what if?

What if I told you that I only feel worthy if I can be of help to someone?

What if nothing anyone could say could make it better?

There are lots of details that I don't want to explain right now. Foul, I know. But there it is.

But what if there was someone who you have always wanted to declare her love for you? And what if at this point, even if she did or could, it would not change how you feel about yourself?

I am trying to help someone I care about to confront and change the agreements that have left her vulnerable to predators. 

It's hard because I am still trying to disentangle myself from similar agreements. And knowing that they exist was a good first step. But what those steps are in between knowing and renegotiating are never fully spelled out. 

So, as I try to pull back the veil for my friend, I deal with the onslaught of my own agreements - and how knowing about them hasn't easily produced the new agreements I need to live a more healthy, happy life.

I don't know where I was headed with this. Honestly, this is the third or fourth post I have started trying to process the latest trauma. 

Trauma piled on trauma - not grieving any of it fully, just makes for serious trauma responses to even the slightest situation. 

But I have had some pretty big issues to deal with lately (again). So, sometimes this has escalated to panic attacks - and sometimes to what feels like relatively insignificant stimuli.

In retrospect, I can say that I have survived all the large and small traumas ... recalling the appropriateness of the ; in our lives.

; take a breath

; feel the feelings

; hold on to see what comes next

I type all this in the full knowledge that for some folks what comes next might be worse than what is now. It might not work for all folks to take a beat. I respect that.

For me, right now, I am remembering the times when taking a breath got me to the next minute. 

octopus or vampire

Do you ever feel like someone is always asking you for something?

You are standing in a room and octopus arms are coming at you from all sides?

This is how I feel right now. EVERY DAY. Almost all day long.

It is exhausting.

My hard drive is full - I cannot contain any more useful or useless information. I am tapped. I don't have anything else to give.

Yet, my parents want me to weigh in on every single decision they need to make. AND to reserve the right to reject absolutely everything I say in response to their demand.

The dog drops the toy on my toes whether I am cooking or talking on the phone or trying to do something else. If I ignore her, she taps my foot, my leg, anything exposed, with her wet nose and then looks up at me.

Every once in a while, I can hide in the bathroom, but it only works sometimes.

I try to get a long walk in every day. It's generally the only truly alone time I have, but it is also not unfettered. The cars rev their engines at me as I cross the street even though I definitely get across the street faster than they could walking. The dogs rush me if they are allowed to be in their front yards. I greet people as I walk because it is polite, but it is another invasion of my private time.

I am exhausted.

I have nothing more to give.

We hear about the emotional vampires. But does anyone ever tells us not to give in to the marauding octopi? 

 -----

I started the day out relentlessly cheerful.

It's been a hard week ... starting with getting back to work after 8 days off. So, you know, a pile of email, and any number of "crises" that are really just the consequence of people not handling their business, literally, because work is business.

Beyond the work re-entry, home re-entry was just as bumpy. 

I returned home to find both octogenarians not feeling well. 

Part of me felt that they were just trying to make me feel guilty for taking a few days for myself.

But, the biggest part was just worried.

My dad's health worsened over the next few days ... all seemingly inexplicable symptoms. His head hurt, and then his left side below his eye was swollen, his ear hurt, and then his whole eye was swollen. 

My mom remembered him saying something about feeling he had been bitten by a bug. He could neither remember being bitten or having said anything about it.

So, in case anyone was wondering, memory issues of octogenarians make them very unreliable narrators of most things except their childhood memories (which of course are also unreliable but in a different way). My dad is especially unreliable because he hates doctors and hates demonstrating any weakness... so it is very difficult to get him to say how he actually feels. So much so that I have to rely on his blood pressure spiking to know he is in pain.

Monday night we ended up in the ER. Even though during the day he felt fine because, of course, I asked him how he felt, several times.

You don't know me, so  you will just have to trust me that I spend most of my waking hours trying to keep my parents healthy. And I have done a good job, if I do say so myself.

