Flat Line

I had the sense early this morning that my life is a flat line, a bleak horizon. I felt the demons of fear and despair gnawing at me, and I became overwhelmed. Now all I want to do is stay home and tidy up and reclaim the sense that I have some control over my life. (Do I? And will cleaning the floor and keeping guard here, making sure all is tidy and safe, is that really going to make it all better?)

My daughter went out with friends last night. I woke at 4am and saw the lights were still on in the living room, so I got up and went out there to discover she was not yet home. I went over to the phone and saw there had been 14 calls. My instant fear was something bad had happened and the state police had tried to call me all those times. I need glasses (and can't afford them!) and the light was dim so I could not read the numbers on the caller ID. That frustrated me! That was when I discovered the lamp right near the phone had been knocked over by the cats and the bulb lay shattered in the corner. I fumbled with the phone and dialed my voice mail number, and then was subjected to a mandatory message from the phone company all about how they are going to upgrade the voice mail service. I had to sit through that endless blather while I waited in fear and frustration, feeling very much like a Bad Mother because I didn't stay out on the couch instead of going into bed so that I would be able to hear the phone. Finally I was able to listen to my messages, and there she was telling me of a change in plans and where she was going, but it all sounded a bit vague to my worried ears. She said she would continue to try to call me, which she did do; that's why there were 14 calls.

I turned out the lights. I went back to bed. I felt like a Bad Mother. Because I have depression, because it sucks my energy and I need to sleep. Because I have just one phone and it is on the other end of the house. Because I close my bedroom door so that cats won't come in and bother me with their nonsense. I battered and berated myself. And finally, I realized I was succumbing to the lure of the dark demons; they were swarming me like hungry fish. I tried to console myself. I told myself that if the state police really needed to get a hold of me, they would have come pounding on my door. But I wasn't very deeply consoled; the light inside me was too dim. So then my fears seized the opportunity and began spiraling my thoughts into dizziness, conjuring potential financial disasters and all the many other ways I live on a very fine edge, trusting in faith to be held up by God, trusting in faith that anything that comes will be nothing I cannot handle. Except it all felt very skimpy there in the dark as I clutched a stuffed bear to my heart, talking to God but not sure anyone was hearing me just then, and I felt just as much like a lonely shivering child with too thin a blanket as I ever have. That was when I realized I am very overwhelmed by trying to hold my life together--that, in fact, it feels like a fucking disaster and a mess-- and I am too ashamed to tell anyone that fact.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

I Know Why

There is an article in today's New York Times written by Patricia Cohen and entitled 'Midlife Suicide Rises, Puzzling Researchers'. There has been, she writes, "an unusually large increase in suicides among middle-aged Americans in recent years. Just why thousands of men and women have crossed the line between enduring life’s burdens and surrendering to them is a painful question for their loved ones. But for officials, it is a surprising and baffling public health mystery."

Remember a few posts back when I talked about how I used to wonder why Virginia Woolf killed herself at middle age, because when I was young I always thought if you could make it this far, you had somehow made it? Read on.

"Linda Cronin was 43 and working in a gym when she gulped down a lethal dose of prescription drugs in her Denver apartment in 2006, after battling eating disorders and depression for years."

"Ms. Cronin explained in a note that she had struggled with an inexplicable gloom that would leave her cowering tearfully in a closet as early as age 9. After attempting suicide before, she had checked into a residential treatment program not long before she died, but after a month, her insurance ran out. Her parents had offered to continue the payments, but her sister, Kelly Gifford, said Ms. Cronin did not want to burden them.

Ms. Gifford added, “I think she just got sick of trying to get better.”'

"For women 45 to 54, the (suicide) rate leapt 31 percent."

"Without a “psychological autopsy” into someone’s mental health, Dr. Caine said, “we’re kind of in the dark.”

"And although an unusual event might cause the suicide rate to spike, like in Thailand after Asia’s economic collapse in 1997, suicide much more frequently punctuates a long series of troubles — mental illness, substance abuse, unemployment, failed romances."

