Escaping the House

I was thinking about how my Gram used to say things like, "I'd be better off dead," and how distressed those words would make me feel. Her depression was a secret thing, for the most part, something quiet, blending into the background, just as she did. It got worse in the years she lived alone, with no one to take care of. She had raised 4 kids, she had kept chickens and a garden and cared for my grandfather all his life and on into the last days when he was sick with cancer up in bed. Caring for others gave shape to her life, but once everyone was gone, she lost that shape and kind of closed in on herself. But she always smiled and had this tiny laugh that she punctuated most of her sentences with. She'd say something and then do this "heh heh heh" thing at the end of it. As if to say, don't take me too seriously here, me with my opinions. She loved to talk current events and politics, always called Ronald Reagan "that old fool". I don't know. She was the one who always got up and did all the dishes while everyone else sat around the table and talked and drank some more--grateful someone was doing the dirty work, but kind of taking her for granted too.

One Christmas Eve, her usually dependable white 1969 Dodge Dart died, and she couldn't make the 1 1/2 hour trip down to our house. When she called us and told us, she was all dismissive of herself, like, don't bother about me. That was a time when the man in the wheelchair was a real hero. He rose to the occasion quite gallantly and told her we would drive up there and pick her up. She pooh-poohed all that, saying 'don't bother, I am not worth it' kind of stuff. But she was worth it! She was my Gram and we all loved her so much and Christmas would not be Christmas without her quiet, gentle presence there. I always remember feeling so grateful to him for doing that, for doing the right thing while my mother cringed and wrung her hands and made whimpery sounds. I remember that ride in the dark night lit with bright Christmas lights as a magical ride, with her in the back seat beside me. It was one of the rare times when a man in the family actually did the right thing, actually reached out and helped one of the women, actually showed some moral strength and backbone, and I felt both grateful and awed. He did have a code of honor that he tried to impart to me now and then, except he usually used his fists to do it, and so the message came out all tangled up in pain and shame, because he was himself all tangled up in pain and shame. But that night, it was like magic, and it was right and noble and it worked.

My mother was essentially a teenager, if not a child, and I think she dealt (deals) with her own form of depression. When she was married to the man in the wheelchair, she spent her mornings lying on her side on the floor in the living room, in front of the TV, watching game shows. Quiz programs, she still calls them. She would lie there in her night gown until it was time to get up and get ready for work. She worked afternoons. The house was always kind of a comfy, cluttery mess, kind of like mine is now, except without the cat and dog hair.

She was fundamentally unable to deal with crisis and expected everyone else to pick up the slack. One time my cousin spilled an entire can of dark brown stain over his head. He was about 2 years old, and he was out on our back porch and reached up for the can that had been placed on the rail, without its lid on tight. My mother probably left it there. She always left jars and bottles open on the counter. She'd fix a sandwich and leave the mayonnaise jar there, with its lid askew. She liked to paint rooms and stain wood, so she probably left that can of brown stain there too. Anyway, he toddled over to the back door, his mouth a wide open O of a cry, his sparsely haired little blonde head stained deep brown. My mother panicked. She started dancing around and flapping her hands and screaming. I got a wash cloth, went over to the door, opened it, picked him up, carried him over to the sink, wet the cloth, and started cleaning his head, while she flipped out all over like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off.

Another time the man in the wheelchair was lying in bed on a Saturday morning and he started making this really weird and disturbing sound like a dog makes when it has something caught in its throat. She had just gotten out of the shower and she flew out of the bathroom into the hall. My room was at the end of the hall and I was leaning back against the headboard of my bed reading. My door was open and so I was treated to the sight of my naked and slightly overweight mother hopping up and down, water droplets flying everywhere as she screeched at me to run to one of the neighbor's houses for help. He was a volunteer fireman. I found it all slightly ridiculous, never mind seeing something I never ever needed to see. And the man in the wheelchair was fine, and I don't even remember if the neighbor even came over, so burned into my memory is the sight of my ridiculous naked mother and my disdain for her. I felt such contempt for her by then. Kids really do need their parents to be the grown up ones.

It is experiences like these that led me to be a natural crisis counselor, calm and cool and able to see what needs to be done. I fall apart afterward, privately, when no one can see--I do have needs of my own, after all. But when I was a kid, I saved myself by getting myself out of the house as much as I could. I ran through the woods and fields with the dog, or rode my bike for miles and miles on the back country roads, singing a James Taylor song ('Country Road'):

"Take to the highways, won't you lend me your name,
Your way and my way seem to be one and the same.
Mama don't understand it,
she wants to know where I've been.
I have to some kind of natural born fool
to want to pass that way again.
But you know I can feel it,
child, yeah,
on a country road......."

The other morning, out early with the dogs, something in the freshness of the air reminded me of the freedom and a thing vaguely like joy I felt as as child when I ran wild outside. I keep forgetting it in my later life of worrying and trying to hold things together. And even though some mornings I feel like a prisoner of my life, a person bound and tied and being dragged along behind those dogs, I am glad a whiff of something in the air suddenly reminded me of the freedom that I once felt in the open air, when I was a kid, gleefully escaping the house, escaping the madness and the powerlessness and the insult and the injury, escaping all that into the fresh air of hope and a kind of freedom--because when you are young, the horizon is truly boundless and it beckons and you know that once you can grow up and move on you will have such a great life. This is before you learn the horizon is only an illusion, and that the past drags its boney mess along behind you everywhere you go, like a skeleton with its claws around your neck, hanging on and rattling along behind. Because I didn't yet know how wrecked I was, and am, and how I have to keep trying to overcome the damage of the past. It's kind of like the land after an earthquake--it is changed forever, it will never be what it was before the quake, and even if another quake comes long and changes it yet again, it will still never be what it was before the damage hit. And I don't even know what I was before the damage hit. It all started so early. But sometimes I get glimpses of something grand in me, and think, oh yes, I might have been that.

"Sail on home to Jesus wont you good girls and boys,
I'm all in pieces, you can have your own choice.
But I can hear a heavenly band full of angels
And they're coming to set me free.
I dont know nothing bout the why or when,
But I can tell that its bound to be,
Because I could feel it, child, yeah
On a country road....."

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Why I Don't Have Health Insurance

I know, you are probably thinking, what the hell is wrong with this woman? Can't she do anything right? Sorry. Shouldn't put words in your mind. I am not feeling very well, yet, still. I looked at the soft and lovely sunrise sky this morning and thought it looked like the twilight, not the dawn. Time for bed, not the time for fresh beginnings. That's what these sad, tired eyes see.

Anyway, I was conversing online with an English friend, and he had just seen the movie "Sicko", Michael Moore's film about the health care debacle here in the United States. And I realized, I have my own health care (or lack of it) tale of indignation and woe to tell.

I used to have health insurance. I am fortunate to live in a state that has comprehensive coverage for children and families. I qualified for that plan until I became too poor for it. Yes, too poor. After the Vampyr left, my household income was cut in half, and my health insurance that was covered by a private company and by Medicaid, the state program, became strictly the province of Medicaid. Medicaid is funded totally by the state, from taxes, I think. But once a person dips well below the poverty line, as I did, if she has children, she is eligible strictly for Medicaid.

However, the state is not so generous once you descend to this level and it looks for any and everyone to pay part of your insurance. I began to get letters from Social Services, and so did my boss. They wanted to know how much money I had in the bank. They got nosey about my assets. They wanted to know if my employer had a health insurance plan. He does, and it costs as much as one of my paychecks per month to be a part of it. Then, they got into my divorce papers and saw that in there, it was stipulated that the X is beholden to put our daughter on his health insurance plan if he has one. They told me I had to take him to court so that they could question him about that. They sent me the necessary papers to file with the court. Also required was a certified copy of our divorce, something I could only get at the County Clerk's Office, many miles away. Being without a car, my boss drove me there at the same time he took his son for his violin lesson. I went to the Clerk's Office and paid the $5 and got the copy. I had a friend notarize the papers and I sent them in.

I really did not want to face the X in court. I also did not want to take time off from work and lose pay just to appear in court. But the state said they wanted to question him in court about his own health insurance, if he had any. If he didn't, they planned to require him to report to them monthly about whether he had gotten insurance yet or not.

In the meantime, I called Social Services and told them my divorce was a domestic violence case, and that I really did not want to face the X in court. They said I did not have to appear, that a representative of Social Services would be there in my stead. Big sigh of relief, albeit a short one, because.....

...the papers were returned to me by the court. They instructed me that they needed a certified copy of my separation agreement, not my divorce. I had simply been following the instructions given me by Social Services. I knew the county charged $2 a page for copies, and that my separation agreement was over 40 pages long. I called Social Services and told them that if I was poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, did they truly think I had $80 to piss away on copies? $80 was about how much I spent on groceries a week. I asked them to provide the court with the copy of my separation agreement that they had in their files. They refused. So I refused. They cited me as 'non-compliant' and took away our Medicaid coverage.

