Your Prayers Will Be Answered, But Not In Your Lifetime

I was looking at a very old black and white photograph from more than a hundred years ago that I found on the internet. It was of a small group of people, who looked like a pioneer family taking a rest in the midst of traveling. They were roughly dressed for the hard way they lived most everyday. Perhaps they were new in America traveling to a better life. An old women was sitting on a simple chair while the others were milling about or standing around as if in casual conversation. She was resting her chin on her hand and her elbow on her leg, the only one looking straight at the camera and I felt a connection to her. I began to fill in her thoughts with my own: Here we both sit pondering life. All the years I’ve lived have brought me here, to a time where the past and the future oppose each other. Uprooted. Again. No choice. The changes that come in life never seem to come from making a choice as much as from having no other choice. It has been this way for most women across time, across the globe. Men, children, land, food, water, sickness, forces beyond our control. Here we sit trying to understand why this happens to us. Can we bear the unbearable yet again? This was not the life I imagined and hoped for, not what was supposed to happen.

When you compare any woman’s life to that of women that came before her, the woman of now seems to have a better life, whenever now is. We are always living the impossible dreams and answered prayers of our fore-mothers. I can imagine all the prayers that were cried to God, the desperation a mother feels when her child is sick. Please, God, isn’t there some miraculous potion that will save my darling child? There will never be another child like as this one. Please. Let me take his suffering. But all the little graves tell us they were not healed.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a magic box that had within it the power to ….! When it is so hot, even Cleopatra did not have a way to make her palace as cool as my house. No way to talk to someone far away. No real image of a loved one’s face. A magic box that could keep food fresh inside. Even a King had to have musicians play for him if he wanted to hear music, but I can touch a magic box and music of any kind will play in my humble home or in my ears as I travel. Television … amazing! Even I never dreamed of the internet. We have a box that carries people and goods fifty miles in less than an hour, a box that can fly quickly across the ocean with people inside it. A box in the sky that sees the earth, weather is no longer a mystery. Another box that can fly to another planet and show us what it looks like there. Clean water to drink and indoor plumbing. Tea and salt cost pennies. Jewels are not rare. Magic boxes that cook food and do the work that servants used to do. What an impossible life we have. We must be so happy.

Loneliness seems too prevalent in my culture. I’ve been nomadic most of my life, but not by my choice. I’ve wondered what it would be like to always be surrounded by people who care about you as dearly as I do for my family and the friends I went to school with. Now they are scattered all over the continent. I had to start over in a new place so many times, and I’m basically shy, at some point it began to seem like a trauma to move away from the friends I had and another trauma to make new friends that I was sure I would lose with my next relocation. I miss my tribe. Generations of time and secrets have erased the knowledge of what happened to them and who they might be today.

My younger years were largely a struggle to have a life that would give me happy children, if nothing else, and a pleasant companion for me. For some reason I thought that men who became husbands wanted that too. Not the husbands in my life. I craved love and a soulful connection, but did not know, until far too late, that the endorphin bliss I felt when I looked into their eyes was not proof of true love. With my first husband, I was deep into dog brain: dancing, panting joy to be with him. Followed him like a puppy. He wasn’t looking for someone to feed but didn’t appear to mind my curling up beside him while he played his guitar or went on a road trip. Making music and the pursuit of his own perpetual bliss outweighed everything for him. If I could have been wise then, I would have seen that he was a perfect one of whatever he is. He needed to be solitary or someone else's dependent, not a father or husband. He is an ornamental.

The adventure of keeping his true self secret from us was what seemed to keep life burning for my second husband, the one that was most like my father. They both needed to have at least two personas to flip back and forth between. The self that had a wife, children and parents was suffocated by them. The secret, most exciting self, for both of them, traveled alone, drove a Jaguar, an MG or TR something, knew more than the bartender about liquor and wine, and knew what the lady at the end of the bar wanted.

