Gratitude for 25 years ago today

When I walked into my first AA meeting - age 23 - trembling, shocked, not knowing where the fuck I was or why.  People it seemed to me wearing far too many pastel colors, though in reality it was probably just that everyone wasn't wearing black...but it was 1986, so maybe pastels...

Scared shitless, sure I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake but then that still, small voice saying calmly and persistently: stay.  Just sit down and stay.  This is where you belong.  The running is over now.  Just stay.

A week earlier I had gone to my first Al Anon meeting, which is for family and friends of alcoholics - because my mother kept saying I should try that because she had just begun AA herself after 2 disastrous years staying dry on her own, which led to a horrendous slip drinking a 'sip of champagne' that ended in drunkenness, a black out and a date rape.

I thought she was mad.  But I was desperate.  I walked into Al Anon and felt at home, people talking about feelings and thoughts I thought were only mine.  And apparently no, millions felt that way, or at least the people in that room...

But without getting into all the details, that led me to AA, when I realized I too was an alcoholic, and because of that one moment, which for some weird reason stuck, I am still sober 25 years later, and alive.  Sober longer than the young man I heard qualify at a writer's meeting tonight has been alive.  He is 18 - and sober 3 years...and has as harrowing a story as anyone else in the room.

And he sounded just like my BCC kids I'm teaching now in the Bronx.

I am just so overwhelmed with gratitude...for being alive, for this fucking FREE program that saved my life and asks nothing in return - suggests I stick around for my own good and pass it on - but I could (and have) just fuck off and no one would come running after me.  No money, no leaders...it just shouldn't work but it does and it saved my life and that of millions of other people.

How is it possible?  These gifts?  And why do I think I should have even the tiniest little bit to say about how my life should go when I have been given such a gift FOR FREE and with no strings attached.  There is just nothing like it I've ever encountered on this earth.

There may be other things like it, but I've never seen it.

I have felt so sad at times over these past years due to losses of things, some of which have been large, but compared to this gift, they are small.  I have been offered, was offered and was given the grace to receive a gift of life 25 years ago.  And I am alive, still.  And sober.  And that just fucking amazes me.

Why me?  I don't know.  And I mean this in the 'why did I get this gift' way not the bring in the violins way.  No one deserves it more than another and God/dess knows not everyone receives it.  This will always remain a mystery.

And why do I get to now live in a Gorgeous part of NYC with bright orange red yellow leaves, a wetland, egrets, ducks, geese, eagles, bluejays, squirrels and all manner of beauty of rivers colliding, turning, churning still in Manhattan but the tip top tip and able to walk to work across a bridge over the Harlem River and I feel like Walt Whitman about this town which I love love love love love with a passion that makes no sense, which of course means it is love because why on earth would you love something any other way...and would it be love, no...

and I've sat through the loneliness and the discombobulation and there will be more of all that and the emptiness where Bill used to be and all of that...and there will be more but there is now also this - this sense of gratitude of joy of love and loving too the hardness of my work, the struggle to teach (sometimes and sometimes I just want to kill them all!) but then there it is - there they are - my kids.  Not my kids but yes my kids...squirming out of seats, bilingual, English as a 2nd 3rd god knows what language, ADHD, learning disabled, freaking the fuck out, can't stop talking - 18-20 at a time, trying to teach of all things interpersonal communications...

and then the moments when at least one them Gets something and I cry almost, can't believe it - it's So Hard and I'm not writing writing...just dog paddling to keep up with my life cheered on in my heart by Rick Moody's words - no you don't need a writing schedule you just write when you can and the rest of the time: live.  If you don't live what the fuck will you write about?  Amen brother.

And there's even a cat, a cat I want to adopt who is still coming out of his shell in Washington Heights and who's original saver I've now met in AA of all things by amazing coincidence...

And so what could be better?  To love where you live, what you do and to be so fucking grateful to be alive and love love love everything and everyone I see...I know this probably sounds almost delusional but it's not.  It's real.  And it's fantastic...

And it is REAL.  There is nothing fake or fluffy about this.  That's just amazing.

So thank you Universe all the gods and goddesses and all of you in my life who have manifested for this life of mine...I am so grateful to you All...

love...blessings...and more love....

hello briefly

somehow I've managed to say most of what I need to say publicly or in a journal.  I should have made this blog truly anonymous for truly private thoughts but did not, so other than family stuff from the past there's not much to write about in here.  Except perhaps overt recovery stuff as well...

But for now, I have moved back to NYC and am starting a new life, which is occupying a lot of my time and thought and just keeping up with the most basics of that on my public blog has taken up all my time.

I may use this again at some point...

and just as an update on family stuff - my mother and current step father ended up apologizing for their response to my blog and told me it was a good thing, so am glad of that.  My ex-stepfather did not budge and so we are not speaking right now.  Not sure that's the best response but right now it's the only one I've got.

I haven't had time to write on a deeper level, am peddling old writing around right now and teaching a lot at a school, which is a college, but has a lot of remedial learning kids so it's a challenge.

I am definitely Occupied...speaking of which the most exciting thing in the world right now is Occupy Wall Street and its spawn...I've never felt so optimistic about politics like ever...not traditional politics but this movement - it's tenacious, striking a chord, telling the truth and not going away...

and, thank Christ, it's NOT ironic...it's real, committed and organic.

Amazing...didn't think I'd live long enough to see this happen.

All power to the Occupation.

be well.

let the rage begin

OK, so I've shifted back from my public blog to here for personal stuff because my goddamn family has attacked me for going public with the precious fucking family secrets - of abuse, alcoholism and the like.  I am furious.  So I'm no longer writing about it in public because I know one thing - this level of fury makes for really shitty writing.  And it's ugly and I warn you now - if you can't fucking handle it, don't even bother reading this post.  Really, it's fine because if I get any moralizing comments I might scream.

I was the victim of a brilliant good cop bad cop pincer movement that just fucking cornered me.  We have my step-father (ex-step-father, the gay playwright one) attacking me, and I mean Attacking me by email, with an email that began and I quote "Fuck you, Julie..." and went downhill from there, telling me if I want to tell my incest story, I should take my second father to court and that my blog was a 'drink I had not thought through' among other choice shit.

Then, after telling my mother how angry I still was about some things because my current step-father chose to share an email with her I had sent to him that clued her into this not very well kept secret, she decided to back away, and that was fair enough, but then when I sent something about feeling her love, too, she sent me back an email saying she was glad and hoped this was the start of 'a new beginning' - which means: wherein I am suddenly not angry and don't feel compelled to talk about anything.

My current step-father meanwhile was accusing me of flogging my mother, which I think is completely unfair, and on and on and on...

Anyway, in the end, I decided that if I were to continue to try to talk about any of the past on my public blog it would be so infected with the anger I Now feel because of this blatant attempt at silencing me that I could no longer write about anything in a way that was not vengeful and because of the fucking principles of my fucking sobriety I can't get away with that shit and I know it.

God, I HATE that.

So, here I am back at my anonymous blog venting my spleen to probably some person sleepless in the Philippines or something wondering why on earth she's reading this bullshit and for that I do apologize.  But don't say I didn't warn you.

Damn it damn it damn it...it's not bad enough children suffer abuse but then if those same children want Any kind of relationship with their parents afterwards they have to suffer this crap if they want to talk about it in public.  This SUCKS.

And my husband has basically dumped me, just as background to all this, so I feel like dog shit anyway, and no word from him like ever asking if I'm OK or anything so it's just me alone and feeling like crap.

OK, not totally alone, there are some of you out there that have access to this blog who have been Fucking Amazing to me, incredibly loving and kind and supportive as I have Ranted and Raved and Ranted some more.  And to you I am beyond words grateful and if it weren't for you, and most of you of course are in AA, because of course you are almost the the only people on the planet who can understand how it feels to go through all this crap without the anaesthesia.

Damn, am I ever fucking Glad I didn't let go of this blog and that I never stupidly linked it to the public one...Phew, do I need this place to rant and rave...as I wrote my painfully adult sounding professional blog post today I thought my shoulders would adhere to my neck permanently.  Fuck. Fuck Fuck FUCK.

OK, I have to now eat dinner because I keep forgetting to eat and then another inchoate panic starts rising in me about starving to death...I honestly think my blood cells start panicking.

My shoulders are still tight as shit but at least I don't feel like I will suffocate to death...and when I can FINALLY let this shit go meaning the RAGE I will attempt to write again about my background but I think probably in book form so I can get the story written and in a form I want before the fucking peanut gallery can throw their shit at me.

Damn, you know, I really, really, just wanted to let it out in the public blog and be done with it, but that is apparently not to be.  I wish I could just shove them all over to the side and go ahead but right now, I cannot.

I am also not speaking to any of them because they scare me now and I don't want to any way appease them, though I am afraid by changing my public blog I have and I am flogging myself for being a wimp for doing so, but I do believe I have a right to protect myself, even though again I feel like a wimp.  On the other hand, I don't want to be associated forever in the public eye with ranting and raving and am afraid that is what would happen...

Oh DAMN, I hate this...

