I haven't been with all bad men. Just mostly. My first husband is a good man. Sadly for him, the time we were together, I was not ready for a good man. A good man--a man who loved me--had to have something wrong with him. Anyone who loved me had to have something wrong with them. That's how self-destructive I was in those days. Committing slow suicide, the coward's way, every single day. All those messages, in all their various forms, telling me what a piece of shit I was, all those years of that, had finally sunk in. I was believing the nasty voices, and doing my best to eradicate myself and no longer be a problem to the people who had dumped their hateful stuff all over me.
But my first husband, he was a net of shining light that caught me and held me and nurtured me. Too bad I was a selfish wreck. Too bad for him. I did begin to embark on a path of healing in our 12 years together. I think what finally made me leave him was 2 things--I had fallen out of love, for a fact (I have doubts about how capable I am of monogamy), and also my guilt was too much. Guilt at how good he was to me and how bad I was to him. Not that he was perfect. He was kind of an enabler, in his nurturing goodness, and he tended to deny reality sometimes. I used to tell him his beard could be on fire and he would say it wasn't. He trusted people who weren't trustworthy. He also let me push him around and that was bad. I was too nuts to be able to make good decisions.
Also, we really should not have gotten married. The relationship had really ended, but he and I were so committed to working it out, committed to commitment (now the word commitment only leaves me thinking of psych hospitals). So, in order to jump start something that was already dead, like Frankenstein's monster, we got married. Bad plan.
I was no longer interested in sex with him. I wanted my own bedroom. I did not like how his breath smelled. I had affairs. He loved kids. In no way did I ever want children when I was with him. He tolerated all that and continued to treat me kindly. Unfailingly kindly. No, really. He did. My family loved him. My mother would tell me how much he loved me. Fortunately for him, I hope, he is married again (he is good at monogamy), with a child. I hope he is happy. I know he would be a good dad. He deserves happiness, and really, he is lucky I left him.
Of course, I left him, left him in the lurch, and walked straight into the arms of the X. Oh yes, him. I can say for a fact that a good way to learn self-love is to live with someone who hates you that much. If you are ready for that kind of arduous training, kind of like a boot camp of the heart located in hell, that is. And as we all know, that is certainly another story.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Meet The X
I have not yet touched on the subject of the Xhusband. Where to begin? He hated crows.
He saw himself as a red tailed hawk, and whenever he saw a hawk being chased by a group of crows, I always knew he was thinking about how much he was annoyed by me. He blamed me for everything that went wrong in his life. We had a farm. If there was a drought, it was my fault. Truly! Ask me how I know this, and I will tell you. Listen. I was far out in the field, harvesting beautiful purple-black eggplants. How I loved those eggplants. How I loved that farm, that land, that beautiful, beautiful place. I thought I would live there forever. Anyway, I reached out to cut an eggplant and put it in the basket, when I saw in my peripheral vision a shining figure of white light. And as I saw this, I heard a voice talking. The voice told me the shining being was the Xhusband's double, and that double of his was stalking me. Because he meant to kill me, he hated me that much. He hated me that much and blamed me for all the things that went wrong in his life. That's how crazy it was and it made me really crazy. I think my crazy, though, was a matter of being touched by spirits, of opening up to the spirit world. I know the spirits love me. I think they have watched over me all my life. But it is hard to know that at the time when the emotions are so painful, and the world becomes so scary. When you live with mean people, yet again. I had my second breakdown during those hard, hard years. And what he considered my weakness only gave him more ammunition to use against me. He liked to kick me when I was down. A big man like him. So sad really.
I did not try to annoy him. If it had not been me, it would have been someone else. He is primed to hate his intimate partner eventually. He is a very damaged man. With the distance of 9 years away from him between us, I can say I am capable of feeling a shred of compassion for that hurting man. But when I lived close, no. When I lived close, I was trying to save my own life. He was the enemy. At first, he was John Smith. I was the beautiful Pocahontas. But as time went on, he became the Lone Ranger. I was Tonto. And as further time went on, he was General Custer. I was any Lakota warrior.
It was 9 years ago this weekend I moved out of that house. Remind me to tell you another time how many years it took me to build up my courage to leave, and who helped me, and how. Remind me of this. Here. I will give you a taste of that tale, so you will remember to help me remember:
One time he was standing in the kitchen, being very mean, doing that pissy mean thing he always did, trashing my life, my self, my decisions, tastes and opinions. Nothing was ever right enough for him, or good enough for him, and he was killing me slowly, hitting me where I live, trashing my very self. He was standing there talking that mean talk and suddenly I saw beside him, plain as day, two Native American men. They had greying hair in long braids. They were slender and graceful. They wore plaid flannel shirts and jeans. He didn't see them. They were there for me. And they were looking at him and pointing at him and laughing their asses off at him. Bending over in laughter, wiping the tears from their eyes in laughter. And suddenly I saw too, what an asshole this Xhusband was, what a laughable, puffed up fool. And I thanked my native Brothers, my Uncles, my relatives there howling in laughter and showing me the truth of that sorry man. They gave me power.
Sometimes he called me snake, when he did not like what I was saying to him. He called me snake and he would grab the back of my neck and force me to the floor and grind my face into the floor. He said I had to be restrained. If only I had had the power of snake to slither out of his hands, to turn and bite him. But I am not a snake. And he would hurt my neck. It would take many days to heal. Just like my step-father, he thought he could silence me. But I have always spoken truth to power, even when it is foolhardy to do so. I am not quite so brave anymore. Or not quite so foolish, maybe.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
He saw himself as a red tailed hawk, and whenever he saw a hawk being chased by a group of crows, I always knew he was thinking about how much he was annoyed by me. He blamed me for everything that went wrong in his life. We had a farm. If there was a drought, it was my fault. Truly! Ask me how I know this, and I will tell you. Listen. I was far out in the field, harvesting beautiful purple-black eggplants. How I loved those eggplants. How I loved that farm, that land, that beautiful, beautiful place. I thought I would live there forever. Anyway, I reached out to cut an eggplant and put it in the basket, when I saw in my peripheral vision a shining figure of white light. And as I saw this, I heard a voice talking. The voice told me the shining being was the Xhusband's double, and that double of his was stalking me. Because he meant to kill me, he hated me that much. He hated me that much and blamed me for all the things that went wrong in his life. That's how crazy it was and it made me really crazy. I think my crazy, though, was a matter of being touched by spirits, of opening up to the spirit world. I know the spirits love me. I think they have watched over me all my life. But it is hard to know that at the time when the emotions are so painful, and the world becomes so scary. When you live with mean people, yet again. I had my second breakdown during those hard, hard years. And what he considered my weakness only gave him more ammunition to use against me. He liked to kick me when I was down. A big man like him. So sad really.
I did not try to annoy him. If it had not been me, it would have been someone else. He is primed to hate his intimate partner eventually. He is a very damaged man. With the distance of 9 years away from him between us, I can say I am capable of feeling a shred of compassion for that hurting man. But when I lived close, no. When I lived close, I was trying to save my own life. He was the enemy. At first, he was John Smith. I was the beautiful Pocahontas. But as time went on, he became the Lone Ranger. I was Tonto. And as further time went on, he was General Custer. I was any Lakota warrior.
It was 9 years ago this weekend I moved out of that house. Remind me to tell you another time how many years it took me to build up my courage to leave, and who helped me, and how. Remind me of this. Here. I will give you a taste of that tale, so you will remember to help me remember:
One time he was standing in the kitchen, being very mean, doing that pissy mean thing he always did, trashing my life, my self, my decisions, tastes and opinions. Nothing was ever right enough for him, or good enough for him, and he was killing me slowly, hitting me where I live, trashing my very self. He was standing there talking that mean talk and suddenly I saw beside him, plain as day, two Native American men. They had greying hair in long braids. They were slender and graceful. They wore plaid flannel shirts and jeans. He didn't see them. They were there for me. And they were looking at him and pointing at him and laughing their asses off at him. Bending over in laughter, wiping the tears from their eyes in laughter. And suddenly I saw too, what an asshole this Xhusband was, what a laughable, puffed up fool. And I thanked my native Brothers, my Uncles, my relatives there howling in laughter and showing me the truth of that sorry man. They gave me power.
Sometimes he called me snake, when he did not like what I was saying to him. He called me snake and he would grab the back of my neck and force me to the floor and grind my face into the floor. He said I had to be restrained. If only I had had the power of snake to slither out of his hands, to turn and bite him. But I am not a snake. And he would hurt my neck. It would take many days to heal. Just like my step-father, he thought he could silence me. But I have always spoken truth to power, even when it is foolhardy to do so. I am not quite so brave anymore. Or not quite so foolish, maybe.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Why Crow Talk
Because crows are survivors, and they love to laugh.
They are loyal to their family group.
They are private; they are clever; they love brilliant, shiny things.
They never pass up a meal.
Because they can sit at the tippy top of great tall trees and ride the flowing breeze.
They fly between the worlds on wings of spirit, bringing us gifts of life, bringing us wisdom.
I see them at sunrise, in great groups, in the branches of the largest, oldest tree, and they are greeting each other, greeting the day, in loud voices. They are smart; they are never ashamed.
They are loyal to their family group.
They are private; they are clever; they love brilliant, shiny things.
They never pass up a meal.
Because they can sit at the tippy top of great tall trees and ride the flowing breeze.
They fly between the worlds on wings of spirit, bringing us gifts of life, bringing us wisdom.
I see them at sunrise, in great groups, in the branches of the largest, oldest tree, and they are greeting each other, greeting the day, in loud voices. They are smart; they are never ashamed.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Kittens
Okay, by popular demand, I will continue the kitten story!
The kittens were born, my little miracle kittens. I vacillated between two beliefs, either that it was as God had willed it to be, or, the Mother Cat had understood every word that was spoken at the vet's office and took the matter into her own, um, paws.
It was very late at night that I had discovered the kittens had been born, and I did not go poking around looking for them. However, the head of my bed was on the other side of the wall from where the kittens were, and so I listened for their squeaks all night long. Actually, I listened for their squeaks all the time. I was afraid I would hear no more squeaking! I was afraid of many random irrational things regarding their tiny new lives, so much so that I never even tried to find the kittens for five days! And, on the fifth day, I sent my daughter in to look.
She stepped gingerly over to the trunk and craned her head to see behind it. There were four of them, she reported back to me, as I stood cringing and wringing my hands near the securely shut door. I was so afraid she'd find little dead kitten bodies, and had infected her with the same fear. And so I asked her, are they all alive? She thought so. She told me they were all in a pile. She said two of them are black, one of them is grey and black striped with short hair and the other is grey and black striped with long hair. I told her to stay away from them. I was convinced leaving them alone, until they began to crawl out on their own, was the best thing. I don't know why I thought that. I just did.
Sometimes the Mother Cat, being the teenager she was, just wanted out of there, she wanted to boogey. We made her stay. I gradually began to spend more time in there, just sitting, keeping the Mother Cat company, until I finally felt brave enough to look at the kittens myself. I peeked behind the trunk and there was the little grey striped short hair looking back at me. She had adorable striped front legs! (Actually I called them arms, her little striped arms.) In fact, as I watched, the tiny tiger began to try to crawl out of the nest the Mother Cat had made for them. I piled up soft clothing my daughter had grown out of as a barricade. And then I left.