The kicker is my daughter told me the X now has health insurance, and that she asked him to put her on it but he always makes excuses. He is so cheap! And so negligent as a parent. I hate him. I do. I had the thought last night that one of the loneliest things a person (this person) can do is raise a child alone. It just isn't right, it ain't even natural, but it is my life.

There's a part in the song "Fallen Angel" by Robbie Robertson (he was a member of the group The Band and is a Six Nations Reserve Mohawk) where he says: "Gotta play the hand that's dealt ya/That's what the old man always said."

Even if it mostly feels like an exercise in damage control.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Slices of Time

One of the old ladies in church today told me I look like a teenager. That was kinda scary. But I suppose to a nearly 90 year old, a nearly 50 year old can look like a teenager. Still, it's dignity I would like to embody as I age, not the restless search for the lost bloom of beautiful youth. That said, it is also a true thing that inside my head I still feel like I am 17. Perhaps some of that inner me is projected out onto my face, and my bearing, into my speech and my attitudes? And so, though it is not now, it is still present and able to be seen?

We have a couple of 90 year olds in our church, and they amaze me. They are younger acting, and healthier, than some who are 20 years younger than them. It is obvious we can do things to maintain our health but I wonder about other factors. How much does heredity play a part, or how about one's attitude towards life and the challenges it poses? How old we feel inside? And how much control do we as individuals have over physical aging? Do we have any?

I have often read that people who believe in a loving God who cares for them, and who have an active faith and prayer life, are often healthier. People who count their blessings and respond with gratitude for those blessings rather than bemoaning all that is missing or wrong tend to respond to life's challenges in more positive and creative ways than those who believe themselves damned and doomed. It makes sense! A relationship with the divine creates a bond of love, and when that relationship is nurtured like any living thing, it bequeaths a gift of life to us. Not that disease never happens, or tragedy, or hardship, but a prayerful approach, a faithful and grateful approach, an approach that believes the universe is benevolent rather than hostile can work miracles from time to time, and give us a resilience that cannot be gotten in any other way. I can testify myself that without faith in a loving God I would have killed myself by now. And I believe that bond of love transcends time and space. I believe that in love all things are one.

Sometimes when I am in the church alone, cleaning, I see ghosts sitting in the pews. Mostly I see old ladies, and they are oblivious to my presence. When I first started cleaning the church several years ago, I often saw a tall, slender pastor dressed in black. He has blonde hair. He looked back at me as if surprised I could see him. I don't see him so much anymore. Often I feel the presence of someone else in the sanctuary with me, but I am not seeing the praying ghosts so much anymore. I saw my mother's husband, briefly, shortly after he died. It was like he was stopping in for a quick glimpse of me, then blipped away.

I am sensitive to how people and places feel--it is something I perceive with my body. I think it is a more primitive form of perception, and one that is subtle and dependable, and key to survival. I trust it infallibly. The sanctuary of this church feels warm and welcoming. I feel love there. I feel the assembled prayers of many years, and I can easily understand why some spirits might want to bide their time there. It is a timeless sort of place, a beautiful old building on the National Historic Register, well preserved and loved. The emotions of joy and sorrow have been strongly expressed in that sanctuary for almost 200 years, and they have accumulated in the space like moisture inside a jar.

I have seen ghosts all my life. When I was a child, they scared me. Actually, for most of my life, they scared me. At some point, I realized they were not interested in me, and were going about their own business, and I wasn't frightened of them anymore. The building I work in has a ghost, a man in black I have seen from time to time. My sense is he had something to do with the theatre space upstairs. There is a historic house in town, dating to the Revolutionary War, and when I visited it, I felt the presence of something, and felt compelled to enter an empty and boring closet that had no door. Later I asked one of the park rangers about the ghost in the house, and he told me the ghost stayed in the closet upstairs. Apparently he was a traitor who was hung, and his skull was kept in a box on the mantle in the parlor downstairs. After the Park Service finally buried his bones, he stopped inhabiting the house.

When I was a teen, I had a friend who lived in a very old farmhouse. One night we were in her room, and her closet door opened. The closet was a very large one, a walk-in sized space under the eaves at the back of the house. When the door opened of its own accord, she calmly told me that it was "Seth", the ghost who lived in the house, he was its original builder and inhabitant. She calmly looked over towards the door and told him it was alright, that he could come out, and the door shut.

I slept over that night, and in the morning I awakened to discover I had walked in my sleep and found myself on the floor of that very same closet.

When I bought this house, I saw on older woman in a housecoat standing in the hallway, looking back at me in my bedroom. It felt like she had loved living in this house once, and was checking me out, making sure I was okay and that I would take good care of her home. I must be doing a good enough job because I have never seen her again. Another time I was standing in the kitchen and saw a Hessian mercenary soldier from the Revolutionary War standing there. This hillside was the site of their campground. My daughter insists there is a ghost in her bathroom, and her toilet does make odd sounds from time to time (Moaning Myrtle?), and it might not seem like much, but I mention it because my own childhood friend used to say the gurgling of the radiator in her room had to do with her ghost Seth.

I have read that spirits often stay in places they loved. I have often wondered if perhaps all time exists simultaneously. Picture time as a loaf of bread, and the different ages of time as slices. Maybe, sometimes, we simply can see the other slices. Or, something like that.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Happy Dog Dance

I have been doing a bit of the Happy Dog Dance the past couple of weeks. It is a way of faking it when I when I feel so vile inside. It is a safe way to make myself behave in socially acceptable ways when I feel unable to do that. When I am feeling ill and unable to accept myself, when I am feeling ashamed of being depressed and cranky, when I am afraid that people will be mean to me if they realize I am ill and vulnerable (shades of the childhood and monsters of the X!), and so I have to hide it. Regardless of the pathetic little exercise that it may be, The Happy Dog Dance provides the perfect disguise!

I really don't like myself when I am not well and I know that partly because that is when I become most intolerant of the weaknesses of others. That is when I am unable to stand the company of others who I know deal with mental illness and I want to put as much distance between myself and them as I can. When compassion is not something I am able to feel anymore, especially not for myself. Actually, the truth is, I can't stand anybody then, not anybody, including and especially me. The world becomes a very dark place, and I want to embrace that darkness, let it take me into its soft arms and carry me away.

The mechanics of the Happy Dog Dance is this: I act appropriately, even in an approval-seeking manner, when the truth is I feel like a burning toxic waste dump inside, when I feel, in actuality, like complete and total crap. The fact is, the dance is an exhausting exercise at a time when I am already depleted.

Ah, January, how I hate you.

The interesting thing about this January's manifestation of a depressive episode, as compared to last January's (because physiologically this is the time when a combination of environmental factors do their worst to me and my brain chemistry lurches into that bad place) is that this is a more agitated episode. Last year, in the depth of January, month that I hate (because of the cold, because of the dark, because of the uncomfortable quality of the cold and the dark; tired by this time of wearing heavy boots and lots of socks, of being constantly hyper-vigilant about hidden patches of ice as I walk down the hill impelled by gravity or back up the hill burdened by gravity and laden with groceries; tired of meticulously stuffing newspaper into the crack along the edge of the back door where the cold slithers in like an ice-white snake; tired of strategically planning out my wardrobe every damn day, which shirts shall I layer and in what combination and can I still wear this really great warm one or does it stink and should I wear long underwear too, and damn these boots are good in the snow but they hurt my right big toe, or maybe it is just my right big toe hurts regardless anyway, and damn my lower back and left hip are stiff from the cold and the damp--get the picture?), last year I was brain dead, disoriented, and confused. So mornings I used coffee to jump start my brain, to melt the permafrost residing there.

I don't generally drink coffee, the caffeine jolt is a bit much. But I do use it, as a drug, selectively--Yes, mental health providers, I DO self-medicate!--when my brain needs something to turn it on, or if I have to attend a boring meeting at night where I will be expected to have the capacity to think. Last January's depression was the sleepy, stupid, brain dead kind. This one however, is a whole other beast. A beast that I must conceal within the Happy Dog Dance!

This one is angry, and irritable, and despairing in a painful way--I have been feeling so much emotional pain inside. It is the pain that makes me nasty and grouchy and irritable. I am occasionally shooting off my mouth in ways I never tend to do, little closet approval seeker that I am. I think most people don't notice, but I do, and I horrify myself (I think I am still expecting the man in the wheelchair to come swinging in from out of nowhere and pummel me with his big scary arms). So, this year, I am using alcohol to numb the edge of the pain. Unfortunately I can only do that after work, usually when I am cooking supper, as I nibble food to keep the alcohol from hitting me too quickly. Because I haven't had much of an appetite with this depression either, and so I often have that first beer when I haven't had much to eat all day. I even had 2 with supper before choir rehearsal this week. Because people, being people--even if they are kindly and sweet, maybe because they are kindly and sweet!-- annoy me in general, and it is a sure and certain thing that my epitaph should read: 'She did not suffer fools gladly, when she suffered them at all.'

