and share our deepest love with ourself and the World. And if someone doesn't want my love that's ok....someone else will.
Friday, January 15, 2010
INTIMACY
Main Entry: in·ti·ma·cy
Pronunciation: \ˈin-tə-mə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural in·ti·ma·cies
Date: 1641
1 : the state of being intimate : familiarity
2 : something of a personal or private nature
I woke up this morning thinking of intimacy and what it means to me......how it's manifested in my life....or perhaps the lack of intimacy I really have.
I can look back and see the warped seeds of intimacy that I had as models for behavior growing up. I always disregarded those examples. What I saw within my parents' relationships were excuses not to do their own personal work, as well as the fact I could see, they weren't really honest with themself or their parnters.
So I set out to learn to be true to myself.....to heed my own inner creed......to cultivate intimacy with myself. I grew to become very private.......I turned so inward that I practically re-decorated my interior life. I grew comfortable there......I thought I had finally accomplished something great and grand and safe.
Erecting walls of such a grand scale took time and effort and lots and lots of fear. Underneath my determination to do it my way was this need to not be hurt again.....not choose the wrong man.......not once again fuck everything up so completely.
So what happens when I want to become intimate with someone else? To 'be familiar with'? Barriers and more fear!!!!!!!!!!! A journey that could be filled with wonderment and intimacy is also fraught with an unfamiliarity.
In a lifetime where I am lucky enough to have time to see situations and myself from yet another perspective I now see I am rusty and unknowing of intimacy between me and another person. This question comes up over and over again....."Why would you even want me?" " Don't you know I come from a place so fractured"? So consumed with being honest and self disclosing I totally missed a huge piece of the picture. I am more than my past, where I came from, who I was exposed to, what mistakes I made.
Done, finished, dealt with...........Today, right at this moment even though everything occured it matters little to help me with intimacy. For what I see now is that intimacy can and should be fresh and new and unexplored. I'm not needing or wanting to re-invent myself but I do have an opportunity to put forth the best parts of me and what I've been learning into practice.
I have become so accustomed to looking out for me that I forget that someone else might want to help. I became so good at standing up for me that I neglected to know and accept that someone would have my back. I chose to stand in a place of such hard-fast resiliance that I forgot how to be vulnerable........not just to myself but to the magnificence of someone else and the gifts of the World.
Where I was once open and fluid I have become rigid and ambivilent. This is not what I want or need to continue to be. So now I feel like the shoe is on the other foot. The pendulum has moved back the other way.......I am going outside myself to re-integrate with the World and all it offers. I once moved through the World armed only with the belief that Love is the right way and to look for it in all people and situations. I forgot to do that for myself for the greatest experience we can truly have is to share ourself, our most intimate self with another human being.
Instead of making the most out of a minimum person, place, or thing, I will have the greatest response from a person that is fully capable of responding on all levels to me and to himself as well as the World. I see now that the intimacy I am willing to have is a good thing, but the intimacy I am willing to have with another is how I can continue to learn and grow and develop.
It is important to stand at a place and look back and see everything played out. It is far better to stand and look forward and see the beauty of what has not yet played out.
Pronunciation: \ˈin-tə-mə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural in·ti·ma·cies
Date: 1641
1 : the state of being intimate : familiarity
2 : something of a personal or private nature
I woke up this morning thinking of intimacy and what it means to me......how it's manifested in my life....or perhaps the lack of intimacy I really have.
I can look back and see the warped seeds of intimacy that I had as models for behavior growing up. I always disregarded those examples. What I saw within my parents' relationships were excuses not to do their own personal work, as well as the fact I could see, they weren't really honest with themself or their parnters.
So I set out to learn to be true to myself.....to heed my own inner creed......to cultivate intimacy with myself. I grew to become very private.......I turned so inward that I practically re-decorated my interior life. I grew comfortable there......I thought I had finally accomplished something great and grand and safe.
Erecting walls of such a grand scale took time and effort and lots and lots of fear. Underneath my determination to do it my way was this need to not be hurt again.....not choose the wrong man.......not once again fuck everything up so completely.
So what happens when I want to become intimate with someone else? To 'be familiar with'? Barriers and more fear!!!!!!!!!!! A journey that could be filled with wonderment and intimacy is also fraught with an unfamiliarity.
In a lifetime where I am lucky enough to have time to see situations and myself from yet another perspective I now see I am rusty and unknowing of intimacy between me and another person. This question comes up over and over again....."Why would you even want me?" " Don't you know I come from a place so fractured"? So consumed with being honest and self disclosing I totally missed a huge piece of the picture. I am more than my past, where I came from, who I was exposed to, what mistakes I made.
Done, finished, dealt with...........Today, right at this moment even though everything occured it matters little to help me with intimacy. For what I see now is that intimacy can and should be fresh and new and unexplored. I'm not needing or wanting to re-invent myself but I do have an opportunity to put forth the best parts of me and what I've been learning into practice.
I have become so accustomed to looking out for me that I forget that someone else might want to help. I became so good at standing up for me that I neglected to know and accept that someone would have my back. I chose to stand in a place of such hard-fast resiliance that I forgot how to be vulnerable........not just to myself but to the magnificence of someone else and the gifts of the World.
Where I was once open and fluid I have become rigid and ambivilent. This is not what I want or need to continue to be. So now I feel like the shoe is on the other foot. The pendulum has moved back the other way.......I am going outside myself to re-integrate with the World and all it offers. I once moved through the World armed only with the belief that Love is the right way and to look for it in all people and situations. I forgot to do that for myself for the greatest experience we can truly have is to share ourself, our most intimate self with another human being.
Instead of making the most out of a minimum person, place, or thing, I will have the greatest response from a person that is fully capable of responding on all levels to me and to himself as well as the World. I see now that the intimacy I am willing to have is a good thing, but the intimacy I am willing to have with another is how I can continue to learn and grow and develop.
It is important to stand at a place and look back and see everything played out. It is far better to stand and look forward and see the beauty of what has not yet played out.
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