But this time, the roadblocks we have faced trying to get him care and figuring out what exactly is going on have made me feel like a failure.

Worse - I feel like the universe is telling me that I am not good at caring for him. It is not an emotion based on reality. I get that. But I am exhausted. And I am my only cheerleader, so when I lose hope, it is a big deal.

I spent the bulk of the day at the edge of tears with breaks to speak sternly with many people standing between me and actual health care professionals. Let's just say they know at this point that I have zero fucks to give.

I feel like I am ending the day defeated.

This is distressing on so many levels. 

I have tried to bring my vacation vibes back into my "real" life. I have held my head high through several days of really challenging issues (I didn't even enumerate the work woes here). 

But now I feel defeated. 

I feel like I need to just say, I give in. I give up.

Why does the universe feel the need to beat me up and put me in my place all the time? That's what I need to know. It feels like there is no need to keep trying to hold my head up when I just get whacked back into submission.

work

I have been doing some personal work over here.

It doesn't feel like I am getting anywhere on this work.

It's not to do list kind of work, well, maybe it is.

It is hard.

Exhausting.

Overwhelming.

It is work.

Most days I only have the strength left to pull myself into bed... even though what I really need to do is debrief.

I don't want to talk, so there is no relief there.

Writing would be a good outlet, but it makes the work even more real and thus scarier and more overwhelming.

I keep hoping that I will turn a corner on the work and it will feel lighter, more purposeful or even just done. I'd take partially done.

Instead, it feels like the pushing up the boulder and having it come crashing back on me.

Only it is larger every time it rolls back over me, flattening me.

I don't even have the emotional or physical energy to wander out in search of beauty.

I am just tired.

And tired of being tired.

And sad.

And tired of being sad.

they say, I hear...

 They take advantage of my strength.

So sure are they that I will always bend and never break

So sure are they that I have infinite capacity to give, they take and take and take.

Even better, they criticize what I give. If only you...

I learned the hard way that I have to stand up for myself.

But when I do, I get labeled the asshole.

Ok, I'm an asshole.

Now what?

The truth is I cannot bend anymore.

I am at the breaking point, and they are still arguing about whether or not I gave enough, or in the right way, or if it doesn't matter because I wasn't smiling while I did it.

ok.

-------------------

Just be happy.

You can choose to just be happy.

Subtext: you're doing it wrong.

Ok, maybe that's not what they meant, but I am here to tell you, that's what I heard.

You see someone exhausted from life

What do you do?

Offer some more things that person should do

Offer a platitude, tomorrow is another day

You don't want to know what I think when I hear that.

-------------------

Shattered.

Broken into a million pieces.

No strength left to pick up each piece and try to fit it together - even if making a new picture is the only way out of the darkness.

Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Done.

I am not just frustrated, I'm tired of trying to make it all work.

This broken clock is not even right twice a day.

And, finally, when I feel like I cannot go on one more day, you care, kind of... 

I am only worthy of compassion or empathy if I am a pool of water on the floor

or a glass shattered beyond repair.

You could have listened any of the million times I told you explicitly or implicitly that I was drowning.

But you waited until I could not go on to demand that I must.

And I am supposed to be what? grateful?

I'm not, but I am an asshole, so it is not surprising.

not Poetry Thursday, but still POETRY

Ghazal !يا لطيف (Ya Lateef!)
~Marilyn Hacker

A lot more malaise and a little more grief every day,
aware that all seasons, the stormy, the sunlit, are brief every day. 

I don’t know the name of the hundredth drowned child, just the names
of the oligarchs trampling the green, eating beef every day,

while luminous creatures flick, stymied, above and around
the plastic detritus that’s piling up over the reef every day.

A tiny white cup of black coffee in afternoon shade,
while an oud or a sax plays brings breath and relief every day. 

Another beginning, no useful conclusion in sight‚—
another first draft that I tear out and add to the sheaf every day. 

One name, three-in-one, ninety-nine, or a matrix of tales 
that are one story only, well-springs of belief every day.

