Kaleidoscopes

Some people's lives play like broken records.
The grooves are carved into our skin like scars so they can
play and replay and
play and replay like
the grooves of scars that are carved into our skin, there are
some people whose lives play like broken records.

We've all seen this story before. 
We can read it with our fingertips like
Braille is our native language and we were born with the gift of in-sight
we need only look
to read all about it.

And, I'll admit:
there are days I only believe her because she asks me to.
She won't always do it with her words, but she asks me with her eyes
and the slump of her shoulders
and the way her son holds my hand
or wraps his arms around my neck,
or the way her husband shrugs and looks at his feet
in a gesture of resilience living as shame refusing to name itself.
They open their hearts like sunsets inside kaleidoscopes:
fractured, repeating patterns of glass
reflecting the reflection of the reflection of the reflection of
the world around them.

We are all so broken.
So human in the way we touch one another,
and in the ways we don't, and the ways we can't,
so I don't want to save the world:
I want only to read words like reflections
are my native language, but there are days
when I only believe her because she asks me to and
some people's lives play like broken records.
The grooves run track marks like glass through skin
fracturing the reflection because
we live a resilience that refuses to name itself and
no one cares to notice
there is beauty in the repetition.

And, I'll admit: my record
is scratched and broken.
She sometimes calls me "Doctor," sometimes "Hon,"
occasionally "Love,"
and I just go with it because we both know:
sometimes she has more answers than me,
and schooling doesn't always equal education,
and I know I'm supposed to like when she calls me "doctor" best,
but believe me when I say that some days, it doesn't feel like a compliment, but a scratch
that disrupts our developing melody
so I like it when she calls me "Love"
because that's all I've ever wanted to be.

When they ask me, I give them every cell that looks like belief, but
I don't know if I believe in god.
Some days, it seems that human-kind
-where kind is questionable -
might have a better track record,
so I turn up the volume on the broken records.
We play our songs loud as we spin through space,
our tears punctuating the night with stars like exclamation points
blaming or praising or trying to find the holy we all want to believe is existing
somewhere beyond our fingertips.

We are all so broken,
so kaleidoscopic
in the ways we shatter.

Birthday Surprises

As I sat at Panera this afternoon, pretending to study, I witnessed some version of the following exchange.

 

Birthday Surprises, or

The story of her life, as overheard in Panera







 

1.       They sit awkwardly at the table, trying to find the normal that at one time must have fit.

He cuts the muffin, unceremoniously, pushes half towards her,

then checks his phone, glances around, scoots his chair in, then out, then in again,
takes the lid off her coffee cup and asks,

"You want sugar?" 

She nods.

2.       "Take off your coat," he says.  "It's warm in here."

He tears open a Splenda and dumps it in her cup.

"What did you do that for?" she asks, voice rising.

"You wanted sugar, Mom.  You want sugar in your coffee."

"I know," she says, glaring at him.

She pauses, then pats his hand.

"That's okay," she says, smiling.

 "That's just okay."

3.       She tugs on her coat and says, "it's warm in here."

"I know," he says, and takes off her coat without another word.

She picks up her coffee and sloshes it down her pink sweater.

"Oh!" she exclaims, frantically brushing the opposite side from the spill.  "I've ruined it."

He scoots his chair out.  Uncrosses and recrosses his legs.  Hands her a napkin.

"That's okay," he says, glancing around. 

"That's just okay."

4.       He checks his phone.  Scoots his chair in.  Out.  In.  Runs his fingers through his hair.

"This is a birthday muffin," he says, pointing to the muffin neither have touched.

She looks at it, and then at him.  "I won't eat it."

"It's for you.  For your birthday.  A nice birthday muffin."

She laughs and he holds out a piece.

"I won't eat it from you," she says, folding her arms.

He excuses himself from the table.

"Read the paper, Mom," he says, pushing the news towards her. 

"Catch up on the world."

5.       When he returns, all is forgotten.

"We'll stay half an hour more," he says.  He pulls out an iPad,

"It's amazing what they make now, Mom.  Look at this." 
She looks, briefly, then points at her sweater.

"Is this color nice?" she asks.

"Sure, Mom." 

She blushes and her voice rises a notch.
"Oh you," she says.

"Don't try to make me beautiful." 