So, the Happy Dog Dance fits into all this quite nicely. At work, for example, when I wear my customer service hat, and someone is whining on the phone about their candle order and what I really want to say is: ' Get a grip. These are candles, people, not medicines for dying children, not food for the starving millions.' But I say, 'I am sorry this isn't working out in the way you had hoped, how can we help you with this?' (Though the Dog Dance did fail me at least once last week, and I did hang up on an especially trying customer.)

Or when the young developmentally disabled man (or whatever his deal is, we still haven't quite figured that out, all I can say is he is not 'all there' upstairs) who works there thinks he is really very smart and decides to mop the floor in the middle of our busy work area, while we are busy working there, and sighs and mutters in deep unhappiness because we are walking where he just mopped, and I want to say: 'What do you expect, you idiot, you half wit, mopping where people are working?' But I say, 'Man, that must be so annoying when people walk where you just mopped!'

Or when my boss, he of the charmed life, was bragging and gloating about how they were stopped for speeding, while zooming home from their fabulous weekend in the city, but the trooper did not give them a ticket for that, instead they got a ticket for having the windows on their very expensive, top of the line, Mercedes wagon tinted too dark, and the dealer actually fixed the windows for free! so the whole thing will cost him nothing! and he won't get any points on his license! and isn't that great? And while I want to say, 'Why do you get all the breaks, you fat little fool?', I am actually wagging my tail and saying, with my big pink doggy tongue lolling, 'Yes, that is great, you are so fortunate...'.

I make myself sick. I become the happy dog, smiling and wagging my idiot tail, and saying pleasing things to people I would just as soon bite. It works. The pathetic little dance works. And it makes me so tired.

But the alternative could be worse, it could be something like this: my unhappy dogs the other morning, doing a decidedly unhappy dog dance of their own together. We were just back from our walk, almost to the house, about the time when my big toe is numb and yet sore from the boot or my own creeping age and I just want to get back into the house and thaw out my frozen cheeks, and Bumby does too because she is pulling extra hard. She knows there is a biscuit waiting for her, once we are back inside. And Little Bear has his own little game going on, he is trying to grab that last frozen cat turd and eat it, because he thinks I won't notice. We were right about there when the minister of the Methodist Church was making her solitary morning pilgrimage up the hill in her bright and pretty pink coat, all bundled up like a monk and barely visible inside her hood. She is a tiny woman and she is very sweet and she is always cheerful, never says 'Isnt' it a crap day?', like I want to say. So there she was and I began spilling my idiot guts, because I perceived a sympathetic listener, maybe, even one with some special prayer pull with the Big Guy Upstairs, and I am telling her how I hate January and why, all the while despising myself for revealing my weakness so blatantly, and as I am blathering on like this, the dogs don't like my attention diverted away from them and our daily task, and so, mental toddlers that they are, they start rough housing. Well, Little bear started it, and Bumby was up for it, but as I kept running my mouth like a stupid weak fool, they escalated until Little Bear was in it for real and Bumby ain't taking any of that crap from him and they are dog fighting in earnest and I am somehow telling them, without faking it, in measured tones, how Very Bad this all is, while trying to disentangle them. Finally I simply let go of Bumby's leash but she kept coming in for another bite at Little Bear anyway, and he was so up for it, he never met a fight he will ever back down from, oh no that wild mountain bear will go to the very bloody end, and, somehow, finally, I managed a semblance of separation and Bumby was just ahead of us with her tail between her legs, looking back, still primed to defend herself, and I was still constantly chanting, Very Bad You Are Both Very Bad, and so into the house we went, the pink garbed emissary of God forgotten behind us. And no, they did not get any biscuits that morning.

Oh yes I do so hate January.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

lit from within

broken winged angels,
lit from within by moonlight crashing open
upon their crystalline hearts,
are walking by the darkened houses.
i see them slogging up
through the same snow
i struggle with
in my flimsy shoes, fingers crossed in the hope
there is no ice hiding
beneath. (but oh, what grace
in the flow of my body then, as it slips
into gravity defying movement intent on
keeping me soundly on my feet!)
the angels are capable
of such magnificent grace,
despite their broken-ness. i have much
to learn
from them, and they would teach me,
because they are kind.

i hear the crazed tongues of coyotes
calling from the trailer park
out back, in the cold morning light,
above the new snow, softly unbroken.
even my dog, wild mountain bear that he is,
dares not reply to their kind of wildness.
it is more finely delirious
than any
he could summon
from his sled dog heart. and yet,
both our hearts begin to dance
to that coyote cadence, naturally,
secretly, loud and yet
hidden safely within soft dark spaces.

at the bottom of the hill,
the fat prince wears a dingy coat of lizard green
and gloats of his great, good fortune--how the world
welcomes and rewards him! and yet
he truly cannot understand
why we do not share his joy. his life is charmed.
but his heart is lean and stringy and his lips are greasy
and he should not brag so
in the face of our hunger.

we are all of us
out of place. we have lost
what maps we had.
they have fallen to sodden pieces
in the solace of too many tear-scented baths.
we have stopped too long
by the roadside, hoping for
sure footing around the next turn.
we have lingered too long learning songs
in the shade of the dying elms.
our wings are broken, our songs are crazed,
our shoes too thin for the terrain.
our hunger is a constant slow burning
buzzing smoke beneath our skins.
and no, we cannot share the fat prince’s joy.
and so we must keep walking
before our hearts are silenced by
the burden of too much frost, too much ice
lying hidden beneath the surface, secretly lighting us
from within.

Ramblings of a Disordered Mind

I think I have to stop reading the news. So much pain. So much hurt. So many innocent lives trashed and damaged and cut open and destroyed--animal, vegetable, and mineral. I can't take it. I begin to think the world is getting worse, but it isn't getting worse. It's always been this bad. I can find ancient Biblical accounts of newborn baby boys being slaughtered by jealous kings, or of contemporary Chinese women aborting female fetuses simply because they are female. Or of girl children in India being set on fire, simply for being girls. Of boys in the Middle East and Africa forced into becoming soldiers, killing and raping machines, before they have barely reached puberty. I can find current day stories of women cutting open other women and stealing their unborn babies, or of fathers throwing their screaming children off bridges--not to mention the countless puppies and kittens that are thrown off the bridge right here in this village every month of the year. I can read historical accounts of white conquerors committing genocide on magnificent civilizations in the Americas, I can find rivers gorged with blood and brains dashed open on walls anyplace I care to look. There is cruelty and inhumanity everywhere. Women killed by their lovers, children killed by their parents, animals treated as if they were an old rug to be tossed out in the garbage. And the lies! The unaccountability of all the liars, denying the evidence of their own actions. I always used to wonder why Virginia Woolf committed suicide at an older age, as she did. I used to think that if you could make it that far, to age 59, that you had made it somehow, that you had passed the worst, and so you would live on (someone told me she despaired of Nazism and the imminence of another world war). But as I approach my own half century, I see plainly that I despair even more of the world, even more than I ever did. It looks worse and it looks like it will not get better. That no one will fix it, that the greed will not end, that people will not stop putting their own self-interested selfishness first. I start to feel crazier as I try to save what there is to be saved, what there is within my reach to be saved. I do without so that others might have more. I am very alone. I look more and more like the village crazy woman, and I feel like it too. And people continue to drive overly large gas guzzling vehicles everywhere, even onto places where once there was the respectful knowledge that cars are not driven here, that here is a place where we walk. No, now it is as if people think they have the right to drive wherever they want to. And they keep shopping, buying more crap, and eating more lousy fast food. They go on as if it will always be this way and that there will be no consequences to pay. While I despair and put out seed for birds, hoping that will soften the effects of climate change and global degradation. The Brazilian rain forest is razed so that more cattle can graze to be slaughtered and sold so McDonald's can sell more fatty burgers to fat people who have to go on disability because their health is so bad because they are clueless about how to take care of themselves. Perhaps it is me who is the idiot: I do not get rich from owning stock in companies that do unethical things to peoples and the planet. I do not get rich. I can barely save, and I never get ahead. And yes, I do give money away so that others may have something. I do. I know the world is manipulated by powers far wilier and craftier and more rapacious than me. Perhaps I am a fool. Perhaps I am insane. Perhaps I should simply stop reading the news and listen more to the stars, to the beating of hearts, to the song of the wind, to the whisper of God inside me. Perhaps I should simply rest in the knowledge that yes, I am a fool, rest content in that, and keep on trying to save what I can. Perhaps I should embrace my inner idiot and find shelter in the disordered spaces where all the misfits gather, stubbornly singing songs of love. All you children, all you half-wits, dreamers, poets, broken winged angels, solitary singers, crazed saints, let us huddle round this fire and share this day old bread.

