Some schools want you to mail a cover letter and a resume.
Some schools want you to fill out an online application that demands to know, credit hour by credit hour, teaching hour by teaching hour, your every single move since graduating from the college of education! Additionally, they would like you to add documentation of everything you have typed into the application, plus your blood type.
I was kidding about the blood type.
My brother-in-law tells me that the Japanese have an astrology-type belief that your blood type determines your personality, so it all makes sense.

Redemption for Single Parents: Spread the Truth

I was driving to church this morning listening to the local Christian radio station when some sort of an ad or program came on talking about redemption for the broken-hearted.
Some girl named Miranda came on and gave her brief testimony of how, although she came from a broken home with a single mother, she has managed to make something valuable of her existence.
I have to admit, I didn't listen after that.
I almost started yelling at my radio, but checked myself because my kids were in the backseat.
Maybe there was some kind of redeeming moment for the broadcast after that statement, but having heard many like it, I don't really think so.
What I wanted to yell - scream, even - is "Hey! My children are in the car listening to this complete and utter crap!" How dare they not consider all of their listeners? How dare they not consider the implications of including "broken home" and "single mother" in the same sentence? Do they have any real concept of what it must be like for my children to grow up in a household that people are calling broken?
In this century, there are a lot of divorced parents. It is archaic to continue to uphold a two-parent family as the only kind of family that works. I have known close, loving families in which none of the members were actually blood-related. I happen to be lucky enough to know of quite a few exceptional single parents with successful, happy kids. A family is a group of people who mutually love and respect one another, people who have each others' backs.
I agree that divorce can be very hard on kids, but kids are a lot tougher than we give them credit for. They can bounce back quicker and better than most adults, because in many ways they're more flexible than we are. For example, they do not see their home as broken unless some idiot refers to it in that manner.
Living in a single parent home does NOT make your home broken.

A broken home is a home in which there are two parents that don't mutually love and respect each other, thus breaking down the lines of communication and causing abuse or neglect. A broken home is where there is violence and/or damage done. In the long run, my children are proving to be happier and healthier than I think they would have been.
MY home is not BROKEN, thank you very much. We are the opposite of broken. My children know that their mother loves them more than anyone else in the entire world, and that if they ever need me for anything, they can tell me and talk to me about it and I will be there. They do well in school. My son has a few truly close friends whom he can count on, while my daughter has a following of the entire 24 kids of her classroom who all adore her, not to mention her teacher. My son is reading three levels above the norm, while my daughter will read aloud to anyone at all who is willing to listen. They are healthy physically, mentally, and socially. I'm sure certain people would have it that my children are secretly over-compensating for their misery at the loss of their real family, but that would just be sour grapes because we don't fit their mould. Last I heard, it is love that makes a family. My family is whole.
You may say that you come from a divorced family if that is the case, but I would like "broken" to be removed from vocabulary concerning this subject. Broken is a different topic entirely.

Nothing So Terrible

Was reading an interview with poet Mary Oliver yesterday in which she said it was a shame that the world has Plath as an example of what poetry is, because now they've got a certain impression of the art that doesn't reflect all its facets.

At least, that's my Next-Day interpretation of what I read that she was saying.

It bothered me a little.
I relate too well to Plath.

But what Oliver was trying to say is true to an extent, and from a certain point of view.

The assumption that all poetry is the tortured confessional of a suicidal woman is, like all assumptions, obviously only a facet of the whole. What is an assumption, after all, if not a portion of a whole, as in Saxe's poem about the blind men and the elephant? Is the elephant all of these things or none of these things?

All of them, I'd say.

I don't believe you can write much of anything without bits of yourself accidently getting into it, but it's only confessional if you are choosing to confess something.

Certainly not all poems have to be about something dark, tortured, or insidious.
Mary Oliver is an example of that.
She prefers to see the "bright sides" of things and offer those up to the world as trite solutions or an answer to societal ills.
The way I've worded that sounds highly judgemental coming from a woman who by nature can't help but see the bright side of everything sooner or later, no matter how hard she may try to focus on "reality."
It's all relevant anyway.
Your reality is what you make of it, and the opinions of others doesn't necessarily have to have any effect upon that.

Oliver writes a lot about nature, and draws all of her solace from nature, it appears.
I can appreciate that.
I draw strength from Lake Michigan.
And when my hair fell out at the age of fourteen and I had to adjust to thinking less of physical, material matters, it was comforting to think of nature; of how the leaves return to the trees in their season.
It grew back.
I admit I decided to think of Life in that way, and I dare say that is what has kept me alive through considerable strife - the philosophy that all things pass or resolve themselves, given enough time.

I digress here.