6.       He turns the iPad to her.

"This is your grandson.  In a couple months, he'll be a lawyer."

"A lawyer!" she gasps.  "He looks nice.  He has eyes."

"And a nose and a mouth.  He's your grandson," he says.

He softens and adds, "he's a good guy."

"I should say so," she says, bristling.

He takes a bite of the muffin. 

So does she. 

7.       "Remember when we had big birthday parties at your house?" he asks.

She smiles. 

He sits still for the first time since they arrived and pulls up another picture.

"Remember this?"

She looks at the picture, then looks closer.

"That's a photograph," she says, voice full of wonder.

She touches the iPad, gently, then looks at him, saying,

"It's amazing what they make now." 

8.       He takes another bite of muffin.

So does she.

"That's Dad.  That's you," he says, pointing.

"That's me?" she asks, laughing.

He smiles.  Leans back in his chair,

reveling in the momentary normal they've found.

"I was beautiful," she says, quietly,
"I think we all were." 

9.       They're quiet for a time.

"I just don't know anymore," she admits, about nothing in particular.

"It's okay," he says.  "I love that I get to surprise you

with the story of your life." 

 

My rusty writing...

I have been thinking a lot lately about the thoughts we tell ourselves, and about the habits we create around those thoughts.  I have been thinking about how difficult it is to change those thoughts, and how it's even more difficult to change the habits we develop.  Even as a behavior therapist, behavior change certainly doesn't come easy.

I'm thinking in particular about the thoughts and habits I've developed surrounding writing.  For a while, I was writing several times per week, if not daily.  When I was writing so often, writing came easily.  The words just seemed to flow out of me, and I would go through my day "hearing" what I would write about in my head.  I lost some of the perfectionism I have surrounding writing as I wrote more, because it just didn't matter as much.  If what I wrote today sucked, I would be sure to write something better tomorrow.  Writing daily, or almost daily, became a habit, and a habit that I craved.  It was time when I could sit with myself and find me again, back at a time when I was someone I wanted to spend time with.  At a time when I was someone I wanted to find.

My writing started to become more and more infrequent, though, which for me, just isn't a good sign.  The more infrequently I wrote, the more pressure I put on myself to write, and to write something "good."  The pressure to write - and to write well - made it even more difficult to actually get words on the paper.  Writing infrequently, and stressing myself out about writing, became a new habit.  I craved the feeling of writing that I knew from before.  I hungered for the comfort the words would bring me, and the ease with which they used to wash over me and flow onto the paper.  When I wrote, though, there was no ease, and there was no comfort, so suddenly, the response effort was just too much.  Why would I want to sit with myself and attempt to find myself again?  I did not want to spend time with myself.  Squeezing those words onto the paper was not the joy-filled experience it once was.  It seemed better just to let the habit fade.

Even now, it's not that I want to write.  Quite honestly, I still kind of don't want to, but I have to.  There is a voice inside of me that just keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, insisting that I have to sit down and make myself do this.  I have to push through the "I don't want tos" and the "I have nothing to says" and the "I don't want to write about thats" and the ultimate anxiety that sets in as I make myself continue to write. 

So I'm trying to re-teach myself how to write.  Or, perhaps more accurately, I'm trying to re-teach myself how to find my writing self.  I'm trying to re-teach myself how to allow the thoughts and words to coalesce and form sentences.  I'm trying to be mindful of the emotions that come up and channel them into writing, rather than gathering them like rocks that are collected only on the off-chance that there MIGHT be fossils in them.  It's like going through habit-reversal training.  I have to identify when those old thoughts come back (You can't write.  It's not worth the time.  You're not worth the time.  No one wants to hear what you have to say.  You have nothing to say), and I need to intervene with a competing thought (I am worth it.  I have something to say). 

All of this is, of course, true and also part of the larger metaphor of the ways in which I'm attempting to live my day-to-day.  There was a time when life was easy.  And then there was a time when the response effort for life was just getting to be too much.  But that's changing.  I want to write to document that change, and I want to write to ease that change.  Writing has always been the way through which I come to understand my life, and this change is important.  It's worth understanding.  Behavior change isn't easy, but if I'm going to be making new habits, I want them to be ones that kindle life inside of me.  I want to ease those wedges out of the cracks holding open the broken places.  I want to take the energy that's been created as I aimed my life towards survival and channel it into health and creation.  I want to rediscover the places in my body where the words are hidden and coax them out.  It's safe now.  We can all come out and play.