Feminizz

Watching all this presidential race blather between Hillary and Obama really reminds me that we women still have a long way to go, baby. For all his changechangechange and hopehopehope talk, Obama really isn't very nice to Hillary, as a woman. I refer to that seminal moment during the debate where he and Edwards ganged up on Hillary, and he tossed her a bone as he condescendingly said, "You're likable enough."

As a woman myself, I am sensitive to that kind of condescending talk. I know the sting of trying to play rough with the boys and the boys showing no mercy. But somehow, there is something fundamentally flawed in that 'no mercy' approach that equates a kind of strength and rightness and victory with might and power used, well, mercilessly. It applies in sports, it applies in wars and in the predator/prey world of nature, but really, is that the kind of world we want to be building here? Isn't it what we should be leaving in the past, as we truly try to create a future based on hope and change and peace and love and all that hippie twaddle that still makes my heart sing?

My childhood friend Bernadette and I used to play badminton, endlessly, on summer afternoons, ponking the birdie back and forth in long volleys over her mother's clothesline. The point was to keep the volley going, not to beat each other. But we were both spirited athletes, and we made it challenging, though not impossible, to volley the birdie back. And then one day Greg came along and we invited him to play, and he did not get into the spirit of the marathon volleying, no, he slammed it here and there so that he would win points. But the fact is, he did not get the point, that we were not playing for points, and he got bored fast and we were so relieved when he left. Because it wasn't any fun playing his way.

When I was about 6 years old, I had gotten a new pair of sneakers. They were red, and I felt FAST in them. I ran up and down the side walk in front of our house in short sprints, feeling oh so fast. Finally a boy came along, he was a bit older than me, and feisty little thing that I was in my new red sneakers, I challenged him to a race. I was so fast in those red sneakers, I knew I would blow his doors off. And, yeah, he blew me away, and I got a reality check but I was not daunted.

In third grade I challenged some boys to a race on the playground at recess and I almost won that one except I had on stupid--but pretty--black patent leather shoes. They were the shoes that went with my former Easter dress, a lovely low-waisted light lavender frock with lace up the front that I happened to be wearing that day. And right at the finish line out there on the playground of the old school house with the great view of the mountains that we third graders were relegated to while the new school building was being built, right there at the finish where I had victory in my long legged stance, I slipped in those silly, but pretty, shoes and fell on my ass and lost. But the point is, except for the girly shoes, I would have won.

I think my attitude about challenging males might have formed with the man in the wheelchair. I think my tiny toddler self was quite insulted and angered by his brutal treatment of me, and when I challenged a boy, I was also challenging that tyrant in the wheelchair who came into my life one day and started bullying and bossing me. I could kick and kick at that wheelchair but never dent it, I could even land a shot on his leg and he would never feel it, but if I stupidly let myself get too close he would scoop me up in his big scary arms, and beat the crap out of me. And my mother backed him up because he was The Man. So, I was pretty much primed for feminism when it came along.

The really big deal for us girls came in 1970, when I was in 7th grade, and we were suddenly allowed to wear pants to school. After that, I never looked back and I rarely ever wore a dress again. Jeans from there on out, except for later on in high school when different colored corduroy Levis became popular. Prior to that we had been allowed to wear pants for One Special Day Only in 6th grade. That was the day we were all heading out to plant trees on the new nature trail. I was so excited! Except it rained that day, and we frail female flowers were told we had to stay in while the rough tough little boys got to go out in the rain and plant the trees. I think you can guess how angry this wild little mixed-breed Indian was that day, seething with that hot Italian blood that always got me into so much trouble with the family. Man, was I mad, fuming mad, steam out of my ears mad.

I know feminism has changed a lot since I cut my teeth on it back in the 70's. Back then we wanted to not be judged by what we looked like, and these days it seems like it is all about what we look like. We wanted to not have to wear skirts and make up and bras and shave our body hair. We wanted the focus to be on the inner person, and on allowing everyone the opportunity to participate in the activities they chose to participate in, regardless of what they had between their legs. For girls of my generation, the big breakthrough was Title IX in sports, a law that said schools had to let girls play on boys' teams if there was not a girls' team offered in that sport. It meant equality would be real, instead of a beautiful dream. In my school, it meant girls could now run cross country with the boys, and boys could compete on the gymnastics team with the girls. There were no girls gunning for the football team, or for wrestling, though currently, in my daughter's school there is a girl wrestling with the boys, and she kicks ass.

I know feminism has broadened to say if girls want to wear stupid, but pretty, shoes they can and that does not make them any less of a feminist. That if a woman wants to be a stripper and play with men in that way that does not make her any less of a feminist. What feminism is really saying is women can be who they are, whatever they are and however they dress, and still have the right to be taken seriously. To not be treated like children, or like toys. Inclusion has gotten hyper inclusive, and that is a good, if yet idealistic, thing! But back in our days, it was those shoes and those degrading, to us, professions we were trying to escape. High heels and girdles and make up and finding validation in the approval of men. It seemed so clear to me then--because we had less choice then than we do now.

My friend Bernadette joined the Navy after high school. The recruiter lured her in by telling her she could be a jet mechanic, and she was so psyched by that. Once she made it though basic training, however, she was relegated to clerical jobs, one after another. She ended up stationed in Japan and one of her duties was to sign up the men for the fire fighting course. Since she was asked so many questions about the course, she applied for permission to take the course on the grounds that she would then be able to adequately answer the questions. They let her take the course, but they would not let her be a fire fighter. They put a picture of her wielding the fire hose in the navy newspaper--did they find it somehow kinky? Knowing what I now know of men, I have to say, Probably! She sent me a copy, anyway, she was so proud she was the first woman to take the course, but she had to settle for that. She had to settle for being a short-lived novelty topic, a possible turn-on, the chick who took the fire fighting course.

Whatever feminism is anymore is all mixed up to me. I can't keep up with the changes and the permutations. But I do understand this much, and clearly--that what has not changed is the core truth that regardless of gender we should be able to do whatever it is we aspire to do. Women are still breaking through those barriers. And other people are still trying to hold them back. I have read in the press of Republican supporters of McCain publicly referring to Hillary as a "bitch", but no one has yet dared to use the n-word about Obama, in public anyway. As if to say, it is okay to be sexist, but we are too enlightened--or scared--to show our true racist colors. We are scared of the men of color but we are not scared of the women, because they are just women, silly women in silly shoes and the make up and the hair and all the rest of it they use to deny us our power. Because women are powerful, and every one of us who has a mother knows in our heart of hearts the utter beauty and terrible truth of that all-encompassing power. But you know what else? Where sexism lurks, racism isn't too far behind. Along with anti-Semitism and all the rest of the hateful 'ism' demons that are eager to destroy a peaceful world.

Or what is the phrase I read once? Yes. Cutting off someone else's head to make yourself feel taller.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

yes. and you?

the stone mothers stand
with folded arms.
they are wrapped in wisps of smoke
billowing as skirts
around them.

the fathers
are fire. they consume the children. their screams
are open mouthed caverns of silence
echoing into the dawn. do you hear this?
do you see the opals of their eyes
nestling together in the ashes?

the hawk is awake
but she busies herself
finding breakfast. she floats
above the milky smoke
curling like silken strands
of baby fine hair around pearl white
ears. the sunrise is a blush
above sharp indigo hills
and a river entangled in mist.
there is safety
in their distance, in their keeping
to their own concerns.

you might do that too,
so you just won’t see. your dawn is outshone
by the bluish glow within the glassy frames
enthroned at the ends of your beds--
that space where flat faces smirk above alabaster teeth and
dictate stories in a sleepy drone
punctuated by simulacrums of honest emotion,
like vocal punctuation marks cueing you into moments of caring.
awwww, maybe. or, owwwwww.
and you are distracted, efficiently insulated
from the sharp sided human madness
happening simultaneously right here.
yes, right here. there are

frail things crushed beneath the massive treads
of our great vehicles as we speed away into illusions
of magnificent busy purpose. there are broken children
just 25 feet away, women bruised and apathetic,
men defeated into explosions of deadly impotence.
there are lives imploding all around us
in waves that do not reach the national
signals. do they deserve invisibility?
probably not but apparently, sometimes, yes. the powerlessness
of invisibility. the invisibility
of powerlessness. they are still here anyway,
even if we don’t see. our neighbors.
still here. right here. not just way over there. no.

and so what
responsibility must you take for this, this
disaster of humans murdering every sacred thing
and not even eating
the remains? what is
your response?

because the world is blood scented. can’t you smell it? of course not.
but she is. like a slaughterhouse.
she is drenched, she is saturated, and yet
she keeps drinking it in. what choice does she have,
this earth, but to submit? what choice?
she is bound
beneath us and our great busy plans,
our beautiful preoccupations,
our stinking chemicals, our splendid
metal chariots, our portfolio of investments,
and yes, our fragile glassy dreams.
because that is the truth of it,
that is what the outline of the bones
lying just below the surface
of our vanity
tells us :

that all that is wild,
and all that is innocent,
is bound
and gagged
beneath us.