I would minimized flaming character flaws in them and was totally unable to see my own. A thousand times I should have left. Leaving would have been the better choice, but I was paralyzed by pain, no where to take my children if I left and addicted to the brief moments of euphoria I felt when I thought I was loved. I thought loyalty was part of marriage so I was loyal. But after years of enduring bad behavior from both of my spouses it occurred to me that they might have both been thinking: "How bad do I have to treat her to get her to leave?" You would think that with all the choices we American women have now, that women in the past didn't have, and the women in so many parts of the world don't have, that we wouldn't make such messes of our time here on earth. Good luck to you future girls. I know you'll keep trying to make it better for the ones you love.

Oak Tree

One winter I watched a woodpecker or sapsucker finish a ring of holes it was making around the trunk of a young oak tree I planted. The next year a storm broke the tree on the dotted line. The tree sent up shoots all around its base and looked more like a bush than a tree. Though birds frequently perched on the slender stump, I sawed it off to make way for the thickening bouquet of trunks that were forming. I feared that if I left the stump it would be a weak spot that might make the tree vulnerable to injury again.

In late summer caterpillars appear in thick clumps on some of the oaks and eat bunches of the leaves. My defence of the tree against the hungry little guys has been getting weaker over time. I just shake off all that I can find and walk on them with my clogs. I know, gross! Until the tree sheds the rest of its leaves it looks a bit pitiful.

I pruned the bottom branches off this spring to make it easier to mow the grass around it. Now it is September and the tree with its knobby knees and chewed-on leaves makes me wonder how the many injuries it survives will change the assumed course of its life. The small trunks will become one large trunk someday and cover over the remnants of the first trunk. Most likely it will look like the other oaks but at its heart it will be different.

I'm Really Not That Angry

I'm trying to be less angry about the stupid choices I have made. I was reminded that we all come into the world without knowing how to navigate it, and I shouldn't be pissed that I messed up so many times.

Remembering

I'll remember you forever. You were always kind to me. My brother. In your eyes I wasn't worthless. I took your face in my hands for the last time, as you died. You were so warm. We were new together, traveling companions, you were there with me. Now I'm set free though I don't want to be. More alone as time passes. A grandfather, brother and sons, the only men who ever loved me. I was always fooled by other men. They lied to me but I don't know why. They hurt me but I don't know why. Why wasn't being loved enough for them? Why was being unloved enough for me?

Suicidal? Read This First

This evening when I had my cell phone in my hand, running down my contacts list to "suicide" for a hot line, I had this thought, "You're not going to waste their valuable time talking to them are you?" I always think there might be some really suicidal person who won't be able to get through because I was on the line. Then a new line of thinking popped into my head, "You have ice cream don't you? Yes. Make a milkshake first! You could get on the computer and look at that suicide website while you drink it." What is it about a vanilla milk shake that makes me feel like I'm three years old, curled up with my blankie and my thumb in my mouth, safe from the chaos and meanness around me?

Well, when I discovered that there was no where on the suicide prevention web site to spread the word about another way to possibly prevent a suicide, I decided to pull up my all but abandoned blog here and testify that, two milkshakes later, I think I dodged this bullet. Suicide humor, hah!

A Thunderbolt To the Liar

*"When you are drowning and you reach out for help, what you grab onto, usually, is another drowning person." - Melanie Waters Bigelow

*"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievences complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." -George Bernard Shaw

*"Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding to the honest, rough to the ruffian, and a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be unmindful of your own dignity."
- John Brown

*"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." -Will Rogers

*"Not all who wander are lost." - J. R. R. Tolkien

*"My whole life has been Go. I want to know what Stay feels like."- Me again

*"You have not lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you."- John Bunyan

*"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."- Ernest Hemingway

I've Missed You

I put all of my blog entries into storage, as saved drafts, when I had an inexplicable and overwhelming urge to be quiet.

Then my brother died. I miss him so much. And I miss his blog entries at The Mandarin.
I want to keep writing email to him. I asked Savant if that would be weird, and he said that it is actually recommended as a part of dealing with loss, to write letters to the person who had died. Still, there won't be replies.