This song has been going through my head all day:

 

It is probably not the song writer's intention, but I think this song resonates with me because I'm feeling like both the young child and the "old folks."  I need to treat the part of my self that is struggling to create these new habits, the part that is doing all this new learning and hard work "like an orchid/ so rare and hard to find."  And this old part of me that I am shedding like a snake skin--all the old habits and pain and choices that no longer work for me - they've "given me the future" and "taught me what I know" - so perhaps I should be "gentle, wise, and kind" to them as well.  It's easier said than done.

Writing, then, is my love song - for me and for the world.  When I don't write, it's because I can't find enough love for either one of us to fill that space.  It's time for me to start singing again.  My voice is a little rusty, and I apologize...but my heart has just been quiet too long.

How do you sing your love song for yourself?  How do you sing your love song for the world? 

The Point of the Story

She screamed into the dark
waving her arms like a policeman directing invisible traffic in a bright pink pajama set.
I followed the detour of her signs across my driveway and into hers
rerouted the plans for my evening:
if past behavior predicts future, this could take a while.

Tomatoes, she said with her hands, gesturing around her kitchen
You take.  Eat.  My son.  J. I. M.  Jim.  He brings tomatoes.  Tomatoes.  Tomatoes.
I eat.  Eat.  Eat.  Sick of tomatoes.  No more.  Finished.
More, more, more.  You take.  Jim brings more.  You eat them. 
Good.  Very good.  You eat.  You like.  In salad.  Delicious.  Take more.

So many tomatoes, I say.  Thank you.  Look good.  Thank you.
I turn to leave, unsure how to finish the conversation as I attempt to hold my tomatoes. 
She grabs my hand, puts the tomatoes on the table. 

Come. She says.  Must meet husband.  In bed.  Sick.  No talking.  Very bad.  91 years old.
Woman comes to bathe him, dress him.  Nice man.  Will like you.  Meet my husband. 

We round the corner into a bedroom with a hospital bed and a twin bed beside. 
She shakes his foot and his eyes open, slowly. 
He looks at me.  At her.  At me.
She says something to him I don't understand.  He doesn't either.  She pats his hand.
He smiles, wiggles his fingertips against his chest.
See?  she says, beaming, proudly.  He tries.
They look at me, expectantly.

His blue eyes pierce my skin, and inadequacy creeps up my back and across my face. 
Nice to meet you.  I live next door. 
He stares, and I reach over the bedrail to touch his hand. 
He smiles, beautifully, soulfully,
and 91 years of words crash in my mind.

My husband.  Me.  Married.  65 years.  Married 65 years.  
She pats his hand.  

Very hard now, she says. 
We're still in love.

They both stare at me, smiling,
awaiting any communication,
breathing, together, unaware of the noise.
I say goodbye and leave them
to fill in the empty spaces I left,
knowing they're the only two who can.

In my dark and empty kitchen, I wash tomatoes
hoping to leave you signs such that, when I reach the end,
and allow resignation to live in my flesh as my only success;
when I invite Defeat into my bones so she can live as Triumph at last;
you will love me harder when I speak through finger twitches, involuntary,
and love us together as we breathe our conversations.

Leave my long-sought perfection under my skin,
soaked in by no longer thirsting pores.
Siphon out my flaws with kisses
trace tender fingers over hidden scars
suck the ugly from me
and bury it deep between your lungs and vocal chords
so you can forever sing my essence
every time you breathe.

The irony of this poem
written for a Deaf man who can no longer communicate
is the point of the story.

Scaffolding the Essence

It's one of those things you never think about initially.  You just kind of have it, and it's there, and it informs your experience and your thoughts and the way you interact with your world.

When you lose it - or, speaking only for me, when I lost it - I didn't know it was gone.  The world just seemed to change, slowly, imperceptibly to me, and either I went crazy or the rest of the world did.  Facts that I had known no longer seemed true.  My thoughts changed.  My experience of being in the world was no longer the same.  It's not that I realized this, of course, I just knew things were different.  Wrong somehow.  Over time, "something's wrong" becomes "I'm wrong" which leads to "things are just really f*cked up right now." 