Many depressives appear very competent on the surface, and are often very accomplished people. What with the stigma surrounding mental health issues (the nice way to say mental illness), most of us have learned to conceal as much as possible the times when we are feeling bad--to put a good face on things. Until our energy runs out and the depression gets too strong, that is, and we can't keep up the facade anymore.

People who have not themselves suffered from true chronic depression simply do not know what it is like to have yourself taken over by this dark monster that numbs sensation, turns a regular day into an endurance event, saps your vitality, makes you crabby and irritable and unable to enjoy life or to believe you are worthy of love. I even know that that monster could lead me to my death and that my loving friends would feel sad and bad and wonder what more they could have done for me. And the answer would be: "Nothing! You did your best for me!" They just don't understand the power of depression.

I have recently been absolutely surrounded by loving friends, eager to show me kindness and affection. And the hardest thing is, when I feel bad like I have been feeling, I really cannot comprehend their loving words or their affectionate efforts on my behalf. I keep thinking they will one day see the 'real me' and realize they should never have wasted their time on me. As if I am the monster, living behind a solid dark grey rock wall, somewhere behind my heart, somewhere in the center of my brain, and their loving attentions are waves of sound and light reverberating against that rock. Or, it is like I am trapped behind a wall of ice and their kind words are pebbles tossed at the ice. I can only hear the ticking of the pebbles striking the ice, I cannot comprehend the heat of the love and affection inside them.

My hope is always for the day when I begin to feel better and those walls begin to fall down.

But I also know that even when the walls fall down, they never stay down, and eventually I am trapped back behind them again.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

(Photo: 'Star' by Rozenkraai)

Providence

I have made some pretty dumb decisions. One of them was to move to Providence after college. The real plan was to move back to Boston, where I had lived for several years after high school. But I took the train to Providence, because my mother and her husband lived relatively nearby, and I was going to stay with them while I looked for a place in Boston. I walked out of the train station, looked at the city spread out before me and said, "This looks nice. I'll stay here."

Big mistake. It was like living in a foreign country and it turned out to be one of the worst years of my life, no small thing in a life of many bad years. I think it seemed all the worse because I had just come from a few very good years at a small college in a beautiful rural area. I had just come from a few years of thriving and feeling nurtured. But, all things must pass, as they say, and it was time to move on. I mean, me, stay in a place where things were going well? Too scary! Things going well is just the precursor to things going to shit! And even though I had such high hopes for myself by then, I was just as lost as ever.

I found an apartment (they called them 'tenements' there) on the third floor above a fish restaurant in an Italian neighborhood. There is another Italian neighborhood in that city that is semi-famous and kind of a tourist attraction. This was not that one. This was the shabbier version. The apartment was permeated with the oily smell of fried fish. The building swayed when big trucks rumbled by. The previous tenants had not cleaned out the refrigerator, and it was full of rotted food. But it was the only place I could get with 6 cats in tow. I also think I got the place because one of the guys in the rental office liked me, but I was in no way ready to get all friendly with an unknown, quiet man who had a loyal German shepherd following him everywhere. My neighbor below me was a very elderly woman who told me all she could eat was bread soaked in coffee or milk, "like a baby", as she said. I think she was related to the people who owned the building. The woman across the way from me was originally from Pittsburgh and had 2 young sons, and a husband who was there sometimes, but mostly not. He was Hispanic. She was Irish American, and she spoke as if she was raised by people with heavy brogues. The older boy was bright and sweet, and the younger one was sweet and had autism and was mostly locked away in his own mind.

She was pretty much locked away there too. She could not drive, she had no car, she waited around for him to come home and give her money. He did not give her much. He kept a lot of it for himself and used it at the dog track. I would talk to her on the steps by the door we used to enter the place--it led out into the parking lot, right beside the dumpster. She'd stay out there smoking cigarettes, watching the boys play on the black top. I was having a really hard time finding a job, so I spent a bit of time talking to her. I played with the boys too, and got the younger one to say the word balloon--he said it "ba-doon". We had a game where we would stomp on balloons. He really liked it.