OK, dinner and thanks for whoever made it through this whole tortured post for witnessing my rage.  And for those of you who have done so in person...

peace and love to you all.

How to Piss Off Everyone in Your Family....

So, my public blog has managed to totally piss off two of my step-fathers and in the process of communicating with them freak out my mother and I cannot believe that telling my own story, and not Even the worst bits has to create all this drama in their minds.

The good news is that it's not going to stop me writing but somehow I don't want the public blog to become all about this so am writing about it here.  I can't believe how much of an unwritten rule I have now broken.  It is this: we will love you as long as you don't say anything about all the abuse that You suffered in public.  Even though it's My story, my stepfather keeps calling it 'outing' people.  I'm not Outing anyone, I'm not a journalist but a human being telling my story.

A good friend today said their over-reaction tells of their guilt and I think she's right.  Plus they are protecting their own feelings and their own parents and their own 'reputations'...but to my mind, this becomes an episode of forget the abuse 'what will the neighbors think'.

Dear God...and now I don't have a fucking clue what To write on the public blog for today...I guess I could go through the beginning of the day wherein I cried for 2 straight hours over my husband leaving. That's always good for a laugh.

Dear God...I really really don't know what to do.

But I need to figure out something as I am committed to writing every day.  I had no idea I was putting my relationship with my family at risk, but if so, so be it...Nothing is worth living in silence anymore.

Please pray for me and my voice, that I don't get cowed and go along with the unwritten rule.

Oi.

Oh, and I wrote an email full of rage to my mother, because I've always tried to be so 'reasonable' about everything, and I threw all my rage at my absent father...but this time, lucky her, she got some.  I just can't fucking take it anymore, protecting her, protecting fucking everyone from my real feelings and what it was actually like to be an incest survivor, be abandoned many times, left with a woman who almost killed me and etc etc...it just goes on...and Then have to be fucking forgiving about it all and Reasonable when talking about anger and kind of apologetic.

Can't do it anymore.  I'm done.

That seems to be the running theme of my life right now: I'm done.

Wonder what begins to happen now as I let go of all the old stuff?

We'll see.

I'm over at my public blog mostly

Hey folks,

I just want you to know I'm posting every day at my public blog and so this one is suffering consequently.  If anyone wants to know that address, feel free to leave a comment with an email or a way to contact you, and I'll give it to you.  Unfortunately, I need to keep this one private so can't disclose my identity publicly here.

In case you can't do that, just to check in briefly - the separation with my husband has happened, it's horrendously painful and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life now - as in what country to live in and suchlike.  I am working on my writing but mostly just blogging and trying to sort through emotional shitstorm...also hoping to get some work soon.  Not sure of anything basically...

On the other hand, have lots of wonderful friends and support that way and so don't feel alone even though it's a lonely journey...

the old joke: when one door closes, another opens but in between is a long dark hallway.  That'd be where I am right now.  

Blessings to you all.

have a cold but feeling better

Hey all,
I've been focusing so much on my public blog that I'm neglecting this one.  Just to say that I have a cold, am in gorgeous Maine and in general am feeling better.

I still don't know the status of my marriage but this trip I am on has made the whole thing a bit easier to deal with as it's put an automatic pause button on the thing.  Also gives me time to feel through stuff without having to put words on it, which is good.

That's the other reason I haven't written much here, am in the time of allowing feelings rather than naming them right away...so many thoughts and sensations and they move a lot and I'm not falling into the temptation of trying to force them into a framework.

So, it's about staying open today....and every day I suppose.

Now to take a shower and a walk in the sun.

sad news...

looks like I will be separating from my husband...more weirdly enough on my public blog...but was feeling OK when posted that and now feeling pretty raw, devastated and like my face hurts.  can't sleep because I just start crying...I know I will be OK but right now the feelings are just pools of endless sadness.

it may not be the end, I know that, but it also may be...I feel like such a total failure on every level right now...

if you believe in that kind of thing, please pray for me, I need it right now.

love and blessings.

some scenes from childhood...

Some scenes from my childhood that I am afraid to share on my public blog but have to get out.  I feel like a loser because I can’t ‘out’ these things out of fear of harming my mother.  However, I also wonder if I’m just fucking myself over by some confessional urge…in any case, I will start by putting them here…

I am getting myself up and out to school, starting age 6.  Sometimes I also try to get my parents up to go to work.

At 10 I am left with a babysitter who almost kills me, and I respond to this by going to school and getting straight As.  I never mention anything about it and no one understands why when David saves me.  I end up feeling guilty for not having gotten myself out of this situation.

I am sitting at a booth in a restaurant with a man behind me groping me and bothering me.  I am about age 11 or 12.  I cannot move.  My mother is watching this and laughing.  She is drunk, stoned or both.

There are more and more men coming home with my mother when I visit from boarding school.  I finally freak out one night and she falls on the floor, crying and saying what a horrible mother she is.  When the man of that night says he will leave, she turns from me and begs him to stay.  

There is the slideshow my father shows when I visit him in California aged 13.  It starts off with leaves in trees and ends up with naked photos of my step-mother.  I sit paralyzed.  She finally tells him to switch off the photos.  He seems to not understand why.

I am naked in a bath with my first step-father.  He has an erection, I don't know what it is but I can see it.  Is my mother there?  She has no memory of this.  It goes blank after that.

OK, so...writing this makes me feel sick.  I feel I am not supposed to tell anyone any of this, even now.   I want to rush and explain a lot of this away, tell you my mother was an alcoholic at the time and is now completely different (which is in fact true), that she had me young (18) and has her own history of trauma (also true), that she is a good person not a monster (also true).  But first, I had to take the risk and tell you this.  I think when I press post today I may be sick...well on the private blog not so much but on the public one I would...

going public is scary

So I am posting everyday on my new blog and found it terrifying for some reason yesterday, not sure what put me over the edge but today will go back to my more private writing project I think.  Am glad I kept this blog going so I have somewhere I can vent in a different way.  Perhaps this is a bit whoosy (sp?) I don't know...

Anyway, hoping to continue along and not get deterred by fear.  Please wish me luck.  This is usually the point at which I exit stage left and say well that was a bad idea and wait for the more socially acceptable option to appear.  I pray for the strength not to do that...

be well everyone.

started a new blog...

Hey all,
I've started a new public blog.  As I want to remain anonymous regarding this one, I can't give you the link, but I'm pretty sure most of you reading this already know me.  If not, and you really want to know the address of the public blog, you can try leaving me a comment here with a way to contact you and I'll do my best.
I may also still post here as there are things I can't really talk about publicly - especially recovery stuff and this would be the place for all that.  But I am not sure how much I will be writing here, so wanted to check in now before I forget.
This has been an amazing ride, and I feel, as with therapy today, in some ways - with this phase - I'm done.  Not as in I'll never grow more or find out more stuff, but there has been an extraordinary change internally and I feel deeply OK, just that: OK.  And like I am OK no matter what.  I've never felt this before in my life.
Something about 'going public' is important too, putting my name on stuff, not hiding in the wings afraid of people knowing my name and what I really feel.  It feels a bit like I've emerged from a cocoon or perhaps shed a skin...all the analogies sound pretty lame, but you get the picture.
I really feel like I've graduated from high-school, especially today, leaving my therapists for the last time after 7 years of work, crying, for the loss of such an amazing person in my life but knowing it was the right thing at the right time.
Now, I'm off to bed as I've blogged til I dropped earlier today on my other blog and need to stop staring at screens...
be well everyone and blessings to all.

just found new family!

Hey everyone,
I have the most incredible news ever.  I just made contact with a huge part of my family that I didn't even know existed because my grandfather changed his name in the 40s because of the Red scare - his boss told him his name was 'too Red' - for anyone too young to understand that it means too Communist, back when the US was even more paranoid than it is now...well maybe about the same, but it was directed to everyone.  So I am suddenly being embraced by a very large, Catholic family as a lost member thereof, which I am.  I will be meeting them when I visit the US in June I think.  I just cried and cried when I got a response to my letters - sent out in hopes they were to the right people, who are all in their late 80s.  They live in the same area my grandparents grew up and I just can't believe I'm going to finally find out what happened - I had heard about the name change but was not sure about spelling or anything and tracked them down using a card sent to my grandmother when my grandfather died - a card that I found in my father's things the week I was in California for his death.

I am completely overwhelmed for so many reasons.  As an only child from a multiple-broken home (many mothers and fathers) I used to envy the kids with big Catholic families.  My grandfather had 14 brothers and sisters!  And I never knew any of them until now.  Only a few are alive but my new great uncle is beside himself with happiness I'm in touch a new cousin is too and I cannot wait to meet them.  It is all reminding me of my grandfather's love, which was the closest to unconditional I had growing up.  And to feel this warm embrace now, in this time of my life which I'm in such transition and doing all this research on my grandmothers is just amazing.

The card I used to track them down was sent my a great aunt who died last November but who arranged for mass to be said for my grandfather when he died in the early 90s for a year.  And from her name and that fact I started searching and I found them through her obituary.  I wish I had started the search earlier to meet her.  Perhaps she is the one who has guided me along here, it could be.  I know that may sound hooey but I believe in that type of thing...