I guess losing Perspective can do that to you.

The really cool thing about Perspective, though, I got to experience last week.  She comes back, the sneaky creature.  Just as suddenly as she left with my sense of sanity and well-being, she reappeared, unexpectedly, and overwhelmed me. 

People have told me -- many people, even -- that my writing is powerful.  Many people have told me, too, that I am strong.  Or brave.  Or courageous, or whatever other word you want to stick in there instead.  People have told me -- many people, even -- that they could see through my writing that I was strong.  That I was okay.  That I was brave.

Whatever.

I didn't believe it.  Like, at all.  Giving me compliments like that...you might as well have been trying to nail Jello to a tree.  It just wasn't going to stick.  My writing isn't strong.  It isn't powerful, or brave, or courageous, and neither am I.  All I knew was that I had to keep writing.  When I wasn't writing, things were bad.  Really bad.  Peering over the Edge of Despair sort of bad.  As long as I was writing, I knew I was staying afloat.

I believed that my writing wasn't because I was strong, or brave.  Putting those words together wasn't courageous--it was the only thing I knew how to do.  I was writing to stay alive.  I was writing to stay connected to...something.  The world?  God?  Myself?  Other people?  I don't know, even now.  I write to connect.  Putting my fingers to the keyboard is the only way I know to make myself keep breathing sometimes, even if no one sees it.  Even if the words don't make sense and are nothing more than the anxiety-riddled ramblings that fill my mind. 

Last week, though, I had a moment in which Perspective, the elusive fox, returned.  These past few weeks, more often than not, I have felt strong in ways I have not felt strong in...probably...well...maybe ever.  I have felt empowered, and confident, and I feel like I can see the person I was, as well as the person I want to be.  I believed I had, suddenly, for whatever reason, found where Strength was hiding and allowed her in.  I allowed myself to invite Courage and Bravery in for a little bit, too, and the four of us sat and had tea, and damn, it was an amazing feeling.

For some reason, when I was enjoying my newfound strong and courageous feelings, I pulled the bulging binder of poetry I have written from the shelf and started to flip through the poems I have written over the past two years.  As I read my words, I was amazed, and confused, and startled, and scared, and surprised.  It turns out, Courage and Strength and Bravery and Confidence had never been missing.  They had been there--in me, even--all along, and I had written documentation to prove it.  It was truly like reading my own work for the first time.  Some of the poems I have even committed to memory, but as I read them again, in black and white, looking at the dates they were written, I felt like I was seeing them with new eyes.  Those words were not just vessels carrying pain, or anger, or shame.  They are words doing exactly what it is that I believe all words do when we write our truth: they speak back to the pain, and anger, and shame, and they reveal an underlying strength that comes from writing truth.

I've written this before.  I know this to be true of your writing, and his writing, and her writing.  I did not know--not really--that it was also true of mine.  Realizing that I did not actually ever lose that strength, or confidence, or bravery, or courage, is overwhelming.  It may not seem like much, but it moves me to tears--makes the screen blurry, even, as I attempt to articulate this.  It's like feeling as though you lost something essential to who you are, and keep struggling to find it for two years, only to realize it is still you--you are still you--it is still in you, you just haven't been able to see it.  It's sad, in a way.  Almost like I had those two years stolen from me, and I have only anecdotes written by a person I don't recognize to fill me in on what I missed.  It's realizing that everything I thought was missing has been there after all.  Like the emperor really was clothed in gorgeous jewels and furs like everyone said--and I was the only fool who couldn't see it and thought he was naked.  

It's not that everything is just the same -- it isn't.  Far from it.  I am changed, undeniably, but the essence of me is there, and it took strength, and confidence, and bravery, and courage to maintain that.  Even when I thought I didn't have it, I did.  Even when I was so sure that I wasn't strong, I was, and I can see that in my words.  It's a crazy sort of thing.  I can't explain it.  I'm trying, but there's too much emotion here, and it's too abstract.

Audre Lorde says it so much better than I can.  She wrote: "For women... poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then in to more tangible action. ...Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives. ... And where that language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream or vision, it is the skeleton architecture of our lives."