The next time I visited, the Mother Cat had moved the kittens and it took a few minutes to find them. They were in a corner underneath a huge stuffed dog. They were all beginning to move around now, and I noticed the little black ones' eyes were still shut. I was soon to figure out they were shut from the goopy discharge of conjunctivitis. Pink eye, in other words. They also had thick green snot running out of their tiny noses. I brought in a portable electric heater to the room. I thought the best way for them to grow stronger was simply to be warm and safe. I had seen kittens who lived outside with the same pus-filled eyes and snotty noses, and they didn't die. Cats are remarkable survivors and heal very well, my vet friend had told me, and I had decided I was not going to compromise their developing immune systems with antibiotics. I had made the same decison with my daughter countless times. Instead of pills, they would get care, and they would get better naturally. I brought home some tea bags made with herbs especially for eye care and made an eye wash with that. I first began handling the kittens by picking them up and washing their eyes. They all had the goopy green stuff to varying degrees, Mother Cat included, but the black bears, as I called them, were the worst with their eyes glued shut. The tea worked too. (It was made from green tea, chamomile, calendula petals, and rose petals.)
The more time I spent with the kittens, the fonder I grew of them. Fond to the point of realizing I could never give them away. In fact, I had secretly promised the little tiger with the striped arms that I would never give her away, not ever. (Yes, her. The two tigers were females and the two little black bears were males. Sometimes they would sleep entwined in each other's arms. Too cute!!! Just too cute.) We decided my daughter would name the females, and I would name the males. (She had also named the Mother Cat, since she was the main reason the cat had come in the house in the first place.)
See what a soft hearted sucker I am? Those kittens are 2 years old now. They were born on April 23. When I went to church the next day and told my vet friend the kittens had been born, I could tell by the look in her eyes she did not quite believe me. She knew I was uncertain about the spaying. I still am not sure if she believes me.
I am glad we kept them, for many reasons. The long haired grey tiger, Beatrice, has a very bad heart. The vet is surprised she has lived this long. We are too. We never had her spayed because the surgery would kill her. The vet said it was the worst heart she has ever heard. I think she might still be alive because she is still in the same house she was born in and has never experienced the extreme stress of leaving her litter mates and her home. We did almost lose her about a year ago. She got very weak and refused to eat. I was certain she was going to die, and on my way to work one morning I stopped by to see my pastor to ask her if she would help me bury her when the time came. I invited her to come visit her that afternoon so she could at least meet her before she was dead. My daughter got home from school that day, and decided to make a hard boiled egg for Beatrice. I found her lying on my bed with the cat on her chest, contentedly eating pieces of the egg. It was like a miracle cure. We feed Beatrice half a hard boiled egg every day now, along with her dry food. She also takes heart medicine that regulates her blood pressure. She can be quite fierce, especially when another cat jumps up on my bed, a place she has claimed as her own. I call her a little dragon, though she really is quite frail and is not very active. I used to be afraid I'd find her dead body on the floor somewhere when I hadn't seen her for awhile. I still do, especially when she has made herself scarce and I haven't been able to give her her medicine.
The other little female, Emma, isn't very bright. She runs into doors and walls and our legs and feet. I think she would have been hit by a car by now for certain were she living outside. She is that accident prone. She is skittish and odd. She pees on the floor in selected corners when she wants me to feed her. I have treated those spots with all kinds of cleansers and enzymes and even left pieces of smelly soap on the spots but she persists. She really is kind of stupid. But so sweet and affectionate and cute! My daughter loves her. She is the smallest of the four, and has large green eyes.
I gave the little black bears names I would have given sons had I had any. One of them is named Jack after my friend's grandson. He was playing Jesus in a Sunday School Pageant at church and he was so cute--in a devilish sort of way, I know what the boy is like--and so I named the outgoing, friendly and very vocal male after him. He is the little troublemaker. The other male I named Luke after one of my favorite Gospels in the Bible. Luke is very large and very slow and very sweet and sleeps a lot. He is very quiet. His back legs don't work so good. He acts surprised when I pay attention to him, as if he never expects to be noticed. I can honestly say that cat really loves me. Some nights he runs as fast as he can ahead of me when I go to bed so that he can sleep in there with me too.
Neither of the boys has much going on in the brains department either. I think the Mother Cat's questionable diet and lifestyle--being a young stray out in the cold--contributed to all that. She wasn't exactly on a supremo prenatal diet! But she was a good mother, always, patient and loving with the kittens until I finally had her spayed when the little ones were about 4 months old. Towards my daughter and me, she acts ever loving and grateful. She knows we rescued her from a hard life. And the little black bears are so sweet and affectionate, just like their sisters, and they all have very different and distinct personalities. They are all very much little characters. That is not to say they aren't sometimes little monsters and that I don't chase after them yelling how much I hate those fucking cats (as I write this Emma and Jack, the true little monsters, are re-arranging the dirty dishes in the dish pan, setting up quite a clatter, trying to lick molecules of food off the utensils). Even so, I often say to my daughter, when she bemoans our houseful of cats, "How could you ever pick which one to give away? Huh? Tell me--which one would you give away?"
So, yes! I am crazy! 175% certifiable. I have nothing to offer in my own defense.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
The kittens were born, my little miracle kittens. I vacillated between two beliefs, either that it was as God had willed it to be, or, the Mother Cat had understood every word that was spoken at the vet's office and took the matter into her own, um, paws.
It was very late at night that I had discovered the kittens had been born, and I did not go poking around looking for them. However, the head of my bed was on the other side of the wall from where the kittens were, and so I listened for their squeaks all night long. Actually, I listened for their squeaks all the time. I was afraid I would hear no more squeaking! I was afraid of many random irrational things regarding their tiny new lives, so much so that I never even tried to find the kittens for five days! And, on the fifth day, I sent my daughter in to look.
She stepped gingerly over to the trunk and craned her head to see behind it. There were four of them, she reported back to me, as I stood cringing and wringing my hands near the securely shut door. I was so afraid she'd find little dead kitten bodies, and had infected her with the same fear. And so I asked her, are they all alive? She thought so. She told me they were all in a pile. She said two of them are black, one of them is grey and black striped with short hair and the other is grey and black striped with long hair. I told her to stay away from them. I was convinced leaving them alone, until they began to crawl out on their own, was the best thing. I don't know why I thought that. I just did.
Sometimes the Mother Cat, being the teenager she was, just wanted out of there, she wanted to boogey. We made her stay. I gradually began to spend more time in there, just sitting, keeping the Mother Cat company, until I finally felt brave enough to look at the kittens myself. I peeked behind the trunk and there was the little grey striped short hair looking back at me. She had adorable striped front legs! (Actually I called them arms, her little striped arms.) In fact, as I watched, the tiny tiger began to try to crawl out of the nest the Mother Cat had made for them. I piled up soft clothing my daughter had grown out of as a barricade. And then I left.
The next time I visited, the Mother Cat had moved the kittens and it took a few minutes to find them. They were in a corner underneath a huge stuffed dog. They were all beginning to move around now, and I noticed the little black ones' eyes were still shut. I was soon to figure out they were shut from the goopy discharge of conjunctivitis. Pink eye, in other words. They also had thick green snot running out of their tiny noses. I brought in a portable electric heater to the room. I thought the best way for them to grow stronger was simply to be warm and safe. I had seen kittens who lived outside with the same pus-filled eyes and snotty noses, and they didn't die. Cats are remarkable survivors and heal very well, my vet friend had told me, and I had decided I was not going to compromise their developing immune systems with antibiotics. I had made the same decison with my daughter countless times. Instead of pills, they would get care, and they would get better naturally. I brought home some tea bags made with herbs especially for eye care and made an eye wash with that. I first began handling the kittens by picking them up and washing their eyes. They all had the goopy green stuff to varying degrees, Mother Cat included, but the black bears, as I called them, were the worst with their eyes glued shut. The tea worked too. (It was made from green tea, chamomile, calendula petals, and rose petals.)
The more time I spent with the kittens, the fonder I grew of them. Fond to the point of realizing I could never give them away. In fact, I had secretly promised the little tiger with the striped arms that I would never give her away, not ever. (Yes, her. The two tigers were females and the two little black bears were males. Sometimes they would sleep entwined in each other's arms. Too cute!!! Just too cute.) We decided my daughter would name the females, and I would name the males. (She had also named the Mother Cat, since she was the main reason the cat had come in the house in the first place.)
See what a soft hearted sucker I am? Those kittens are 2 years old now. They were born on April 23. When I went to church the next day and told my vet friend the kittens had been born, I could tell by the look in her eyes she did not quite believe me. She knew I was uncertain about the spaying. I still am not sure if she believes me.
I am glad we kept them, for many reasons. The long haired grey tiger, Beatrice, has a very bad heart. The vet is surprised she has lived this long. We are too. We never had her spayed because the surgery would kill her. The vet said it was the worst heart she has ever heard. I think she might still be alive because she is still in the same house she was born in and has never experienced the extreme stress of leaving her litter mates and her home. We did almost lose her about a year ago. She got very weak and refused to eat. I was certain she was going to die, and on my way to work one morning I stopped by to see my pastor to ask her if she would help me bury her when the time came. I invited her to come visit her that afternoon so she could at least meet her before she was dead. My daughter got home from school that day, and decided to make a hard boiled egg for Beatrice. I found her lying on my bed with the cat on her chest, contentedly eating pieces of the egg. It was like a miracle cure. We feed Beatrice half a hard boiled egg every day now, along with her dry food. She also takes heart medicine that regulates her blood pressure. She can be quite fierce, especially when another cat jumps up on my bed, a place she has claimed as her own. I call her a little dragon, though she really is quite frail and is not very active. I used to be afraid I'd find her dead body on the floor somewhere when I hadn't seen her for awhile. I still do, especially when she has made herself scarce and I haven't been able to give her her medicine.
The other little female, Emma, isn't very bright. She runs into doors and walls and our legs and feet. I think she would have been hit by a car by now for certain were she living outside. She is that accident prone. She is skittish and odd. She pees on the floor in selected corners when she wants me to feed her. I have treated those spots with all kinds of cleansers and enzymes and even left pieces of smelly soap on the spots but she persists. She really is kind of stupid. But so sweet and affectionate and cute! My daughter loves her. She is the smallest of the four, and has large green eyes.
I gave the little black bears names I would have given sons had I had any. One of them is named Jack after my friend's grandson. He was playing Jesus in a Sunday School Pageant at church and he was so cute--in a devilish sort of way, I know what the boy is like--and so I named the outgoing, friendly and very vocal male after him. He is the little troublemaker. The other male I named Luke after one of my favorite Gospels in the Bible. Luke is very large and very slow and very sweet and sleeps a lot. He is very quiet. His back legs don't work so good. He acts surprised when I pay attention to him, as if he never expects to be noticed. I can honestly say that cat really loves me. Some nights he runs as fast as he can ahead of me when I go to bed so that he can sleep in there with me too.