I am old enough that the family and love embrace means so much.  I have only recently begun feeling the cool chill of having been an only child and the lack of support or just allies in my life.  My father was an only child too and so it's a shame he lost all these cousins in the name-change and what appears like some kind of icing out of this family....who's decision was that?  My grandmother's?  I really don't know.  I will find all this out soon enough, but right now just finding out who these wonderful folks are that are being so loving and trusting and Embracing.

Wow is all I have to say.  Wow.  I keep crying - with happiness - the big Catholic family I always dreamt of as a child and suddenly, it's here.  I never knew I had one.  What an amazing gift.

Wishing you all many blessings.

I heard the news today....

So, woke up to news of Osama Bin Laden having been killed,  and as I lived in NYC most of my life up until 2003, I was moved to tears...not 'of joy'...I don't even know what of...but I am reminded of 9/11 and the sadness of that day and the sense so many of us had that we never wanted to see anything like that ever again - anywhere.  So it is a mixed feeling.

I knew then - even when it was happening - that the US had a hand in it - not in the conspiracy theory way, but in the sense of our foreign policy in the Middle East making this kind of reaction at some point almost inevitable.  That it would be so incredibly masterfully planned and executed, that I did not in any way predict.  But I was as terrified as everyone else and as devastated as everyone else for long afterwards.

I now live in London in a neighborhood with a large Muslim population some of whom are radical some of whom are just wandering around rooting for their football teams.  Some of the people who supposedly wanted to blow up planes using liquid in shampoo bottles came from around the corner.  They were teenagers wearing track suits and frankly didn't seem too capable of their attacks if their 'martyrdom' videos are anything to go by...

So here I am like usual, seeing and feeling things from many places at once.  The place of the person who had her hometown attacked and smelled the stench of dead bodies and plastic for weeks afterwards - a smell I wish on no one ever.  The person who lives overseas now and sees the US from this POV too.  Who wonders about the people wandering around yelling USA today - that in their teens and 20s, who saw 9/11 when they were 12 or 13 and must believe a monster has been slain.

And the part of me that on that day 9/11 decided to commit myself on the deepest possible level to non-violence even if it was fucking terrifying...not that day, that's a lie...a couple weeks later.  I read Gandhi and began to realize how hardcore that man was...what kind of faith is necessary to be non-violent and that it means risking death.  I knew I wanted to be that, was not sure if I was as hardcore...but I did commit to this: attempt to disinvest from the patriarchy on a molecular level...

This is what I have been attempting since then...it's almost 10 years later...have I?  I don't know, honestly.  I weirdly enjoyed watching the royal wedding, which seems to disqualify me on the face of it - felt some kind of awe at the continuity it implied and was drawn in by the emotions of any wedding of anyone...but also as some who comes from broken everything and lives in a global capitalist world beset by trends and planned obsolesence, the tenaciousness of the monarchy alone is somewhat awe-inspiring...

which means I have definitely Not disinvested from the patriarchy at a molecular level.

What I have done is this: managed to begin to observe myself without judgment or less judgment anyway - decided to that these emotions I have are simple those - they are the weather and not the atmosphere.

I am writing now, a lot, and letting go of millions of expectations I have felt of myself both externally and internally imposed...I am letting of 'the image of me' - it's just crumbling.  Somehow this seems more important than any ideological stance...it feels alive and well alive...

And so I cried when I heard the news that Osama bin Laden was killed.  And that means...I don't know. I wonder if I will move back to New York.  I wonder where I will be in a few years.  I really don't know.  Right now what's most important is my writing and my finding the last living relatives of my dead grandparents...

A couple days ago tracked down a lot of people and need to start writing letters...found the war death record of my grandmother's brother killed in a Destroyer by a Kamikaze at the battle of Okinawa.  My grandfather worked on the Manhattan project - as an admin person...he was too small to go to war and changed his name at his boss's request because it was 'too Red' - those are the relatives I'm trying to track down and find out if they are related or adopted parents...so murky...

and I have a cousin once removed and her husband who are Palin supporters of all things...so I definitely need to talk with them and find out how on earth that works.  My grandparents on that side were Nixon supports though, they were the hardcore who during Watergate said 'Ah, they're all liars, he just got caught.'  And so he should have been left alone presumably.

The other side of my family are as virulent democrats, so there you have it...class/political warfare American style, internecine, irrational, angry...strains like viruses...apparently I, like most Americans, am a mutt...a conflagration (I use that word on purpose) of all of these strains...identifying with some, trying to damp down others and then they rise again...a crazy quilt of emotions and loyalties.

When I was young and living with my left-wing mother and 3rd father, I was a Republican and Baptist - no shit.  I argued for this stuff pretty violently.  I got over it when I was 16 and doing a history paper on Iran.  It was 1979 and the hostages were being held in the embassy after the first big islamic revolution, and my history prof said why don't you check out the CIA's involvement in 1953, which being a good student I did...and all my political ideas changed...I saw the cynicism of US foreign policy and went ballistic (also used on purpose that word...), and turned into a left wing activist for many years after that.  Like usual my timing was impeccable - in the 1970s when US was liberal, I was conservative, when US was about to go all Ray-gun, I turn into someone who my mother proudly told her friends was 'somewhat left of Mao'...in her circle, this was a good thing.

And now?  I write a lot...I am sorting through a lot.  I still hold non-violence as the highest ideal, even if I don't know if I'm capable of it.  I know that I never want anyone to suffer what we did in NYC on 9/11 and I know the US has inflicted that type of suffering on others and that makes me sad.  The UK too, don't worry I'm not delusional and think it's all crunchy granola over here, cause it's definitely Not.  But I still vote in the US and am still American in the end...so feel more responsible for that.

It's a beautiful day here in London - blue skies, gorgeous just like on 9/11.  I hope my neighborhood doesn't kick off today, it could.  I will walk outside tentatively and see what the mood is.  I hope there is not some big crackdown and helicopters everywhere.  I hope that the young amazing people leading the various revolutions in the Middle East are the future - extraordinary courage, commitment for the most part to non-violence and an ability to die for a cause, simply to get out from under soul-destroying dictatorships.  God bless them...whatever 'god' - I don't care I really really don't...

Oh please, this is my prayer to the universe or Whoever - let this day someone bring peace and not what I fear which is more violence...please let the US begin withdrawing from the places it has no business and and and.....you know, I know you know...I don't need to say these things out loud.

feeling much better now

Hi folks,
Just a note to say that sitting through the blues has done the trick as usual...that and doing some writing and cleaning my office and enjoying the weather...also burned a bunch of papers that had to do with some counseling I did around my abortion a while back, and then planted the ashes underneath a plant a friend gave me in the garden.  This felt right and like it unlocked some energy that was quite stagnant and had to do with lingering guilt and shame.  Only afterwards did I realize it was Easter and somehow this seems appropriate as the counseling was by a lovely but somewhat Christian lady who I think figured the only way to recover from abortion is to repent.  This was a weird situation and one I decided to walk through because of my Baptist background, and I think it was the right thing to do, but I think in some ways it made me feel worse, so the point is burning all the writing I did for that seemed right...releasing energy trapped in an unhealthy process and releasing the remnants of guilt and shame.  And it worked, which is amazing.

Also, feeling more and more grounded by the day in what I am doing...sometimes feeling sad about the theatre company but then all I have to do is think about what I would be having to do right now to keep it going and then poof the regret is gone.  It doesn't mean I won't do theater again but it does mean I'm done with this manifestation, and that's OK.  Also realizing how many writing ideas I have and how many projects I want to work on so this is clearly the path...

Right now editing down the piece I posted here about my father's death.  I may send it out for possible publication, and it would need to be half the length, so it's turned into an excruciating and incredibly good writing exercise to do this.  I worked for about 6 straight hours on it yesterday and did not finish, but felt a sense of accomplishment somehow...I think I will need to do this mix of the long projects and the short ones.

So I'm basically feeling quite good, and in a simple way.  Freer than in ages and like I'm doing what I'd be doing if someone told me I had terminal cancer.  This is a very good feeling.  Today was about cleaning on many levels and that seems right too...

Onward we go...feeling rooted in some firmer soil,  amazing...I am just amazed...

