Grace

 Dear Grace,

For someone who I no longer speak with, you sure keep popping up.  I spent a lot of my life trying not to be like you or Nicky.  Something are unavoidable.  

I arrogantly thought that all I had to do was survive my childhood and then I could move past it all.  I really thought there was something special in store for me once I survived you.  You were the first person I ever loved with all my heart and soul.  You used to tell me that 'we would always be together'.  Then one day you sat me down and told me that I had to go away and that nearly broke me.  How could I not be with the most amazing mother in the entire world.  

You were so smart but so manic.  You acted as if staying up all night (yes I wasn't always asleep) was normal.  I didn't know then about depression and how you couldn't get out of bed sometimes because the weight of it all kept you down.  You almost always had a smile for me.  There was so much that we never talked about.  I broke the rules because I told on you.  I couldn't stand that you didn't want me any longer, that we couldn't be together.

You didn't contact family where I may have had a chance at normal.  Isn't that funny?  What family is normal?  Even those with the best of intentions still cause harm.  So I started on a path and always looked for the light.  I always found the light in music otherwise why would music exist?  

Every song, every melody, every lyric was absorbed like an student at Seminary School.  Music became my salve and salvation.  Some people are naturals with facts or figures, well I remember every song I ever heard.  This was where I prayed...where I found solace.  This was a relationship that wouldn't send me away or disappoint because music isn't capable of abandoning me.  

I learned at an early age that there a more than a thousand ways to wash dishes.  I learned because I observed and because I watched I foolishly thought that I was safe.  People would poke fun at me because I always sat like a little lady with my hands folded.  How else would I sit?  I had a thirst for knowledge that wasn't ever filled.  So I devoured books and listened to anyone I met.  I talked, oh how I talked.  All.  The.  Time.  I didn't know that this was my way of coping with pain and fear and abandonment.  I took love and friendship where ever I could find it.  I didn't understand that the World I was in was so cruel.  I was filled with light and love and joy and I just wanted to be normal.

You weren't normal to me.  You hated yourself so much that you wouldn't tell me how old you were or allow me to see you until you 'had your face on'.  That must have been exhausting to always have a mask on even to those who were with you.  Children make so many allowances for their parents.  And the funny thing is that the parents are really just larger children.  We heap expectations on adults until they crack and fracture and then finally break.

Our separations were so hard for me until I finally put my foot down and left you.  I thought then that I was reclaiming who I was and protecting myself from you but that damage had been done already.  Patterns of taking on people who I never should have been around but hey we do what we can, right?   My conflict is that I now can conceptualize what actually was going on with you with what I felt as a child:  anger and disappointment and fear and just the unfairness of it all.  To be a child is to be vulnerable to so much and yet this is the ways it happened and there must be a reason for it.  At least that is what we tell ourselves.  Trauma doesn't really ever disappear.  I think what we wind up with are different levels of functionality.  These levels can range from taking care of every task, every detail, every possible scenario for a long time, to utter despair and depression.  

My aunt used to jokingly call me Pollyanna. I had a response and a resilience that didn't waiver.  Again this was because I foolishly thought that once I got out of my childhood, I would be handed a golden ticket.  Perhaps that's the carrot that dangles in front of me.  Always a bit out of reach.  What I learned too late is that I wasn't living....I was still in survival mode.  

I thought as long as I had a job, I was doing better than Grace and Nicky.  I thought as long as I got up every day and went to  a job that made me more functional than those grifters I called parents.  I really thought that earning a living, putting my nose to the grindstone made me better than them.  I lived that way until......March of 2020.

Then all those illusions broke open and I have had to face myself again and again.  This was not the life that I sought out for myself.  Always trying to make the most out of the so little.  This included relationships of all kinds.  Men who wanted to be close but weren't my equals.  Me relentlessly breaking things down in a stupid attempt to get them to understand.  Well, if you want a better relationship make sure they speak your language.  Me so thrilled that someone at least finally took an interest in me.  In spite of my insecurities I tried to remain functional.  Until I realized that those men had no clue how to fix me.  That was my job.

So Grace, I then searched for answers instead of band-aids.  I dug in and did the work.  I went to shul, I went to therapy, I went and talked to anyone that would listen and you know what?  There really isn't an answer.  You betrayed me on such a deep level that I am still trying to recover from it.  "Moving 8 miles a minute for months at a time".  I thought I was healing, making progress, making sense of it all.  I thought I was so wise but now I am not sure that I was ever wise.  Who loves like I did and not expect anything in return?  Who does that?