Neither of the boys has much going on in the brains department either. I think the Mother Cat's questionable diet and lifestyle--being a young stray out in the cold--contributed to all that. She wasn't exactly on a supremo prenatal diet! But she was a good mother, always, patient and loving with the kittens until I finally had her spayed when the little ones were about 4 months old. Towards my daughter and me, she acts ever loving and grateful. She knows we rescued her from a hard life. And the little black bears are so sweet and affectionate, just like their sisters, and they all have very different and distinct personalities. They are all very much little characters. That is not to say they aren't sometimes little monsters and that I don't chase after them yelling how much I hate those fucking cats (as I write this Emma and Jack, the true little monsters, are re-arranging the dirty dishes in the dish pan, setting up quite a clatter, trying to lick molecules of food off the utensils). Even so, I often say to my daughter, when she bemoans our houseful of cats, "How could you ever pick which one to give away? Huh? Tell me--which one would you give away?"
So, yes! I am crazy! 175% certifiable. I have nothing to offer in my own defense.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Banishing Intrusive Memories
These the techniques I was taught to fend off intrusive memories and their attendant unpleasant feelings that arise from the simmering mists of the mind. They really can yank you out of the present moment and place you in the emotional past when the event was happening. These tools put you back in the present. Mind you, as with any tool, they are to be used with focused intent. You gotta wanna make the memories go away, you gotta wanna come back to the NOW. It just takes focus, and these exercises provide the space for simple focus to happen.
The first way is to look for objects of a certain color in your surroundings and say what they are out loud. Red pencil on the desk, red targets on the Target bag, red book on the dining room table, red shoes on the floor, red dress on the girl on the picture on the wall, red bottle of nail polish on the counter. If the memory persists, change the color you are looking for, and do it all over again. Blue rug, blue paper on the table, blue donkey on the mug, blue porcelain goose on the shelf, blue blanket on the chair.
The other one I use is this: Say your name, say the date, say your exact location. Get really specific, like this--My name is Rozenkraai and it is Saturday October 27, 2007 at 11:30 am. I am sitting at my computer at the desk in the living room of my house on 145 Random Road, Whichevertown, That State, That Zip, That Country.
I repeat this one as often as I need to to be able to firmly remind myself that I am safe in the present. I repeat the place I am, the date, the time, over and over until I have convinced myself I am HERE and not there.
These really do work.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
The first way is to look for objects of a certain color in your surroundings and say what they are out loud. Red pencil on the desk, red targets on the Target bag, red book on the dining room table, red shoes on the floor, red dress on the girl on the picture on the wall, red bottle of nail polish on the counter. If the memory persists, change the color you are looking for, and do it all over again. Blue rug, blue paper on the table, blue donkey on the mug, blue porcelain goose on the shelf, blue blanket on the chair.
The other one I use is this: Say your name, say the date, say your exact location. Get really specific, like this--My name is Rozenkraai and it is Saturday October 27, 2007 at 11:30 am. I am sitting at my computer at the desk in the living room of my house on 145 Random Road, Whichevertown, That State, That Zip, That Country.
I repeat this one as often as I need to to be able to firmly remind myself that I am safe in the present. I repeat the place I am, the date, the time, over and over until I have convinced myself I am HERE and not there.
These really do work.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Trick or Treat
The Halloween when I was 12 is the one I remember almost as vividy as if it happened last year. I don't cherish the memory, and indeed, I do not dwell on the memory. It simply surfaces from time to time, like a corpse from the dark depths of a northern lake. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is like that--intrusive memories of trauma blotting out the light of the current day like a cold black cloud taking the sun hostage. I know how to deal with those kinds of memories now, and to not be taken hostage by them anymore, as much as I can. But they still appear time and time again, triggered by dates or scents or offhand remarks. The mind is like that. I don't know why. I don't think I even need to know why. I am simply thankful to have been given tools for dealing with them. Or, in this case, not so much tools as.... weapons.
The Halloween I was 12 marked a turning point. I really wasn't a little kid anymore, content with trick or treating. Complicated emotions, driven by pubescent sexual desire, swirled inside me, and I was ready for some action. My childhood friend Bernadette was always a willing partner in crime. So she and I hatched a plan to walk the mile into town where the real fun was--kids throwing eggs and toilet paper and spraying shaving cream. We would be back in plenty of time and no one would even know we were away.
And so off we went. It was a straight flat walk into town on the Old Post Road. Took 20 minutes. And there were lots of kids we knew there, having a riot of a time. By the time I noticed my step-father's leaf green Scout pulling up beside me, I was a mess of eggs and shaving cream. My long hair was tangled with it. I saw his face in the driver's side window and he wasn't happy. No, not one bit. I got in the Scout, dutiful as a dog. I remember seeing Bernadette's dad somewhere out there too. Where they got the idea we were in the village, I will never know. Why they decided to look for us--maybe we stayed a little later than we should have? Could be that. I honestly don't remember, I just remember our revels in the village as a wild ecstatic blur of activity lit by street lights, a crazed frenzy of youthful energy let loose. Slightly demonic in its intensity. Halloween, after all.
We got home. Maybe I was berated and verbally abused all the way home, or maybe I sat there in a glowering silence, a silence full of doom and tension. I don't remember. What I remember next is being in the bathroom, preparing to take a shower, surveying the damage that was my hair, wondering how I would ever get all the tangles, caked with raw egg and shaving cream, out. The bathroom had 2 doors, one from the hall, and one from my parent's bedroom. My step-father was in a wheelchair as a result of breaking his back in a drunken driving accident when he was 21. He needed the door from the bedroom for his own privacy. The nature of his debility demanded some, to a kid, particularly disgusting bathroom rituals. That night, he also used it to ambush me. I was half undressed when suddenly he threw the door open and charged like a crazed bull into the small bathroom. Obviously, I was trapped. He grabbed a hold of me and beat the living shit out of me. I was held by his crazy strong arms as he pummelled me relentlessly, venting what felt like the rage of years on me. I had never been beaten so savagely before or since. Probably that's why this memory never dies. It remains as a protective spectre--Hamlet's ghost-- to keep me from ever getting into that position again, to never be so trapped, to never be so helpless. Do you know what it feels like to be so helpless? To be unmercifully beaten while being held so that there is no chance of escape? Let me speak a gross understatement here: it doesn't do good things to your mind.
Finally the storm of violence subsided, and the wheeled monster withdrew, and I was a crumpled little heap of bruises and wild hair and soiled clothing sobbing on the floor. I vaguely remember thinking Bernadette was not suffering such treatment at her house, oh no she was not.
At some point, finally, my mother came in, like a ministering angel, and she helped me as I sobbed, partly in pain, but mostly in rage. Because that was the night that marked a transition in me. No longer was I the child, heartbroken and sobbing after being beaten because I must have been very bad, right?, to deserve such punishment? No, this was a whole other level of torment, and I saw it for the abuse it was, and I was angry.
It was not that being physically abused was an unfamiliar event for me. For example, my step father was left handed, and I was made to sit at his left side at the dinner table so that he could crack me one across the face if he needed to. He usually felt he needed to in response to something I had said; I had what he called a 'smart mouth', which really meant I spoke the truth--then and now, he never broke that in me-- and he never liked that. Abusers usually don't--truth is certainly not their friend! He used those hands to abuse me in other ways too, to leave his dirty psychic mess all over me, but that is, most assuredly, another story.
At first, my mother cooed sympathetically as she helped me disentagle my clothes and finish undressing, as she helped me untangle my hair and start to wash. She started out by telling me we had to wash out the egg with cool water because warm water would make it cook. She then said she wanted me to understand how worried they had been about me, how anything could have happened to me out there. She softly insisted, "Your father was so worried about you, about something bad happening to you, he would be heartsick if something bad happened to you."
She continued on in this manner, all gentle tenderness and concern, and I felt momentarily soothed and relieved that there was some mercy in the universe after all, perhaps. But as the mess began spiralling down the drain, both her tone and the subject matter began to change. Accompanied by the ragged rhythms of my sobbing, she began to tell me it was my responsibility to go out there and apologize to him. Yes, go out there and say you are sorry to him, sorry that he beat you.
Apologize? To him? What kind of mind fuck was this? Apologize to him because he beat me ruthlessly, after ambushing me and trapping me? To him, who was so worried "something bad would happen" to me? Well, something bad had happened to me all right, but obviously she was not seeing the exact nature of what that something bad was, or who, precisely, had perpetrated it.
And so, what at first felt like maternal comfort became a whole other level of messing with my mind. I should go apologize to him, oh yes I should, she reiterated as I responded in angry defiance. I should go apologize to him because someday he would be dead and I wouldn't be able to then. Even in the midst of my own pain and confusion, I could hear this was not me she was talking about anymore. She was talking about herself (actually, with her, it is always all about herself, but, another story, another story) and her own failed relationship with her father. Because now she was crying too, tearfully insisting I go out and apologize to him before it was too late. She was pleading with me to go do this thing before it was too late. Too late? It will never be too late, I thought then. Mind you, throughout this emotional torture session, flying so fast on the heels of the beating, she was helping me wash, soothing the bruises and welts in my flesh. Crying out her own mess and pain. She soothed my battered body as she messed with my heart and mind. Do you know how hard it is to get free from such twisted wreckage?
Finally my body and hair were cleaned up. I was rigid with anger as I walked out that bathroom door. I was determined to not give in to this many-faceted torture. I looked to my left and saw him in the living room. He had hefted his bulk out of the wheelchair and into his recliner. Cigarette smoke coiled from his left hand like a lazy silvery snake up past his face where I could see his eyes were red-rimmed and wet. And I knew as well as I knew my name that he wasn't crying because he was sorry for what he had done to me. Oh no. He was crying because he felt sorry for himself, and that I was supposed to see him and feel sorry for him too--alcoholic wreck of a man that he was, cut flower in soiled water, slowly dying as each year went by (he would be dead at 40 in 6 years). Self pity! The alcoholic's balm! Feeling sorry for him was also the implied message of my mother's (no slouch in the alcoholism department herself) badgering of me in the bathroom. It was not in my heart to accept that warped kind of compassion. Not then, and not now. Apologize to him, my ass. Feel sorry for him--the thought disgusted me. I looked at him through that disgust and went into my room and closed the door.
Trick or Treat. Scary monsters out there. Watch out, children! Scary monsters in here.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
The Halloween I was 12 marked a turning point. I really wasn't a little kid anymore, content with trick or treating. Complicated emotions, driven by pubescent sexual desire, swirled inside me, and I was ready for some action. My childhood friend Bernadette was always a willing partner in crime. So she and I hatched a plan to walk the mile into town where the real fun was--kids throwing eggs and toilet paper and spraying shaving cream. We would be back in plenty of time and no one would even know we were away.
And so off we went. It was a straight flat walk into town on the Old Post Road. Took 20 minutes. And there were lots of kids we knew there, having a riot of a time. By the time I noticed my step-father's leaf green Scout pulling up beside me, I was a mess of eggs and shaving cream. My long hair was tangled with it. I saw his face in the driver's side window and he wasn't happy. No, not one bit. I got in the Scout, dutiful as a dog. I remember seeing Bernadette's dad somewhere out there too. Where they got the idea we were in the village, I will never know. Why they decided to look for us--maybe we stayed a little later than we should have? Could be that. I honestly don't remember, I just remember our revels in the village as a wild ecstatic blur of activity lit by street lights, a crazed frenzy of youthful energy let loose. Slightly demonic in its intensity. Halloween, after all.