Happy Easter!  or Passover or Whatever it Is you celebrate...It's a lovely day.

the public and private dilemmas...

hey there,
So now I've made it more public letting go of my theatre company and it feels quite vulnerable and like i've given in to the forces of darkness or something.  like I'm Cool Hand Luke and this time just gave up on the fight, so it's not a fun feeling.
I am continuing my writing, which is good, but also overwhelmed with how much I still have to learn in this arena.  i've written one kind of thing and now doing something else, stretching way past a comfort zone so that feels vulnerable and scary too.
and i'm realizing again that of course being vulnerable, really being vulnerable is scary and uncomfortable. I think I used to believe in some kind of controlled vulnerability or something, but that's bullshit.  So I am really out here now, really feeling naked and like I'm in one of those horrible dreams where you can't remember your lines or are naked or don't know what to do, except it's real.  Scary.
I have had a huge realization though in the midst of all this massive uncomfortableness...(otherwise known in the English language as discomfort, but there you go...I'm such a writer...hmpf)...
- pause for skype conversation with husband in yet another foreign city  - and back:
so the realization - is that the reason I ended up here in a place as weird as the UK, if you happen to be American and a writer and therefore used to a certain idiom that then makes no sense where you happen to live now, etc., etc...- is that I needed to get to the place I am now: no props or lighting effects to show me in a certain light of my choosing so you can like me and affirm me in a certain way, etc.  In other words, it's up to me to generate my own oxygen.  I think traditionally people have this realization when they are approximately 2 1/2 years old.  I'm just 45 years late is all.  There are reasons for that, but the fact is I missed that crucial stage of development and whilst embarrassed it's taken this long I'm relieved it's happened at all.  This means perhaps I don't have to live my life as an unconscious codependent and can allow things to fall as they may...and that means me as well as other people.
There's a slogan in AA (there are lots of them and they sound dumb but they hide wisdom weirdly enough...) 'Live and let live.'  I got the 'let live' part ages ago but I forgot the 'live' part, and so the 'letting live' was happening in bad faith with an unconscious wish for the person I was so 'generously' letting live to help me live.  None of this was overt, stated or in any way asked for by me, except in this really underhanded (even to myself) way...this is the tricky bit about denial.  It's actually denial.  You don't know it until you know it.  Scary shit.  I find it excruciatingly embarrassing that it happens when I'm sober as well.  OK, if you're drunk or officially a mess, but sober, in therapy and 'recovery', meditating, doing yoga, you name it and STILL this nonsense...but there you go.  I think it may be called being human, but I also think in my case this change is crucial, and I am grateful for the realization.
So thank you UK for leaving me here bereft of my props, lighting, sound effects and clever little tricks... it's fucking scary but now I have a bat's chance of actually living.  Life begins at 47 or whatever...
OK, got to get ready for yoga now.  I hate going but I always feel better when I've done it...

Into the World! Scary...

Hey there,
a brief post to say that I have just sent out my first short story to a journal for publication.  The last time I sent out a short story I was 14 years old and it was a Christmas story contest at our local newspaper.  I won that contest and even received some money.  Haven't had the guts since!  Sent it to a publication I've read since the 1990s and never even dared dream would publish anything I wrote.  I now feel nauseous.  However, I have sent it out there, into the Big Bad World...scary, scary...

Wanted to say this out loud and hoping moral support will get me through the nerves of waiting for a response.  Mostly, you have to submit these things to one place at a time.  This means I have to have patience (ha!) and begin work on the big project I want to start and have photos all over my room to begin. Now just have to - well - start.  And finish!  I have 3, count them 3! unfinished novels sitting around.  So, this one, I am scared of starting lest it end up in the Incomplete section as well...

OK, enough for now...enjoy the Spring!

Enormous changes for the better....

Hi everyone.  So, I’ve let go of a huge part of my life for the past 7 years, namely a theatre company I started.  And whilst I feel very sad about this, I also feel a profound sense of relief.  I am focusing now on my writing and feel like I’m finally on the ground again and living the life I want to live rather than one I’ve felt obliged to live.  My AA sponsor’s response to all this was: you sound like you’ve been de-institutionalized and indeed I have.

I have a short story almost ready to submit to some places.  Waiting to do one last edit and also see if I can get some feedback from a couple more people before I do that, but was given a ‘deadline’ by someone I met online to send it out by April 12 to one place.  So I will do this, because that sounds right.

I’m embarking on some new other projects that are larger but also feel peaceful and right.  I may even start a blog with my name on it, but not sure about that yet.  We’ll see.

I feel strong and like I’m living the life I would want to be living if I found out I had terminal cancer.  I know that sounds extreme but it’s always my test as to whether I’m living properly or not.  And I could not say that for many years.  I had a theatre company a while back that also ended and when that happened I said to myself ‘I’ll never do That again’ and felt the way I feel now – much happier and relieved, though sad to let go of something I had worked so hard to build.  Apparently, I had to do some more research in this area…and I can only pray to the gods and goddesses of Good Sense that I don’t feel the need to research this area again.  I know I suck at producing and doing admin.  I knew it before and I know it again.  I hate it.  So, clearly some masochism takes over…I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back and focused on something that is Not a group sport and able to put my name on a creative process without worrying about it.  I think I may be far too codependent in the end to be a good theatre director.  Not sure about that, but I worry.  I think I’ve gotten better on that score, but still…anyway, for now, for now, it’s the writing.  And what a relief.

And it’s scary too because now I have no excuses for Not doing it, and I think even writing this blog is a bit of a feint to avoid some writing today if I’m honest.  But we’ll call this writing for now….

Have not heard back from the step-father mentioned in last post and don’t expect to hear from him.  Realize now writing the letter was the important part not the response.  I have one last thing to do in the outside world to finally come to peace with everything, that involves someone from my more recent past, and as I know I’m willing to have that meeting and conversation, that’s enough, don’t have to force it.

Will most likely end therapy on schedule at end of April consequently, as I feel quite strong and even when I’m whacked off-beam, I seem to be able to find my own way back.  This is a great feeling.  Interestingly too, now that I feel at home with myself, I find myself caring a lot less about where I live.  At home is about me not the outside world.  Amazing.  I remember a yoga teacher saying something to that effect and thinking yeah right whatever, but I think now she’s right.  Again, what a relief…

And it’s Spring!  And there are flowers all over my back garden and wild flowers in the un-mowed grass and it’s just lovely.  I feel the seasons so much more the older I get, it’s so interesting that.  I feel the light and darkness shifting and really take in the changing of the seasons.  The light has been spectacular the last few days, twilight extraordinary and organge pink red sunsets over crappy shopping malls…and the sunset wins, thank God/dess.

Oh and I taught some lovely young people on Saturday – was dreading it actually, but then remembered, I love this age group and I did.  I taught them some of my theatre techniques and they rocked the house.  16 year olds are the best.  I found it easier teaching them than university aged students.  They are open, willing, able, fearless…lovely, lovely, lovely.  So that was just exciting and a real bonus prize.

OK, off to the ‘real writing’ now…she said bravely.  Hope whoever is reading this is well and happy.  Things can change, this much I know.  Thanks for reading and listening.

the letter to the abuser routine....

Hey there,
So just realized when sending an email to a friend that I should make this public.  I've sent a long letter to my first step-father, the sexually abusive minister one.  I have many step-fathers if you don't know that already, so making a distinction here.  I asked him to fill in the blanks for me, as I have many blanks.  I have no idea if he will do this or, more likely, deny everything, or what.  I haven't laid eyes on this man since I was 13 or 14.  Hadn't seen him since I was 6 before that.  Even at 13 or 14, I thought, wow he's just this older man, not intimidating at all.  He had been this giant scary person when I was little.  I remember a story he told then, when I was a teenager, about handing in a paper at university to a teacher and realizing he would either fail or get an A because it was so controversial, what he had done.  He got an A, of course (which is of course why we would be hearing the story) and I took that on board.  As kind of a guiding principle my whole life.
This is the weirdest thing about this person in my life.  His politics were very left-wing and absolute at the time.  We had to go to Canada to get meat that was less imperialist and he yelled at his congregation/s for saying they were Christians and supporting the Vietnam war (we had to move all the time because he would get kicked out of the churches consequently, by the Trustees who were none too pleased to be lectured at by their supply pastor).  I remember all of this, and anyone who knows me now would recognize certain features...so it is odd that he was also the most abusive person in my early childhood in many ways.  I think people leave imprints in many ways.
So I have reached out to this person, in hopes of the blanks being filled - what, so I will be whole?  I suppose this is my hope.  Is it a a vain hope?  Perhaps.  There is an icy tundra in me, I feel it at times acutely and I want it to melt...but at times, like now, it feels like perma-frost.  my therapist keeps assuring me I am moving forward that these are toxic feelings coming up and I hope she's right.
I'm also somewhere between paranoid and just plain weirded out by my relationship with others right now.  Afraid that the dark times I'm in are alienating people...then finding out directly from some that my way has been difficult for them...no overt hostility but a kind of impending sense of doom, that I am not a good friend somehow or failing even in this...it's weird though because I have other friends where that is not the case at all.  however, in the state I'm in now anyone with a negative view of me wins the contest for who am I 'really'....and those with whom I can share things honestly and openly, well that just gets thrown by the wayside, which is of course deeply unfair.
Right now, I must say, the folks who I can relate to best tend to be in AA, which makes sense, as I think we are all more forgiving of each others' foibles in general and understand more than most where the jagged edges come from...but that's not entirely true either...
Oh, the shame in writing this!  The sense that I'm saying I'm a horrible friend and others don't like me so I will be shunned by the other girls in school like when I was little...WOW, amazing that that shame is still there, lo these many years later...
And of course the shame of the abuse when I was too little for school and we lived in rural countryside where there was no one to see or hear what went on...the attempt to hide that damaged child, the permafrost...seeing her in there now, suffocating wanting out, not knowing how to allow it to happen, how to warm up the ice.  Christ on a stick this is hard.