Infinitely Fragile

I had such an insight as I walked home from cleaning the church this afternoon. I could only think it might have partly been the influence of Ishmael. His is our pastor's son. He is developmentally disabled--what used to be called mentally retarded except that is no longer the accepted term to describe people like him. He is, in so many ways, indescribable. He is 24. He likes to come over to the church and keep me company when I clean. We have this little schtick we do. It goes like this. He says, "What are you doing?" and he snickers a little.

And I answer, "Cleaning."

"Why?" (Small snicker.)

"Because it's my job."

"You like it?" (Slight guffaw.)

"Sometimes."

Every week, the same banter. One time it happened when I was cleaning earlier than usual on a Saturday, because there was a wedding that afternoon. Ishmael was attending the wedding; his mom is our Pastor; it was the son of one of our church families who was getting married. The next day Ishmael's dad Matthew told me that as part of the ceremony, the flower girl threw rose petals on the floor as she walked up the aisle. When Ishmael saw that, he stood up in his pew. He yelled, "Hey! Stop that! Rozenkraai just cleaned that floor this morning!"

And when the wedding was over, he walked through the church and picked up every single petal from the floor.

Anyway, I have often thought Ishmael is a gentle angel sent here to teach us new ways to love. He has bright blue eyes and a sweet, open face. He has been raised with loving kindness and consideration. He is gentle, and funny, stubborn and loud, and he lopes around the village looking for bottles and cans. He takes off on his parents, he disappears for hours just when they want him home. Some people leave the bottles and cans in bags on the porch for him, and others he just finds. He has an amazing memory for where he saw them on the roadside as he rode by in the car or the bus that takes him to his work program. The church collects them, and Ishmael and his dad do all the leg work of sorting through and rinsing them and then returning them to the store for the deposit money. We use that money to fund our Jamaica mission trip. Without their hard, weekly work and dedication, we wouldn't be able to go.

Anyway, it was after I had finished cleaning the church and visiting with Ishmael today, that I saw a woman walking down the hill as I was walking up. She looked as harried and preoccupied as I often feel myself as I travel up and down this hill. And suddenly it seemed as if the world grew brighter, and I had a flash of insight. 'People are so infinitely fragile', I thought, 'so completely breakable. All people. Every single one, not just the ones I like.' And nestled in the center of that thought was a bright core of compassion, complete compassion for my fellow human sufferers such as I never feel. And I thought, 'If I could only hold onto this depth of understanding and compassion, I would be such a kind and forgiving person.'

But I really can't hold onto it like that. I know I can't. I also know I wouldn't always want to. But what I can do is remember it, and try, (or try to try, as Bart Simpson once promised to do). Because several minutes after that glowing, golden, holy moment of divine insight, a car passed me by, too close, and I stopped and glared at the driver as I always do when that happens and I feel threatened and disrespected. I had quite naturally returned to my usual snarky self.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Softly Present

My Gram has come to visit me from time to time throughout the years since her death in 1990, the year my daughter was born. She died 2 months after my daughter was born. She had gone to my mother's for the Fourth of July, and they had gone to a parade. My mother adores parades, for reasons I will never understand. It was Death Valley hot that day; I remember it well, I was 8 months pregnant and still living on the land. Literally. We were still in that old camper-trailer called The Strange Boat, while the X was still taking his sweet time getting the house finished, and it was a sweat box. I had sat in the shade in a lawn chair for as long as I could stand it, and then when the afternoon heat had peaked, we rode in the car to a supermarket so we could be in the air conditioning. My Gram, meanwhile, was suffering from heat exhaustion in the bright sun at the parade, but of course, told no one of her distress. She did not say, Could we move to the shade? Could we go home? Could we find some AC? No, she would never ever do that. So, instead, she got deathly overheated, and then had a heart attack in her sleep that night. She did not die, but only 10% of her heart capacity remained, so she couldn't do much besides lie in bed.

She couldn't get up to go to the bathroom, and as much as my mother wanted to take care of her mother at home, she found it intensely difficult to change her own mother's diapers. To do that after working all day at her job. To get up in the morning and face that first thing. To do all that. No. So the decision was made to put my Gram in the hospital, where she was catheterized and fed these milkshake type drinks. And there she was, far away from the home she had lived in for over 50 years, essentially waiting to die.

My daughter was born in August, after a long labor and an eventual emergency c-section. I wasn't up for the 2 hour trip to my mother's city to visit my Gram until early October. My Gram had lost a lot of weight, and had beautiful high cheekbones I had never been able to see in her soft, plump face before. She had not been able to dye her hair anymore either, naturally, and so she had long white roots beneath the dark brown hair. Her green eyes with brown centers, just like mine, were as big and bright as ever, however. And I did not know if I would see her again. So I told her how beautiful her cheekbones were. I told her how important and precious she was to me my whole life. I am happy I had the opportunity to say those things to her. The one thing I did not do was bring my infant daughter upstairs into that hospital ward full of all kinds of sick people so my Gram could see her. I still don't know if I made the right choice. My Gram wanted to see her only great-grandchild and yet was also accustomed to not having what she wanted. I did not want to risk my infant's health. Which door do you choose?

Anyway, my Gram had been hanging in there for months now, alone with the TV when no one was there visiting. The person we all knew she really wanted to see was my uncle, her first born son. He lived way out west, and he kept putting off visiting her. I have always thought he was stingy with his feelings and does not do reality very well. I think he could not face his mother's mortality. My mother had told me he had had trouble believing she had had a heart attack. His mind is a black and white and orderly place full of neat lines and divisions and the reality of this was not fitting in very well there--only 50 year old male executives had heart attacks. But as time dragged on, it became inevitable that he would have to fly east and visit, and so he finally did.

He came a week after I had visited her in October. He saw her in the hospital and then he went back to my mother's house and started drinking. A lot. I have seen him take an 8 ounce glass, fill it with ice and then fill it with gin. Within 24 hours, the hospital called to tell them my Gram had begun to die in earnest. He did not want to go be with her. He refused. My mother wanted to go but since she is not one to ever seriously challenge the dictates of The Men, she couldn't. Like a child, she couldn't. So my Gram died alone, her family soaking in alcohol less than a mile away.

We had all suspected she was just biding her time, waiting for him to show up. She was quietly angry he had not come to visit her in all that time, and had made her wait like that.

I always wished I could have been there with her at the very end. Death does not frighten me. I would have sang to her. I would have sang "Amazing Grace" to her. I would have tried to help her not be afraid. Because apparently she was afraid, and she did not have a smooth departure out of this life.

My Gram's body was cremated, and her first born son packed her ashes into his suitcase and took them back west. He eventually took them up to Idaho, up into the Sawtooth Mountains she loved, and scattered them there. There was no memorial service other than what he might have said into the wind on his solitary journey up there. We really are an odd lot, this family of mine.

But, as I said, I have felt her with me many times since her body died. When I lived with the X and was going through such hard, lonely times, I would suddenly feel her soft, loving presence around me. I still do. It feels like being wrapped inside a sun warmed yellowish pink rose. It feels like being held in soft yet strong arms of love. Sometimes, I will be standing there doing dishes, looking out the window at the ski mountain to the south--it was the same at her house, the window was over the sink and she could stand and do dishes and gaze up at the hills she had grown up in--and it will suddenly feel as if I am in her house, feel and smell the exact same way. Or sometimes in our church, I will come up the back stairs to the chancel or the altar area and it will smell just like it did when I walked in her front door. Or I will be sitting there with the choir in the chancel during worship, and I will feel her near me, feel her softly present beside me.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Zoo Mothers

I had recently read in the UK newspaper The Guardian, about a polar bear mother named Vera in the Nuernberg, Germany zoo. Apparently there are a few schools of thought floating around out there about polar bear mothers in zoos. One of them says, let the mother have time with her babies so she can bond with them and raise them. The other says, polar bear mothers in zoos tend to, more often than not, kill and eat their babies, so take the babies away ASAP and rear them by hand--that is, bottle feed them. Apparently there is a polar bear cub named Knut who lives in the Berlin zoo who was taken away from his mother and hand reared, and so survived, and he became quite the little star of the zoo and attracted all kinds of attention (that is, money) and visitors to the zoo. Certain animal rights activists, however, weren't happy about little Knut being taken from his mother and hand reared, saying it was perhaps unfair to the new mother and also unnatural. To my mind, is it zoos themselves that are unnatural here. Anyway---

---the Nuernberg zoo had decided to let Vera have time to bond with her cubs. She had twins, and unfortunately, during her allowed bonding time she killed and ate one of them. She had begun to batter and abuse the surviving cub prior to killing and eating him too, and so they took him away. The other point raised by the article was whether Vera, this mother bear, was showing good maternal instincts.

What do you think? Because you know sure as the sun does shine that I am now going to tell you what I think!