We got home. Maybe I was berated and verbally abused all the way home, or maybe I sat there in a glowering silence, a silence full of doom and tension. I don't remember. What I remember next is being in the bathroom, preparing to take a shower, surveying the damage that was my hair, wondering how I would ever get all the tangles, caked with raw egg and shaving cream, out. The bathroom had 2 doors, one from the hall, and one from my parent's bedroom. My step-father was in a wheelchair as a result of breaking his back in a drunken driving accident when he was 21. He needed the door from the bedroom for his own privacy. The nature of his debility demanded some, to a kid, particularly disgusting bathroom rituals. That night, he also used it to ambush me. I was half undressed when suddenly he threw the door open and charged like a crazed bull into the small bathroom. Obviously, I was trapped. He grabbed a hold of me and beat the living shit out of me. I was held by his crazy strong arms as he pummelled me relentlessly, venting what felt like the rage of years on me. I had never been beaten so savagely before or since. Probably that's why this memory never dies. It remains as a protective spectre--Hamlet's ghost-- to keep me from ever getting into that position again, to never be so trapped, to never be so helpless. Do you know what it feels like to be so helpless? To be unmercifully beaten while being held so that there is no chance of escape? Let me speak a gross understatement here: it doesn't do good things to your mind.
Finally the storm of violence subsided, and the wheeled monster withdrew, and I was a crumpled little heap of bruises and wild hair and soiled clothing sobbing on the floor. I vaguely remember thinking Bernadette was not suffering such treatment at her house, oh no she was not.
At some point, finally, my mother came in, like a ministering angel, and she helped me as I sobbed, partly in pain, but mostly in rage. Because that was the night that marked a transition in me. No longer was I the child, heartbroken and sobbing after being beaten because I must have been very bad, right?, to deserve such punishment? No, this was a whole other level of torment, and I saw it for the abuse it was, and I was angry.
It was not that being physically abused was an unfamiliar event for me. For example, my step father was left handed, and I was made to sit at his left side at the dinner table so that he could crack me one across the face if he needed to. He usually felt he needed to in response to something I had said; I had what he called a 'smart mouth', which really meant I spoke the truth--then and now, he never broke that in me-- and he never liked that. Abusers usually don't--truth is certainly not their friend! He used those hands to abuse me in other ways too, to leave his dirty psychic mess all over me, but that is, most assuredly, another story.
At first, my mother cooed sympathetically as she helped me disentagle my clothes and finish undressing, as she helped me untangle my hair and start to wash. She started out by telling me we had to wash out the egg with cool water because warm water would make it cook. She then said she wanted me to understand how worried they had been about me, how anything could have happened to me out there. She softly insisted, "Your father was so worried about you, about something bad happening to you, he would be heartsick if something bad happened to you."
She continued on in this manner, all gentle tenderness and concern, and I felt momentarily soothed and relieved that there was some mercy in the universe after all, perhaps. But as the mess began spiralling down the drain, both her tone and the subject matter began to change. Accompanied by the ragged rhythms of my sobbing, she began to tell me it was my responsibility to go out there and apologize to him. Yes, go out there and say you are sorry to him, sorry that he beat you.
Apologize? To him? What kind of mind fuck was this? Apologize to him because he beat me ruthlessly, after ambushing me and trapping me? To him, who was so worried "something bad would happen" to me? Well, something bad had happened to me all right, but obviously she was not seeing the exact nature of what that something bad was, or who, precisely, had perpetrated it.
And so, what at first felt like maternal comfort became a whole other level of messing with my mind. I should go apologize to him, oh yes I should, she reiterated as I responded in angry defiance. I should go apologize to him because someday he would be dead and I wouldn't be able to then. Even in the midst of my own pain and confusion, I could hear this was not me she was talking about anymore. She was talking about herself (actually, with her, it is always all about herself, but, another story, another story) and her own failed relationship with her father. Because now she was crying too, tearfully insisting I go out and apologize to him before it was too late. She was pleading with me to go do this thing before it was too late. Too late? It will never be too late, I thought then. Mind you, throughout this emotional torture session, flying so fast on the heels of the beating, she was helping me wash, soothing the bruises and welts in my flesh. Crying out her own mess and pain. She soothed my battered body as she messed with my heart and mind. Do you know how hard it is to get free from such twisted wreckage?
Finally my body and hair were cleaned up. I was rigid with anger as I walked out that bathroom door. I was determined to not give in to this many-faceted torture. I looked to my left and saw him in the living room. He had hefted his bulk out of the wheelchair and into his recliner. Cigarette smoke coiled from his left hand like a lazy silvery snake up past his face where I could see his eyes were red-rimmed and wet. And I knew as well as I knew my name that he wasn't crying because he was sorry for what he had done to me. Oh no. He was crying because he felt sorry for himself, and that I was supposed to see him and feel sorry for him too--alcoholic wreck of a man that he was, cut flower in soiled water, slowly dying as each year went by (he would be dead at 40 in 6 years). Self pity! The alcoholic's balm! Feeling sorry for him was also the implied message of my mother's (no slouch in the alcoholism department herself) badgering of me in the bathroom. It was not in my heart to accept that warped kind of compassion. Not then, and not now. Apologize to him, my ass. Feel sorry for him--the thought disgusted me. I looked at him through that disgust and went into my room and closed the door.
Trick or Treat. Scary monsters out there. Watch out, children! Scary monsters in here.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Mother Cat
Here's a true tale that will put me firmly in the ranks of the certifiable among some people. Several winters ago, when it was very cold and snowy, along about February, I had noticed a tiny black cat out on her own. There is an older trailer park out over behind my place, and very often people move away from there and leave their cats behind. Usually they have not been spayed or neutered either, and so quite the population of little strays had really grown up back there. I had very sadly removed one that had been killed by a car from the roadside and buried it. This little one was one of those, and I felt an inner urging to set out food for her. I already had 3 cats and wasn't looking for another one, but I had noticed this one often and as it was a very cold and snowy February, my heart went out to her.
I think the way our companion animals are often treated by the people they depend is not much short of barbarous. The way we let dead animals lie on the roadside, for example, or discard family pets because they become inconvenient or difficult to care for. Of course, short of letting them lie out dead on the roadside, many of us do that with our elderly relatives too. I think when Jesus exhorted us to care for our brothers and sisters, we can also interpret that to mean our furred and finned and feathered brethren, much in the spirit of Saint Francis. When Jesus said, "I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink; a stranger and you welcomed me into your home..." in the Gospel of Matthew, these words can also be applied to domesticated animals. I think it reflects the next level of compassion--caring not only for creatures just like us, but for the ones not like us. And, in domesticating them, we created their dependence on us. And though cats can survive fairly well in a feral state, it does not mean they have healthy, long lives. They are subject to illness, attacks by other animals and being killed by cars. They are very small! And also very vulnerable. Anyway, this is one way I have felt called to respond. I see animals in need almost every single day here in this little village, and so feel compelled to do something. Since I now have a full house of rescued animals, sometimes the best I can do is pray. But prayer works. And so, anyway, this little black cat, out in the cold and the snow.
I could see from my kitchen window, as I did the dishes mornings, that she was living in the crawl space beneath a vacant trailer. It was actually Irene's old trailer, a bright turquoise blue structure that reminded me of the best of the 1950's. It has a nice white screened-in porch on the front, and beautiful beds of perennial flowers that Irene carefully tended until her death the autumn before. The trailer had sat empty for months while her family figured out what to do with it. I would see the little black cat emerge in the mornings. She'd stretch in that langorous feline way, and then sit primly and give herself a bath. That was the closest I ever got to her, because if she was ever on our front porch eating, she'd disappear like a sleek, slim shadow the second I opened the door.
My daughter has a quiet gentle way with cats, and she has kind hands. Cats like her. And one night, she and I had had some kind of parent-teen argument, and she went out on the front step to sit and cool off in the soft darkness. As she sat there, she used her gentle ways to cajole the little black cat over to her. She asked me if the cat could come inside. Feeling bad about our argument, I told her yes, but just for the night, and just in her room.
The next morning, I went into her room to check out the cat. She was very friendly and sweet, and, not much more than a kitten herself. She was also very pregnant. As soon as I discovered that, I had to keep her inside. I would worry about her too much otherwise, her and those tiny kittens out in the cold. Young kittens are susceptible to all kinds of upper respiratory infections, and also conjunctivitis--what we call pink eye when our kids get it. No, too much. We had a spare room that was used mostly for storage, and so I set her up in there. It adjoined my daughter's room and so she could have the cat come and visit whenever she wanted.
When the cat would snuggle on my chest, I could feel her unborn kittens moving around inside of her, moving their legs, like my own baby daughter kicked inside of me when I was pregnant. It felt like a miracle. But I also noticed the mother cat had worms, and after I read about the possible bad effects of internal parasites on the kittens, I decided to take her to the vet to be wormed.
Not that I could actually afford the care of another companion animal. But a woman in my church is a vet with a heart as big as the world, and she knew of my precarious financial situation. I took the cat to see her, and she allowed me to pay on a sliding scale based on income. I was grateful for her compassion. But I did not expect what she suggested next. She began to explain to me the problems of animal over-population, especially among cats and dogs. She said I would never find homes for those kittens, and there would probably be at least 4 since that is the average cat litter. She suggested I bring in the cat to be spayed as soon as possible--meaning she would also remove and destroy the kittens.
I am pro-choice when it comes to reproductive rights. Absolutely and totally. I believe it is a private and not simple decision a woman should be allowed to make. In the early stages of pregnancy, that is. As I stood there across the examining table from my friend the vet, with the Mother Cat between us, purring loudly, I glanced out the window behind her to see her own kids playing outside. I told her that I understood with my head the logic of what she was suggesting, but I could not even begin to contemplate it in my heart. I had felt those kittens moving their little legs. I told her that. I felt a sick pain in my heart. I then said to her, "What would God think of this?'
She had no answer for that and neither did I. In respect to her professional judgment, I scheduled an appointment for Monday morning. This was a Friday. And then I went home, sick at heart. What did God think of this?
When I told my daughter the plan, she said, "No way."
I said, "Well, we have a weekend between now and then, I can always cancel it. But the vet is right," I insisted, "we will have a really hard time finding homes for these cats, and I am not sure I can afford them."
The next day, Saturday, my daughter was gone a lot of the day at a friend's house, and I saw little sign of the Mother Cat. I supposed she was exhausted from our outing to the vet. Later on in the evening, my daughter came home and asked to sleep over at her friend's, and then went into her room to get some clothing. She asked me where the Mother Cat was, and I told her I hadn't seen her all day. When my daughter left again, I decided to go into the Mother Cat's room and look for her. I opened the door and called her name. She came out from behind an old trunk where I store blankets. She was thinner and her back end was wet. And then I heard high pitched squeaks. The kittens had been born!
I had my answer from God. There was a miracle right there in my spare room, in the form of new little lives. New lives! Right inside my house! I felt a thrill of joy in my heart.
And of course, being a mother myself, I immediately began to worry.....