That July was hot. The black top parking lot radiated up the heat in shimmery waves. She began to talk more and more about how badly he treated her. She became feverish in her speech, and somewhat irrational. She told me she was keeping a knife by her bed. She told me she saw the devil out on the fire escape looking in at her with fiery red eyes. She locked the boys in their room at night with a hook and eye lock. It finally got so bad she had told the husband to get out and to stay away.

That July the full moon came up mean and red. Reminded me of the old Creedence Clearwater song, "I see a bad moon a'risin....' It was hot, it was humid, it was nasty. I was soaked in sweat in my bed as I tried to sleep. At some point I heard sirens and feet stomping up and down the stairs. On my bedroom walls, I saw the flashing blue lights from police cars and could hear their radios. I stayed in my bed. I did not get up and look. I did not move. I stayed very still and quiet, like a child when the adults are fighting and I want them to not be reminded of my presence.

But sometime the next day there was a knock at my door. There was my neighbor. She had on a really pretty sun dress. It was cream colored with spaghetti straps and was patterned with flowers, blue and lavender and green, a little yellow, a little red. She was bruised all over--huge dark purple bruises on her face and shoulders and chest. She had a black eye. Quite unselfconsciously, she told me all about her husband sneaking in the night before. He wore sneakers, she said, and crept in. He crept in and he began to beat her. He didn't know she had the knife beside her bed, and she used it. She stabbed him. She killed him. She finished her story by saying, "I don't know how I will get that stain out of my rug."

Her public defender was a sad looking man with a bad toupee and a skin ailment that gave him white spots. He came to talk to me. He sat at my kitchen table and tape recorded what I said. When he asked me if I thought she had acted in self-defense, I had said, "Oh, absolutely, yes."

I'll bet you think I am making this up.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Tasty

Dare I say this? Yes, I do dare.

Last Sunday, one of the liturgical readings was from Genesis, chapter 3. That's the Eve and the Serpent and the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden section. Yes, that story. The one we women have been paying for for centuries--'the woman made me do it, Lord, really she did, she said it tasted good.' Well, I heard it in a new way. I heard this. I heard that when they ate of the forbidden fruit, they became able to discern the difference between good and evil. They became like God, in that regard. The serpent did not lie and Eve knew a good deal when she heard it. And lazy Adam, he should have thanked her for what she did. Because, given the choice between childlike innocence all my life, and the ability to look at the complexities of the world with discernment and judgment, with free will and the ability to respond to challenges as I see fit, I would eat the fruit too. I would prefer to be an actor, an enactor, than a passive child, waiting to be rescued, waiting for some one else to figure out what we do next. It's like all those TV shows with the male hero and the woman sidekick and whenever the shit hits the fan, the woman turns to him and screeches, What do we do now???

(Of course, I haven't had the luxury of a male hero to protect me and make all the hard decisions for me, especially when things got rough. Actually, more often than not, they got rough because of the male 'hero'. And so it is to God and to Jesus that I turn for help; I turn to that wisdom voice inside me, that which is commonly called 'the Holy Spirit', Jesus' last gift to us humans as we fretted and wrung our hands at the thought of him leaving us. He hasn't left us, for as he says at the end of Matthew's Gospel, "For I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.")

And sure, God was mad at Eve and Adam. God is mad a lot in the Old Testament. They broke his rule. He threw them out of the garden. Nothing new in that. I know what that feels like. I have been broken and banished and abandoned and humiliated myself. We humans, we all still break God's rules. Seems to be part of our human nature, and not just feminine human nature. Maybe that's why that's one of the very first stories, after the creation, in the whole Bible. Because it is basic and fundamental.

And so is this: God still loves us. God still gives us endless chances to get it right. Because it is up to us to get it right, actively. Not to sit there and wait for God to swoop in and fix it all. We have to make an effort to meet God at least half-way--and we do that by making an effort to do the right thing, to live mindfully and consciously, an ability given to us by Mother Eve who said, 'Hey, taste this fruit. It's good.'