I think I only wanted to say that I'm glad of Plath. I celebrate that nothing is so big or terrible that it can't be put into words and then expressed as art, transforming it into a thing of beauty and strength in its own right.

I choose to make that a theme in my life and in my art.

If this had been Oliver's only criticism, I would most likely not have posted this. Additionally, she said that Plath and those of her ilke were mistakenly using poetry as therapy - and, using Sylvia Plath as an example, that obviously the "experiment" was a failure.

Why?
Is the assumption that, because Plath ultimately committed suicide anyway, that her opinion of the use of poetry was rendered invalid?  That her poetry is therefore less valid?
I don't suppose Oliver meant it like that, but that's how it reads all the same, and I think it's deplorable.

Of course poetry is not the same as therapy, and the only purpose for writing it is not that one be seeking solace from some personal torment. Of course not.

But it can be.
And who is to say that it sometimes shouldn't be?
The beauty of the medium is that it can be manipulated any way the writer wishes, and in turn interpretated in any way the reader is able.
A poem can be physical, metaphysical, personal, impersonal, free-range or follow the strictest of codes. The choice is up to the individual. Any judgement rendered by others is somewhat meaningless, unless the author reads what they have to say and realizes that the poem did not accomplish what they meant it to. And guess what? I don't think that makes it any less a poem. Nothing that we write and publish before the eyes of others is our own any more. It is shared and experienced and re-experienced meaning somethingdifferent to every person who reads it, because there are as many interpretations as there are people upon this earth.

Dreamed last night that I went back to the man who tried to rape me and told him that I'd given up and he could just have me if he still wanted me.
I told him that then I could go on to kill myself and feel perfectly justified in doing so.
He seemed pleased with the offer. Like the King from The Princess Bride, he was delighted at the kiss and ignored the words that went along with it.
Luckily, Carey Grant arrived in full-on Romantic Comedy mode and swept me out of there with a profusion of words and smooth gestures.
I thought that maybe he was a little in love with me, but he proceeded to put on a magic show for the adoring crowd that he'd picked up along the way.
I had to continue working on my own life alone, although I was most grateful to him for giving me the space and encouragement I needed in which to do it.

Coping

I’m angry at how our enlightened society tramples all over people for things that they can’t help.  Many undesirable qualities individuals possess are nothing more or less than what they were born with, raised to, or predisposed toward through no fault of their own– and sometimes you can’t scrub those kinds of things off or rub them out so easily. 

 

 What’s with the judgment, rejection, and pure anger that people dish out when confronted by these things? Worse, why the terrible silence? It’s as if saying anything about these things out loud is the equivalent of stripping naked in public and pointing out bruises and bleeding gashes. People cover their children’s eyes, turn away, or tackle you and wrap you up and put you away. Maybe they’ll laugh at you, pretend they didn’t see you, point you out to a friend, get sick to their stomachs. Maybe they’ll talk down to you or just smile and nod. Or they ignore you and your scars and pretend that everything is normal because they don’t believe in bruises and gashes, or the doctors who stitch them up. They are appalled that you would be so uncouth as to go out of your way to seek medical attention for imaginary injuries. You must be looking for attention, you sick creature. Heaven forbid that anyone should notice your pain and be tricked into caring for you. Worse, someone out there might be making big bucks pretending your injuries are real by mixing up a vat of lies to humor your ignorance. “Thank God I’m normal,” they’ll tell you, “I’m not stupid enough to shell out money for doctors who claim there’s something wrong with the blood oozing out these wounds I refuse to acknowledge. You’re fine. You’re no worse off than the rest of us. Get out of that hospital and get back to being productive like the rest of us miserable people, Idiot!” Properly shamed, you pull a t-shirt over the loose shreds of skin along your back, wincing with pain, and continue to stumble through each moment of the day with the shirt sticking to your back, pulling open any chance of blood clotting you may ever have had. They must be right, after all. You don’t hear anyone else whining that they’re bleeding. Blood is normal. Maybe you are not, but you’d best get busy pretending that you are so that no one else is offended by your laziness.

 

I’m talking about depression, mental illness, mental disorders, emotional disorders, delusions, derangement, disturbed minds, emotional instability, insanity, loss of mind, lunacy, madness, maladjustment, mania, mental disease, mental disorder, mental sickness, nervous breakdown, nervous disorders, neurosis, neurotic disorders, paranoia, personality disorders, phobias, psychopathy, psychosis, schizophrenia, sick minds, troubled minds, unbalanced minds, unsoundness of mind, sheer craziness – choose your weapon.

I mean, term.