But I wake before dawn to read news that arrived overnight
on a minuscule screen , and exclaim  يا لطيف every day.

Copyright © 2020 by Marilyn Hacker. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 9, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

I loved this explanation from the poet: “I’m very fond of the ghazal form, because of its combination of unity—the qafia (rhyme) and radif (repeated word or phrase) are a ‘fixed’ element, while the couplets themselves can go off in any direction. Usually the poet includes their name, or a version of it, in the last couplet. I also love the ghazal because of other poets who practice it: Agha Shahid Ali, Zeina Hashem Beck, Mimi Khalvati, Shadab Zeest Hashmi, Suzanne Gardinier, Karthika Nair, among them. An American critic wrote, perhaps misinformed, that that last couplet was meant to include one of the ninety-nine names of God in Islam. ‘Lateef’—the kind or gentle one—is one of those names, but ‘Ya Lateef’ is a common exclamation, equivalent to ‘Good God!’ (in exasperation), or even ‘Oi veh is mir…’ Today, there is an overwhelming reason to say a collective and worldwide ‘Ya lateef,’ while the oligarchs golf in their compounds, for as long as they still can.”

So Much in so Few Words, not Poetry Thursday

Tender Buttons [Mildred’s Umbrella]
 ~Gertrude Stein

A cause and no curve, a cause and loud enough, a cause and extra a loud clash and an extra wagon, a sign of extra, a sac a small sac and an established color and cunning, a slender grey and no ribbon, this means a loss a great loss a restitution.

This poem is in the public domain.

los dias nefastos comienzan de nuevo

It's cold and foggy out this morning, it fits perfectly with my state of mind and mood.

I feel both like I am walking in the fog and yet clear, painful memories keep cutting deep.

Tears flow just thinking about the trauma of that morning six years ago.

I'll come back and tell you more if I have the strength, for now, please just send me peaceful thoughts.
-------------

4.22

Six years ago today, we forced the doctors to sit with all of us ... to explain what was really going on with my sister.

Six years ago today, we let go.

Well, I don't know that we really let go. I didn't let go. But the headache I had been suffering lifted for the first time in three days.

I have to construct a wall around my heart to even write these words.

I wonder if I will ever be far away enough from this to actually remember those days in the hospital. I wonder if those days will remain in the "nefastos" category forever.

And tears fall down my face and little splashes of tears dirty my glasses, and I still can't REMEMBER, but the grief pierces my heart.

And even though I cannot will myself to remember all that happened in those days, I get flashes of the story as if it were a movie, and sometimes these wake me from sleep.

In sleep, I am in that panic mode of what can I do to make this stop. I used to be able to change the trajectory of my dreams, but this is not just a nightmare, it is reality.

Yesterday we sat around the table and shared some of the the trauma of the last six year with a friend we haven't seen in a while.

The tears welled up in her eyes. I felt bad, but we don't talk about it, and her presence gave us the space to do it.

4.23
I am exhausted. Sleep is hard, not as bad as it was all those years ago. But in the darkness, I remember that night I arrived. I had the mijo with me. His dad was at the hospital over night with Chila. As soon as the room was dark, the mijo asked me, Do you think she can get better?

What could I say? I told him I did.

You can't expect a miracle if you don't believe.

Last week, after six years, we talked about the trauma. I had the mijo with me for three days, and as always, it was bittersweet. And he asked me as soon as we were alone. Nowadays the questions are not as straightforward as they were that night. He asks a really hard, oblique question. He sees how I handle it. If I say something he can trust, I might get another one. I have to guess at context and meaning. I have to navigate the bombs. And if I do a good job, I get a little window into what is bothering him.

This time, eventually, after several hard questions, I said to him that he is allowed to have emotions ... that the trauma of losing someone when he was so young will stay with him, that it is okay to talk about it, to take care of himself.

I reminded him that at the hospital he was so worried about others - it's who he is, it's what he inherited from her.