I think she was showing completely sound maternal instincts, or as sound as she can living in captivity. Captivity itself may have unhinged her slightly. It would me! Because it is the fact of the captivity that is the focal point of this. Of course these zoo animals know they are in captivity! Could the zoo environment of central Germany--unless it were in an arid desert region-- be any father from the vast white icy openness of the Arctic? Not to mention the smallness of their 'pens'--no matter how big any zoo enclosure is, it ain't the vast Arctic plain. The bears know this, and I am guessing that knowing just might stress them out a bit. And that stress tells them they are not in a fit environment to rear their young. Can they dive into the water and hunt seals? Can they curl up in a furry ball on the ice on a sub zero night and listen to the aurora whispering above them? Can they come and go as they please? Are they allowed their natural bear solitude? These animals aren't stupid and no zoo is ever gonna fool them into thinking they are at home. And God forbid we ever give up our what appears to be natural human GREED and actually do something to protect their habitat.

The other issue here is the one that says a mother has a right, has the wit, has the brain to decide whether she is able to rear her child. I came of age in the 70's, the early days after the dawn of feminism, equal rights, and the right to choose whether or not a pregnancy would be carried to term--abortion rights. Only a mother knows whether she has the resources and support to raise her children adequately. That said, she should then be able to make the informed decision of whether she will have those children, or not. I myself will come clean here and say I have had 2 abortions over the course of my adult life. The first pregnancy happened when I was in my early 20s and was using alcohol and marijuana quite heavily. I was living in a very unstable lifestyle, and was an emotional and mental wreck. I knew there was no way I could raise a baby. Besides that, I had my doubts whether that fetus was a healthy one, considering how I was abusing my body.

The second abortion came when I was married to the X (sex happens even in bad relationships, but as we are all adults here, we all already probably know that). Pretty soon after he found out I was pregnant, he became more abusive than ever, physically abusive, and pushed and shoved me to the ground several times. That was when I decided to avail myself of the services the local domestic violence office offered. I talked with a counselor there, and she advised me to decide, first thing, about the pregnancy and what I was going to do about that. I was almost 39 and the pregnancy, coupled with the constant stress of living with him, was making me feel even more exhausted and sick. I felt isolated, overwhelmed and panicked. There was no one I wanted to tell about the pregnancy because I felt so stupid and ashamed for even letting myself get into that situation (conveniently forgetting the fact it takes 2 to make a baby--but how easy, when living with someone who makes you feel like shit on a daily basis, how easy to do just the very same thing to yourself). I decided to have another abortion.

That abortion was a disaster. I had it in a clinic while hearing right-to-life protesters chant outside. Thankfully, I had had very supportive dreams that very morning. I dreamt of a buffalo mother coming to me, I heard her sound and heavy footsteps on the earth, and she communicated to me from the powers of that earth that everything was alright, that what I was doing was not wrong. I also dreamt of a young man, dark like me, who stood behind me braiding my hair as I explained to him why I did not have the energy to rear him. I apologized to him. He looked at me with dark loving eyes and communicated forgiveness. Had I not had those dreams, a very hard day might have been that much harder. I might have been sunk. Because, for me, it is a different thing entirely to have an abortion after having already had a child. I knew things only a woman who has given birth can know.

I had complications after the procedure and bled and bled for over a week and finally had to undergo the procedure a second time to fix what went wrong the first time. The experience was a deeper hardship piled upon a mountain of hardship. But it also galvanized me inside and created in me the determination to get out of that marriage. It provided my turning point. From that time on, I worked on getting my daughter and myself out. It took me 2 years. I saved up hidden cash in a box in my underwear drawer. The box contained a pewter Virgin Mary given to me as a Christmas gift by a friend's mother. Besides cash, I was building up courage inside myself. I knew things had gotten as bad as I could stand and that knowing gave me the impetus and momentum I needed to go. I had made a hard, but right, choice, for me and for my children, in my life--my life that was my own captive situation, my own zoo existence.

Vera the polar bear, in her wild wisdom, was also fulfilling that kind of choice. It is a behavior choice that repeats among animals all over the world-- among domesticated animals as well as among animals in their natural habitats, and not only by the mothers. Father lions, as an example, often kill and eat the male cubs, because the lion society of prides cannot support too many males. We humans easily forget that we too are animals-- we are quite clever animals in forgetting that--and we also quite often forget there are many, many kinds of wisdom making up the patchwork of this planet. Not all of this wisdom concerns the civilized life. Some of it is quite wild, in fact, and does not concern humans at all. Dare I say that all these wisdoms be honored equally?

Yes, I do dare say that.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

(Photo of Vera and one of her cubs from: AP Photo/Hans-Martin Issler)

Backson

In one of the "Winnie-the-Pooh" stories, Christopher Robin writes a note to tell his friends that he will be away for a bit, and he ends it by saying: "Bisy. Backson."

I am not particularly 'bisy' except with the burdens of life, but I will definitely be 'backson.' I am tired and feeling not quite able to hold myself up. Time to crawl under the covers with a book and a stuffed bear, and rest. Wish I had a northern cave to hibernate in, but with these crazy climate changes, even the bears aren't being allowed the true winter rest they are entitled to.

(the photo is one making the rounds of the internet, it is a sunset/moonrise--or sunrise/moonset-- over antarctica)

Homer

I had a little fish for awhile and his name was Homer. I got him and 2 other fish one intensely cold Sunday in January 4 years ago, the kind of cold day up north here when the high for the day is 5F. The pet store has a buy one-get-another-of-the-same-kind-free deal on Sundays, and Homer and his sister Joy are some kind of Ryukin goldfish, bred to have shortened bodies and fat bellies. It is all for the look, this breeding, and it causes problems for the fish themselves because the fat belly compacts the internal organs--particularly the swim bladder, the reason fish are buoyant at all--too tightly.

I got a third fish that day too, because it was all alone in its tank and was very pretty. It is a pearl scale Sarassa and I call her Pearl. She is a more aggressive fish that the other two. Her solitary state appealed to my heart that day as I was motiviated by extreme self-pity. The Vampyr had just left, and even though it was the right thing, I still felt bereft and alone and lost and loser-ish (another relationship failure!), and also very sorry for myself. Self-pity is a hairy monster that lives and breeds in my mother's side of the family. It is an odious emotion that I am working very hard to eradicate in myself. And at that time, I was thick in the throes of it. So I decided to go find some little fish that no one wanted after the holiday shopping. The little unwanted leftovers of the market economy!

Homer was deformed, that's why no one wanted him. His body was so compacted, he could not maintain himself in a horizontal position and his nose was always diving into the gravel. He was unstable in general, as if his internal gyroscope was all out of whack. He would float helplessly upside down and bob all around the tank. And originally his name was not Homer--it was Hope, because I honestly hoped he would not die. And Pearl's original name was Peace, until it became clear she was anything but peaceful.

As time went on, it became more and more clear that little Homer's disabilty was a liability in the world of that tank. Pearl was uneasy with anything that seemed not normal, and would push at him and nudge him and drive him away from the food. Homer was stressed out, and began to have infections--his tail fin began to rot, and he still bobbed all over, and one day I got home from work to discover him all bleeding. The other fish had been pecking and attacking him--as if to eat him. Because they would eat him--goldfish are scavengers and cannibals. Meat is meat to them.

I quickly got a large coffee mug and scooped little Homer out of the tank. I found a clean 5 gallon plastic bucket in the bathroom closet, filled it half way with water, and put little Homer, mug and all, into it. Homer stayed inside the shelter of his mug. I also put some tea tree oil in the water to help him begin to heal. Then I rushed off to the pet store to buy him a proper tank--it would take at least 24 hours for that tank to be ready for him, and he was fine in the bucket, in his mug, until then.

And so Homer lived with his mug shelter in a 5 gallon tank on the bathroom counter. I talked to him all the time, told him how wonderful and strong he was. His tail fin had rotted almost completely off, but the tea tree medication I used is phenomenal, and with time, his fin grew completely back. But then new health woes arose for little Homer. Suddenly his swim bladder would not contract, and he was stuck floating at the surface of the water. It was difficult to feed him then, as I had been using sinking pellets, but I found some flakes of fish food, and cut a sharp edge on a plastic cord, and would skewer the flakes onto that and hold it near Homer until he got the idea. And he did get the idea, and so after that, he and I shared a 20 minute feeding ritual twice a day as I would try to keep the tissue thin flakes on the cord and he would try to gobble them with some accuracy. I also did this with thawed out peas.

I have to say here that Homer was always a very cheerful and happy little fish. He knew me, and would wiggle around when I came to his tank. Despite his limitations, he never despaired and was always eager to eat. I started singing to him too, his own little song, roughly based on a Christmas anthem our choir had sung at our annual concert. I would sing: "Look at that fish shine in the night/Look at that fish shine in the night/Look at that fish shine in the night/Showin' the way to Bethlehem...."