But that's another story.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
I think the way our companion animals are often treated by the people they depend is not much short of barbarous. The way we let dead animals lie on the roadside, for example, or discard family pets because they become inconvenient or difficult to care for. Of course, short of letting them lie out dead on the roadside, many of us do that with our elderly relatives too. I think when Jesus exhorted us to care for our brothers and sisters, we can also interpret that to mean our furred and finned and feathered brethren, much in the spirit of Saint Francis. When Jesus said, "I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink; a stranger and you welcomed me into your home..." in the Gospel of Matthew, these words can also be applied to domesticated animals. I think it reflects the next level of compassion--caring not only for creatures just like us, but for the ones not like us. And, in domesticating them, we created their dependence on us. And though cats can survive fairly well in a feral state, it does not mean they have healthy, long lives. They are subject to illness, attacks by other animals and being killed by cars. They are very small! And also very vulnerable. Anyway, this is one way I have felt called to respond. I see animals in need almost every single day here in this little village, and so feel compelled to do something. Since I now have a full house of rescued animals, sometimes the best I can do is pray. But prayer works. And so, anyway, this little black cat, out in the cold and the snow.
I could see from my kitchen window, as I did the dishes mornings, that she was living in the crawl space beneath a vacant trailer. It was actually Irene's old trailer, a bright turquoise blue structure that reminded me of the best of the 1950's. It has a nice white screened-in porch on the front, and beautiful beds of perennial flowers that Irene carefully tended until her death the autumn before. The trailer had sat empty for months while her family figured out what to do with it. I would see the little black cat emerge in the mornings. She'd stretch in that langorous feline way, and then sit primly and give herself a bath. That was the closest I ever got to her, because if she was ever on our front porch eating, she'd disappear like a sleek, slim shadow the second I opened the door.
My daughter has a quiet gentle way with cats, and she has kind hands. Cats like her. And one night, she and I had had some kind of parent-teen argument, and she went out on the front step to sit and cool off in the soft darkness. As she sat there, she used her gentle ways to cajole the little black cat over to her. She asked me if the cat could come inside. Feeling bad about our argument, I told her yes, but just for the night, and just in her room.
The next morning, I went into her room to check out the cat. She was very friendly and sweet, and, not much more than a kitten herself. She was also very pregnant. As soon as I discovered that, I had to keep her inside. I would worry about her too much otherwise, her and those tiny kittens out in the cold. Young kittens are susceptible to all kinds of upper respiratory infections, and also conjunctivitis--what we call pink eye when our kids get it. No, too much. We had a spare room that was used mostly for storage, and so I set her up in there. It adjoined my daughter's room and so she could have the cat come and visit whenever she wanted.
When the cat would snuggle on my chest, I could feel her unborn kittens moving around inside of her, moving their legs, like my own baby daughter kicked inside of me when I was pregnant. It felt like a miracle. But I also noticed the mother cat had worms, and after I read about the possible bad effects of internal parasites on the kittens, I decided to take her to the vet to be wormed.
Not that I could actually afford the care of another companion animal. But a woman in my church is a vet with a heart as big as the world, and she knew of my precarious financial situation. I took the cat to see her, and she allowed me to pay on a sliding scale based on income. I was grateful for her compassion. But I did not expect what she suggested next. She began to explain to me the problems of animal over-population, especially among cats and dogs. She said I would never find homes for those kittens, and there would probably be at least 4 since that is the average cat litter. She suggested I bring in the cat to be spayed as soon as possible--meaning she would also remove and destroy the kittens.
I am pro-choice when it comes to reproductive rights. Absolutely and totally. I believe it is a private and not simple decision a woman should be allowed to make. In the early stages of pregnancy, that is. As I stood there across the examining table from my friend the vet, with the Mother Cat between us, purring loudly, I glanced out the window behind her to see her own kids playing outside. I told her that I understood with my head the logic of what she was suggesting, but I could not even begin to contemplate it in my heart. I had felt those kittens moving their little legs. I told her that. I felt a sick pain in my heart. I then said to her, "What would God think of this?'
She had no answer for that and neither did I. In respect to her professional judgment, I scheduled an appointment for Monday morning. This was a Friday. And then I went home, sick at heart. What did God think of this?
When I told my daughter the plan, she said, "No way."
I said, "Well, we have a weekend between now and then, I can always cancel it. But the vet is right," I insisted, "we will have a really hard time finding homes for these cats, and I am not sure I can afford them."
The next day, Saturday, my daughter was gone a lot of the day at a friend's house, and I saw little sign of the Mother Cat. I supposed she was exhausted from our outing to the vet. Later on in the evening, my daughter came home and asked to sleep over at her friend's, and then went into her room to get some clothing. She asked me where the Mother Cat was, and I told her I hadn't seen her all day. When my daughter left again, I decided to go into the Mother Cat's room and look for her. I opened the door and called her name. She came out from behind an old trunk where I store blankets. She was thinner and her back end was wet. And then I heard high pitched squeaks. The kittens had been born!
I had my answer from God. There was a miracle right there in my spare room, in the form of new little lives. New lives! Right inside my house! I felt a thrill of joy in my heart.
And of course, being a mother myself, I immediately began to worry.....
But that's another story.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Our Daily Walk
It's a matter of faith, our daily walk. The dogs and I get up at 5:15 and head out into the dark of the house. There's stuff to do. A dance to choreograph, in a manner of speaking. I let out Little Bear, I begin to feed the cats. They eat in separate spaces around the house. I clean the litter boxes. I start tea. I let out the Mother Cat, let in Little Bear, let out Bumby. Then I get the dogs' breakfasts ready. Bumby has been pounding frantically at the back door ever since she heard the food bowls rattle, and so she comes in. They eat. I pour the water into the teapot. And then I sit down with a devotional guide and my Bible. I read Scripture. I read the daily devotion. And then I pray a prayer of thanksgiving.
Thankful for a good night's rest in a warm, dry bed. Thankful for this house with its sound roof and good plumbing, fresh clean running water, ample food, clothing to wear. Thankful for the health and strength to meet the tasks of another day. Thankful for the abundance of blessings with which God fills my day. Thankful for my jobs that pay the bills and for the kindness of church family, friends and family. Thankful for this village and its relative peace and safety. Thankful for my daughter, the dogs, the cats, the fish, and all that they teach me and give me with their love, and for all that I have learned and have been given in caring for them. Thankful for God's guidance and correction and forgiveness, kindness, love and compassion. Thankful for the pot of tea steeping before me which reminds me of God's faithfulness in caring for me. He never falters. I do. I am truly not up to the task of my life. Grossly inadequate, in fact. But beneath the shelter of God's great wings, his nurturing love, I manage.
And so, I pour the tea and drink it, in gratitude. And then I rise, and stretch, and the dogs, who have waited very patiently, know it is time to go. I put on my boots, I put on their leashes, get my keys, and out the door we go. It has been dark during our walking time for over a month now. I don't always like it but there we are. This walk is an act of faith.
I go every single day of the year. I do not miss a day, except for when I am away at the the orphanage in Jamaica, but that is another story. The dogs are counting on me. I must keep faith with them. In the same way God never gives up one me, I never give up on them. They are always ready and willing to go. It is me who would falter, who would say, Nah, maybe tomorrow. But I don't. I am practicing faith. And the walk is good for all of us. Bumby used to get fatty cysts before we started this daily walk. The vigorous exercise she receives when I set her loose in the meadow beyond the Field of the Big Tree, below The Place Where the Lightning Strikes, that joyful time of running free has made those cysts history. Little Bear can't be allowed to run loose because he takes off into the woods to hunt deer, but he has a long lead and he loves to sniff and pee and dig and set the course of our path. He comes from a litter of sled dogs, and can he pull. So I get my workout too, upper and lower body!
It takes faith to walk out into the darkness alone with the dogs and not be afraid. It is my own little setting off into the unknown, first thing in the day, when I am sensitive and soft. Some days it is raining or foggy, some days it is snowing or the snow is already very deep. Other days there is ice and it is dark and I must feel my way along. Some days are simply glorious with a million stars, or with a sunrise shining like blonde glory above deeply indigo hills. Some days we see deer, or a hawk hunting for her breakfast. Some days we see wild turkeys. Some days the mist clings thickly white to the river down below, its edges like tattered cotton tangling up into the hills. Every day I know that I am blessed in a million ways.
At a certain point in our walk, when I have gathered the dogs back in, when Bumby is tied again and Little Bear's leash is shortened, we come to a path that is lined with 150 year old Norway spruces, black and huge in the semi-darkness. It is like a cathedral there and I talk to God. Out loud I say this Psalm, and I concentrate on the words, and on their truth to me, in my life, on our daily walk:
The Lord is my shepherd;
I have everything I need.
He lets me rest in fields of green grass,
And leads me to quiet pools of fresh water.
He gives me new strength!
He guides me in the right paths,
as he has promised.
And even if I walk through the deepest darkness,
I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
Your shepherd's rod and staff protect me.......
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Thankful for a good night's rest in a warm, dry bed. Thankful for this house with its sound roof and good plumbing, fresh clean running water, ample food, clothing to wear. Thankful for the health and strength to meet the tasks of another day. Thankful for the abundance of blessings with which God fills my day. Thankful for my jobs that pay the bills and for the kindness of church family, friends and family. Thankful for this village and its relative peace and safety. Thankful for my daughter, the dogs, the cats, the fish, and all that they teach me and give me with their love, and for all that I have learned and have been given in caring for them. Thankful for God's guidance and correction and forgiveness, kindness, love and compassion. Thankful for the pot of tea steeping before me which reminds me of God's faithfulness in caring for me. He never falters. I do. I am truly not up to the task of my life. Grossly inadequate, in fact. But beneath the shelter of God's great wings, his nurturing love, I manage.
And so, I pour the tea and drink it, in gratitude. And then I rise, and stretch, and the dogs, who have waited very patiently, know it is time to go. I put on my boots, I put on their leashes, get my keys, and out the door we go. It has been dark during our walking time for over a month now. I don't always like it but there we are. This walk is an act of faith.
I go every single day of the year. I do not miss a day, except for when I am away at the the orphanage in Jamaica, but that is another story. The dogs are counting on me. I must keep faith with them. In the same way God never gives up one me, I never give up on them. They are always ready and willing to go. It is me who would falter, who would say, Nah, maybe tomorrow. But I don't. I am practicing faith. And the walk is good for all of us. Bumby used to get fatty cysts before we started this daily walk. The vigorous exercise she receives when I set her loose in the meadow beyond the Field of the Big Tree, below The Place Where the Lightning Strikes, that joyful time of running free has made those cysts history. Little Bear can't be allowed to run loose because he takes off into the woods to hunt deer, but he has a long lead and he loves to sniff and pee and dig and set the course of our path. He comes from a litter of sled dogs, and can he pull. So I get my workout too, upper and lower body!
It takes faith to walk out into the darkness alone with the dogs and not be afraid. It is my own little setting off into the unknown, first thing in the day, when I am sensitive and soft. Some days it is raining or foggy, some days it is snowing or the snow is already very deep. Other days there is ice and it is dark and I must feel my way along. Some days are simply glorious with a million stars, or with a sunrise shining like blonde glory above deeply indigo hills. Some days we see deer, or a hawk hunting for her breakfast. Some days we see wild turkeys. Some days the mist clings thickly white to the river down below, its edges like tattered cotton tangling up into the hills. Every day I know that I am blessed in a million ways.
At a certain point in our walk, when I have gathered the dogs back in, when Bumby is tied again and Little Bear's leash is shortened, we come to a path that is lined with 150 year old Norway spruces, black and huge in the semi-darkness. It is like a cathedral there and I talk to God. Out loud I say this Psalm, and I concentrate on the words, and on their truth to me, in my life, on our daily walk:
The Lord is my shepherd;
I have everything I need.