He had a box of tissues, and if he saw a tear fall down someone's face, he was at that person's side, offering solace. He was scared to death, and he was consoling others. And afterwards, he was so worried about his dad, his own emotions did not get to be aired.

I took him to grief group every week. I suggested the one on one, but he didn't want to talk about it.

And now, here we are, and I worry, but I am glad that he still trusts me.

And I worry that if I could have just cried in front of him that maybe I would have helped him more. But even now I can't just let go and wail even though my soul is doing just that.

I am exhausted.

I say that feeling emotions is exhausting.

But maybe it holding them in that is exhausting.

comment that turned into a post

I intend to post.

I draft pieces and they feel flat and ugly and stupid and they languish.

But, sometimes, what I am feeling does come out, in response to others. I wrote this response to Anne Nahm on her post. And I realized it wasn't a comment. It was a post, wanting to come out. So, unfiltered, here it is.

Grief has changed my life... I can't say all in bad ways, but it is really hard to find the good ways (and, truthfully, when I do, I get bitterly angry about those changes, too).

When the experts say, everyone grieves in their own way, it's irritating, but true. 

The first year, for me, was interrupted when I had another major loss (brother first and then seven months later, sister). In the first seven months, I went from being unable to sleep or eat and wanting to claw through the floor, to feeling like I might be ok. 

And then the second loss. I completely lost it, but in a very strange way ... not unlike what you describe, but also different. I crawled in a "I'm ok" hole and stayed there, refusing to feel, heal, or deal.  

And then everyone else in my family fell apart in very open, real ways. My reaction to that was: I'M OK, I can handle it all! I will fix everyone. I can stick to all my plans and all my deadlines, EVERYTHING IS FINE! 

When I scheduled my qualifying exams, no one even thought to say, Are you sure you can do this? 

In fact, no one checked in on me. 

Friends I have known for year, for whom I have been a major emotional support for every little thing in their lives, did not even call me to see how I was.

I was busy. I was holding everyone else up. 

When I mentioned to a virtual stranger how hard the weekly calls with my mom and sister-in-law and brother-in-law were straining me because I couldn't take any more pain, she shamed me. 

Apparently, it was my job to be OK! FINE! Nothing to look at here...

I was so beyond dealing with the grief that I saw my sister everywhere. I would see her drive by in a car. I would glimpse across a crowded mall, and lose her before I could catch up.  

And I would think, good, she got away. She doesn't have to deal with this. I was developing an intricate story about how she was living a new, better, unfettered life..
And this month will be SIX YEARS since I lost my sister, and I just barely started crying about it a year ago... and it still comes out as yelling and screaming and angry and conflicted and and and ... it seeps out whichever way it wants to, when it wants to, unbidden, unwelcome...

All this to say, it really is different for everyone. 

And whatever gets you through the day. [And all those other things people say which are all too true.]

But also there is no way around grief. You have to go through it. When you feel you have the strength to face the loss, the scrubbed memories may just come rushing back and rushing out. And even when you are not "ready" ...

I checked in on you the other day because I want you to know that your grief matters... whatever stage or feeling or denying, it all matters, to me, and to a lot of others... but you don't need to post anything. You don't need to entertain me.

I will keep checking on you. <3

history repeating

Ugh, somebody opened this piece from many years ago last week, and I read the title and fell into the same trap.  Or, maybe the universe brought me to it.

I wonder what kind of judgment I pass on myself.

Though, I will say this, I am battling (to no avail) against the rewritten history. It explains, in part, why it has been such a rocky few months.  If only I had a better attitude... since my father has seen fit to let me know that I have a bad attitude. Damn straight.

I am still trying to figure out how to have the appropriate boundary that allows me to hold on to the history I know and still exist with them in their rewritten history. I mean, I cannot force them to live in the history I believe any more than they can force their history on me.

Where is the fine line that I can walk where I am not hurt, even when they live out of their understanding of history?

Is that line wide enough to walk in safety, or will it always be like a tightrope?