He loved it. He always responded by swimming lopsided circles.

One day I came in to feed him and his swim bladder had contracted, and he was now lying on the bottom of the tank. So at least he could eat the sinking pellets again, but I missed our daily meal together! Some days I wasn't sure if he was alive or not and I would stand there looking at him and would then see his eye twitch in my direction. Pretty much every time I went into the bathroom I expected him to be dead, and was immensely reassured by that little eye twitch. He was still happy and hopeful, still managed to move around despite being trapped on the bottom in the gravel. He was vigorous despite his deformity, and he taught me a lot about remaining cheerful despite circumstances that are less than ideal. He was always happy and friendly, and always eager to eat.

Eventually tumors began to grow on his head. And one morning, about a week after my mother's current husband had died, in November 2 years ago, little Homer lay very, very still in his tank, and his little eye did not twitch in my direction, and he was gone. I knew in my heart that he was now swimming freely and gracefully and happily someplace else. He had lived 2 years despite all his health woes.

(Incidentally, his 'sister' Joy has since had her swim bladder fail, and she now lives in Homer's old tank, but I brought it out here and it sits amidst the plants and the sunshine on the dining room table. She has been that way for over a year now, and while she does not have Homer's sparkling personality, she is surviving quite nicely.)

I buried him under my heirloom apple tree ( the variety is called Sops of Wine) in a hole that immediately filled with water because we had had a lot of rain and the ground water was high in that spot. I loved little Homer, he taught me so much, his tiny shining self. Look at that fish shine in the night!

Koo-koo Time

I think people who do not themselves experience mental illness and mood disorders caused by chemical imbalances in the brain really understand what it is like to have them. I think they do not understand that sometimes something changes and takes over inside and it does not ask me if I want to go along for the ride. It simply holds me hostage. I have often likened it to a feeling of something dark--like cold water--rising inside me, and I am helpless to stop it. When I have a fairly good presence of mind and feel it coming, like a cold, I can take measures to care for myself, to cut myself some slack and give myself some breaks. Sometimes I try my best to not fight it and rise to the top of it and float along on it. If I fight it my anxiety tends to rise and that creates a whole other segment to the hostage drama. Kind of like, the hostage taker was doing just fine holding the hostage and screaming his crazy demands, but now he hears the rescue helicopters outside and sees the SWAT team sniper on the roof, and uh oh, watch out, hoo boy, he might just let loose and do something really crazy.

(Not to mention the role hormones can play in this insane little dance. Call them the loose cannon of the hostage taking team.)

I know what it feels like to have my emotions run me, instead of the other way around. For so many years, that was a way of life. Being healthy-ish has been a cumulative process extending over roughly 30 years. It has been a process of following a mindful path of healing and reaching a plateau, and then coasting along for a few years thinking I am finally okay (I would say it was my revised self), and then hitting some crazy awful challenge that causes the bottom to drop out of my resilience. Over the years, my journey of healing has visited and resided for many years in all these places: Yoga, meditation, therapy, exercise, spiritual disciplines and paths. Growing medicinal plants and using them. Nurturing and caring for others. Creating art. Running with wolves. Writing. Using alcohol or marijuana, often to excess (drug and alcohol abuse! what the professionals in the business call, "self-medicating behaviors", a definite red flag on their 'why this person may need our help' list!). Singing. Relaxing hot baths scented with lavender essential oil. Finding someone to love. Hard core pharmaceutical medication and psych hospital programs. I am old enough, and experienced enough, to now know I can never say Oh yes, I am all better now. Faith in a loving Father God who protects me and nurtures me in a way no man on this earth ever has has also created in me a very stable sense of peace and serenity. That said, I still know there are times when my brain goes numb and shuts down or I get really nasty or lethargic or apathetic, can't concentrate, or am just so sad. Or am just so tired. When I feel like I am trapped behind glass.

I have had at least 3 breakdowns in my life. The last one was the largest and the scariest. I could not function. Period. I would sit and stare for extended periods of time quite nicely though. I was afraid to leave my house. I decided the world did not have enough cake in it and began baking a cake a week and eating it. I gained weight, I painted my toenails the same colors as the meds I was taking. The supermarket was too confusing, too scary. I lost my job. I lay in bed, like a bleached out half drowned creature washed up in the surf. I was lost, empty, my brain was a maze of static. I could not take my daughter school shopping because the noise and buzz of the mall coalesced into a hazy fog that filled my vision and left me standing mute, like a zombie, confused and disoriented. It was not a matter of snapping out of it or getting over myself. My brain was koo-koo and I was held hostage, gagged and bound and muzzy headed. I was out of control. I did not pay my bills. I went nuts with a credit card. I fell headlong into debt. I dropped out of my church life. I wandered from job to job trying to get something of myself back. That was in 2002. I am only now able to say, I think I am over that one.

I think being abused from such a young age ongoing through my entire childhood and adolescence has much to do with this lifelong struggle with haywire brain chemistry and warped coping mechanisms, with heredity playing a smaller supporting role. I read once of a study of concentration camp survivors' brains--their brain chemistry differed from those who had not undergone such hell on earth. In the same way, my brain chemistry is not balanced. I have gone through times where the waters rose so high as to drown me and I have depended on the stabilizing effects of the hard core pharmaceuticals--trazadone, wellbutrin, celexa, prozac, lexapro. There was even an anti-psychotic called zyprexa thrown in there when I was in full blown breakdown koo-koo time, because I was coming to learn that when there was too much external stimuli, my brain often simply can not process it all and goes into fight or flight mode. And so, I would (do) think people were (are) sneaking up on me when they weren't (aren't) and I hear my name called when it wasnt (isn't).

Another thing that affected the health of my brain was the serious binge drinking I did throughout my adolescence--often drinking to black out stage. That went on into my 20s. The brain is still a growing, developing organ on into our 20s! Then there was many years of heavy marijuana use that, while it opened my mind to new levels of perception and let me create awesome poetry and experience music in a whole new dimensional framework, it also left me having psychotic moments when I was sure there were actual scary monsters down at the end of the hall and no one could convince me other wise. (I heard some guy say this once: Sure, pot opens up a door in your mind. But it is always the same door.)

I have tended to stay away from the hard core pharmaceutical psych meds when I can manage it because they are very toxic to the system in general, and really burden the liver. I have found that a program of herbs and vitamins specifically intended to enhance and nourish the brain has worked best for me. I still get depressed. No doubt about it. I don't think any pill can ever make it go away forever, not the chronic--rather than situational--kind of depression and PTSD I have. I also do not lead a life most people would consider normal. I do not leave this village for months at a time! I walk up and down this hill and that is about it. I limit my contact with people--they exhaust me. I do not go out into hyper stimulating scenes, malls, bars, cities. I call myself the village idiot. I do not lead a life that others would seek to emulate, in fact, I know people think me odd and that is okay because they are right. The village idiot life works for me--it helps me stay healthy.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Epiphany

People tend to say, "Oh, I had an epiphany," when what they mean is some sudden realization came upon them, swooped down upon them and they saw things in a new light. I am looking at my old dictionary here, and it says epiphany means, "A revelatory manifestation of a divine being." Not exactly the same as having a new insight. More like The Revelation, rather than a revelation.

Unless you do not believe in divine beings, of course. Unless you worship humanity over all, and then, I guess, your own newly generated idea would seem pretty fine--a revelation!, if not downright divine. Humans do so love themselves and their things!

Oh, don't mind me. I am here at home in the descending twilight wishing someone would come along and say, "How about I make you a cup of tea?" And then I get to sit there while the water boils and the tea steeps and the soy milk is added and the bag is removed, and the tea is served to me. I would not have to get up once! Not once. I could sit and enjoy. Sounds like luxury to me.

Some of us are meant to be served, and some of us are meant to do the serving. Guess which camp I fall into?

It's okay! Really. And so, anyway....

...We celebrated capital-E Epiphany in church today, the remembering of the 3 Wise Men, the learned astronomers of Persia arriving to visit the infant Jesus. They had prognosticated the birth of this divine being, this Messiah, this Emmanuel or God-With-Us (not God far away and up there, back turned and uncaring, but right here, with us!). They had travelled many months across unfamiliar terrain to reach the baby around the time of his birth. They had stopped by King Herod's place along the way to see what he knew of this divine baby, did he know where he was he born? Herod had heard rumors of Bethlehem, and pointed them that way. But he did not know exactly where this upstart, this infant threat to his power might be. So as they left, he asked them to return to him and tell him where the baby lay.

They were guided on their way by a bright light in the sky--it led them directly to the stable of Jesus's birth. But they never returned to Herod; one of them had had a dream warning them not to go back. And they heeded that dream. For Herod would have killed that baby boy. And when Herod realized they had not returned to him, old despot that he was, he ordered that all the newborn baby boys be sought out and killed. Every single one. Crude and effective--he wasn't taking any chances. And yet, somehow the Holy Family was warned of this, and so they fled to Egypt, and lived there for many years.