I have spent some time working on another blog: OBSERVING SCHIZOPHRENIA IN AMERICA An introduction to the "Tag The Loony, Collect A Check" branch of American psychiatry. Schizophrenia from a parent's point of view.
I'm probably going to put the posts that pertain to that subject over there.

Savant found a new psychiatrist and a new medication early this year and a miracle has happened in regards to his level of sanity. It has been nothing short of awesome to see the change in him. While this wonderful thing has happened, I have great deal of anger toward the doctors that "treated" him previously. Why were they satisfied to leave him in Hell? Anyway, that is what the other blog is for.

Shannon Dances

Tennessee log cabin. Huge walnut trees and a creek nearby, large flat stones in its bed for all to sit on. A guitar or two, friendly conversation, always laughing. Everyone beautiful. 1968. Dry county, no clubs, nowhere to go but a to a field or the woods. We go to Cabinwood. In all my life I've never since been in the company of so many people that I loved.

There is a hammock on the stone front porch that runs the length of the house. The large trees shade, and a breeze cools us. Three pairs of doors line the porch. They are open and music is on, something new, Cheap Thrills, Joplin singing something sultry and I watch Shannon dance. Every move matches the song as though she gives no thought to moving. Her body knows and she just enjoys it.

I didn't know then that this memory would stay with me. I'm a watcher not a dancer. In private with music on, I sometimes think of how easily Shannon moved to the music and I try to release my mind from my body and let the music make it move, sensual sound as my partner. It's as hard as meditation.

Two Scoops Coming Right Up

from Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Someone once said that it is a shame that young people don't realise that their youth is their beauty. I know that's true, now that I can no longer be called a youth. My once slim figure is now quite pillowy. You sink into my hugs now. Try it you'll like it! Once, when one of my husband's aunts visited, I kept hunting her down and hugging her, because I loved the pillowy way she felt.

Years ago, I used to live on the border between Wellesley and Newton, Massachusetts. The Library in Wellesley was quite close, so I took the kids there often. A few doors down from the library was the White Mountain Creamery. They had wonderful hand-cranked style ice cream.

One day, at the library, I entered the ladies room and detected the lovely smell of fresh ice cream. At the sinks were two girls washing up before they left. I suspected that their visit to the library had been preceded by a visit to the White Mountain Creamery, and the ice cream was now swirling into the pipes below the toilets.

I had heard of Bulimia, the vomiting of food to maintain a slim figure. I pondered this, and decided it was a wonderful idea! My first try was the day after Valentines Day. I bought a big red heart box of candy at a discount price, because the hearts needed to go to make room for the stock the Easter candy. I mean, if you are planning to barf it up, why buy it at full price?

OK, I am in chocolate heaven while I eat a very unladylike quantity of the candy. I find a bathroom, enter a stall and stick my finger down my throat. Nothing happens! I try and try and I don't even come close to vomiting!

That was my first and last try at Bulimia. I'm what a failed Bulimic wannabe looks like. I hope I'm closer to "pleasingly plump" than "How the hell does a person get that FAT?". By the way I never gorged on candy again either. It is my proudest failure.

I have a theory that I must have gained an extraordinary control of my gag reflex from the times I spent having 24 hour "morning sickness" for four months with each of my pregnancies.

I also want to recommend The White Mountain Creamery's excellent ice cream. What you do with it once you leave the store is beyond their control.

Savant - Pain Exceeded Maximum Capacity

Savant's mental pain has exceeded maximum capacity. A few days ago, on Sunday, he attempted to be permanently pain free. We had no idea. He didn't tell us until Monday evening that he wasn't sure if he was dead or not, because he overdosed on medication the night before.

Though I write about some little insights he has shared with me or that I have observed, and may delude myself into thinking that I know whether he is doing well or poorly, I have no idea. No idea what is going on in that handsome head.