He lets me rest in fields of green grass,
And leads me to quiet pools of fresh water.
He gives me new strength!
He guides me in the right paths,
as he has promised.
And even if I walk through the deepest darkness,
I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
Your shepherd's rod and staff protect me.......
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A Little Paternal History
My father died when I was a baby. He was only 19 or so. My parents had a shot gun wedding. I once made the mistake, about 20 years ago, of asking my mother where I was conceived. My mother is a simple soul, quite romantic, and she got all misty eyed and soft voiced, and she moved in close to tell me: "Under the pine trees, on the front lawn of the high school."
She was 16, it was 1957 in rural America, and teen pregnancies were opportunities for lots of guilt and shame. As if the fact of the matter was not bad enough, my father was from an Italian family. My mother comes from Dutch/German/English/French stock that has been in America for 13 generations, some of the first off the boat. These are people who often did not look too kindly on the newer immigrants, especially darker skinned ones. It is just as well, then, that my maternal grandparents did not know the rest of my young father's geneaology. His mother was French-Canadian and Mohawk Indian, something also called, around here anyway, French Indian because the French, unlike the English and the Dutch, shared the land with the natives, lived right alongside of them rather than shunting them off to their own neighborhoods. The Catholic church in Quebec created mission lands centered around a church parish where the native peoples lived, but it was all very much part of a larger community. Her grandfather came from there, born of a Mohawk mom and a French Indian dad. Talk about non-white! But definitely not newcomer upstarts to the continent.
Anyway, after the shot gun wedding, they went off to an Air Force base to live. By all accounts it was not a happy marriage. Eventually my dad was sent to another base in a cold northern land, and my mother and I stayed stateside. My father was killed in an accident. We went back to my grandparents' house. They saw to it that I never had contact my father's family, ever, after that. The shame was that huge! I never saw a picture of my father. I have a whole side to me that remains unknown. Thanks to the geneaological resources of the internet, and fellow geneaologists who share their findings very generously, I was able to figure all this out. I also know my Mohawk family slipped over the border into the states around 1840 to blend in and be 'white' Americans. They anglicized their names. That is a side of native life most people do not talk about. But it is true, economics and social realities being what they are. Some people just take off and don't look back.
She was 16, it was 1957 in rural America, and teen pregnancies were opportunities for lots of guilt and shame. As if the fact of the matter was not bad enough, my father was from an Italian family. My mother comes from Dutch/German/English/French stock that has been in America for 13 generations, some of the first off the boat. These are people who often did not look too kindly on the newer immigrants, especially darker skinned ones. It is just as well, then, that my maternal grandparents did not know the rest of my young father's geneaology. His mother was French-Canadian and Mohawk Indian, something also called, around here anyway, French Indian because the French, unlike the English and the Dutch, shared the land with the natives, lived right alongside of them rather than shunting them off to their own neighborhoods. The Catholic church in Quebec created mission lands centered around a church parish where the native peoples lived, but it was all very much part of a larger community. Her grandfather came from there, born of a Mohawk mom and a French Indian dad. Talk about non-white! But definitely not newcomer upstarts to the continent.
Anyway, after the shot gun wedding, they went off to an Air Force base to live. By all accounts it was not a happy marriage. Eventually my dad was sent to another base in a cold northern land, and my mother and I stayed stateside. My father was killed in an accident. We went back to my grandparents' house. They saw to it that I never had contact my father's family, ever, after that. The shame was that huge! I never saw a picture of my father. I have a whole side to me that remains unknown. Thanks to the geneaological resources of the internet, and fellow geneaologists who share their findings very generously, I was able to figure all this out. I also know my Mohawk family slipped over the border into the states around 1840 to blend in and be 'white' Americans. They anglicized their names. That is a side of native life most people do not talk about. But it is true, economics and social realities being what they are. Some people just take off and don't look back.
Dog/God/\God/Dog--Part 2
Because I have been sick with this rotten sinus thing and my defenses are down, and I am walking the knife edge of excess emotions and feeling vulnerable in general, I got home from church today in a state of naked honesty with myself about something that is true for me there. I don't fit in with those people and they don't really know me because of that fact. I sat there looking at a young family from my perch in the choir chancel, and something about the mom brought me back to being a kid in church who feels like she is not quite as wholesome as these other people, not quite as clean living, but rather more of a sloppy mess with all kinds of missing parts and fraying edges. Feeling maybe even a little bit....evil....in my inner disarray. And maybe those people have moments like that too, but I forget that possibility when I am sitting smack dab in the middle of a vulnerable little kid's eye moment. It is a perspective I inherited from my family, people stained by their own histories of shame and abuse, something they so conscientiously hammered into me. And these main line Protestants I worship with, they remind me of my upstate relatives, the nice ones, the sort of nice ones...
(.....I recently got sick of my grey hair and lightened it to a glowing shade of blonde like sunshine that makes me very happy. I also started wearing mascara too, and I am feeling pretty again, let me tell you. One Sunday after church, an old lady of our congregation sidled up to me in her walker and growled, "Well, I hardly recognize you anymore." And I suddenly remembered how sour indeed is the disapproval of an Old Protestant. Those of us raised among Old Protestants recognize this, and I shared the observation with a friend. She suggested we create a candy, 'Old Protestant Sour Lemon Drops', and I am thinking, that in certain parts of the country, they will sell very well....)
My church family would tell you they love me. And I would tell you they accept me, because it is part of their faith practice to do that very thing, and also because I am a likable sort, in my way, a woman who tries her damndest to be kind to others on a regular basis because I think it makes the world a better place, instantly. I listen to what Jesus says, and it is very easy for me to be kind and encouraging to animals and people, and even to plants. Because that is the gift God has given me, my own particular light to shine in this darkened world. And, the fact is, my church friends don't see all of me because I don't show them all of me. I show them a carefully crafted performance piece. Since most of my adult life has been an act of damage control, I am quite adept at appearing as if I am great, fine, smart, in control. That was a survival skill picked up during my childhood when I discovered pretty quickly that having needs of my own put me in a very precarious position with the 2 large crazy adults trying to run things. Having needs of my own was dangerous, in fact. So, I keep the real me under wraps, even yet. Because I am positive people who see the real me won't like me anymore and will either hurt me or abandon me or both. Even tho that probably isn't true either and, on good days, I know it isn't true. But how many days are good days? And on the crazy days, well, my own crazies start running the show and I won't know what's what until it's all said and done and the good days come back again. That isn't anything to depend on!
So there is practically no one in my life now that I let see all of me. I have a few friends, 2 maybe, I am gradually easing into the experience of the Whole, True, Real Me, but this process will take years. I am too afraid anymore to open myself up like that, especially after the atom bomb disasters my last 2 major relationships were. My heart has been permanently changed, charred, scarred--nuclear fallout lasts forever, or damn near. Sometimes I feel my 'identity' begin to fall apart and wonder just who the hell am I anyway? I put on a face for the world for sure, and that face alters a bit with time. Depending on my inner climate more than anything, or on my mental health, my intellectual preoccupations, or how I view my relationship to God and the spirits. Or, how much I like myself. My co-workers see a prettty broad swath of me during our daily 7 hours together, but I also manage to hold myself together there too, for the most part, and then I go home and don't see them or talk to them or have anything to do with them again until there we all are back at work.
The fact is, I need down time. I need to go home. I need to disappear into a novel. I need to go in my room and lie down and close my eyes and breathe thoughtfully. I need to pray. I need to walk. Because in that place, at home, in my down time, I am me. The me I am when no one else is looking and I can say say Ahhh and not be on my guard anymore. (My daughter sees me, all of me, and as long as I confine the expressing of the opinions she considers my craziness to the house, and don't start ranting in public, it's all good. I do have her, but I don't expect her to hold me up. She has her own life to live, after all. And I hope it will be a great one!)
When I go walking, it is at dawn, with the dogs, and I talk with God then. In truth, I walk with my dogs or I don't go for walks at all (sure, I walk to work, I walk to church, I walk to friends' houses, I walk to the market, but not having a car makes that kind of walking commuting--nothing like taking a walk). And when I come home, who is it I see first when I open the door, so damn happy to see me, following me everywhere around the house, and into my room with me when I need to opt out, to read, to escape, to disappear? My dogs! Who else? Bumby hops up on the bed with me and presses her shaggy grey body up to mine. Little Bear marches to his corner and begins biting at his dreads. We are a pack, a dog clan, a family. They know me. They know all of me. We sleep together and we get up together and we greet the sunrise together and I say see you later to them when I leave for work or church or whatever. Me. Ms Nobody. Ms Small Potatoes. Ms Loser, Ms Uncomfortable with Adult Humans. Ms Adored By Her Dogs and Beloved by God. The me nobody knows. Except for them. And now, maybe you?
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
(.....I recently got sick of my grey hair and lightened it to a glowing shade of blonde like sunshine that makes me very happy. I also started wearing mascara too, and I am feeling pretty again, let me tell you. One Sunday after church, an old lady of our congregation sidled up to me in her walker and growled, "Well, I hardly recognize you anymore." And I suddenly remembered how sour indeed is the disapproval of an Old Protestant. Those of us raised among Old Protestants recognize this, and I shared the observation with a friend. She suggested we create a candy, 'Old Protestant Sour Lemon Drops', and I am thinking, that in certain parts of the country, they will sell very well....)
My church family would tell you they love me. And I would tell you they accept me, because it is part of their faith practice to do that very thing, and also because I am a likable sort, in my way, a woman who tries her damndest to be kind to others on a regular basis because I think it makes the world a better place, instantly. I listen to what Jesus says, and it is very easy for me to be kind and encouraging to animals and people, and even to plants. Because that is the gift God has given me, my own particular light to shine in this darkened world. And, the fact is, my church friends don't see all of me because I don't show them all of me. I show them a carefully crafted performance piece. Since most of my adult life has been an act of damage control, I am quite adept at appearing as if I am great, fine, smart, in control. That was a survival skill picked up during my childhood when I discovered pretty quickly that having needs of my own put me in a very precarious position with the 2 large crazy adults trying to run things. Having needs of my own was dangerous, in fact. So, I keep the real me under wraps, even yet. Because I am positive people who see the real me won't like me anymore and will either hurt me or abandon me or both. Even tho that probably isn't true either and, on good days, I know it isn't true. But how many days are good days? And on the crazy days, well, my own crazies start running the show and I won't know what's what until it's all said and done and the good days come back again. That isn't anything to depend on!
So there is practically no one in my life now that I let see all of me. I have a few friends, 2 maybe, I am gradually easing into the experience of the Whole, True, Real Me, but this process will take years. I am too afraid anymore to open myself up like that, especially after the atom bomb disasters my last 2 major relationships were. My heart has been permanently changed, charred, scarred--nuclear fallout lasts forever, or damn near. Sometimes I feel my 'identity' begin to fall apart and wonder just who the hell am I anyway? I put on a face for the world for sure, and that face alters a bit with time. Depending on my inner climate more than anything, or on my mental health, my intellectual preoccupations, or how I view my relationship to God and the spirits. Or, how much I like myself. My co-workers see a prettty broad swath of me during our daily 7 hours together, but I also manage to hold myself together there too, for the most part, and then I go home and don't see them or talk to them or have anything to do with them again until there we all are back at work.