Not sure if writing this will help or hurt but writing it anyhow...this was the original point of this blog being anonymous to let out what could not go anywhere else.

A friend said who does the same it's outwarding rather than inwarding and I think she's right.  I've probably already written that here before but so be it.

OK, out into the wilderness with this...before I chicken out.

darkness visible...

So, have been going through a very dark time but after therapy yesterday realized that of course it's feelings from when I was very little and could not afford to have those feelings.  They manifest in me today as being 'beyond help' but of course this is indeed how I was a little girl and infant 'beyond help' - because no one was there to help, no one could even if they wanted to as they did not have the capacity - both my parents being alcoholics and quite young and no one else knowing what to do or trying to do things they thought were right only making it worse.
My step-father, later on, was sexually abusive and we were stuck in rural Maine moving all over the place, moving targets, left-wing, righteous, etc.  I was 3-6 years old and helpless...not 'powerless' but actually helpless and my higher power, whatever s/he is couldn't help me either.  I was truly alone.  This is the feeling I've been having recently in a 47 year old body, which is mighty uncomfortable and manifests in fun ideas such as 'you're such a failure' and other such constructive thoughts and feelings.  The feeling sense is being in a fog, with no ground or horizon and yet quite heavy and leaden...an oppressive fog - which is of course not dissimilar from London weather, so at least I can feel at one with nature as it were.
I am writing all this now in hopes it can help someone else going through a similar time because I know when I'm in the middle of it, it just feels horrendous and very real (the feelings are real of course, but the reality field is a bit wonky in terms of age and circumstance) and I felt at times these past couple of weeks that it would never pass.  I am apt to fall into it again as it's obviously some necessary part of the healing process but just Knowing it's that already lightens the load considerably.
I have not gone into workaholism, which blows my mind.  I am going about basic tasks and am now back to eating OK.  I was eating not so well for a bit but that seems to have passed.   For now.
I have been rejected for two residencies, but for one was at least encouraged to apply again next year, so will take that as a good thing.  The other was the generic kiss off.
Will be teaching my workshop at a conference tomorrow that I've been asked to contribute to, so that is a good thing.  Paid as well.  Hurray.
The other good news about the residency rejections is that I will be able, in theory anyway, to spend more time with my husband, who is now away until April.  I say in theory because there is every chance he'll keep having to travel, but at least this way there is a chance.
It's raining out but I feel so profoundly relieved to have some sense of what's going on with me, that's OK too...and it gives me a good excuse to sit inside, enjoy the well-heated cozy little place I live and count my blessings, starting with: at least I don't live in Japan right now.
Blessings to all and courage, too, to walk through the darkness.  It does make us stronger.  My analogy right now is that Downton Abbey (yes I watched it, I confess - my neighbors gave me the DVD, that's my excuse...) where the sober drunk valet throws away this horrendous contraption he's had on his leg to attempt to make it straighten.  He hides the pain until the head housekeeper forces him to show her his leg, which is bloody and blistering from the screws of this metal cage.  It's her compassionate witness and horror at his pain that allows him to throw it in the river and begin the process of accepting himself as he is.
So that is another wish for all of us: compassionate witnesses who help us shuck off false attempts to fix ourselves in the image of so-called 'normal' brought to us by either local or transnational ideas, sponsored by Pepsi or provincialism...throw off the horrendous metal contraptions!  All we have to lose are our chronic wounds.

Sundays...

hey there,
not sure what I'm going to write about but wanted to say hello out there.  Am working on some writing again, which is good and walked through a pretty dark week after feeling very grateful and light the week before.  Am doing a kind of experiment, which is to not force myself out of this space but instead allow it to be and see what happens.  And even though feeling weirdly vague and unfocused not hopping into some kind of organizing and self-exhoration routine...seeing what emerges organically.  I'm afraid of course that I will fall into some kind of morass and never come out but we'll see.  So far, seeing some interesting results, some rigid ideas being exposed as such and some writing coming into clearer focus tho glacially slowly.  I would like for once to not have the sneaking suspicion I'm doing work of whatever kind, including creative, to just get out of a funk.  Maybe that's too purist of me, don't know.

Anyway, if any of you out there have any experience of this kind of experiment, I'd like to know of it.  And what, if anything came out of it or if you gave in and fed the hungry ghosts of Puritan Work Ethic or Ideas of What One Should Be...etc.  I'd love to stop feeling like food for the undead, if you know what I mean.  I've even had good work come out of me, but I still feel I could go deeper, get to something better by sticking with this somewhat dour experiment.

Or am I just nuts?

Could be.

Also, a shout out to Japan and all the poor people who are suffering or have died and hoping that after this the Japanese will finally be done with nuclear energy.  Of all people, you'd think they would not have drunk the kool-aid on that one after WWII and all.  Dear God.  As Oppenheimer himself said 'I am become death the destroyer of worlds.'  Indeed.

On the other hand, the other lesson from all this is even more simple: prepare all you like, be a wealthy nation and still you are powerless over forces larger than yourself.  Someday I will learn to accept this for real and at that moment I will become happy.

peace out and all that kinda thing.

I'm back...

Hi there,
I have been back from China for a while but got out of the habit of posting here and then wrote something to post but saved it instead and decided it sounded too self-pitying so spared you all that.  I have been told recently though by someone close to me in spirit but not distance that she and her husband do read this blog and it means a lot to her, so I've decided to revive it in her honor.  She is my cousin and has been going through a lot of horrendous health-related things and I love her to bits as she knows...she's the closest I will ever have to a sister, and so cherish her.  And the weird thing is, I know the feeling is mutual, which fills me with tremendous warmth and gladness.  Makes me wish I did have something resembling a family in some more consistent way but my weird patchwork quilt of hand-me-downs, steps and exes will have to do.  Plus my long-distance husband on skype...rumor has it we're married...

However, and this is true, I had an amazing time in China, and won't give a travelogue as I believe they are boring.  It is not however, what you expect if you haven't been there before, and the very difference of well everything made it stick in my mind and dreams for weeks after coming back.  Go if you can, it's something that cannot adequately be described in words but only experienced.

I am as of Thursday, 24 years sober.  That means I have been clean and sober longer than I was even alive when I first walked into AA (aged 23) and had my last slip - on pot - in late Feb or early March (hence sobriety date of March 3) 1987.  Reagan was president, Maggie Thatcher was Prime Minister, there was a Soviet Union that Gorbachev had recently taken over, a Berlin Wall and no one had ever heard of Tienamann (Sp?) Square.  I was a mess and a half...I had come into AA in early November 1986, after a week in Al-Anon...realized I was an alcoholic and decided everyone else I knew was one, too.  This did not go over well, and I faced mass resentment from my friends and roommates.  I tried to straddle two worlds and inevitably had a slip (the aforementioned night high) which I blame more on Tom Stoppard than anyone else, because I was ushering for the determinedly mediocre ACT in SF and they were doing horrible piece of comic tripe by Stoppard and all I could see was the punch line, the audience laughing where expected, the jewels and upper middle class pretension at intelligence and 'wit' and it made me ill.  I ran out of the theatre and wanted to blow it up.  You may think I am exaggerating.  I am not.  Mediocre tripe is bad enough if you can have a couple glasses of wine or beer to take the edge off, stone cold sober, it makes you want to resort to violence.

I went home and got stoned with my friends and roommates, who were mighty relieved at my so-called transgression.  One said "see, your nose didn't fall off" and we all laughed.  Someone took a photo of me that night - the only photo of me taken during that period by my so-called friends, because I was back on their program and in their expectations for me.

For some reason, that didn't leave me wanting more, and I somehow managed to fall apart further, get into therapy, find a boyfriend, lose him and that sadness landed me back into the heart of recovery in AA.  From then on, I took suggestions and did the 'steps' - which if you don't know them you can look them up and if you do, the last thing you need is me saying them over again - and then had a spiritual experience I also can't put into words and never drank again...I did however meet my now ex-husband and made him into my higher power, which was a big mistake - obviously - and that sunk me for years into a codependent fog...which I managed to slough off I think through meditation mostly...too long a story to reiterate here, but he left me when my first play got published and that was that.  Won't go into a song and dance about it here as it always sounds too victim-y and the fact is it takes two and all that.

However, now here I am sober, alive and 47.  It is.  Thank you.  As the African prayer goes.  I'm at it is right now.  In and out of thank you.  I am in 'thank you' for my life, sobriety and love in my life, but can't quite get to 'thank you' when it comes to fertility issues and losses there or some other friend's losses of children or their own health.  It is just has to be enough right now for that.  And it kind of sums it up really, because it is the truth.  It is, not fuck all I can do about it.

And this is the crux of where I am today, having grown up considerably over this past year and realized how much in the back of my mind I was/have been waiting for some kind of 'reward' for being 'virtuous' and 'sober' and 'good' and 'helpful' and 'sticking to my creative vision' etc...and you know what, it doesn't work that way.  Duh.  Well, some of us it takes a while...as they say in AA 'sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly' and I'm a sometimes slowly chick.  Always have been, always will be.  I'm just one stubborn motherfucker and will not learn until I have to learn.

