Welcome to the Invisible Life

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This is a month of some very uncomfortable anniversaries. My father died 19 years ago on the 1st of December, my daughter was born on the 12th, and six years ago today, my mother died. She just died. One moment she was tying her shoes and the next moment she was gone.

I still don't quite know how to feel about it. On the one hand, she and I never really bonded like [what I've since learned] a mother and daughter generally would. I am most grateful to her for all the years of care and feeding, clothing, laundry, meals, medicine, etc. I have some tender memories of her, mostly fleeting images from when I was a very small child. I can only assume this was the time in her life before her illness became something she couldn't overcome. She was so very smart and talented and longed to be able to express her talent in meaningful ways, like music and writing. I frequently bless both of my parents for nurturing my love of the written word and music. She augmented me in some very important ways.

But, her Illness. I long ago forgave her for her behavior; I understand that the things she did to us were because she had no control over her impulses or her emotions. I am convinced that I am the one who decides who I am. I shape my behavior, my thoughts, my actions. No one who hurts me gets the satisfaction of inciting self-destruction in me, no matter how much I might love them.

But the truth is, as hard as I work to be whole, balanced, and healthy, I'm broken. In some ways, I'm broken so badly that I may never be quite right. That missing bond, the abuse, the uncertainty, the instability took its toll during those tender years and until the day I left that house. Today, I suspect everyone in my life of having the capacity to suddenly and inexplicable hate me. I fear conflict, although I muscle through it now after no small amount of therapy, but am still ever watchful for [what I think] is the inevitable violence. Certain types of relationships are so problematic for me that I simply cannot engage. I worry about my social skills almost constantly. Until only a few years ago, I was almost obsessed with being likeable. If someone holds me at a distance or withholds love from me or plays love-head games with me, I am drawn to them like Sandwich to a belly pellet. It is an old and familiar mommy/Katie pattern and is always destructive. The urge to cull what approval and love I can from anyone who is indifferent to me is almost irresistable. It takes an enormous amount of discipline and awareness for me to cut and run once I figure out what's going on. Eventually, the relationship becomes so painful to me that I must end it. Recently, that has become easier to do and I am proud that I'm learning to do it before I go all screechy and crazy and completely wacked out because I can't figure out what's going on.

Piece by piece, bit by bit, I'm chipping away at these challenges. This year, it's my twisted relationship with food and my absolute incoherence in the kitchen. I'm learning to comfort myself in constructive ways (positive relationships, healthy habits, education so I can have a better-paying career). I have come to understand that the best success in my life is the cumulative result of a hundred little changes sustained over a long time. I have so far to go. And time is running short.

I'm lucky to have people in my life that are indulgent of my many challenges so I don't have to walk this path alone. I think I've said this before: I love the path enough that I will walk it alone if I have to. I'd rather not, though. Facing who I am today is more scary even than those scary days when I was very little and my mother was very big. It's nice to have a hand to hold.

Good Man due here tonight. This is a good night for his particular brand of loving kindness. Must groom so that he doesn't recoil in disgust.

Be well. Thanks for sticking around to the end of this ramble. You may have earned a special room in your preferred Valhalla.

by Marge Piercy

I am at once source
and sink of heat: giver
and taker. I am a vast
soft mountain of slow breathing.
The smells I exude soothe them:
the lingering odor of sex,
of soap, even of perfume,
its afteraroma sunk into skin
mingling with sweat and the traces
of food and drink.

They are curled into flowers
of fur, they are coiled
hot seashells of flesh
in my armpit, around my head

a dark sighing halo.
They are plastered to my side,
a poultice fixing sore muscles
better than a heating pad.
They snuggle up to my sex
purring. They embrace my feet.

Some cats I place like a pillow.
In the morning they rest where
I arranged them, still sleeping.
Some cats start at my head
and end between my legs
like a textbook lover. Some
slip out to prowl the living room
patrolling, restive, then
leap back to fight about
hegemony over my knees.

Every one of them cares
passionately where they sleep
and with whom.

Sleeping together is a euphemism
for people but tantamount
to marriage for cats.
Mammals together we snuggle
and snore through the cold nights
while the stars swing round
the pole and the great horned
owl hunts for flesh like ours.

Pearlington, Mississippi, USA.

14 months after hurricane Katrina wiped out every structure and vehicle in Hancock County, more people are still living in "temporary shelter" than are living in real houses. The storm devastated this communty. It took more than ten days for any rescue attempts to reach them and almost six weeks (by some accounts) for any relief to reach them over and above the basics.

This makes me sick to my stomach.

And so I kept at the research and googling and found a travel site that offers lower airfare for travel on 12/24/06 through 1/2/06. I must go. I must find a way to help these people.

Elly (aka Momable) has provided a stirring description of her coming Christmas holiday. Mine will be in the American South, helping where I can, even though I don't have many skills to speak of. I can still follow directions and learn quickly. I can provide support to volunteers already there. I can cook (after a fashion). I've been reading about cooking for large groups and I think I can at least manage some basics like spaghetti (and variations thereto) and pancakes and french toast in the mornings.

I have to try.

We need more people to go. They have houses waiting to be built, but no one to build them. December and January are slow months for volunteers anyway, because of the holidays I think. All skill sets are welcome. We especially need framers, carpenters, drywall hangers, roofers, that kind of thing. No willing body would be turned away, though.

Yesterday, a coworker kindly presented me with a check to help with expenses. SMOOCH on him!!!