We talk about diversity and acceptance, tolerance and compassion, but we do not often use any of these terms in voices above an undertone when discussing someone who is challenged or confronted with them in their real life. It’s uncomfortable. Perhaps we’re afraid it’s contagious? It is sometimes inconvenient for us, and often awkward or uncomfortable. I kind of liken it to having been raised by a racist parent and then going out as an adult and trying as hard as you can not to be a racist yourself. In a way, there’s no such thing as overcompensating for that. How can you love all kinds of people toooo much? But you are always self-conscious, always wondering if you are saying and doing the right thing, and trying so hard not to offend. What I’m saying here is that not everyone is uncomfortable with the subject of mental issues because they despise the people who have them, but they are uncomfortable all the same.

 Imagine how uncomfortable the subject of the conversation must be. How hard it must be to admit that they have any kind of difference from anyone else, or to draw attention to it, or to get help for it. Plenty of people out there are walking around with all kinds of problems and not seeking help. The statistics are high, but I imagine the REAL numbers must be astronomical. We deal with unpleasant people all the time who make us either squirm or want to punch their faces in. Probably it’s not entirely their fault that they’re like that, but how the hell are they supposed to expose themselves as less than perfect in this hardened, injudicious society in order to get treatment? It’s like one of the last remaining forms of condoned racism or abuse (along with violence against women, since the Act has been repealed. That’s right, America – Let’s continue to take steps backward).

Sometimes some things just need to be said. Maybe it’s the teacher in me; maybe just the survivor, but I should be able to explain to co-workers why something gives me an anxiety attack right in front of them, or to Human Resources why I can’t tolerate certain conditions (and shouldn’t have to) without losing my job.  I should be able to mention it without embarrassment or shame, and without judgment, disbelief, or outright laughter. And so should anyone else with any other mental condition that they need to address.

     Oh, and while I’m at it: Let me just point out that it is NOT a handicap. I’m not so sure I like the terms disorder, illness, instability, disturbance, malady, mania, disease, sickness, unsoundness, unbalance, or most certainly not crazy.

 

It’s a challenge. Sometimes it can even be a gift. If anything, it is a part of me, it’s not going away, and neither am I. Instead, I’m going to write about it. I'm going to write about it precisely because it is so hard to talk about. I used to have conversations with my friend Bill, Veteran of Vietnam, about these things. How nice to know that someone else understood what I was experiencing. The validation.

So I may have hinted at it or outright mentioned it before, but I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

There.

In black and white.

I think possibly in this society that the only thing worse than admitting that you've got a "condition" like this is admitting that you're lonely. People don't know what to do with the information. (And if you admit to them that you're lonely, God forbid, they might actually feel obligated to do something about it. At least with PTSD I've got like the cool mental disorder. Vets have it and stuff. Very cool) 

 

Probably a lot of women have it - one in three, my therapist says.

It's caused by experiencing extreme violence at some point in your life. Some people get it; some people don't. I've been prone to all sorts of madness since a fairly early age. Think of it as a continuation of that time in 7th or 8th grade (both?) that all my hair fell out. I'm a sensitive being, apparently.

Tough, though.

God, I'm tough.

I pull it all together and I look great every single day.

About a year ago, I had a major Post Traumatic Episode that started with months of sleeplessness and ended with me nearly killing myself.

To be clear, I don't want to die.

I love my children and I love so many things about myself. With my writing and painting and teaching, I have so much potential. I love people - all kinds of people - and yes, I love them too much. And I love life in great bright swaths of sound and color; frequently. I frequently love my life.

It's just that the PTSD symptoms can be so harsh at times.

Basically, they change the way you respond to stress.

Your responses don't necessarily match up logically with what is going on.

It's like layers of my past are superimposed across the face of everything I experience.

 

Symptoms (via PubMed Health website)

Symptoms of PTSD fall into three main categories:
1. "Reliving" the event, which disturbs day-to-day activity

• Flashback episodes, where the event seems to be happening again and again
• Repeated upsetting memories of the event
• Repeated nightmares of the event
• Strong, uncomfortable reactions to situations that remind you of the event

2. Avoidance

• Emotional "numbing," or feeling as though you don't care about anything
• Feeling detached
• Being unable to remember important aspects of the trauma
• Having a lack of interest in normal activities
• Showing less of your moods
• Avoiding places, people, or thoughts that remind you of the event
• Feeling like you have no future

3. Arousal

• Difficulty concentrating
• Startling easily
• Having an exaggerated response to things that startle you
• Feeling more aware (hypervigilance)
• Feeling irritable or having outbursts of anger
• Having trouble falling or staying asleep

You might feel guilt about the event (including "survivor guilt"). You might also have some of the following symptoms, which are typical of anxiety, stress, tension:

• Agitation or excitability
• Dizziness
• Fainting
• Feeling your heart beat in your chest
• Headache

I've had a lot of these symptoms for years.
Ignored them.
Eventually that caught up with me.
Because I want to live, I've been getting all the help I need with a combination of medical and mental counsel. I'm trying to build coping mechanisms and a support system, for these are the way toward living with this condition more comfortably.
And that, my friends, is the best prognosis they give you.
It's not something you ever "get over."
You get to keep these symptoms for the rest of your life.
So, basically, after this entry, I don't plan on complaining much about this.
It is what it is.