But I have.  I have learned.  It's not about rewards but nor is it about punishment.  There is the freedom.  No one has 'done anything' to me to make me pay, etc...no higher power anyway.  I'm not any better or worse than anyone else.  I'm just me and that's that and you're just you and that's that.  And we have to be enough as is because we just are who we are.

No that doesn't mean no one can change, etc...if I believed that, then how the fuck could I have gotten sober and stayed this way?  No, it's deeper than that...Way deeper than that.  And it's freedom.  When I can have those crystal moments of know the whole carrot-stick routine is so much smoke and mirrors, I am free.  Even if sad at times, grieving at times, relieved at others, sometimes giddy and even joyful...and all the usual stuff in between.  This is it folks.  This is the whole show.

And I get to be here for it, that's the gift of sobriety.  It's a gift in the true sense of the word gift.  It's not a reward because it's not earned.  It's a gift.  I show up for this completely unearned gift by not taking a drink a day at a time, and I get to experience life, all of it, taste it smell it, touch it, hear it, see it, love it even when it fucking sucks.  And oh oh oh I do love it and I love so many people, it hurts.  And I never felt that when I was drinking, not this kind of love.  I felt sloppy sodden sentimental crap but not selfless love, it was impossible.  Not because I was horrible but because I was incapable of it...and even in many ways when I was with my ex I was incapable of it, because I had surrendered my will and my life over to the power of him...that is not love it's slavery and slaves cannot love.  That much is true. And nor can anyone who owns a slave either, btw...so don't think I'm spouting some kind of cod Nietzsche crap.  I actually like Nietzsche but not the cod pseudo-Hitler version to justify any number of atrocities no... And the slavery I mean is not involuntary, as in, you've been physically turned into a slave, I mean the kind where you're an addict, alcoholic or in some way addicted to something or someone...you can't do anything else.

I remember trying to open a beer bottle with my hand once, the top needed an opener, I would not accept this and tried and tried until my hand bled and my friend who was driving pulled the car over to the shoulder of the highway so I could open it using the car door.  She asked me before that if I could wait and I looked at her like she was Insane.  Wait?  Fucking WAIT????  What fucking PART OF ME DO YOU THINK CAN FUCKING WAIT????  I didn't say that but she could tell and drove to the side of the rode.  We were doing to DC to protest something at the time.  because I 'cared' so much...sure, sure whatever as long as I can FUCKING DRINK...

I was 18 at the time.

See why I got sober at 23?  I lost my virginity blind drunk to a player, and was surprised when he wanted me out of his life.  Shocked, shocked.  Also 18.  Bad year.  Bad vintage.  Brought Abbie Hoffman to speak at my university tho, he was mad as a hatter and so was I, perfect for each other.  He killed himself the next year, and I felt guilty cause I hadn't taken a job working with him but went to work in a crappy NYC theatre instead.  Felt selfish and unclean.  Story of my fucking life...

And now, now, I am sober, what the fuck?  Do you see, do you see and can you Feel the miracle of that?  It's insane.  I shouldn't be sober.  My so-called privileged friends from my tony schools I went to on scholarship, so many are dead from drug overdoses and alcoholism...I thought they had it all, but all they had was enough rope to hang themselves.  This disease takes no prisoners and is no respecter of class distinctions...it's vicious, cruel and wanted me dead, still does in fact...but I'm alive, against all fucking odds and my ex, bless him, is out there drinking - he took that rode at 19 years sober - it's his life and journey and all that but it pisses me off for selfish reasons...I don't want to have to worry about him and I'd like to be in touch with him but that doesn't work for me.  He's in a weird place and I can't cope with that.  Our relationship was also, as mentioned above, not in any way shape or form healthy so perhaps it's all for the best.  But still, seems sad to me...also sometimes it can make me jealous, which is insane, but it can...like somehow the alcoholism won out over me Or even worse what if he's 'getting away with it' and I'm the schmuck who's staying sober?  What then?!

And it goes back again and again to this simple dumb thing: I know me, I know I'm an alcoholic, I know for me to drink is to die and as I've heard before and know is true for me: I may have another drink in me but I don't think I have another recovery in me.  This is brutal stuff and I've walked through so much, I don't want to let that go.

Last night, at a meeting, a guy talked about getting sober in prison because when drunk at 16 he almost killed his father who had prior to that almost killed his mother.  He got sober, eventually got out of jail and then watched his 9 year old child get killed by a car last year and his twin sister and 19 year old daughter die of this disease.  And he said 'and I don't have any excuse to drink' and he meant it, and I know that because I've said similar things and that guy, that guy was my hero last night.  And that guy, my friends, is truly hardcore.  I really believe this, there is n blessing like sobriety if you are a drunk and there is nothing more hardcore than living in this world - the one we are in right now, right here - sober.

No windshield.  Indeed.

Thank you all for reading and for those of you who know who you are, thanks for keeping me sober.  I wouldn't trade it, even now.  Even Now.

A quick hello and temporary goodbye

Hi there,
I've been wildly busy and unable to post consequently.  Just finished a major application that if successful would significantly alter my life and the life of others as well, so was amazed and stunned to get it done.  Now, I'm off to see my husband in a country that does not allow me to access this account, so will not be able to post again probably until mid-February.  I will hopefully however keep a running diary offline and post that.  It's exciting, this travel as I've never been to Asia or anywhere outside the 'first world' really, so I was pretty much jumping up and down with excitement last night when printing out the boarding pass.

Right now, though, I have to actually pack as have to leave in a few hours and do last minute things.  So, Happy Chinese New Year everyone!  Let it bring blessings to us all.

Christina Taylor-Green and the Hubble Space Telescope - sadness and gratitude

I almost wrote something the day of the Tucson shootings but am glad now that I did not.  I am haunted as I'm sure many are by the photo of Christina Taylor-Green.  I was the geeky less stable version of her at 9.  If there had been a congress person at a supermarket, I would have been there, absolutely.  But that's not the point.  It's just the utter senselessness of the whole thing, and when I look at her, I just cry and cry.  Maybe because she was also born on 9/11 it makes it even worse.  I was in NYC on that day and had the same reaction to that, I'm having to this - please everyone stop killing each other.  Stop hating and yelling and screaming and especially now that I live in a country without semi-mandatory gun ownership - please put the guns down.

But even that isn't the point, is it?  It's just that these people and in particular, this little girl was killed.  I will admit to being moved by Obama's speech and glad again that he was elected president of my native country and that I was someone who worked for that to happen (in a small way - phone calls and such from here, which was funny - calling people in Ohio from my computer in Europe, trying to sound like I was just around the corner in Columbus or wherever...but hey he got elected and the Ohio Dems keep sending me email).  I did not work for him to be president because I thought he'd be some left-wing super-hero.  I am not that delusional.  I worked for him to be president because of the history of race relations in the US (abysmal), the fact he seemed like a basically decent and intelligent guy and because Sarah Palin is scary.  I think these last few days have given me the sense that in fact I was right about all this.

But OK off the point again...it's hard to stay on the point and so easy to move over into politics...so much easier.  The point is that something like: what? evil?  Can I say that word anymore?  Leviathan?  I have been reading Job a lot recently for my own self...swirls in at times and takes out people.  But this seems particularly horrible.  Why?  Because I know there is rhetoric around available everywhere that lauds this kind of behaviour?  Because this guy was clearly unhinged but then somehow this is how he expresses it which means what exactly?  And it makes me sad because it seems to be yet another expression - no matter 'who' in the literal sense is responsible - for why the American dream (and by that I mean the dream of a real democracy not the dream of having a bunch of stuff) is so precarious and seems in so many ways on the way out.  Or has it ever existed?

I was struck whilst being moved by Obama's speech at the pep rally atmosphere of the clapping.  Kind of an only in the US type of thing at a memorial service.  This weird mixture of the sombre and this celebrity worship that I find so bizarre and endemic to the world right now (and is in fact the focus of so much of my work).  And the fact that there always has to be a happy ending - we will endure, we are the Waltons not the Simpsons kind of thing.  And yet for all that, still being moved that there was an adult who showed up and knew what to say at the right moment and clearly brought some relief to the victims, their families and the town.  America - such a strange project.  Is it on the way out?  I am so afraid it is.  I will be visiting China in a couple weeks - our future I imagine.  The very oldest culture in human history about to usurp the newest.  We do in fact live in interesting times...(the 'ancient Chinese curse'...humorously enough...)