Ok, need to go to yoga or do more meditation.

hunger

I acknowledged the hunger. I wanted to say this morning, but it might have been yesterday.

It had to have been yesterday because I am five and a half hours into the work day, and the first food has passed my lips. (Full disclosure: I had TWO coffees.)

I acknowledged then, whenever that was, that the only sensation I have been able to feel lately is HUNGER.

I realized in nearly the same instant that I can barely remember eating something that felt satisfying ... or that didn't taste like cardboard.

All these realizations brought me back to the depressive state... the sense of overwhelm, the feeling of being swallowed by all the obligation. [I wrote about it a while back, but only in the journal, it didn't make it here.]

Now that I am thinking about it, I remember thinking early this week that exercising might make me less hungry. It often does, however strange that may seem.

But, the truth is that I am STARVING because I am so desperately unhappy and feel trapped and overwhelmed and and and...

Acknowledging the hunger helps to make me less hungry for food and note the need for something else.

Something else... ugh... I am going to go to yoga again tonight. Hoping that will also help.

I just talked with a friend, though, who was able to remind me that I have not even been home for 2 months yet, and had to deal with so many small and large crises. She reminded me how long it has been since I have been alone.

[I was wistfully remembering the "long layover" day I got in San Francisco -- where I splurged on a hotel and didn't call anyone instead of trying to meet up with folks. I felt guilty and yet I truly enjoyed not having to abide by anyone else's schedule, just for a day.]

I really needed that reality check.

Less than two months and I feel like I am drowning. I felt like I was drowning at less than six weeks.

I know this, I have to stop feeling guilty for taking a nap, doing my crossword instead of anything else on the to do list, and ask for help. I am really not sure who to ask for help, that is a bit of a sticking point. But the very, very least I can do is not pile on myself. That is a job that all the others in my life relish and do with gusto.

So it begins...

Full disclosure: life on the road got long and complicated and exhausting. And it turns out BLOGGER does not offer a free phone app. So my grand plan to keep posting while on the road was trounced.

I TRIED. I SWEAR.

Then, I got home... and that pit in my stomach that told me that I would walk into a mess was right, but, perhaps not exactly in the way that I expected.

I am really not ready to write about it, today, but I will, soon, because if I don't I am going to have to commit myself to a mental health hold.

Yeah...

So, this is my recommitment post.

I promise to start posting again, as close to every day as possible.

Writing is going to be a major part of my mental health plan.

----

But, so as not to post yet another non-post, I am going to also add in a little working definition here.

I have been thinking (read: worrying? fretting?) about the notion of being home with my parents. I will admit to only wanting to look at this picture through the barely opened fingers of the hand covering my eyes.

I am thinking about this book that I heard about on NPR the other day. Wondering if it is a good idea to read this or if it will give me nightmares.

I heard someone refer to her situation as a sandwich - taking care of parents and children. We used to call it extended family ... and it was no big thing. But none of my grandparents lived past 78.

Being back with my parents, but being the unmarried daughter with no children, one would think this is not a sandwich.  Maybe a low-carb sandwich with only one piece of bread. Since we spend all our time around here trying to explain to my father how the body metabolizes simple carbs, it just might be apt.

However, I think I would rather call it the open-faced sandwich. In mind's eye it is messier. No where to hide the state of situation... and, truth be told, my nieces and nephews need me as a not parent sometimes. And that is seriously messy as well.

So, there you go, my current state is somewhere inside that open-faced sandwich.

New adventure...yeah, let's call it that.

Apologies

We are not supposed to apologize so much.

By we, I mean women.

But, now I have to... I meant to finish Grace and write at least three more posts.

However, the impending move, yes I am moving, and all the work and stress has just piled up unreasonably.

Sometimes there is so much to do, all I can do is stay in bed and pretend the rest of the world does not exist.

But it's November and I though I am not going to really try to do NANOWRIMO while I am driving cross country, I am going to try to post something every day.

The poems are already scheduled, so they don't really count. But you better believe I will count them when I am on the road!!