The fact is, I need down time. I need to go home. I need to disappear into a novel. I need to go in my room and lie down and close my eyes and breathe thoughtfully. I need to pray. I need to walk. Because in that place, at home, in my down time, I am me. The me I am when no one else is looking and I can say say Ahhh and not be on my guard anymore. (My daughter sees me, all of me, and as long as I confine the expressing of the opinions she considers my craziness to the house, and don't start ranting in public, it's all good. I do have her, but I don't expect her to hold me up. She has her own life to live, after all. And I hope it will be a great one!)
When I go walking, it is at dawn, with the dogs, and I talk with God then. In truth, I walk with my dogs or I don't go for walks at all (sure, I walk to work, I walk to church, I walk to friends' houses, I walk to the market, but not having a car makes that kind of walking commuting--nothing like taking a walk). And when I come home, who is it I see first when I open the door, so damn happy to see me, following me everywhere around the house, and into my room with me when I need to opt out, to read, to escape, to disappear? My dogs! Who else? Bumby hops up on the bed with me and presses her shaggy grey body up to mine. Little Bear marches to his corner and begins biting at his dreads. We are a pack, a dog clan, a family. They know me. They know all of me. We sleep together and we get up together and we greet the sunrise together and I say see you later to them when I leave for work or church or whatever. Me. Ms Nobody. Ms Small Potatoes. Ms Loser, Ms Uncomfortable with Adult Humans. Ms Adored By Her Dogs and Beloved by God. The me nobody knows. Except for them. And now, maybe you?
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
Friday, October 19, 2007
Interlude: Journal Entry
It's warm. It's too warm. I dont know if it is me or the weather, or both. I don't know. Maybe I have too many clothes on from when it was cool, and my mind hasnt yet caught up to the change. Or maybe from earlier in the week when this cold--which might be a sinus infection, or on the verge of one--made me cold. It is humid too. The air smells wrong. I feel wrung out and dragged down and unwell. On the edge of losing my composure, maybe even losing my religion, albeit temporarily. I am hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, with a raspy throat and congested lungs, a stuffy head, occasional headache. And tired, tired to the point of the 'poor me's'. I could get there. I have been dipping my toes in it. Started whining a little to God. Those thoughts. "No one to take care of me. No one to offer a hand, a cup of tea, a break, a respite. Can't even take a day off from work because I need the income too much.' And then I remind myself of the bad marriage, the crazy boyfriend, nightmare relationships that are so much worse than any solitude. The bloodsucking losers and vampires who polluted my life and made a mess of all that I cherish. My mind still reels when I think about the Vampyr who would break anything dear to me, so that maybe I would ask him to fix it, and then he could be the hero. My antique rocker is still unusable with that hole punched in the cane seat. The aquarium still has those mysterious cracks. He did these things secretly, while I shook my head and wondered why so many things broke. It wasnt until after I had asked him to leave that I put the pieces of the puzzle together, because after he left nothing broke anymore. Not like that. Not with such alarming frequency, out of my sight. Madness! I hate the madness. I hate the crazy hurtful people. I have had an overabundance of them in my life, and who knows why, but I want nothing to do with any of them anymore ever. Not anymore ever. And so I have barricaded myself, and I will stay here.
Tho I had a dream this morning of a nice person. It was an odd disjointed dream. I had a horse, black, wild, sort of fierce. It came at me and pushed with its muzzle over and over at my neck, intensely, teeth bared but not biting. I need to look at this more. My horse, a spirit companion since childhood, is trying to tell me something. And then later in the dream, I had another horse and I was supposed to ride it in a parade. I had a prominent spot in the parade, solitary, between two groups. I had nice boots, jeans, shirt, and a nice well-behaved horse. Someone came and gave me pretty earrings to wear. Somehow as we went, the horse and I, I lost sight of the group in front of me and of the group behind me. But I made it to the ending place. Most of the people were already there, seated at a meal. There was a great wind at first and people were outside trying to hold the building in place. I went inside and found my friend, seated at the table. It was crowded. A place was made for me beside him. He accompanied me to the buffet table, showed me the dish his wife had made, spoke disparaging comments about it, but I took some, said it looked good. It was something odd, made of ritz crackers and bananas. Anyway, he was my friend, and in his company I felt safe and at rest. I had the horses too. I need to think what the fierce black horse was trying to communicate or give to me. That insistent battering at my neck, not hurtful but very forceful. I don't know.
It is at least finally Friday and there is comfort in that just as there was comfort in the presence of my friend in the dream. He was someone who knew me, knew what I had accomplished, and abided with me. Abiding with is a concept that I have been becoming more and more aware of and understanding of its peace and its comfort and its importance. It has become a very important fact to me. Abiding with. Abiding in. I abide in God's love; God abides with me. We show true love and respect to one another when we abide with each other. It is a place of peace and trust.
Tho I had a dream this morning of a nice person. It was an odd disjointed dream. I had a horse, black, wild, sort of fierce. It came at me and pushed with its muzzle over and over at my neck, intensely, teeth bared but not biting. I need to look at this more. My horse, a spirit companion since childhood, is trying to tell me something. And then later in the dream, I had another horse and I was supposed to ride it in a parade. I had a prominent spot in the parade, solitary, between two groups. I had nice boots, jeans, shirt, and a nice well-behaved horse. Someone came and gave me pretty earrings to wear. Somehow as we went, the horse and I, I lost sight of the group in front of me and of the group behind me. But I made it to the ending place. Most of the people were already there, seated at a meal. There was a great wind at first and people were outside trying to hold the building in place. I went inside and found my friend, seated at the table. It was crowded. A place was made for me beside him. He accompanied me to the buffet table, showed me the dish his wife had made, spoke disparaging comments about it, but I took some, said it looked good. It was something odd, made of ritz crackers and bananas. Anyway, he was my friend, and in his company I felt safe and at rest. I had the horses too. I need to think what the fierce black horse was trying to communicate or give to me. That insistent battering at my neck, not hurtful but very forceful. I don't know.
It is at least finally Friday and there is comfort in that just as there was comfort in the presence of my friend in the dream. He was someone who knew me, knew what I had accomplished, and abided with me. Abiding with is a concept that I have been becoming more and more aware of and understanding of its peace and its comfort and its importance. It has become a very important fact to me. Abiding with. Abiding in. I abide in God's love; God abides with me. We show true love and respect to one another when we abide with each other. It is a place of peace and trust.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Dog/God/\God/Dog--Part 1
No accident dog spelled backwards is God. And no, I am not suggesting God is a dog. But dogs can teach us all about God's love. If Jesus had lived in a different culture, where dogs were not corpse eating pariahs, he would have had a dog too. And like the story of Grey Friar's Bobby, his dog would have waited as devotedly outside his tomb. And Mary the Magdalene would not have had to have been all alone when she discovered her dearly beloved Jesus gone from the tomb, but she would have had Jesus's dog waiting there to greet and comfort her. And Jesus's dog would have become her dog and they would have had each other to love ever after.
Anyway, that is not at all what I meant to say. I have had dogs in my life, knowingly, longer than I have had God in my life, knowingly. I did not always invite God in. I was not always so certain about this God. The version I got of God as a child was not such a nice guy. I come from a family of dog hating, God hating people. People who do not go to church because they feel deeply unworthy of God's love. How far back that got beaten into them is beyond my knowing, but it is a fact. I came back to God, because God was always with me, more loyal then any dog, waiting to welcome me back with open arms. And dogs were his secret agents, his covert operators, in my little life.
As a child, I always liked animals better than people, except for my grandmother because she was about the only one in the family who was never ever mean to me (and she is the reason, a therapist told me, I never went completely off the deep end, just a little bit off--because she loved me. Amazing stuff, love!). I was fortunate that my parents even let me have a dog. We lived in an ugly urban place at the time, and I always saw this little forlorn beagle pup in a pet shop window One evening, my step-father came home with the pup on his lap. On his lap because my step-father was a paraplegic--that is what we called it then. He had a spinal cord injury and his back was broken. Broken in a drunken driving accident but that is decidedly another story. We lived in a high rise apartment building and my teenaged mother was too lazy to take the dog out, and i was only 3 years old. So they tied the dog in a corner of my bedroom and she shit on the floor there. My mother didnt clean it up every day. I definitely remember turds whitened with age there. It was only a few years ago that a counselor took a lot of time trying to drill it into my head that that was not normal, the tied up dog in the corner there, and the dog shit, in my bedroom, well, all of it, really.
Anyway, I named her Cindy after Yogi Bear's girlfriend, and she became my childhood confidant, companion and love. And she took some of the abuse heat off me, because when the old man in the wheelchair, who had very strong arms, by the way, he grew up on a farm, wasn't beating me in his impotent (literally) rage, he was beating her. I had no siblings. I had Cindy, my dog.
Cindy did not play games with my mind. Cindy was always happy to see me. Cindy communicated with me in clear, direct language. She did not say one thing and act completely differently. I have always been quite sensitive and perceptive, and can easily read body and emotional language. I also get tone of voice really well. I understand what animals communicate to us in the same way I soon understood that my crazy parents talked one way but rarely said what they meant except for when they were heaping verbal abuse on my head. They were experts at twisting stuff all around and I think I became an English major in college because I had been reading between the lines for years. Living with crazy people can give a person such incredible skills. Such incredible survival skills. If you survive the training, that is.
Cindy and I finally moved back to the country my crazy mother had wrenched me from when she married the man in the wheelchair. We had fields and woods to run in and off we went, for hours. We were silent companions of the wild. It was a kind of heaven. But God didnt play into any of this yet. The parents had tried to foist me off to Sunday school, dragging their hungover selves from bed to drive little pristine me to the white church where no one else had parents like mine, I was sure. I was not comfortable there with the stiffly righteous, the holier than thou, the neater than neat. I could not wait to get back home and change my clothes and hit the trails with Cindy, who never judged me or looked at me like I was oddball dirt. She just loved me as I am, accepted me, and stayed with me. And that is what I have come to learn of God, and of Jesus too. They love me as I am, they accept me, and they will never abandon me. Unlike a lot of people I have known.
But there is more to this story.
Until next time, I remain your friend, Rozenkraai
Anyway, that is not at all what I meant to say. I have had dogs in my life, knowingly, longer than I have had God in my life, knowingly. I did not always invite God in. I was not always so certain about this God. The version I got of God as a child was not such a nice guy. I come from a family of dog hating, God hating people. People who do not go to church because they feel deeply unworthy of God's love. How far back that got beaten into them is beyond my knowing, but it is a fact. I came back to God, because God was always with me, more loyal then any dog, waiting to welcome me back with open arms. And dogs were his secret agents, his covert operators, in my little life.
As a child, I always liked animals better than people, except for my grandmother because she was about the only one in the family who was never ever mean to me (and she is the reason, a therapist told me, I never went completely off the deep end, just a little bit off--because she loved me. Amazing stuff, love!). I was fortunate that my parents even let me have a dog. We lived in an ugly urban place at the time, and I always saw this little forlorn beagle pup in a pet shop window One evening, my step-father came home with the pup on his lap. On his lap because my step-father was a paraplegic--that is what we called it then. He had a spinal cord injury and his back was broken. Broken in a drunken driving accident but that is decidedly another story. We lived in a high rise apartment building and my teenaged mother was too lazy to take the dog out, and i was only 3 years old. So they tied the dog in a corner of my bedroom and she shit on the floor there. My mother didnt clean it up every day. I definitely remember turds whitened with age there. It was only a few years ago that a counselor took a lot of time trying to drill it into my head that that was not normal, the tied up dog in the corner there, and the dog shit, in my bedroom, well, all of it, really.