Even when I do not realize it, perhaps, poetry (writing) is the scaffolding around the essence of who I am when the rest of me--the rest of the world as I know it -- seems to be crumbling.  Even when words are written in desperation, the act of writing is strength and courage embodied.  It is proof of the survival of a spirit.  It is a reminder that I am - and have been - strong, and confident, and brave, and courageous.  It is through writing that I maintained my Self.  It seems fitting that it would be through writing that I found her again.

An Unlikely Friendship

                About a week ago, I learned that my friend from my old church had started receiving hospice care.  I had known since I met him that his health was not good, and I saw some of the struggles he had over the 2 or 3 years I saw him regularly at church.  I heard tonight that he passed away, peacefully, today at home.  I know he was ready, and I know this is what he wanted, but as is so often the case, the people left here are hurting.  Or, at least, I know that I am.  My heart hurts, and there are tears falling--again.  I can't help it.  They just keep falling. 

                This friend of mine was significantly older than me - old enough to be my grandfather, actually - but he was just one of those people that I got that feeling about.  There are several of you (you, who read this blog, even) I have felt this way about, and it's difficult to describe.  It's a feeling of "I need to get to know you.  I don't know if I'm supposed to know you, or if you're supposed to know me, or if we're supposed to know each other, but this is supposed to happen."  I rarely tell people about this feeling, but at this point, I trust it.  It never, ever leads me astray.  Lucky for me, he got the same feeling, and we were able to share this with one another.  In fact, we shared quite a lot with one another--not only did he read my blog, but I also read his, and we shared letters--long, long letters -- with one another over a span of more than a year.  I just searched my inbox with his name, and I don't even know how many letters there are.  I can't read them right now.  I will.  And I'm saving them, for sure.  But I'll read them later.

                I do remember, though, an exchange in some of our emails in which he stated, "I think I would like to adopt you, okay?"  I was going through an incredibly difficult time, and was feeling not only alone, but entirely unlovable.  "I am 100% okay with being adopted by you," I responded.  "Consider yourself adopted," he wrote.  And I did.  I was.  I know for a fact that he treated everyone this way--his love seemed boundless--but he also made me feel important.  And loved.  And worthy.  I could be honest, too, in those letters.  He was a man with a story (which he was telling, here, and you should read), and we shared a deep belief in the importance and value of storying our lives.  I listened.  He listened.  We shouldn't have had anything in common, and we knew it.  And yet, I have an inbox full of letters.  Sometimes, you just love anyway. 

                He commented on my Facebook page with such regularity, I actually had a friend ask me, "who is this old dude who comments on everything you say?" 

                "He's a friend of mine," I said, laughing.  "He's fantastic."

                "He's not a creeper?"

                "Thanks for looking out for me," I said, "but no worries here.  Not a creeper at all."

                Hugs were the other thing we shared.  I gave him big, long hugs because...well just because.  Because he told me hugs were special, and not something to be taken lightly.  Because he loved them.  Because he needed them.  And deserved them.  Because I needed them.  Because, when I looked into his eyes, I saw things I have never seen in anyone else's that made it so I just wanted to hug him.  A big, long hug.  Because when I gave him a hug after church, he would write me a thank you e-mail.  Because I loved getting e-mails.

                After I passed my dissertation defense, I went to an event at church.  I was on the phone with my sister in the parking lot prior to walking in to the building, and he came over to me, so excited to give me a congratulatory hug that he completely missed the fact that I was on the phone and hugged me such that I very nearly dropped the phone.  It's an amazing thing to have someone that honestly and genuinely excited for you.  (I got an email after that asking me to apologize to my sister for interrupting the phone call.  I never apologized and told him so.  The hug was worth it).

To my friend: thank you.  Thank you for reminding me of what was good and beautiful in me at a time when I could not see it myself.  Thank you for letting me be there for you, as young and immature as I am, and for reminding me that I have something to offer.  Thank you for trusting me, and for "adopting" me, and for sharing your soul.  I consider myself to be so incredibly blessed.

My friend sent me this song (which I downloaded onto my ipod soon after) when I was going through a particularly difficult patch of time.  There were days this song was on repeat in my head all day.  In our emails, we talked a good deal about Buddhism, and mindfulness, and acceptance, and living in the moment.  (Warning: even if you did not know him, this song will likely make you cry.  At least, that's what it has always done to me).