 

When I walked in to see the counselor on Monday it was so intense it felt like the climax of that horrible Ordinary People movie that Mr. Reese made us watch for his psychology class in high school.

There was supposed to be some big, dramatic reveal at the end where I confessed what the Big Problem REALLY was, and then sobbed a bit, and then everything was gradually all right again.

I don't remember all we talked about, but I'll try to hit the highlights.

 

I remember coming in there and trying to talk to her about what was really going on in my head. I'm actually very good at talking about myself. I get sick of myself, though, and sick of talking. Sometimes it seems like I'd get quicker results if I lit myself on fire and danced at a crossroads somewhere.

She was like, "Go ahead. Talk to me. Spit it out. You can't shock me."

Oh no?

Well, I still have the power to surprize her, that's for certain.

I had brought in emails that I sent to my family while I was experiencing the worst of the most recent PTSD Episode.She read the emails and immediately zeroed in on the suicidal thoughts, as well she should.

And here's the thing.

I don't know why I want to die, so when she asked me outright, I didn't know how to explain it.

A long-held sense of worthlessness.

Fear.

Pain.

Hopelessness.

Switching from 2nd shift hours and meals to regular hours and meals right at the same time as getting on new medication?

Not at all.

None of the above.

Or maybe a little of all of it, but mainly it's that when I have an "episode," I'm not in the same frame or plane of mind as I ordinarily operate from.

The therapist thinks working at the factory re-traumatized me, triggering a bunch of crap that had settled down to the bottom like Chai spice and that even though they've laid me off I'm still experiencing the effects.

Apparently you get to suffer quite awhile before things feel normal again.

 

I told her that I was scared because I actually only had enough pills to get through thate day and then I needed to get back to my sister Thea, who had intercepted them from me at the car and doled out only so much and no more.

Smart cookie, that Thea.

She didn't yell or cry - just held out her hand and asked me to give her all the extra pills that I'd tried and my body had rejected in one side effect or another. I didn't need them all - just the most recently prescribed, and I'd already told her earlier in the week that my therapist thought I should leave the extra ones with her.

I was just hoping she wouldn't notice I'd grabbed them...

"What were you going to do with all those pills?" asked the therapist.

"I wasn't going to take them -" I started.

I stopped.

I admitted, "I just wanted back-up. Like a Plan B."

I fell silent, thinking of my dark little apartment with the walls so like my bedroom growing up. I still had to go home to that, after our time was up.

"Why?" she asked, looking sad. "What is it, Heather? What is so horrible? What's wrong?"

I whispered loudly, "I don't know!"

She looked at me as if she felt I did know, and wasn't telling her.

 

Well, what was I supposed to tell her? She knows my father was a mean drunk and I got molested by a boy that I'd trusted when I was seven and that I'd been re-abused and traumatized by my ex-husband and then was homeless and that I've been rebuilding my entire life up from scratch ever since. I ask you, what more does she need to know?

 

"I'm trying to think - nothing specific - I'm trying to think - I'm trying to tell you - "

"It's okay," she said soothingly, "You're okay. You're safe here."

It was really hard to believe her.

it was crazy.

I was actually starting to panic and hyperventiliate, and my voice was sounding weird - like a child's voice - like Lucy after a nightmare, Lucy alone in the dark.

I started telling her about all the weird, off-the-wall crap from my week staying with brother-in-law Paul and sister Thea in Grand Ledge...

Paul's mom rearranging some flowers behind me while I sat on the couch with Lucy watching t.v. I could hear the rustling. Hear it. Close. Suspicious. I knew what the sound was - a gentle sound - but it rustled at me. I wanted to turn my head and look but the sound wasn't meant for me and there was no need to look. I got all anxious - heart pounding, worrying because I felt like I should be responding in some way and instinctively it would have been to run out of the room or to duck. I could feel all the muscles in my neck tightening, trying to button it all back up again and keep up the facade of normalcy while all the while wanting, waiting to be dead. If I'd been home alone I'd have curled up into a ball and wept, but the thought of Paul's mom being all horrified at these naked emotions kept me still. I mean seriously, if I were to start bawling in front of her I think it would be as horrifying to her as if I had thrown up

on her shoes.

 

Every night I'm over there I go to bed eyes wide, heart pounding - afraid of I don't know what.

What I might hear.

What's going on under the surface.

Only there's nothing there.

it's frustrating that I know nothing is there but I still can't sleep, like I'm afraid it will come in the night after I've closed my eyes...

