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.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
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.
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