Journeys in the dark, lights in the sky, dreams, visions, holy children, timely escapes. Pretty far out stuff. I read of these wonders and glories and mysteries and my heart soars. Whether or not the language is symbolic or literal, reportage straight and true or metaphor and creative imagery, the heart of the story shines forth. Something pretty special happened in the days when that particular baby was born, so special in fact, the story is still being told.

The poet Christina Rosetti wrote the lyrics to a song called 'In The Bleak Mid Winter'. Gustav Holst provided the score. And some of the lyrics recall the Wise Astronomers who travelled so far to see this miraculous newborn being, and the precious gifts they brought to him. But what Rosetti says is this:

"What shall I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb.
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part.
Yet what I can I give him;
I give him my heart."

That's why I don't mind so much being one of those who do the serving. Because love is what it is all about. How about that for an epiphany?

Vampyr

I haven't talked about him much. Because he terrifies me. Like any vampire, I fear the simple mention of him can summon him. Not that he has been around for a very long time. But I never know. Consider this: there was the morning I could not find my bright blue fleece slipper socks, the ones I always wear. They were not beside my bed where I always leave them when I take them off at night. Just not there. So I went down the hall and let out Bumby. And then when I opened the back door to let her back in, there were my socks, out on the back porch, lying there neatly folded.

For 3 days I thought myself insane. Because it was harder to accept the concrete truth of a very spooky man: he had come into my house, taken the socks, waited outside in the dawn, placed them just so, right where I would find them. Bumby knew him, she would never bark at him. He would speak to her softly, maybe give her a treat. He is brilliant, in his odd and twisted way, an eccentric genius even. And he probably thought it was funny, his little prank, sneaking into and around my house. He would also deny ever doing it, if accused.

But he did it. I know he did. I knew he had been creeping around my house! I had seen tracks in the snow and heard weird noises in the dark outside my bedroom window. I had recently asked him to give me back the key to my front door that he had, never once thinking he would make himself a copy, creep into my house, and mess with my mind a little bit more. After I let myself believe the truth of the blue fleece slipper socks, I asked the X to put a new dead bolt lock on the front door. And I lock it every time I go out, even yet, all these years later.

I have always had a tolerance for odd people. I was brought up with such human oddities, I learned not to judge them by their oddness. That has changed. I am much less tolerant about who I let into my personal sphere. The Vampyr is the reason for that.

And why do I call him the Vampyr? You might be wondering that. Because he stayed up most of the night, lurking around. He was good at quiet stealth. Also because he was pale and said some of his ancestors came from the Transylvania region of the Carpathian Mountains. But primarily because he fed off my vitality. He was like the X in that he was attracted to my strength, and he fed off that strength, and then when I was not strong anymore, when I was ill and in need--I had my last major breakdown while he was here, big surprise, eh?--he resented me and would not help me. And then I told him to leave, because he had to go. He refused to help out around here and his unhappiness was poisoning the atmosphere, and I had enough poison inside me to deal with already. Also, he broke things I held dear, secretly, but I have talked about that in an earlier blog.

He had an affinity for UFOs and extra-terrestrials. He believes in their reality and knows all the types of creatures and why they come here, what they want. He wants one to come and take him away. He has wanted it most of his life. (He also believed he could become immortal by eating an expensive food supplement made from gold and purported to be the actual manna the ancient Israelites ate in the desert during their 40 years of Moses leading them to the promised land. That, and he was so convinced the world was going to end in early 2000, he stashed away his possessions, enough to homestead a new place-- a castle in fact!, deep within the wilds of the forested mountains to the north. His own promised land. He literally bankrupted himself with credit cards used to acquire all he would need in his brave new world. I am not making this up. And yes, I know--now--he is nuts, and not in a fun way. But he is smart, he is oh so smart, wily coyote smart. It got so I believed he had actually been picked up by some ship and maybe even had some kind of homing device inserted into his brain. Because while he was around, especially the last summer he was around, I myself became convinced there were aliens all around this area. And that they were around me, because of him, and I was terrified by that.

The potential reality of aliens and UFOs have always terrified me. That stuff just scares the crap out of me--with the exception of Spielberg's film, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", that is. The night after I saw the movie 'Signs', a movie everyone I know laughs at and says to me, "I can't believe that scared you!", I was convinced those very same aliens were in my room. I heard them talking their weird clicking language, I saw one standing in the doorway and another looking in the window. I was out of my mind with fear.

Another night I dreamt a huge and horrible dark ship was hovering over the ski mountain to the south. The dream was as clear as a vision. The Vampyr got home--he worked nights, of course!--and told me that as he was driving back he saw a beautiful shining white ship hovering over the ski mountain to the south. He was overjoyed by the sight of it.

There was more stuff, all too weird. I can't even say it, you would never believe me, it is that weird. Maybe another time, another story. And, maybe not.

I ran into him last summer. I had not seen him for a very long time. He had been stalking me for awhile, early mornings when the dogs and I walked, but then he went away, and I heard no more about him, and I hoped he had left the area. Anyway, last summer, I had the use of a car and I went to the supermarket across the river. It was an odd day, I was feeling kind of unbalanced and unhappy. In the market, I was standing in front of a cold case, trying to decide on which iced tea to buy my daughter. Suddenly a face, right up in mine. The Vampyr, only he has shaved his head. I hate shaved heads (unless, of course, you are Jean Luc Picard--'Star Trek' is great! And, aliens in unrealistic, futuristic settings don't scare me). He chirped, "Hey."

I reeled back. I swallowed hard. I looked up at him, my mean face on. I growled low in my throat: "Get the hell away from me."

And he did, quick as that. Gone, saying, "Noooooo," as he went . Truly. I only wish I was making this up, but why would I make up such yuck?

One last bit of yuck: after he left, I had a terrifying dream, being in a car at night, with him, careening down a twisting mountain road and coming on a fearful accident scene. No one else there, only the silence of death, lurid red light and headlights blazing, and ruined bodies and blood, so much blood. A scene of horror, all black and yellow and red. That's part of what he has inside of him. That kind of terror and gore. So much yuck. So much more I could tell. But probably not. This has been more than enough. Twisted. Who knows what went awry in him, or what happened to him. He is not normal! And for so long, that was okay with me. I even prided myself on my tolerance. But not anymore, not like that, and not within the sphere of my life. Get the hell away from me, indeed.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

love rises

i want to go down to the lowlands
and watch the flood waters rise.
my old black dog would guide me there.
he knows it well; he’s a water dog,
accustomed to paddling out into the wet depths and returning home
again, feathered death cradled gently in his soft mouth.

i want to sit amidst the sharp black rocks,
obsidian glass shining in iridescent circles
of night. i see the dog’s face reflected there.
he smiles at me, he wags his tail slowly, he acts as if he approves of my choice.
but it’s only a ruse to let me think i make the choices,
not him. because in fact
we can’t stay long
in this shining black place,
in these rocks. they are no place to rest.
they conjure me back to the pain of living, and he can’t have that.

he is a lazy, fat dog. he would sleep all day
on into the midnight spiral of solitary stars
whispering songs that have never been named
by our kind. he loves the solace of heavy quilts, of rising waters,
of the many faces and forms of sleep.
he exhales warm breath into my nostrils,
puts his big paw on my face.
he would hold me fast there
as the darkness comes and fills all the spaces.

he would bring me rounded river stones,
smoothly grey and faintly black, with which to fill my pockets.
he would set me spinning into the lavender grey twilight,
so sweet, so vast, no stars arisen yet, no crescent moon
to catch my hands upon so that i might hang there,
grasping that last sharp sliver of silvery white light.
no, he would not allow me that,

that fleeting promise of light. he would rather rend my flesh to bones
amidst obsidian knives, and eat my tough old woman heart.
he would rather savor hot garnet flecks
of this ancestral blood, this fleeting fire,
this, my life. he would much rather
fill my mouth with the sweetness of death
infused in green river water.
he would kiss the life right out of me. he loves me that much!
he does! for he has walked beside me all my life, taking care,
like a guide dog, to keep me out of the brightness and well inside the shadows.
he is keeping me safe, out of the glare of that light.
keeping me safe. it is what he knows.
and he will abide with me,
faithfully, to the end of all walking.
he is the celestial bear
wearing the guise
of a fat black dog.
and he will see me safely home.

because,
without him,
i must face the sunrise in gladness,
singing songs of praise.
i must claim my power. i must tend and serve the eastern light.
i can do this! i can!
but it is a lonely place. for no one can know the truth of this life.
no one
can know. and so, without him,
i must meet all the smiling faces, all the bared teeth,
all the voices and the clamor. i must put on a face and participate
in the madness of humanity.
it exhausts me. i hate it.
may i rest forever in the solace of a solitude attended
by animals and spirits. may i rest forever
inside the celestial bear.