And sometimes it does.

 

In the van on the way from picking up Lucy last weekend (Thea was driving), I kept having to cover my head with my scarf because the light and the noise was upsetting me so badly.

 

I'm telling the therapist about these odd, disconnected things, and suddenly I'm feeling light-headed and my heart rate speeding up and eyes stretching wide. I'm clutching the arms of the chair and I can hardly breath as I start yelling at the therapist "I'm scared! I'm so scared!"

And I feel such shame and embarassment over having exposed that side of myself - the side that doesn't look and sound absolutely perfect - or even quasi-normal. Whatever the hell normal is supposed to be.

And she has me take deep breaths and is talking me through it, telling me that I've experienced severe trauma in my lifetime -

(Trauma? What trauma? I'm fine!)

- and that these things I'm telling her - all of them - are textbook PTSD and perfectly understandable.

Normal.

Not crazy.

Not crazy?

I re-read my description of the conversation and I have a hard time believing it.

Sounds a little crazy to me.

I want to know what the flowers and the lights have to do with anything.

 

But I guess at least I know that sometimes I freak out at certain lights, sounds, images, attitudes from people - whatever - and that it's sort of like a light gauge on my inner dashboard: Check Engine. PTSD under the hood.

 

I really was hoping it would be more like Algebra, where if you have A and C, you will know what B is.

Nope.

Doesn't work that way.

 

And it is taking FOREVER to figure out what do DO about the symptoms once I've identified them. Stay in the moment. Don't freak out. Don't have any out-of-body experiences. Easier said than done.

I disassociate within a flicker of my eyelid, and half the time don't even realize I've done it; it comes so naturally.

I mean, my friend Bill - He knows if he goes into the woods at twylight with a gun in his hand, he's going to think he's in 'Nam.

So what does Bill do?

He never goes deer hunting.

There's a connection.

 

What am I going to do?

Maybe I can't sit upstairs in a wood-panelled room with people fighting down below.

Too  much like my teen years.

Maybe it's all of Manistee.

I spent some dark days in this little town, but I've always loved the place itself.

Maybe I just need time to adjust to my meds and get on a regular schedule for myself, subbing and seeking full time work that's less abusive and abrasive than the factory. I've half a mind to start painting that mural at the child development center, get involved in the art institute and PFLAG, plays at the Ramsdell - continue work on my Master's Degree. Write. I'm always writing.

 

According to my therapist, I'm not going to just keep snapping back to normalcy at the blink of an eye like I've been trying to do.

It takes time.

It won't happen overnight.

i have to be patient with myself.

Makes me want to go "ARRRGH!" like a Charlie Brown comic.

How does a person ever get a decent job with all this crap going on?

My therapist referred me to Michigan Rehabilitative Services, but it's been months since I had my orientation with them, and I haven't heard a thing since. My therapist hasn't heard from them, so she reminded me of that old adage about the squeaky wheel.

 

I'm angry.

I am one of the people of the world who wants to do a lot very much.

I have dreams and goals and ambitions, and I've always worked very hard to achieve them.

I do not feel that I have time to stop and take care of all this crap that I didn't want and certainly never asked for. It's bad enough that I was a prisoner in a dead-end relationship for so long and feel as if I'm already reinventing myself from scratch at an age when most people I know seem to have settled into their careers and are doing quite well by themselves.

 

But I have to stop.

I have to stop and determine that I am worth the time and the effort.

I'm certainly not worth much without it.

And for God's sake I have to stop making everything so bloody hard on myself.

 

How do I do that?

I've been thinking about that a lot.

 

My doctor told me recently about a vet he knew of who hid under his bed for over thirty years - literally hid under his bed - and had never told anyone about it. I imagine he was alone. Otherwise, it seems like a wife or friend might have said, "Hey - come out of there. It's all right. Let's have a hot bath and a nice cup of tea."

 

How do I make things easier for myself?

Obviously, I reach out.

I admit it.

 

 

 

I build up a circle of friends who knows my strengths and weaknesses and loves me anyway.

I take the consequences.

Truthfully, I'm afraid of descrimination.

I'm afraid I wouldn't be allowed to teach, or that maybe I'll be alone all the rest of my life because no one is going to want to take all this on.

I have to keep reminding myself that I am so fearfully and wonderfully made that those who really know me see something truly beautiful. Something solid and real. If I got to know myself a little bit better, I think I could hold on to that.

A therapist tells me that once I have learned all the proper coping mechanisms (and unlearned the improper ones), it will become easier and easier to deal with the symptoms of the PTSD. Therefore, if you are suffering from the same condition, there is hope for it even if there is no cure. Sadly, it took me many years to develop all the wrong coping mechanisms, and it will take as many months as years to defeat them. That would equal roughly three years of therapy before I can walk away feeling less scathed. It's still an improvement upon not walking away at all.