Okay so now it's crazy time again, and I lose you here. Because after listening to all that about Eve and the Serpent, and then listening to the part in Matthew's Gospel about Jesus being tempted by the Evil One during his own 40 days in the desert--facing down Satan with Scripture, no less--, and then thinking about how it is now Lent, a season when people who participate in this part of the Christian walk face our own sources of temptation--be they an enticing food or a bad habit or a bad attitude or a negative way of thinking or whatever (pick your favorite!)--I thought I heard the sound of giant slithering snakes right there in our sanctuary. My eyes were closed as I listened to our Pastor pray prayers of thanksgiving and intercession, and I heard that slithery sound and not knowing what it was, I saw with my inner vision the sight of giant black snakes slithering up and down the pews: the visible symbols of all our temptations.

Because we are all tempted in how so ever many ways. Even more so during Lent, when we have turned our spiritual attentions that way. When we fast and pray and strive and walk that lonely walk with Jesus. It is not a bad thing, to struggle and to be tempted. It is a human thing. And we are the children of the great God who lets us struggle and fall and rise again and so learn from the falling, the great God who forgives us our fumbling attempts to be nearer to him. The great God who gave us Jesus, finest most divine teacher of them all to embody our human weakness and be at one with us, he who was wrongly arrested and tortured and humiliated and abandoned and finally hung up on a cross to die.

He did not run away. He stuck it out. He could have run away that night in Gethsemane Garden, he knew they were coming to get him, he had plenty of time to go. But no. He stayed, he stayed and he spent the time praying-- for us, for goodness sake.

And, he did not deny who he was. Pilate asked him if he was the King of the Jews, and Jesus replied, "So you say." Like, do your worst, Pilate, do your worst, let's get this over with. (Of course it was his own people who demanded such savage justice for one they considered a blasphemer extraordinaire, and it is NOT anti-Semitic to say that. Read it in all the Gospel versions: Pilate put the decision to the Jewish authorities. Politically expedient of him, really, being a Roman authority in an occupied land. He didn't want open rebellion.) And so, my sweet Jesus hung up there and he died and the sky was split asunder and the women wept. He was taken down and put away in a stone tomb. And a couple of days later, he rose again. He rose again. He showed us by facing his fear and his tormentors, he showed us by rising again, the magnificent power of our great God's blazingly glorious love, a love that defies the darkness of sin and death. A love that transcends temptation and all our puny human badness. And in our Protestant tradition, we are forgiven by God's grace through our faith in Jesus, in knowing that he was God's beloved son and he came to earth as a gift of love to us.

What they did to Jesus was so bad--and yet, he forgave them. He forgave them, and from the cross his asked God to forgive them, and he even forgave his own closest disciples who denied they knew him and ran away from him in his time of need. People still keep doing bad stuff like that to each other and to children and animals and to the planet every single day. Every single moment of every single day. And God still loves us, and gives us every single moment the chance to reverse our ways and begin to treat one another with love. To live the knowledge of the difference between good and evil acts. It is up to us. Truly. We simply have to get over ourselves, and do it.

Anyway. The snakes? Turns out the battery in the microphone needed changing. Nearly everyone I asked said, 'Oh yeah, I heard that, I thought it was a problem with the sound system.'

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

(Image: painting by William Blake, 'Eve Tempted by the Serpent', Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

His Birthday Too

We just had a birthday, Little Bear and me. I am 50; he is 10. Milestones for us both. It was 10 years ago that I packed it up and left the X. We moved out on Halloween weekend. On the advice of a friend, my daughter was staying at her friend's house that weekend, and they were having pure Halloween fun. That left Little Bear, The Empress (cat), and me that first night in our new home, the second floor of that old tumble down house that was nice once but in shabby disrepair now. The tenants downstairs were moving in that weekend too. He needed to do some plumbing repairs and shut off the water. So we were waterless after our grubby move, but I dealt with it, like I deal with everything, by enduring. Little Bear was young then, about 8 months old. He barked at every sound. He jumped up in the window to look out at whatever sparked his interest down on the street below. He got caught in the cord of my new lamp and pulled it off the table. I told him to shut up, I picked up the lamp and put it in a different spot, I got back in bed and tried to sleep. I did what I do: pick up the pieces, and start over again.