Hang in there, with me, I will be sharing much more...

ugh, frustration and exhaustion rant, feel free to skip on by

If I were to judge the amount of effort I should put into my work based on the amount of effort (and attention) my colleagues put into their work, then I should not have come to work today.

I should not address any issues facing my content areas until it is too late to do anything about the mistakes. I should, then, say that taking measures to rectify the mistakes would be too risky.

Finally, I should suggest that these are not truly issues, rather, whatever (and I mean whatever) is happening, is, in fact, a direct result of user error. User in this case refers exclusively to the person who has uncovered the mistake.

I am pissed. Can you tell?

In part, I am tired. I traveled all night, and came directly to work from the airport. I did not go home, I did not collect $200. I am coming off a few days reflecting the shortness of life and the choices we make to spend (or not) time with those we love.

I am exhausted, physically and emotionally. I am tired of being one of very few who cares about the outcome of our work.

And, my teacher voice dangerously near to my lips, I want to counsel my colleagues; I want to let them know in no uncertain terms that the time we spend making up excuses for why will not fix what is obviously not working would be better spent looking for a solution.

I often told my students when I was teaching that I preferred not to have the excuse. Excuses are/were completely and utterly meaningless to me.

Day two...
My first impulse is to look for another job. But then I remember that I have faced this issue before although not always in the same exact way.

I need to calibrate my reactions, I get it.

This situation is dangerously threatening to kill my post-vacation glow. I have managed to maintain it through some very trying situations, both personally and professionally, for a few weeks. I did this by straining to see the silver lining every time an obstacle appeared.

After some sleep, I am going to rededicate myself to see shining through these clouds. Wish me luck.

caffeinated

Since December, I have been trying to decaffeinate.

That is to say, I was traveling for much of December, and coffee the way I like it might not always be available. So, since I detest being beholden to the god of caffeine, I thought, this is the perfect time to step down, step away from coffee.

I have this long term goal of having energy and being awake without stimulants. That implies being rested and healthy and, to some extent, happy.  These are all goals I have out there in the ether, the first of which I have the most control over, the other two, perhaps only tangentially. [Though those chose to be happy believers would disagree.]

It should also be noted that at the time, I was also up to more than two cups a day almost every day.

For some, that would not be much.

In fact, I drink dark roast coffee which has the least amount of caffeine of coffee.

However, I also have an incredible predilection to addictive behavior - from both the emotional and physical perspective. My body easily slides into need of coffee, sugar, carbs, chocolate. It never decides to *love* protein, though I do enjoy good tasting food. I rarely crave anything healthy in that way of needing caffeine.

And, I don't care for the taste of coffee. I never have.

But I am addicted to the awake feeling that surges through my body when I drink it -- and worse, I love to drink it when it is full of cream and sugar. That was the other *secret* reason for wanting to give it up. 

In a vain attempt to give up sugar, I keep trying to move towards tea with and without caffeine. I am able to drink most of my teas with only milk and no sugar.

Tea, it turns out for me, is not the answer. Rather the teas I like all have way more caffeine than the coffee I drink.

I remain, therefore, semi-caffeinated. I take days off on the weekend to test my resistance. So far, I am not winning, but still in the game.

hmmm

For a while, I have been saying, quietly to myself, that I will start writing again.

Every day ...

Every day in July, I will write.

I will work on my book.

Scratch that, I am not ready ... there are preparations to be made in order to write every day.

Bull shit, but, okay, not ready.

I will write on the blog.

Every day.

I will write on the blog every day in July.

It is July 6th and I have barely gotten it together to post a poem for Thursday... it has been a few Thursdays, right? No poems even they overflow in the poem-a-day folder.

What am I busy doing?

Living.

It takes an effort.

I promise, I will promise.

I promise to be better about writing. Every day. Every. Day. Write.

Black and orange like me, part 1 (brainstorming)

The other day I was walking to an event on Princeton campus.