Yep.
Still crazy.

"after all these years..."

Untouched

The woman who never sleeps, 

She loves the early morning hours when fresh light is shining in.

 Trundled in her blankets,

Secure diminutive fetus.

The nightmares leave with obscurities

 Safe sex, they snicker, is an oxymoron...

 They have to take that one last stab

 before the light blocks them out.

Her mind ambles in and out of reality

as effortlessly as stations on the dial of her car.

Therefore, she can feel someone holding her tenderly

telling her everything is all right.

It’s all right, and it’s going to be all right.

 I’m all right.

 More than all right.

I’m a striking, sensuous being

In the early morning hours the ache of my existence is exquisite

my mind stripped of worries, my body bare of apparel

Someone rocking her

Firm hands; words

Fingers trailing through her hair.

 She hungers for the words more than for their touch

Along her temples,

 inside her mind

Echoes, trailing earthquakes along her skin

 It feels so good,

 as so few things do

Lips; whispering

They trace along the length of her form

 in rhythms, consonants, alliteration,

leaving fiery moist darts in their wake

 lit clit literature

The rocking glides into a cadenced dominance

 surrounded by sound; sounding out the words

 They taste good

 She’s not some crazy hypersexual whore,

Not dirty nor low

Beautiful

Powerful

Unique

He must know that I can’t say no to anything

but understands that freedom breeds

Breathes

 She's whispering

Any time; any place

 Crazy, clashing imagery

Any game; any position

 The pauses seem random but are pregnant with anticipation

As hard as you want

 They only seem harsh when they become personal

As long as you want

 broken up by spaces, trailing down the page like fingers

As fast or as slow as you want

 speed poetry, seed poetry, erupting in motion

As often as you want

 She lingers in the words compulsively,

tunneling through her limbs,

a fix shot through her veins

 The stamen forced through,

the soft tactile flames

 bursting into her brain,

a profusion of shuddering red petals

 warm and spreading warmth

Heavy breathing in her ear

It’s morning

I’m safe in the morning

The breaths are defenselessly resilient ,

holding back so much

Holding back the pain

The emptiness

The fear

Solid hands are holding her,

soothing her,

telling her that she's safe

Gentle, persistent,

Leaving tremors in their wake

I’m all right

 Everything’s all right

“Are you there?” he asks.

Softly

He knows that she needs him to ask

She needs to be there

I want to be there

I don’t have to float fearfully from my body

Hovering cold and alone above

There's nothing broken here;

 I can connect like this, cling to this

Touch it taste it smell it feel it free it be it

 allow myself to feel this, to enjoy this -

Shaking, quaking with searing intensity

in the effort to maintain control

for fear her mind will explode

with urgency in the moment

Because he’s on to her,

covering her

Clever enough,

patient enough

to sense when she's leaving,

to hold her close and tell her that he’s there

 to rock and to read another line

And she adores him for it

 a stanza

For grounding her,

pressing her into the covers

whispering

Touch me

Touch me here

 Short, rapid breaths singing,

A pant

A sigh

 Denying entry of the fear

Filling her with floral arrangements

 No room for the thorns

 Tell me

Teach me

Reach for me

Quivering

I burn like a phoenix

Birth like Eve

Believe

Just tell me

Movement by movement,

describe the steps of the dance

 For she hungers for the words as much as for the touch

I learn quickly

My mind and body open

early in the morning

where the nightmares stand at bay.

Never Intended

The plate glass window glints along the main street
winking
I am drawn in by the images beyond its sheen
Beautiful objects are piled within
random, erratic visions of delight
I see them
I want them.
I can't afford them.
The price is too dear
I can never have them
might as well never touch them
Not through the glass
Ads on signs beckon from within
They are for anyone to see
certainly none are directed to me
Theirs is a public face
intended to promote the objects on display
product placement
I am displaced
I want to touch them all the same
How worthy are they to possess?
The ads do not really say
I pull a marker from my pocket
its tip squeals erratically along the surface
I write about the things I see,
what they mean to me
Glancing up, I see my own face looking back
a trick of the light
a happenstance reflection along the glimmer of the glass
The glass is smooth, impregnable.
It is calm
It reflects the light
It says, "It was never my intention to be a mirror."
Never its purpose.
So I step back.
And I walk away

Accidentally Celebrating Valentine's Day

I've been helping my sister move into her new home in Grand Ledge - a lovely home with a river flowing through the backyard that you can see from the window when you're washing the dishes. I feel happy and safe when I'm there; as happy and safe as I feel anywhere.