But for all that, I was born in the US and still want to believe in the potential of what she created, and then don't and then do and then don't and then do...and then, because I've lived outside the US for over 7 years, I also know the triumphalism and apocalyptic voices on the left and right are all outsized.  It is just one country amongst many and it is not the only narrative.  Yes, that's true, but still there is a focus on it even now, outsized, outrageous and at times just plain silly.  But it's there.  I feel that here too.  All the young people where I live with their NY (Yankees) caps on and some - the rebels with NYM (Mets) caps on.  These are the underclass here and they desire to be in the US where they perceive things are better and they have more access to a sense of inclusion and belonging.  And in some ways, I think that's true.  If - and that's a big if - they 'made it' somehow, they could be part of the great American project.  That is the difference in the end.  Europe for all its attempts to open out, in the end is only open to itself and has a paternalistic attitude toward 'others' even if it does attempt to care for some.  In the US immigrants have a hard time initially and can even face outright hostility, but once established - which is an inexorable and ultimately unstoppable trajectory - they are accepted.  There are those, and we just got to see them in living technicolor (and one who went too far, who was sick and lost it) who resist this, but the major movements are that - of inclusion and 'we are united' because it is and always will be a country of immigrants.  And at the service for the victims of Tucson the opening blessing was by a man who was half Native American and half Mexican, but 5 generations back.  So that is included too.  When I was growing up, the coolest thing you could have was Native American blood.  I didn't have any but wished I did.  Me, I'm from here - where I live now, again humorously enough.

It is such a puzzle and I'm so sad for Christina Taylor-Green because I know she felt she could be part of this crazy project and she was taken out.  Now she will be held up as a martyr and perhaps her death will usher in some 'new era of civility', but dear God, think of her mother.  Horrendous.  Or that neighbor who brought her to the congress woman's event who survived.  Will she survive surviving?  I hope so, I really do.

And then there's the Congresswoman herself - who gets to be the first female national figure to be assassinated (almost - hopefully her recovery will continue).  Something so weird about that and so sad again.  I love that she opened her eyes when her female colleagues from Congress were in the room - somehow that just seems right.  Even when I was growing up, it would be an unlikely sight - all those congresswomen and a female senator in a room.  And of course Christina Taylor-Green, had she lived, would never have thought there was a barrier to her doing anything - she was even on her Little League Team and was determined to be a MLB player.  I love that.

Yesterday I saw in the paper a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope - my personal favorite piece of technology ever - that showed a green 'blob' that was in fact a supernova - a dying star - that was giving birth to new stars.  That just fills me with awe and makes me understand the book of Job and everything else.  We can got so obsessed with the goings on of our tiny lives and even the tiny lives and travails of our plant, but then there is this - cosmic time and space - where we come from and where we are going to and even that - we don't understand.  And what is dying is giving birth to new things and this seems to be the way this universe works and that is kind of astonishing and kind of like Vishnu who dreams a universe, wakes up and it disappears and then sleeps again and creates a new one, except no 'Vishnu' - just an endless stream of becoming out of dying, which is gorgeous really...

And for those following my little life, I went to neurologist yesterday and he thinks I'm OK maybe migraine symptoms (which apparently can include dizziness and tingly sensations rather than headache) brought on by fall in April but will have MRI next month.  Mighty relieved and glad I will be having scan anyway just to be sure.  But the doctor was good and I liked him.  Felt heard and understood especially about not wanting to take medication forever that I don't need for sure.  Have a feeling these days of being on the right track somehow and being held.  However, my time in terms of sleep is completely whacked.

Speaking of which, time to begin my day in earnest...be well everyone, dance while you can and here's hoping we get to do that in other realms as well...

In memorium

 Now let me remember my father.  A deeply imperfect man as I imagine he would agree if he were alive to do so.  It was a year ago in a few hours or so that I watched him for hours and hours on life support making the agonizing decision, with no one there except a lovely nurse from Scotland or South Africa, I can’t remember which – there was one from Scotland too,  though, Ayreshire, which is where my husband’s family lives.  I was in California, in some weird suburb of the capitol city in a modern Catholic hospital.  I had arrived from the East Coast the night before, outrunning a blizzard, barreling down an airplane aisle so I could just get on a flight in O’Hare going to Sacramento.  The stewardess had asked people to make way for me because I had something urgent to attend to but everyone piled into the aisles anyway.  I said loudly, I need to get through because my father is dying in Sacramento and I have to get there.  I pushed passed people and eventually made it through, blazing a path for a Russian couple with a baby trying to get to the same plane.  They managed to run up ahead, one of them did anyway, so we could board.  And then the miracles started.

Miracle one: when I got off the plane, my father’s bipolar, methadone consuming, pot smoking, heart of gold, mind of confusion partner had actually made it there on time.  Miracle two: my luggage had made it to the plane and so was spit out unceremoniously on the tiny luggage carousel (I guess most people don’t like Sacramento or certainly don’t fly there) – how that was possible is beyond me.  My father’s partner, C and her friend, the chronically depressed friend met at the group therapy for methadone ex-junkies, a large and taciturn woman who was fairly convinced she was smarter than she was, but yet clearly meant well in her own dark humored way, when she could see past the fog of God only knows how many pharmaceuticals, somehow managed to drive me to my sponsor’s husband’s friend’s place.  I forgot that was miracle 1a, a woman who’s name is not angel but who will hereinafter be referred to as Angel, because that is what she was.  I was at my AA sponsor’s house on the East Coast, about to go back to Europe, when I got the frantic email from C about the fact my father was in the hospital on life support.  She asked her husband if he knew anyone in Sacramento and in fact he did and right after I booked my flight, not knowing where I would stay, fearing staying at C and my father’s place (which after I saw it the first time a couple days later looking like a teenager’s crack den with cat litter box overflowing I knew my fear had not been unfounded), Angel had gotten back to me saying I could stay with her.

My cat had died the week before, she had lived with me for close to 20 years and her death on my father’s birthday had been devastating, especially because I was not home to be with her.  So when I walked into Angel’s house, I was met not only by a lovely woman to whom I will be eternally grateful (who had also lost her father a couple years earlier under unfortunate family circumstances) but also her two cats, one of whom was a lovely Tom cat, sleek and subdued and in the end very protective but also a blind, skittish but ultimately magical cat Angel had of course spent a fortune to save after she had been mowed down by some car.  Her friends thought she was insane but believe me, she was worth it.  So I had three guardian angels, one human, two feline, and I needed them all.

The next morning, because I knew C would never get out of bed, Angel drove me all the way to this God knows where Catholic hospital that looked from the outside like a mix of one of those horrendous modern Catholic churches, a shopping mall and some kind of Disney ride called Hospital World.  So wherever I was, there I was.  Angel dropped me off and went to do her good works in state government saving rivers and trees and all innocent creatures and landscapes.  Seriously, she did that, no joke and was successful even though her boss sounded like she could leave something to be desired, but anyway…Angel was/is amazing.

So, I walked in and asked some lovely seeming volunteers where the ICU was and somehow after some mis-steps found it.  This amazing nurse showed up and brought me to my father who was in his bed, being kept alive by machines.  In fact, from the moment I walked in I could tell he was gone.  He was a body being kept alive by machines.  Perhaps his spirit was trapped in there, but the body was done.  So January 7, 2010, I just sat there with him for hours and hours.  Stared at what was left of the father I barely knew, his only daughter and living relative.  The amazing nurse walking in and out and giving me coffee.  I was surrounded in Sacramento by the Commonwealth, which since I like in the UK now seemed kind of amazing.  I began to realize they were nuns or somehow Catholic and deeply spiritual in a real sense.  These folks were living it.  They were also as I sat there arguing with my father’s Godforesaken insurance company, explaining that no they could not move him from their ICU to fucking Kaiser’s ICU just cause it was costing them some extra money.  Someday I will do bad things to Kaiser, but revenge is best served cold, so will wait on that…

But sitting there, next to this body being kept violently alive by oxygen and every other kind of support, I just prayed and prayed to anyone and anything and asked him what he wanted.  I tried to talk to him like the nurse suggested but words seemed beside the point.  Instead I spoke to him silently and had confidence he could hear.  And then the most amazing miracle happened, well it happened from when I walked in, I forgave him everything, all of it – the abandonment, the non-existent boundaries, his inability to be there for me as a child or hear me as an adult until way later, the whole thing.  It just vanished.  And I knew we had to let him go.

So for hours, after I check with him by asking him to move his foot, which was the only thing that moved – even though I’m pretty sure it was involuntary – if he wanted to go – his foot twitched pretty violently and repeatedly and I figured we were on the same bat channel.  So the wait for C began, as I was no way making this decision without her, even though she asked me to come to make this decision.  She had of course lost her health care proxy so they needed my consent.  We or rather I found it later crawling through the pit that was their house…over and under pot resin, burns on the carpet, encrusted food and little Buddhas…How much more California can you get?

And then came the next miracle, I ate lunch.  I actually realized I needed to eat and went down to the cafeteria, made some calls and had a hamburger.  I talked with my mother who was being relatively calm and one of my step-father’s who was quite present in his own way.  And I went back upstairs to hear their last ditch attempt to help him had failed.  Eventually C showed up and I told her what was happened.  She cried and freaked and agreed amidst sniffles that we should let him go.  He looked unbelievably miserable.  They explained to us that when they took all the plugs and lines out it could be minutes or hours before he died.  There was no knowing.  I had a feeling it would be quick.