Monday, if seen on a movie screen, would be surreal. Picture a kitchen at night with the father sitting at the table wearing protective goggles because he had Lasik eye surgery that morning. The 22 year old son is very confused about reality and he and his father have spent the previous half hour in his bedroom in private conversation. The son, Savant, has left the kitchen to check some medical information on the internet. He re-enters the room just before his mother enters the kitchen from a different door.

Father: What did you decide?

Son: I might be in a coma.

Father: This is quite a coma.

Mother: Thank you for letting us be in your coma.

He was actually more inclined to believe that he was dead. He asked me earlier if he was a ghost and I said no, that he was not dead. I didn't convince him.

Also earlier, just after they left Savant's room:

Savant: Did I hurt your eyes by making you cry?

Father: No. (followed by many assurances, meant to be comforting, that he had not hurt his eyes.)

-I was too upset to remember the many questions and answers we spoke. It is difficult enough to recall a regular conversation, but one with a person who is irrational and suffering and trying his hardest to make rational sense out of the faulty information his brain provides to him, can only be remembered in bits and pieces. Most of it is lost from memory because your own emotional overload of heartbreak and helplessness and fear for this lost boy, is so profoundly strong.

I did not sleep that night. My job is to keep the *elephants away. I would not be able to forgive myself if one got through. Savant did not sleep either. I crawled into bed at about 5:00 AM and his father got up soon after that. Savant took a shower; something we had not been able to do for a week. Our water heater was on the fritz and it happens to be one that has to have parts specially ordered. Due to a snafu, the parts were delayed in arriving. Husband and I heated water on the stove for bathing, but Savant turned down that method of getting clean.

So this is how Tuesday was spent. Savant's father left to see the eye doctor and then on to work. I spent the day trying to answer unanswerable questions as best I could. I telephoned his doctor's office from my closet so Savant wouldn't hear me. He would not have believed that I was making a harmless call. He is terrified of police, and fears they want him to spend his life behind bars. No amount of reassurance from us calms this fear. His doctor is on vacation for the next three weeks and I hoped to speak to whomever was on call for her. The secretary said that I was correct to think that an attempt at suicide was a huge justification for hospitalization and to check him in there, as soon as possible. Easier said than done.

An involuntary committal involves police, handcuffing the terrified Savant and being his escorts until he is admitted into the hospital. This process can sometimes take an entire day. I was not going to do that this time. So I spent the day trying to get him into the truck. To agree to go to the hospital. We made it into the truck once and sat there with the heater on, the engine going, Savant so frightened. Then back into the house... I think it was 4:00 PM when we finally left the house, with his consent. I had not realized, until he told me, that he was just as afraid of staying home as he was of going to the hospital. What did not sink in until he said that, was that he needed me to take control of the situation, be the parent, and say that he was going to the hospital and that was final. I'm not comfortable being bossy, so I had assumed that he would react badly if I made an ultimatum that he go with me to the hospital and the result would be that I'd never get him into the truck again. His paranoia makes him believe that he can't trust anyone. Everyone's motives for everything they say or do, are suspect in his eyes. Where would I really be taking him? What bad intent might really be motivating me to be so determined to take him somewhere in the truck?

So today, Wednesday, I hope the hospital and the staff can work some magic and take away his pain and fear and confusion. Help him find, in himself, a reason to stay alive. He says there is no hope for him, no need for him to go on living; he has become obsessed with the idea of his own death. It would break our hearts forever. I don't want it to happen. I'm too exhausted to write this out, any more, for now.

I just got a call from Savant. He didn't have anything to say, but it was good to hear his voice. (For those of you who do not know, Savant developed schizophrenia when he turned 18; and the name, Savant, came from his suggestion that his pseudonym for my blog could be: Idiot Like a Savant.)


* this is a reference to an old joke that goes somewhat as follows:

Person 1: What are you doing?

Person 2: Keeping the elephants away.

Person 1: That's crazy! There aren't any elephants around here!

Person 2: Then I'm doing a good job.