It was an event I had been looking forward to attending. Still, that familiar dread was spreading across my body, radiating out from my heart.

Still, I put one foot in front of the other along my way.

In my mind's eye, I began to see a scene from Out of Africa. It is near the end of the movie. Karen is sitting in her living room on a suitcase. Around her all the possessions she has not sold are in various states of packing. It is a huge room, and she seems small in it. She has the phonograph that Denys gave her, and it is playing something. She is eating dinner or drinking tea. Denys enters the room, and we swoon, hoping he will save her even though he isn't that kind of guy. Instead, she saves herself (again). She asks him if he wants to help her play a game. When she thinks she can't go on, she does one more thing (to make it worse we almost hear her say). And so she asks Denys to dance. She puts on a record, and they dance, first in the room and then outside onto the lawn with whatever was not sold.

I am not getting the words right.

But it is that sentiment ... I can't go through one more trauma/emotion/setback, and then I take a breath, and I do.

So, here I was breathing and getting ready to plunge into a room full of rah rah alumni. Black and orange would be sported by all in some fashion (except me... only black and white and a rust jacket I never put on, that was as close to orange and black I could go).

Being on campus is like walking through a graveyard for me.  Unlike my love for visiting cemeteries, walking a graveyard is not a pleasurable sensation. I think of it more like a place where the bones are exposed, not of neat rows of ornate or simple or tender remembrances of beloved people.

The graveyard is like a junkyard of discarded wrecks, you never know what horrifying sight will be around the corner, jolting you back to some memory of trauma. Even if they are not your memories, they sting. The crumpled car, like the one the mothers put out before prom, meant to remind teens that some decisions have irreversible consequence. Worst of all, the trauma may be contained within sweet memories that turned out to be rotten at their core.

Even though I am the only one who appears to catch glimpses of these wrecks or exposed skeletons, my sense is that they demand to be seen.

I hear whispers from every corner, reminding me of my time there, but I suspect that there are other whispers, too, that clamor for attention. "If she can hear the whispers of her own trauma, perhaps she can hear mine, too," they seem to wonder. The pain is palpable, and it can be overwhelming.

Some days I have the strength to listen to the whispers, to let them transport me back to that day or days, to envelope me in the memory whether sweet or sour. Other days, I skirt the university, purposely walk through a newer area (less chance for there to be a memory lingering there) or go out of my way not to touch campus at all, even if it means an extra mile.

Some days, even though I know I will tempt the ghosts, I walk on to campus to something that has been given a chance at new life, like West College now called Morrison Hall. I touch the plaque, take photos of it, try to fit a new memory into that space. Try to give myself some safe spaces to mark my way across campus in future.

Liars lie

Liars lie
It's what they do
And when they are caught
They lie some more

Liars lie
It's what they do
The webs more intricate
The lies more perverse

Liar lie
And they blame
And they duck
And they weave

What do we call the people who believe them?

Grandma

 Today my grandmother would have been 112.  I have been thinking about her a lot lately, as I contemplate how to tell her story -- whether I should or not -- what I know and don't know -- what is her story...

There are lots of questions and very few answers.

Questions like ... who did she cut out of this picture? It is just like my grandmother to have this picture with someone cut out.  She was the kind of person who could cut people out of her life.  It surprises me to admit this while at the same time I know it to be true.  I remember her as harsh, judgemental, not wishy washy at all.

But in this picture, sometime in the 1920s, I think, sometime before she married my grandfather or had my father, she is young and her face tells very little.  Inscrutable, that is another way to understand her stoicism which I often read as harsh.  Maybe she was feeling super vulnerable all the time.

I just can't always reckon how someone who had lost two parents by the time she was 9, or two siblings by the time she was 30 could have then turned around and cut out her only living sister.

But, of course, I don't know her story, not really.

I know bits and pieces.

Snapshots, like these photos that reveal so little and so much at the same time.

 What to make of the starch and the serious face ... everyone else here seems to be having a good time.  [click on pic to see the whole thing... maybe it is only the men who are yucking it up.] Did she not smile because the person behind the camera tried to get her to smile?  Who was behind the camera??