The lovely nurse gave me some aromatherapy cream, I picked lavender or she did.  She asked if we wanted a cast of his hand, which she prepared and then a pillowcase a volunteer had made.  It was spectacular.  Catholics know how to do hospitals.  I have never seen anything like it.  I think they also bumped up the morphine so he wouldn’t be in too much pain. 

When they took everything away, somehow C had disappeared and I was there with him alone again.  I was rubbing his head with the aromatherapy cream and said ‘You are loved’ and then he took his last breath.  It was kind of astonishing.  Of course a moment later, an admin woman walked in and asked me to sign a form regarding my flight home and I told her to go away but she wouldn’t so in the midst of what may be one of the more sacred moments of my life I had to sign paperwork.  Typical.

Then C reappeared and freaked out she had missed his death.  God knows what she had been doing in the bathroom, needless to say I didn’t ask.  One learns.  But then she cried and cried and I held her, or was that before?  I honestly can’t remember.  At some point I cried and she held me.  At some point my mother called and talked to me and C.  At some point people sent lovely text messages as I told people when we took off life support to send prayers or whatever they believed in and of course because I have most excellent friends, they did that.  And I know it helped.

And then at some point C and I sat there with his dead body and started laughing because I showed C that if you looked at his face, you could see his wry little smile and she did see it.  He looked so much better after the crap was taken out and off of him.  I forgot the other black humor part – his pacemaker kept on ticking way past his death so they kept having to try to get it to stop to declare him dead but the fucker was relentless.  I knew this would cheer him up no end.

I think at some point they gave up. 

At some point C called her two sons who showed up eventually along with a girlfriend of the youngest one.  They stood very far away from my father’s body, and I remembered that when you don’t see someone die, dead bodies are scary.  I had never seen someone die before and I discovered, that day, dead bodies are not scary.  I was unbelievably grateful for the experience of being there, but as I type all this now, it brings it back and it’s hard.

At some point, we said goodbye and left and ate dinner at a Godawful Chinese buffet place, the kind that only happen in the US in strip malls in nondescript suburbs of B-list cities.  It was incredible as the food was made up of dayglo colors and had nothing to do with China but I ate it anyway.  It was all very strange and we all kind of laughed and cried and I tried to sort out the relation of the one son back from Iraq, who was acting tough but clearly could be pushed over with a feather and the other son the math whiz with the limp and his girlfriend who kept asking me if I wanted a Xanax.  Bless her I know this was her idea of trying to help but somehow I just couldn’t convey and probably didn’t even explain I was a sober alcoholic, and no, really, it’s OK, I didn’t need any fucking pot or Xanax or Whatever.

Somehow, I got back to Angel’s house, I think it was C’s Iraq vet son who got me there in his Huge truck thing.  I was grateful people weren’t too drunk or high.  I was grateful to be going into Angel’s house in the city out of the suburb near decent coffee and even more crucially AA meetings.  Did I go to one that night?  I don’t think so.  I don’t know.  I stared.  I actually don’t remember the rest of the night.

The rest of the week was a whole other kind of nightmare and I will write about it later this week.  It was also a kind of grace and of course was incredibly funny in a dark humor kind of way.  Welcome to my life folks.

This is where I come from. 

Jerry Brown is now Governor of California again, in a post-script.  When I visited my father in California for the first time as a young teenager, Brown was Governor, newly elected then.  We were listening to his state of the state address, and he said “I was thinking about the problems this state is facing and then I decided to listen to whale sounds, which I will play you now” and he did, he played whale sounds.  I think I laughed, but I was truly freaked out.  A northeastern girl surrounded suddenly by palm trees and a governor who listened to whale sounds.  And he’s back now.  If only my father could have seen that, he would have laughed with delight.  In 2003, after he had his stroke which took away his speech and left him aphasic when he could speak, Schwarzenegger was elected and all he could do is point at the screen and gawk in horror.  At least however, before he died his beloved Red Sox beat the Yankees in the World Series.  A first since the curse of the Babe in the 1920s.

Who says nothing changes?

Good-bye, J.  I never did call you Daddy, except when I was very little and only on cards...too embarrassed to say the words...but I know you’re my father.  Thanks for the ride, even if you weren’t ready to buy me the ticket.  Blessings to you.

Happy New Year and all that

Hi everyone,

Haven't had time to write since last time because of travel chaos getting back to where I live and now have a lot to do, but am wide awake late my time as jet lag hasn't quite lifted and now that my husband is away across the world and I'm alone, I drift into my late night ways...apparently some people are biologically night people.  If so, I'm one of them.  However, I also have to get up tomorrow relatively early so hope writing this will send me off to sleep.

I'm excited, scared, overwhelmed and then weirdly peaceful all at once.  The past few days I've walked through sound barriers of self-hatred and whackiness and then just plain delusional bullshit.  This Friday will be the anniversary of my father's death and on the 28th was the death of my last cat, who was almost 20 years old when she died.  And the grieving has come out all sideways.  Not to mention my husband leaving for 3 months, which kicked up a shitstorm of it's own.

However, I'm also weirdly peaceful at times and people keep telling me how good I look, relaxed and rested etc. which I find so weird.  It just shows me that I don't know what's going on half the time and as usual my head is way crazier and more judgmental of me and my actions than anyone else is. 

It was hard to leave my family home because my step-father was in a bad way when we left but I was glad to have been there and asked if they wanted me to stay and meant it.  That was not necessary but I cried a lot the night before we left, afraid I wouldn’t see my step-father alive again.  I hope I’m wrong and just projecting stuff about my father onto him.  Unlike my father, my step-father from when he and my mother got together when I was 16-17, has been present and accounted for in my life.  He was my mother’s 4^th husband, so girls 4 times is a charm!  FYI, my mother married 4 times and my father 3 times and had a 4^th life partner when he died.  Neither of them ever had any other children.  Imagine my confusion.

So anyway, it’s an interesting time.  I go from deep calm to a sense of panic and being overwhelmed by the Tasks at Hand…but then again just said yes to an invite to do a completely frivolous and wonderful-sounding thing with a friend on Saturday because I realized trying to do my taxes the day after the anniversary of my father’s death or indeed anything ‘logistic’ is probably insane.  This is a miracle people.  It means even with everything going on, I’m not totally in thrall to my workaholism.  Thank Christ or Whomever.

I’m also doing my creative work in the whirlwind and that is deeply important.  And I’ve also taken weirdly to drinking Diet Coke sometimes, something my AA sponsor does and others do and I’ve always sniffed at and yet what’s in my fridge now?  Diet Coke.  Weird.  Peer pressure, I blame all of You who Drink Diet Coke for this…scary.

Have been spending my time applying for stuff, some of which – a lot of which – are very competitive and may well bring rejection but also, and this I have to begin to accept, may bring success as well.  As my sponsor says “you don’t know”.  And she’s right and I’d love to be able to just stay there.

Battling a lot with feelings of failure that come and go and when they are here, and I think they are so virulent now because my mother, when I was young, framed my father as a failure (as did a number of ex-wives of his btw…), I think the Failure tag is just hanging there.  Plus I’m 47 and so at that age where if I don’t ‘make it’ in a certain way pretty soon, I’ll have to begin wondering if I’ll be labeled an also-ran, has-been, coulda been a contendah, etc…However, I’m not going to dwell on this now as it’s a sleeping dragon that when woken takes me out.

And as someone said at an Al-Anon meeting I was at tonight, practicing these principles means practice and when we’re not practicing ways of freedom or happiness, we are ‘practicing’ anger or impatience or in my case endless worry.  So if I give that stuff too much airtime, I’m practicing Fear of Failure and I don’t want to practice that anymore.  The best antidote is doing my creative work but I also need to keep on top of some other tasks like applying for things that can bring in money to make it possible…because as I enter into the assessment phase of my teaching, I remember again why I hate teaching.  I don’t hate teaching, but I do hate the admin part of it and having to grade students and argue with other lecturers about the grades, etc.  It’s soul destroying and has Nothing to do with art at all in my not so humble opinion.

So the goal this year: learn how to put myself first.  Meaning self-care so others don’t have to piece me back together again.  And find a way back into making enough money from my own work to not have to depend on teaching income because that shit will drive me mad.  I have accepted teaching work for the spring, and will do that but hope, pray, and dance around whatever Maypole or statute in hopes some of what I am putting out into the universe will work because I do believe, I really do that by now, I deserve to get paid properly for what I do and have done for over 30 years now.

Anyone who believes in such things, please pray for me that this is so…and also spare a thought for me on Wednesday when I have to go get an MRI.  I think I’m OK but was getting dizzy a lot for a while (that’s gone away) and so having my Head Examined.  Here’s hoping it’s all kosher.  My Head that is.

OK, past even my bedtime now.  Wishing you a wonderful 2011 and upcoming Year of the Rabbit – which is supposed to be a nice year than Year of the Tiger, which is ending now.  Tiger tears things apart (even if it’s necessary it still is painful) and Rabbit’s apparently a bit chill.  It’s also my birth year so here’s to the Rabbit cycle no. 5 upcoming….