Grace, you signed me over to the state of New York and you moved three thousand miles west.  You told me that once you got settled then you would send for me.  You didn't want me.  I couldn't see that then but I see it now.  I could forgive the illness.  I could forgive you almost anything but you didn't have enough respect to make sure I was safe and loved.  You handed that job to me at 13 and I thought I was doing so well.  So I took two and two and tried to make four but it just kept coming up as three or five....never four.  I am so angry because you played it the way you wanted it but never gave me the courtesy of the truth.  

You are gone and I am here holding all these feelings.  So many feelings.  They drown me sometimes.  I don't like the feeling of drowning.  I want all of my power back.  I do not want to waste any more time living a life of fear, neglect, and poverty.  I got pretty far on nothing but even that has run out.  You exhaust me.  You take up space in my head and my heart and I am evicting you.

I need you to understand that I loved you unconditionally and you weren't able to return that to me.  I want you to know that when you were trying to kill yourself over and over but never told me I still knew.  So instead of doing your personal work you and healing us, you tried to manipulate me.  While I was fighting for my life and was losing my sight, you wanted to come and live with me.  I wasn't even living on my own.  And I had a child to raise and another child who was struggling on her own.  

Generational cycles need to be broken.  Hell, they need to have a nuclear bomb dropped on them.  I never want my grandchildren to experience this kind of heartache.  So, Grace, I am trying to forgive you for all of it.  I forgive you for allowing me to see my father when you knew he wasn't a safe person.  I forgive you for having money but not investing it in me.  I forgive you for not talking to me about your lifestyle so I wouldn't be ashamed because it wasn't accepted at the time.  I forgive you for not helping me when I was trying to start over yet again and you could have changed all of it but you didn't.  

Grace you did what you thought was your best and your pain and suffering are long over with.  Maybe in the next life I will be the parent and you will be the child and hopefully we can nurture what should have been.  The time for that isn't here and now.  There is nothing left for us.  Please wish me well and I hope the best for your safe travels.  I hope you find the light and love that you so deserved and never found.  I hope you know how thankful I am for what you were able to show me and teach me.  I hope you know that when I hear Frankie Valle and the Four Season that I know it's you saying hello.  I want you to know that every time you wanted me to 'get' what a song was about that I got it.  I just didn't need to hear it a thousand times to get the message.  

I hope you find peace.  I hope you find grace.  I hope you can forgive me for not being able to be the daughter you wanted because no person could have given you what you weren't willing to give yourself.

Bricks

 I am about 4 years old. I remember running around with no shirt on in the summer rain.  I remember loving my mother with all my heart.  I remember her getting up before us to 'put on her face'.  I remember thinking to never be afraid to just leave the house with no make-up on.  

There was always music playing even when I went to sleep.  I know the music from my childhood intimately because it's imprinted onto my soul.  That's what happens when you're raised by a depressed narcissist.  I remember sitting in the back seat and watching my mother's hand hit the outside upper part of the car window frame.  I would watch her hand, with a ring keeping time, tapping to whatever song was playing.  She was the perfect passenger.  I made note to be the driver and that it's okay to also be the passenger.  'And I ride and I ride'

I thought my mother's cooking was the best.  She could cook so good that you thought you could be bewitched.  Her bohemian ways.  Her artistic eye.  Her screaming insecurities. Her world and I was allowed to visit when I was young.  

All that music and manic afternoons and don't wake her up before noon.  I remember how much I loved school.  I loved the structure of it.  I loved learning and the KNOWING of something.  I loved that once you learned something it was yours forever.  I always had music in my head.  Just a constant stream of music until someone interrupted it.

I am making peace with what she did give me.  She showed me beauty both superficially and into your soul.  She showed me that making a home means the vibe of it.  I learned how to live with someone so moody that I entertained her with my intelligence so she might now slip into her darkness.  I grew to loved many of the same things:  books, good fresh food, art, discussions, radio.  So I kept the good parts and tried to sail away from the bad....the emotional baggage.

Oh and I almost forgot!  How she normalized drama so that when I saw people who were less emotionally charged I waited for the other shoe to drop.  When that is the norm well it's hard to train yourself to other environments.