In another from the same day, she has that half smile that I remember from real life.  It was bemused and amused and slightly annoyed and maybe holding something back all at the same time.

But she looked smart in that hat.  Maybe that is why she needed to give the serious pose.

What about this one with my aunts.  She is almost smiling here -- at least her eyes are smiling.  Was my grandfather behind the camera this time? Was she about to break out in the big smile or was this as big as it got, emotions slipping out of the eyes even though the mouth holds the smile back.

And the hand gently holding her oldest daughter's hand ... not her youngest daughter's hand.

Maybe that says more about my aunts than it does about my grandmother, but is says something.

Happy birthday, Grandma. 

Hope you don't mind me teasing out some meaning from these photos and your life.

trying...[this all over the place - you've been warned]

We yearn for connection.

But we treat each other like hostile strangers ... on the internet, and too often in real life.

So, we post and prod ... we weave and bob, we do whatever it takes to not actually connect.

Then, at times we meet our lost tribe members and connection, sometimes brief, brings us back to reality.

Life is hard, but it is not without its beauty.

Find beauty.
---
So, in the weeks that have passed since I started this post, I have had a rollercoaster of events ... and I mean that quite seriously.
I had a lovely birthday - truly amazing day with friends that included dancing - an amazing meeting about the foundation to honor Sergio's memory.  I was reminded of the blessings I have in my life, especially my wonderful, supportive community.

We celebrated Sergio's 25th birthday without him -- in the lead up, I was sure it would crush me, the energy expended just getting through the last two days made me feel like I was coming down with a cold (thankfully, I am not or it was nipped in the bud).  After rain and threats of rain and cold and people dropping out and having to reassure them that participation should only be part of your own way of dealing with this tragedy ... it was a gorgeous day.  GORGEOUS.  Ominous clouds gathered at the edges but were beat back by the sea breeze, and once again, I could feel Sergio's participation in making sure that our gathering wasn't rained on.  Friends from many parts of his life gathered, drank and ate and built a fire and an altar and laughed and cried.  While my heart was breaking again into a million pieces, it was so beautiful to see in real flesh and bone the love this person wrought with so few years.  Amazing.

I got an email offering me an interview for a job I really want.  So important on so many levels -- one, I applied for two jobs, one better paying and more in line with my skills, and one I can do with my eyes closed and enough money to live off of ... I got the interview for the better job ... amazing

My car started the steep decline which I cannot afford right now ... the sound coming from the car is a mixture of the swooped up crazy muffler sound and crazy about to fall apart -- I am generally not so moved by what others might think of me, but I want to hide every time I start my car. And for the first time in 15 years, it needs to be smog checked?! Ugh... I am torn between trying to get it sort of fixed so that I can keep it for a bit longer and donating it now to someone who will take it away... and did I mention that I love my car, I really do. It is the best car in the whole world that has been beyond a trooper for all these years ... ugh ugh ugh.

I killed it in the interview... really, killed it.  Waiting to hear back if I make it to the second round sometime in the next two weeks.

The bad thing is though that every time I have a win, I fall into the largest cavern of self doubt which is where I woke up this morning.

These are the quotes I am trying to use to get me out of my funk today:
"You are full of unshaped dreams... You are laden with beginnings ... there is hope in you." ~L. Ridge

"There is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness." ~Pearl S. Buck

Ok... it's all out there now, no more monsters under the bed. Got a stack of work to do, so I am off to be productive and wallow in self doubt no more ...

My hands are up and the wind is in my hair ... riding the rollercoaster of life.

I got things to say...

...and do, but it is all still percolating.

I am going to just leave this here for you all:


I finally got around to listening to the whole episode that included this awesome song.

This song on repeat got me through the last thirty miles of my nearly 300 miles drive today.

There was a lot of weeping so I needed this strong song to remind me that we are made of resilience.

Come at me bro...