As the weather got colder, and the days shorter, I would awaken early to the company of the dog and the cat. Little Bear's bed was at the foot of my bed, my futon on the floor. The Empress would sleep with me. In the cold and the increasing dark, Little Bear and I would head out first thing for a walk, so he could pee and sniff and stretch his legs. I couldn't just let him out the back door; we had virtually no yard. And so we'd walk. Five times a day, at least, I would take him for a walk so he could do what he needed to do. I was used to the unlimited access to the outdoors that country living provides, but I was in the village now, and wasn't sure of everyone's turf. So, first thing in the morning and last thing at night, right before work, right after work, and after supper. It kept me occupied and it kept me distracted. I could focus on him and not focus on the cold, my loneliness, my uncertainty, the solitude of this new stage in my life--this constant time of improvisation, on my own with a child depending on me. I had been on my own before but not with the responsibility of a daughter. I had to make sure things were right. I had to provide a good environment for her. I did not expect her to endure like I did, or sleep at the foot of my bed like a dog. I did not want her to know how hard or how scary it was for me. She was just 8 years old. I did not want her to have adult sized worries. I did not let her see how hard it was for me. And now that she is older, and acts all unconcerned about how hard things are for me, I have to get over my annoyance and remind myself why: I made it that way. I succeeded at not laying my worries on her. I let her be a child.

Anyway, that made Little Bear my main emotional support. My puppy, now 10 years old. I look at him and see a major stage in my life, a time of huge transition, challenge, and accomplishment. I was so alone when I first moved to this village. But I had a warm, loving dog to brighten up the cold, dark dawns. I am prey to anxiety when I first wake up. His happy face and his daily good morning kiss--he still does it, comes over and licks me when he sees I am awake--chase the worries back into their dark webs in the obscure corners they originate from.

The other thing I see when I look back over this 10 years past is the home I found in this village when I followed the white light of my meditative vision to the big old brick church on the corner. The one with the pretty windows. The one with the sweet faced woman pastor robed in white with a rainbow stole around her neck, a woman who lives her faith, who shines the light of Jesus' love and responds with compassionate kindness to all who seek her attention. She does! She is the Real Deal. And so, that church is such a welcoming place. I could feel the love and the warmth the first time I walked into that sanctuary. I have friends there, solid friends, like family, only better because they are people trying to follow the light of the values Jesus taught them--love unconditionally, forgive, be compassionate, be kind. ("I was a stranger and you welcomed me in..." Matthew 25:35b) I am anchored in my life thanks partly to them. I have brightness and laughter thanks partly to them. They welcomed me in. They didn't judge me or disbelieve me. They let me be me. In their loving space, I have healed. They, and Little Bear and Bumby and my daughter and all the other critters who live here have helped me re-root myself so that I might thrive on this sunny hillside above the river, my heart's home.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

('Rozenkraai and Little Bear' photo by my daughter)

Gentle Gifts

It would be wrong for me to say I expect kindness, because the fact is, I don't expect it. Some people might, but I don't, and so when it comes my way, I am always deeply touched, moved to tears, heart warmed. I guess, I expect things to be hard, and for people to be indifferent, if not mean. Just the way I am.