Here is the blog for the Pearlington Recovery Center. There is a lot of information about the community here and different ways people can help.

I don't know why this community has burrowed into my psyche the way it has. It is apalling to me that anyone anywhere in the world can be allowed to continue to suffer when so many of us are blessed with the bounty that I have. But why Pearlington? Perhaps it's the scale of the devastation: an entire city is gone, but the residents remain. Additionally, I've read where Home Depot and Lowe's has raised prices on building supplies in these areas! Horrid! Unconscionable! Filthy! To profit from the loss of these people. Where is the Federal Trade Commission when you need it?

Oh wait. They're probably out somewhere with FEMA.

OK. That's not fair. Apparently, Pearlington now has three whole FEMA representatives who are available "during business hours"!

Maybe that's why Pearlington has captured my heart: the utter injustice of the whole thing must come to an end. I know I can't be the one to save the world, but I can surely lend my hand to it.

Everyone has someone in their life who is compelled to equate every topic of conversation to "the big picture". "This soup is kind of like life." "This other thing reminds me of the big circle that we live." "Don't you think that dog poo looks a little like Elvis? You know, don't you, he's still alive but he's just waiting for the best time to make another come back -- kind of like Jesus." And blah blah blahblahblah on they go until your ears bleed and your eyes glaze over as you pray for a quick, painless death before having to endure one more pearl of faux wisdom from their flippy floppy little lips. Don't they just make your butt ache?

I'm one of those people. I can't help it. I've lived a little life without any grand victories or failures, only tiny little movements in time. Therefore, I must aggrandize each moment so I can get some perspective on the Big Stuff. It's a sickness, a habit, almost a compulsion. Let me just now and forevermore apologize for inevitably being tiresome in my efforts to see greatness in the small things. Please indulge. I don't smoke anymore. I must do something with my hands, even if it's armchair philosophy! Just remind yourself that my musings are, for the most part, significantly less offensive/annoying than cigarette smoke.

I find that some of my "100 Things" kind of surprised me. It was mostly off the cuff, but all true. I wrote it in less than ten minutes. My fingers flew and my mind went into kind of a trance. I enjoyed it very much. My biggest surprise was my confession that I'm afraid to hike alone. That phrase has been on my mind since I wrote it. Truly, unless it's a very public, well-used trail OR I become extremely well educated about the big do's and don'ts of hiking in the wilderness, the buddy system is the only way to go. I've been taught this premise since I was very little and it applies to so many things: girl's night out, SCUBA diving, etc.

I've been hiking alone for many years. I was afraid to do it when I first started out. I loathed it for a couple years, slogging through each new fork in the trail with trepidation, expecting at any moment to slip and break an ankle and not be able to get help and be left all alone in the wilderness to starve or suffer a worse fate at the razor teeth of a predator.

Eventually, I found my pace. I became familiar with the terrain. I learned to sense danger and flee if needed. As I became more experienced, I began seeking out new forks and boldly finding new ways of reaching my destination. I learned where to get my nourishment, how best to place my feet and avoid injury, and when to rest. I learned that not everything that looks scary can actually hurt me and the most innocuous of events can turn out to be the most damaging. Practice has made me an enthusiast.

Still, I think I would rather hike on the buddy system. Sometimes I come across an unfamiliar path and would dearly love a hand to hold. However, I do so love this trail that I'll hike it alone as long as is necessary. Because alone or with a hiking buddy, I'm very happy to be here.

When I was a very little girl, the campy Adam West Batman was on TV. I watched it religiously. Batman was my imaginary friend. We did everything together. We had tea, ran a restaurant, went swimming, shopping, to school (I was four), everywhere. He was a faithful and devoted friend who made me laugh and had a flair with dragonfly pie. As I grew up, my Batman fantasy life evolved into more sophisticated scenarios, mostly involving the cape and some clever ways of removing those very attractive tights. It is a coincidence that I grew up to be geek enough to engage in any type of discussion about the relative value of one super hero over another. This character (yes, I know he's not real!) makes up such a huge part of my development and later, my sexual development, that to debate is merely polite acquiescence to socially accepted ritual. All super heroes (and some super villains!) are cool in their own way. Some have X-Ray vision and can leap tall buildings in a single bound; others shoot stuff out of various body parts and have nuclear reacted DNA. Whatever! This really isn’t an exploration of who would kick ass against whom. This is about substance. Chemical- or radiation-enhanced super powers are neat and everything, but they’re no match for a pissed off guy with a lot of money. Seriously. Batman is human. He suffers from human afflictions: emotional issues, confusion, jealousy, fear, rage, and of course, his old standby, a serious axe to grind. His super-hero-ness isn’t an accident of birth or a technological experiment gone horribly awry. His is a decision based upon deliberation, training and enormous planning. He actively sacrifices for the good of the community. And he has a utility belt. Who else has a utility belt? I dig the utility belt. If I had a boyfriend who had a utility belt, oh the things he could carry for me! I’ll bet Batman would carry things for his girlfriend in his utility belt, if he could find a woman who could handle all the strong silent type crap and the brooding and the inexplicable absences and the inevitable kidnappings. In an earlier post, I confessed that I wish for a mate to love and live with, hoping that he likes poetry, Shakespeare, cats, and cartoons. It would be nice if he has all his teeth and his wits. What I failed to mention was, if he shows up in a mask and a cape, you’ll probably never hear from me again. Be assured, I’ll immediately ask to see the utility belt. I wonder if it holds his tights up… =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- My results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 80% Spider-Man 80% Batman 80%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test