Anyway, I named her Cindy after Yogi Bear's girlfriend, and she became my childhood confidant, companion and love. And she took some of the abuse heat off me, because when the old man in the wheelchair, who had very strong arms, by the way, he grew up on a farm, wasn't beating me in his impotent (literally) rage, he was beating her. I had no siblings. I had Cindy, my dog.
Cindy did not play games with my mind. Cindy was always happy to see me. Cindy communicated with me in clear, direct language. She did not say one thing and act completely differently. I have always been quite sensitive and perceptive, and can easily read body and emotional language. I also get tone of voice really well. I understand what animals communicate to us in the same way I soon understood that my crazy parents talked one way but rarely said what they meant except for when they were heaping verbal abuse on my head. They were experts at twisting stuff all around and I think I became an English major in college because I had been reading between the lines for years. Living with crazy people can give a person such incredible skills. Such incredible survival skills. If you survive the training, that is.
Cindy and I finally moved back to the country my crazy mother had wrenched me from when she married the man in the wheelchair. We had fields and woods to run in and off we went, for hours. We were silent companions of the wild. It was a kind of heaven. But God didnt play into any of this yet. The parents had tried to foist me off to Sunday school, dragging their hungover selves from bed to drive little pristine me to the white church where no one else had parents like mine, I was sure. I was not comfortable there with the stiffly righteous, the holier than thou, the neater than neat. I could not wait to get back home and change my clothes and hit the trails with Cindy, who never judged me or looked at me like I was oddball dirt. She just loved me as I am, accepted me, and stayed with me. And that is what I have come to learn of God, and of Jesus too. They love me as I am, they accept me, and they will never abandon me. Unlike a lot of people I have known.
But there is more to this story.
Until next time, I remain your friend, Rozenkraai
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Pleased to Meet You
"Get up and go. Your faith has made you whole." Jesus said that to the 1 leper out out 10 he had healed, the one who ran back to fall at his feet in gratitude. It was our Gospel lesson in church this morning and I realized as soon as I sat down here, that it provides me with the perfect place to start.
I am a 49 year old single mother. I have been raising my 17 year old daughter pretty much on my own for the last 9 years. I have experienced and been challenged by depression since I was 12. I was abused by my parents as a child, and in a typical pattern, I grew up and selected, unconsciously, a few intimate partners to abuse me too. I have also abused myself, trying desperately and earnestly to die for many years. Too much drink, too many drugs, too much not giving a shit. I still have days when I walk in front of cars while crossing the street, thinking that if someone hits me, it will 'make my day'. I actually look at the cars, challenging them with my stare, challenging them to hit me. Tell me that aint nuts.
I deal with PTSD. I have had 3 breakdowns in my adult life, the last one occurring 5 years ago. I have come to the brink of financial ruin. I will probably never be given another credit card by any major credit card company, but I own my own home. I work at 2 jobs to keep the roof over our head. I have been lost, I have been found. And yes, God has been a big part of that--the being found part, that is--but so have people and animals and nature and music and writing. Also pharmaceuticals and herbs and vitamins and simple exercise, also simple exercises in faith. I have been there and done that, gone around the bend and back again, lost my mind, found it, lost it again.
But I have also found a path in life that sustains and nourishes me. Somehow, through all this, I have clearly discovered my purpose in life. I know my call. I know what gifts I have to give. And, I actually think I know what I need to do to stay healthy. That last breakdown was too scary, that falling out of control too overwhelming. I have a child to raise. I have animals to care for. God has a plan for me. And, I want to share my story, my struggles and my joys and my triumphs here with you, because if you were drawn to this blog, then maybe we have something in common. Maybe we have something good to share with each other.
See, the funny thing about all this, the thing that continues to fascinate me, is that to other people, I look like someone who is strong and together and whole. I look healthy. I do not look like someone who is always at the risk of falling apart inside. Remember when the Trade Towers fell so gracefully to the ground on 9/11? How they fell straight down, almost neatly?That's what it is like inside of me when I fall apart. But people often don't believe me when I don't feel well. I have heard so many times the refrains familiar to depressives everywhere: "Get over it." "Snap out of it." "Oh come on, it can't be that bad, can it?" Or how about these, "What are you doing for yourself? What do you think set this off? Are you on medication?" As if there is some magic pill out there that will make it all better. NO more doubt, no more fear, no more bad days. Ever.
Because I dont know about you, but some days, I wake up in that bad place. And if only it were as neat as saying, 'Oh yes, yesterday at the market when that woman was rude to me, that must be why I am lost in a fog wanting to kill myself today.' Uh huh. Sure. Sometimes my brain chemicals just do their thing, and, blip, the world is a very scary place again.
Anyway, I want to share my story here. I want to share my survival skills and I want to share my tools for living. I learned some good things from my trauma counselor at the psych hospital. (I think she is one of the few therapists who ever truly got what was going on with me. ) I hope that you will feel free to share with me too. Because one of the scariest parts of depression is it wants us all to itself. Wants us isolated and alone. Abusers do that to us too. They tell us lies, tell us we are no good, we are unworthy, we are guilty, culpable, at fault (it was not until I left my abusive x that i learned the things he was doing to me were ILLEGAL; he always told me that if i called the cops on him he would tell them it was all my fault--and the sorry thing is, i believed him!). But that's how it works--we hear that crap over and over enough times and we begin to believe it. Especially if we have heard it since we were small children. That's how it has been for me.
I dont have any easy answers and I dont have any magic. I dont think I know it all. I just know I have survivied. I also know some days my brain is lost in a fog and I cant think and I hear those lies all over again and I believe them. I am not trying to convert anyone but I must speak my truth: God has helped me. God has rescued me. God rescues me every day. All I have to do is cry out in prayer. And bingo he is there. I have nothing left but God, in some ways. I have hit the wall in all the other places--drink fails, drugs fail, sex fails, men fail. Even well-meaning friends can fail us by not being available or not being able to understand. (If i had a dollar for every time I tried to call someone when i was in crisis and no one answered their phone.....) Anyway, I dont expect people to drop everything and save me over and over again and I tend to avoid hospitals and health care workers like the plague. I would not call myself normal and I would not hold myself up as an example of how to live. I am rather solitary, I prefer the company of animals and children to adult humans, and I walk everywhere. I do not have a car. I hate cars. I live in a small village, not someplace with good public transportation. I did not say i am 100% sane. But as my daughter has described me, I am "crazy but not in a selfish way." I am just the kind of person Jesus loved. Just the kind of person he welcomed and hung out with. And that simple truth, friends, makes me feel quite okay.
Until next time, I am your friend, Rozenkraai
I am a 49 year old single mother. I have been raising my 17 year old daughter pretty much on my own for the last 9 years. I have experienced and been challenged by depression since I was 12. I was abused by my parents as a child, and in a typical pattern, I grew up and selected, unconsciously, a few intimate partners to abuse me too. I have also abused myself, trying desperately and earnestly to die for many years. Too much drink, too many drugs, too much not giving a shit. I still have days when I walk in front of cars while crossing the street, thinking that if someone hits me, it will 'make my day'. I actually look at the cars, challenging them with my stare, challenging them to hit me. Tell me that aint nuts.
I deal with PTSD. I have had 3 breakdowns in my adult life, the last one occurring 5 years ago. I have come to the brink of financial ruin. I will probably never be given another credit card by any major credit card company, but I own my own home. I work at 2 jobs to keep the roof over our head. I have been lost, I have been found. And yes, God has been a big part of that--the being found part, that is--but so have people and animals and nature and music and writing. Also pharmaceuticals and herbs and vitamins and simple exercise, also simple exercises in faith. I have been there and done that, gone around the bend and back again, lost my mind, found it, lost it again.
But I have also found a path in life that sustains and nourishes me. Somehow, through all this, I have clearly discovered my purpose in life. I know my call. I know what gifts I have to give. And, I actually think I know what I need to do to stay healthy. That last breakdown was too scary, that falling out of control too overwhelming. I have a child to raise. I have animals to care for. God has a plan for me. And, I want to share my story, my struggles and my joys and my triumphs here with you, because if you were drawn to this blog, then maybe we have something in common. Maybe we have something good to share with each other.
See, the funny thing about all this, the thing that continues to fascinate me, is that to other people, I look like someone who is strong and together and whole. I look healthy. I do not look like someone who is always at the risk of falling apart inside. Remember when the Trade Towers fell so gracefully to the ground on 9/11? How they fell straight down, almost neatly?That's what it is like inside of me when I fall apart. But people often don't believe me when I don't feel well. I have heard so many times the refrains familiar to depressives everywhere: "Get over it." "Snap out of it." "Oh come on, it can't be that bad, can it?" Or how about these, "What are you doing for yourself? What do you think set this off? Are you on medication?" As if there is some magic pill out there that will make it all better. NO more doubt, no more fear, no more bad days. Ever.
Because I dont know about you, but some days, I wake up in that bad place. And if only it were as neat as saying, 'Oh yes, yesterday at the market when that woman was rude to me, that must be why I am lost in a fog wanting to kill myself today.' Uh huh. Sure. Sometimes my brain chemicals just do their thing, and, blip, the world is a very scary place again.
Anyway, I want to share my story here. I want to share my survival skills and I want to share my tools for living. I learned some good things from my trauma counselor at the psych hospital. (I think she is one of the few therapists who ever truly got what was going on with me. ) I hope that you will feel free to share with me too. Because one of the scariest parts of depression is it wants us all to itself. Wants us isolated and alone. Abusers do that to us too. They tell us lies, tell us we are no good, we are unworthy, we are guilty, culpable, at fault (it was not until I left my abusive x that i learned the things he was doing to me were ILLEGAL; he always told me that if i called the cops on him he would tell them it was all my fault--and the sorry thing is, i believed him!). But that's how it works--we hear that crap over and over enough times and we begin to believe it. Especially if we have heard it since we were small children. That's how it has been for me.
I dont have any easy answers and I dont have any magic. I dont think I know it all. I just know I have survivied. I also know some days my brain is lost in a fog and I cant think and I hear those lies all over again and I believe them. I am not trying to convert anyone but I must speak my truth: God has helped me. God has rescued me. God rescues me every day. All I have to do is cry out in prayer. And bingo he is there. I have nothing left but God, in some ways. I have hit the wall in all the other places--drink fails, drugs fail, sex fails, men fail. Even well-meaning friends can fail us by not being available or not being able to understand. (If i had a dollar for every time I tried to call someone when i was in crisis and no one answered their phone.....) Anyway, I dont expect people to drop everything and save me over and over again and I tend to avoid hospitals and health care workers like the plague. I would not call myself normal and I would not hold myself up as an example of how to live. I am rather solitary, I prefer the company of animals and children to adult humans, and I walk everywhere. I do not have a car. I hate cars. I live in a small village, not someplace with good public transportation. I did not say i am 100% sane. But as my daughter has described me, I am "crazy but not in a selfish way." I am just the kind of person Jesus loved. Just the kind of person he welcomed and hung out with. And that simple truth, friends, makes me feel quite okay.
Until next time, I am your friend, Rozenkraai
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