But when kindness comes, I treasure it. The acts, the words. A driver who stops and lets me cross. A friend who drives 2 hours simply to lend me a book she thinks I will benefit from. The check out girl at the market who expresses concern at me carrying a heavy load of groceries home. A teacher in high school who took the time to treat my poetry as the gift it was, and helped me try to get it submitted for publication (and honestly commiserated with me when it wasn't). A friend's mom who consoled me with kind words and a cute card when I lost a school election that she knew took a lot of courage for me to even run for (and my own mother never even commented on any of it). I found an unexpected gift from a friend today, a bag full of thoughtfully chosen goodies given to me simply because she loves me, and knows I have been having a rough time. A woman at church goes out of her way every Sunday to find me and hug me and press her cheek against mine. Another acquaintance says, "Yay!" and shows the thumbs up sign every time he sees me. Kind words, well wishes, gentle actions, common courtesies, even. Lights in the murk to remind me I really am not that bad a person. I hold these lights in my mind for as long as I can, and I examine them again and again, like splendid and brilliant pieces of gleaming treasure. I turn them over and over and around again, examining them carefully from all sides, memorizing their details.

I even got some unexpected kindness from myself this week. I came home early one afternoon, not feeling well, and I stayed home the next day too. I allowed myself to not feel well without kicking myself in the ass for not being perfect. I allowed myself time to rest and renew, I gave myself permission to stop trying to hold the world up on my shoulders in fear that my life will all come crashing down and people won't like me anymore if I don't. And with that time, that space, that rest, came a realization: that when I despise myself for being ill, for not being perfect, for being depressed and tired and sad and then deny myself the care I need, I do to myself what my parents and the X used to do to me, and I feel shamed all over again for having needs. I re-create that raw emotional pain and it sears me and tears me up inside and makes everything harder than it already was.

And you know what? I am not going to do that to myself anymore!

Or as a friend said, after I shared this beautiful revelation with her: Be a happy train wreck. God will still love you.

Talk about unexpected kindness.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

('Trippy Petunias' photo by Rozenkraai)

Fighting Dogs

That's a photo from today's 'New York Times' (taken by Garrett Davis) of a man named John Garcia and a dog named Georgia. It comes from an article called 'Given Reprieve, N.F.L. Star's Dogs Find Kindness' written by Juliet Macur.

Georgia used to 'live' at Michael Vick's Bad Newz Kennels, a kind of concentration camp for pit bulls forced to be fighting dogs. (Pit bulls are actually, officially, American Staffordshire terriers, and they are a lively, intelligent, and affectionate breed of dog, especially when treated well and not traumatized and abused into bad ass dogs-- into fighters.) Georgia is fortunate because now she lives at the Best Friends Animal Society sanctuary in Utah, where Mr. Garcia is the assistant dog care manager, and where she is being rescued, rehabilitated, and loved back to a semblance of normal doggy life. In essence, she and the other dogs rescued from Vick's kennel are being treated for PTSD. They are survivors of torture and abuse.

She has no teeth. They were all removed, they surmise, so that she would be a more willing breeder. Found at Vick's hellhole kennel were stands where female dogs were tied up and forced to mate with males. The staff at the sanctuary suspect she tried to bite the males while being raped, and so, her teeth were removed--all 42 of them. According to the article, "Having those teeth extracted, Dr. McMillan and other vets said, must have been excruciating. Even with medication, dogs are in pain after losing one tooth, which may take more than an hour of digging, prying and leveling to pull."

Dr. Frank McMillan is the Best Friends veterinarian. According to the 'Times' article, he is also "an expert on the emotional health of animals, who edited the textbook “Mental Health and Well-Being in Animals.” " He is also quoted as saying he is "most worried about Georgia".

She "barks incessantly at her doghouse." She rolls "her toys so obsessively her nose is rubbed raw." The article goes on to describe her this way: "A quick survey of Georgia, a caramel-colored pit bull mix with cropped ears and soulful brown eyes, offers a road map to a difficult life. Her tongue juts from the left side of her mouth because her jaw, once broken, healed at an awkward angle. Her tail zigzags.

"Scars from puncture wounds on her face, legs and torso reveal that she was a fighter. Her misshapen, dangling teats show that she might have been such a successful, vicious competitor that she was forcibly bred, her new handlers suspect, again and again."