Now, you'd think that happiness would be quite elusive for a divorced single woman on Valentine's Day, but I would tell you that it's all a matter of perspective. I could have taken the day as a sombre symbol of all that is dead in my life - of lost child-like dreams of True Love and fantasies of Happily Ever Afters with Prince Charming, all strewn behind me like markers in a cemetery. The road ahead is obscured by fog. I can either assume that I'm trapped in a horror flick, or blithely skip into the nearest house to await the Zombie Apocalypse... Hmn. I think the "or" is supposed to be an example contrary to that proposed beforehand. It's late, and I digress.

I happened to have had a lovely Valentine's Day - attended a tea party along with my adorable nieces and their mother, who is beautiful inside and out. I had fun and felt loved. I've had a hard time of it lately with the PTSD, so I didn't feel a need for anything more. I needed to drive home for the weekend to see my children. My daughter's name is Lucy, aptly named, as it means "bringer of light." My son, Stuart, cares for people so deeply that I'm afraid he'll develop ulcers worrying for them. I had sent them Valentines to let them know that I love them and think of them always. More than they know, for it's not possible to explain to them how many opportunities I've let pass on their behalf, or how lonely I am sometimes simply because I want what is best for them before what is best for myself. It's no sacrifice: I prefer to be alone over being with the wrong person. If anything, my love for them keeps me out of trouble. Left to my own devices, I imagine my hormones or my artistic temperament (call it what you will) would land me in some awkward situations.

Tonight on the drive I was puzzled by the number of people in ditches. It had rained steadily on and off from the Lansing Area to just beyond Grand Rapids, and then turned to snow, but the roads didn't seem icy.

Until the car just ahead of me braked hard and sudden for no visible reason.

I touched my brakes - I wasn't close, and I was only going around 45 or 50 miles an hour, but the tires of my car were not pleased and apparently didn't feel a need to catch against the road properly upon that pressure. I felt the body of my car do a little fish-tail wriggle, so I took my foot off the brake and worked patiently at straightening it out. The car responded with about as much sensitivity as my ex-husband halfway through an orgasm - which is to say that I ended up backward in a ditch wondering what on earth I had done wrong in my lifetime to have ended up cold and alone so far from home.

It was with total detachment that I observed the ditch approaching. After the initial acceleration of my heartbeat at the realization that I no longer had control of my car, I felt myself relaxing into the situation as it unfolded in slow, almost stop-photography motion against the bluish light of my headlights across the snow and the shadows beyond. The car slid smoothly and turned as gracefully as if perched upon the diaz at an auto show.

I sit and take inventory of my feelings. I'm not injured and my car is still running.
I'm alone.
There is no one at home to call.
No one to be worried.
I call and worry my sister anyway, then text all my other siblings and a couple of close friends. Nothing anyone can do. It just seems like someone ought to know.
Life feels that way sometimes.
Like something happens that is significant to you and someone else ought to notice.
Perhaps that's arrogance on my part.

I called for a tow. I keep coverage on my car because it's old and my knowledge of vehicles is almost as limited as the number of people I could call if I were in a serious accident.
It was going to be a good half hour before the tow truck came.
I watched and listened and several ambulances and blaring police sirens passed on either side of the freeway.
I wondered how exactly they would locate me, other than by the fact that I specified I'd been going Northbound past a specific exit and was now facing South.
I wondered if they charged extra for having to get you turned around again.
I wondered if I was far enough off the road.
I tried to pull out of the ditch myself.
The wheels spun.
Nothing doing.
Out of my control.

Life is irritating in this; that you can do your very best and still have so little control over the outcome.

I keep trying anyway.

Philosophically, I start digging around in my bag for the box of Valentine's Day candy from my nieces' great grandma.
Couldn't get out of the ditch.
Had no hot date waiting for me.
Might as well munch on chocolates.
The first one had crispy bits of coconut inside.

A man from the road commission or something stopped and told me that the police were on their way, along with the wrecker. He offered to stay with his vehicle running nearbye until they came.

An ambulance stopped, and the EMT got out to make sure I was all right.

The police came and went, determining I was good to wait for the towing company, but cautioning me to call 911 if any other vehicles ended up smashing into the ditch with me.
Comforting thought.

Funny thought: Why were all these people making such a fuss over me? It was as if all these men were deliberately out on Valentine's Day, avoiding taking their wives or girlfriends out that evening. Shoot - they seemed almost disappointed every time they stopped and found that I wasn't mutilated.

I texted my brother something to that effect.
He joked that I should ask one of them out.

I thought about the last time I'd been in any kind of auto accident where I'd landed in a ditch...