Hrmph...

Do you ever have moments or days when you feel like the universe might, actually, be stacking the smaller events of your day for a reason?  I don't believe that things happen for a reason, and I don't believe in fate or some sort of pre-determined destiny...but sometimes, the little things are just stacked in ways that make you go "hrmph."

So get this.  Story 1.  Yesterday, my sister and I tried to go to the lake-over-the-mountain to go swimming.  It's a small lake with a small beach, but it's a place to go and swim and the water isn't generally too gross.  It's about a 30 minute drive from my parents house, and by the time we got there, the park was closed because it was full.  We were bummed, naturally, and even a Slurpee from 7-11 didn't help.  (Slurpees are gross, actually.  Neither of us had ever had one, somebody was singing the praises of Slurpees to my sister the other day, the AC in my car doesn't work, and we were bummed out, so we were looking for an adventure...but for the record, Slurpees weren't quite what we were looking for).  At any rate, we took a walk downtown and went back home.  Oh well.

Today, my client shows up for session and both she and her mother are totally sunburned.  "It looks like you had a fun weekend outside," I said.

"Oh yes," said mom, "we spent all day yesterday at the park.  We went to the lake-over-the-mountain and spent all day at the little beach swimming."

Hrmph, thought I.  That would have been awkward.  Small beach.  Small lake.  Talkative client family of 6.  My sister and I.  It's probably a really good thing we got Slurpees instead.

Story 2.  I was running late getting out the door and getting to work this morning.  I actually woke up early, but then Summer the dog who lives down hill on the next road over was in my backyard for the 200th time, so I had to take Summer home and stick him back in his fence behind the house.  That set me back a bit, but I was still okay-ish time wise...until I got in the car and realized I was on E and absolutely HAD to stop for gas if I hoped to make it in to work at all.  The gas station near my house is tiny, and all the pumps were full, so I had to sit and wait for the huge ass pick-up truck with the confederate flag bumper sticker that was taking up 2 pump spots to pump, pay, buy coffee, mosey back to his truck, and drive away.  He took his time.   If Summer put me back a little, Mr. Confederate Flag put me back a lot.  Then the highway was backed up, and I was just plain late.  However, there was still hope!  I would only be late if I did the whole drive past work to park in the sketchy lot and take the bus back to my building thing I do every day.  If I parked in the parking lot I'm not supposed to park in, but can get away with if I do it very occasionally, I would get there 10 minutes before my meeting.  I hadn't parked in the forbidden lot in about 3 months, so I  decided to go for it, and was shooed in by my friend the security guard ("Here you go, hon," she says, handing me a parking pass.  "I ain't seen you in a while.  You go on in.  Have a good one").  Hooray for 10 minutes early!

About 20 minutes before I leave work, my colleague says, "why does it smell like smoke?"  I sniff and, indeed, it smells like something burning.  We walk out of the office--it smells like smoke out there, too.  We look out the front doors and it looks smoky.  2 minutes later, we have an email informing us that there was a 5-alarm fire with 130 firefighters working on it.  My friend, Erudite, and I leave the office.  Where we usually go out two separate doors, because I had parked at the close-but-forbidden lot, we left together.  We walked a ways, talking about the smoke and the fire while he looked up more information on his SmartPhone.  We parted ways as we neared the bus stop, but then he called me again.  "Hey...the bus is going to take forever because all the streets are closed.  Can you drive me home?"

"Totally," I said.

"It's not too out of your way?" he asked.
It is, but I didn't really care.  "Nah," I said.  "Let's go."  We walked up to my car and took a back way around all the traffic and smoke to his house.  Funny thing was, I was then able to completely avoid all traffic and closed roads because I got on the highway in a completely different location.

Hrmph.  Maybe Summer and Mr. Confederate Flag were in my life for a reason this morning? 

Do you pay attention to things like this?  Do these things happen to you?  What sort of attributions do you make for things like this?  Luck?  Fate?  The Universe unfolding as it should?  (And why, then, at other times, does every possible thing seem to go wrong, such that it would seem it all led to you needing to sit in traffic, or sit on a small beach with a talkative client?)