When I was growing up I wasn't just imprinted with my family of origin.  There was a host of characters.  Many of which had no business being around children.  There were a few and I clung on to them for any intellectual companionship.  I would become really good at just telling people the truth and telling them what I need.  I didn't realize for a very long time that there were things I needed that I didn't know how to ask for.

When things got too complicated and or emotionally charged my mother just disconnected.  She began to disconnect for longer and longer periods of time.  I couldn't live like that.  I asked to leave and the powers that be said okay.  I went from a foster home, to a group home, to family.  I had my eyes wide open and I saw many things.

Don't think your children don't know what's going on in your home.  All children are psychic.  Even if they don't have words they have feelings.  I saw people who really cared for others.  I saw people do things just for the money.  I saw that when I was left alone I knew right from wrong.  I could read people well.  When you grow up around someone like my mother you learn quick.  I have always talked a lot.  Did I say a lot?  It was just so exciting to meet people and see places.  I talked a lot to cover my fear.  There was always a lot going on emotionally and talking for me was a defense mechanism. Since I was able to engage with strangers I learned things about those around me.

The older I got the more I realized how much in my life wasn't right.  Even when I was trying to do the right thing it was often with the wrong person.  So now I am careful.  I am careful with my feelings and with relationships and with strangers.  I used to be wide open and now I feel as if I am behind a reinforced wall.  With time I realize, the wall no longer serves any purpose.  What and who it was protecting me from doesn't even exist.  Trauma is like battling with people who are just ghosts but who can stab you.  Trauma is hearing or seeing, or hell-smelling something and you are triggered and you are in that place or situation and your mind picks it up and plays it out.  Not always appropriate or convenient but tough shit your on a trip.

So lately I remind myself to be kinder to me.  That for as much baggage that has been processed there is still so much more to do.  And I am okay with that.  I will do what I can in the time that I have.  I will try to nurture that scared child inside of me.  I will try to pry a few bricks every once in a while.

A Pot of Sauce

 Today I am making a big pot of 'gravy' or sauce as West Coasters know it as.  My mother was one of the most amazing cooks ever.  So when I moved out at 13, I wanted to recreate her sauce.  Looking back it was my ego that drove me to first recreate that gravy.  If she could make amazing sauce then so could I.  

First of all, never cook when you are angry.  If you can, have your favorite music playing.  Fresh is always best.  And think about who you are going to feed.  You are preparing something that someone else is going to eat.  I would like to believe that I am creating magic with my cooking.

My mother was Jewish and married a Sicilian.  She learned from his mother how to make gravy.  It was spectacular.  My mouth waters to think about it.  Rich and simmered for hours....all those spices marrying with the tomatoes.  It was truly something to behold.  

I make excellent sauce.  If I am making lasagna or stuffed shells or baked zitti I push the flavor profile up a bit.  So I am thinking about Samantha and my grandkids while I create this sauce.  My grandchildren LOVE my cooking.  Which means it is a great experience for them and rewarding for me.

I am a nurturer by default.  I used to cook big batches of food and feed my friends when I was young.  It is truly one of the greatest pleasures in the world to feed someone.  There should be something intimate about a home cooked meal.  It's about intention  and if your intentions are positive then it will be amazing.  I equate cooking with other acts of love like a really great hug.  If I don't like you then I am not cooking for you-ever.  

I also think everyone should have 1 signature dish.  Can't cook?  That's okay!  You can make the best scrambled eggs or pancakes.  What matters is that you are in the moment, that you are creating something and that an event is being born.  Like many important circumstances cooking is a magical that makes people take notice.  It hits all your senses and afterwards leaves you feeling satisfied.

I look forward to passing this on to my grandchildren so they can pass it forward.

I haven't written in a very long time.  Five years!  I am not sure why I stopped but I need to start writing again.  I have all these thoughts in my head and they just keep spinning around.  Kind of like an off balance washing machine that works but is a bit wonky.  Yeah, that's me...a bit wonky.

I just turned 58 and I didn't want another moment, week, month, or year go by without me sharing some of my thoughts.  

This year, 2020, has been unlike any other year. Not just for me, but for everyone.  I see that things are breaking down in order to build something else that is stronger and hopefully more noble.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?  To live in a world where noble acts are revered?  Where people are able to grow and thrive and not just exist?  

I am so rusty.  Words feel as if they are jammed up.  But don't worry.  I will continue and they will come easier.