Springtime, I believe.
My children were still little; They'd fallen asleep in their respective booster and car seat, strapped safely in the back.
We were heading along a dirt road in the middle of nowhere to visit someone. I was dressed in a long brown skirt with the brown heels that reminded me of a female Sherlock Holmes, wearing my favorite form-fitting shirt that I vainly supposed belied my twice-pregnant status.

The van had suddenly started fish-tailing strangely, skidding around on the gravel with a growing force of its own - Nothing anything like calm hitting my senses as I realized I was heading into the trees and couldn't stop no matter how hard I pressed the brakes or how tightly I was clutching the steering wheel (so tightly that my hands smelled of rubber for three days afterward). Reeds and water and trees came crashing toward my face as the vehicle slammed down deep into the drop at the side of the road. I closed my eyes helplessly against the slapping of the cattails against my windshield and the screams of my terrified children -

It seemed oddly quiet when I opened my eyes.
My children were sobbing and screaming for me, but a strange calm settled over me as I took in the fact that we were alive.
I unwrapped my fingers from the steering wheel with an effort - they felt stiff and strange. I could see the windshield was broken - the steering wheel of the van seemed strangely close, as did the ceiling. I unfastened my seat belt and splashed down against the glass arching over me - realizing with a shock that my vehicle was actually upsidown in a foot or more of water.

I could smell gasoline, and I could see it floating along the top of the water in rainbow eddies.

I crunched around the top of the seat, crawling with my bare knees against the broken windshield toward the sound of my children. I made out the side door above my right shoulder and reached up to pull it open. I could see the sky above the ditch from there, deep as it was, but the door refused to move. I wanted to panic, but then I saw my children's red faces, their mouths open and eyes pleading.They were dangling from their seat belts and screaming for me to help them, angry and confused that I had let this happen and hadn't fixed it yet. Determinedly, I craned around and pulled off my heel, prepared to smash the large window along the door open if necessary.

Now the door was hanging wide open to the sky.

It made no sense, but I had no time to think about it.
I snapped open the catch to my daughter's car seat and caught her as she fell toward the water. She latched onto my neck and right arm like a vice and screamed into my ear as I turned to get my son. I had to drag her through the water to reach him because she wouldn't loosen her hold so that I could move her above it. I had to strain upward to reach the catch of his seat belt.
He fell with a helpless splash into the water, landing underneath his booster seat.
I cursed myself, hauling him out and up again with my free arm.
I'd been so preoccupied with getting him out that I'd forgotten his seat didn't lock in like hers.
They were both screaming at me now, and the smell of gas was almost overwhelming.
I thought of the old trucks that would barrel heedlessly along the back roads, oblivious of the road rules of ordinary cityfolk, flicking their cigarette butts out the open windows without a glance behind.

I wedged my remaining heel against the front seat and pulled both children out from the gaping door into the sunshine, crawling down the side of the car and landing with a splash in the reeds before hauling them up out of the ditch. They were reluctant passengers because they were too young to understand that in making them move I was helping them.

For years afterward my daughter would wake from naps in the car screaming as if reliving the trauma.

We walked.

I was barefoot.

I don't know how long we walked, but there were no houses and it was a long time in the faltering, sobbing steps of my children before anyone came for us.

A kindly farmer called my husband and the police, respectively, and let us wait in his truck for them to arrive.

I don't suppose I'll ever forget the look on his face when he got there. He gave me a look of such anger and utter disgust that I felt smaller than the ash of the cigarette I'd imagined being flicked at us while we were still trapped in the van. He gathered up the children in his arms and kissed them and tucked them safely into his car, then proceeded to snap questions at me about how fast I'd been going and how carelessly I must have been driving for this to have happened. Head hanging, I crawled into the passenger side of the car and sat there, dripping and stinking of gasoline, ashamed at what kind of a mother I was to have taken the lives of our children so lightly.

It didn't matter that later the police determined that I wasn't responsible for the accident, or that the "shop" found out that not the axle itself, but the entire shaft that held the axle to the car, had been rusted clean through and snapped before my van had even left the road, most likely causing the entire accident in the first place.

It didn't matter any more than anything else concerning me had ever mattered while I was in that relationship. I was expected, on that day as on any other, to be home intact, on time, with dinner ready and the kids and house spotless, ready, if needed, to serve my function in the bedroom that evening whether we'd actually made eye contact during that day or not. It didn't matter that I'd been scared or that I'd been brave, if it were Valentine's Day or my birthday -

I sat in my car in the snow for over an hour and a half tonight, eating chocolates bought by a thoughtful woman who delighted in attending a small tea party held by her granddaughters, and I thought of all the things I've done and seen, and compared this night to others I have had, and I felt - seriously?

Happy.

No one was going to yell at me when they got there.
I might go home alone, but it was better than going home to captivity or indifference. (They're one and the same, in the end)
Overall, it was the happiest Valentine's Day I can remember.