This is only part of the story. There are 21 other former fighting dogs at the sanctuary in Utah, and an additional 25 others are in foster care throughout the country. Only one had to be euthanized because he was irreversibly aggressive towards people. Michael Vick is in Leavenworth Federal prison, serving a 23 month sentence for his part in this canine nightmare, and he "agreed to pay $928,073 for evaluation and care of all the dogs." says the article. Each of the dogs at the Utah sanctuary have had $18,275 paid for their lifetime care. Though the hope is that one day they could be adopted out to families, the reality of that is very small. Only one of them was assessed to be adoptable, and Vick contributed just $5000 towards his care.

The article goes on to state: “These dogs have been beaten and starved and tortured, and they have every reason not to trust us,” Mr. Garcia said as Georgia crawled onto his lap, melted into him for an afternoon nap and began to snore. “But deep down, they love us and still want to be with us. It is amazing how resilient they are.”

It has been well documented that people who abuse animals often easily move on to abusing children and other people they consider weaker than themselves. I have more hope for sweet Georgia, who still somehow knows how to love, than I do for Michael Vick and other people who perpetuate such hurtful abuse upon relatively powerless others and consider it sport.

Interestingly, the 'Times' ran this article in the pro football section of the Sports page on the day before the Super Bowl.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

Truly Tearless

Okay I am a little 'off topic' here this morning, but I almost could not believe my eyes when I saw an AFP article about scientists in New Zealand developing a tearless onion. What is wrong with people? Must we remove anything that might cause us harmless discomfort? What a bunch of spineless self-absorbed babies we are all becoming. Suck it up, people! It's just an onion, for goodness sake. Why don't we apply our science to real ills, like the harm and damage we do to each other and to our beautiful mother planet every single day. We actually do have the technology, if applied properly, to turn back the environmental devastation happening, and even to apply our own wit to becoming more compassionate and caring individuals who do not put their own self-interest first. We do! (You could start with re-thinking how you use that gas hog in your driveway, but I won't go there, just now.) But, honestly, tearless onions. How about we are truly tearless because we are no longer sending women with Down's Syndrome out as suicide bombers (this past week in Baghdad, look it up), or sending out dogs or roosters to fight to the death so we can gamble over the results. (See my post--above-- on the heartbreaking yet hopeful article in today's 'New York Times' about former NFL player Michael Vick's fighting dogs and what has happened to them since he was convicted on federal dog fighting charges and sent to prison.) How about we show poor messed up Britney Spears some compassion and stop ogling her sufferings and feeling superior because she isn't us or one of our own daughters? (Think of one of your worst moments, and imagine it recorded by the press and broadcast all around the world.) Yes, I have been reading too much news again, but come on, let's try and get our priorities straight.

(photo compliments of the UMassAmherst website.)

gifts

in the early morning soft,
she brought me a gift.
it was wrapped in gauze--
a bandage filled
with sweet moss.
she placed it on my forehead as I slept
and sprinkled it with buds
of dried lavender, dusty,
ancient, alive. they fell
like vivid tears
beneath the bones of my eyes.

in the early morning grey
and rainswept,
he brought me a name.
he breathed it into my ear
as i turned twisted
in fleece , tangled in wool.
his breath was the froth
leaping forth from a sea
that covered this earth
before the stories began.

and then, my dreams
enclosed me in a fiery fever.
my heart was a horse
trapped in that fire,
its panicked hooves
drumming out the pain
of their fear inside me.
the softness fled.
the grey rain was replaced

by the blonde dawn,
and i rose forgetful, a vine
twining to the light. his name
lay on my tongue like a pearl
upon an oyster, salty-slick
and bright. her bandage of moss
fell into my hands
like seed strewn by finches
eager for lunch.

i looked to the east.
i spoke to the light: i am nourished, i said,
and i am named. will i still get lost?

a wasp on the windowsill
took my words and carried them upon her twinkling wings
back to her nest of mud
hidden beneath the roof beams, and there
she laid them to rest.

that was when my heart replied:
there is no more getting lost. because
i am pierced
directly
through my garnet-dark center,
by an arrow green feathered,
black shafted, and swift. i am pierced. and so,
i am found. i am named.
and in any wilderness,
i am nourished.