So it's time to write today. It's been an easier, gentler reminder since I've changed my homepage to the blogger site.
Today was a day of slowness. There was all the time in the world to be taken. I rushed for maybe half an hour when I thought I was going to miss a bus, and then I wound up being twenty minutes early for it. Lazily I crocheted a baby blanket on the fifty minute bus ride to Kirsten's house. We loafed around there, taking time for conversation and music. She and Will and I stopped for coffee and sweet treats on our way to Tamar and Sarah's baby shower. Our friends were there. My family. And there was sweetness and laughter and comfort and space and support and all kinds of yummy food and delightful children and so so much to be shared.
I do love a list. On a morbid note, I used to make lists of who would come to my funeral. Today, to honor the sincere joy I felt today in having remained alive to experience this day exactly as it was, I'd like to make a list of my "family", those who were present today that impressed upon me all the love and care and sweetness aforementioned.
Tamar Blau, Sarah Berrier, and Little Boy Blau-Berrier
Bill Walter, Margot Lovinger, and the fabulous Elliot Graham Walter
Kirsten and Will Schaeffer
Matt and Katie Carlson
Ryan and Melissa Campbell
Elias Kass
Wendy Hueners
Ryan Robbins
Akiko Kato and the little angel Kazuma
Phil and Rebecca and Xara
My brothers and sisters, I love you. You make my world safe and rich and my days worth living. You are a blessing to my life and a light in my heart. A light I carry close as I traverse the darkness. A light that guides me to a place I call home.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Sitting with Sadness
Sadness breaches the glassy stillness
like a humpback who has been traveling
for miles without a breath
again, you return
or is it only more
from where the last tsunami
came?
from a different epicenter, perhaps
or maybe the same
does it matter?
it all seems to wear the same coat
of desperation, of pain that is indescribable
because of its depth and
lack of physicality
"I don't know how you do it" he says
in reference to the needles and the burning
and the ropes and the beatings
that I mention, I request, I crave.
I said I didn't know either
but on second thought, of course I do.
Where emotional pain can be made physical
there is relief in the knowledge
that all things physical can and will pass.
There is a palpable
beginning
middle
end
Not the continuous breaching
of drowning whales.
There is grace in trusting the process of
emrging emotional pain into the physical.
Grace in trusting another with your body, your process, your pain.
Grace in trusting enough to be held, and
Grace in recollecting yourself when the container gives in under the pressure.
We are all only human, after all,
and some of us push harder than others.
Some of us go deeper than others.
Some of us expand greater than others.
Some of us are too loud, even for our own comfort.
It is grace that can hold us.
It is the ocean and the sky that can take it
that can hold us all.
Sadness enjoys the writing. It is learning to paint with words.
It is learning to leak gently out in small manageable breaths.
So on the surface, I may seem sadder longer.
But perhaps this time, you won't be frightened off by the explosion,
cowering in your own fears of inadequacy,
thinking "Shit, I can't hold THAT!"
Instead you can be quietly concerned in your own spare time,
stroking your ego into thinking that you may have something to offer.
Just to let you know,
I will take what is useful.
I take care of my own.
I trust myself.
I trust my process.
I trust that the label of "Crazy" exists for your benefit, not mine,
to make you comfortable and separate from what you long to ignore...
...but more on that, later.
Labeling makes Sadness even sadder.
It shows Sadness unacceptance.
It shows Sadness that you acknowledge her
as something incomprehensible, unacceptable, wild.
Boo on labeling, especially the label of Crazy.
Ouchness.
Sadness, what else would you like to share with the world?
Yikes, fear? Brokenheartedness? I am so gentle and fierce
I am so many dualities, all crossing in the center.
I am seeking integration between grief and love.
I am confused, getting tripped up in the process,
when I stumble, and hit the ground, I cry out of frustration.
Seeking flow and grace and a peaceful heart.
I pray, I stand up, I keep moving.
My life is full
of processing.
The large, complicated doughnut that I am.
Please don't fret, Mom.
Please. Have faith in me and my process.
Sadness is not a death sentence, like it seemed to be a decade ago.
You have raised such a strong, committed, loving daughter.
I may do things with my life that you would never imagine or wish for me,
but it is mine to live, and I follow only the voice of Spirit
and our ancestors.
Sadness mingles with Love and Grace on occasion,
when she is well enough to receive visitors.
They share a laugh and a good cup of tea,
in light and peaceful laziness.
It is 11:11. Think happy thoughts.
like a humpback who has been traveling
for miles without a breath
again, you return
or is it only more
from where the last tsunami
came?
from a different epicenter, perhaps
or maybe the same
does it matter?
it all seems to wear the same coat
of desperation, of pain that is indescribable
because of its depth and
lack of physicality
"I don't know how you do it" he says
in reference to the needles and the burning
and the ropes and the beatings
that I mention, I request, I crave.
I said I didn't know either
but on second thought, of course I do.
Where emotional pain can be made physical
there is relief in the knowledge
that all things physical can and will pass.
There is a palpable
beginning
middle
end
Not the continuous breaching
of drowning whales.
There is grace in trusting the process of
emrging emotional pain into the physical.
Grace in trusting another with your body, your process, your pain.
Grace in trusting enough to be held, and
Grace in recollecting yourself when the container gives in under the pressure.
We are all only human, after all,
and some of us push harder than others.
Some of us go deeper than others.
Some of us expand greater than others.
Some of us are too loud, even for our own comfort.
It is grace that can hold us.
It is the ocean and the sky that can take it
that can hold us all.
Sadness enjoys the writing. It is learning to paint with words.
It is learning to leak gently out in small manageable breaths.
So on the surface, I may seem sadder longer.
But perhaps this time, you won't be frightened off by the explosion,
cowering in your own fears of inadequacy,
thinking "Shit, I can't hold THAT!"
Instead you can be quietly concerned in your own spare time,
stroking your ego into thinking that you may have something to offer.
Just to let you know,
I will take what is useful.
I take care of my own.
I trust myself.
I trust my process.
I trust that the label of "Crazy" exists for your benefit, not mine,
to make you comfortable and separate from what you long to ignore...
...but more on that, later.
Labeling makes Sadness even sadder.
It shows Sadness unacceptance.
It shows Sadness that you acknowledge her
as something incomprehensible, unacceptable, wild.
Boo on labeling, especially the label of Crazy.
Ouchness.
Sadness, what else would you like to share with the world?
Yikes, fear? Brokenheartedness? I am so gentle and fierce
I am so many dualities, all crossing in the center.
I am seeking integration between grief and love.
I am confused, getting tripped up in the process,
when I stumble, and hit the ground, I cry out of frustration.
Seeking flow and grace and a peaceful heart.
I pray, I stand up, I keep moving.
My life is full
of processing.
The large, complicated doughnut that I am.
Please don't fret, Mom.
Please. Have faith in me and my process.
Sadness is not a death sentence, like it seemed to be a decade ago.
You have raised such a strong, committed, loving daughter.
I may do things with my life that you would never imagine or wish for me,
but it is mine to live, and I follow only the voice of Spirit
and our ancestors.
Sadness mingles with Love and Grace on occasion,
when she is well enough to receive visitors.
They share a laugh and a good cup of tea,
in light and peaceful laziness.
It is 11:11. Think happy thoughts.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Unpacking and Repacking
So peculiar.
It's after 11pm. In twelve hours, I am on a train to Portland, OR, to meet an aunt and an uncle and a cousin I have never met before.
I know I shouldn't really know how to feel, or try to imagine what someone else might be feeling and then be that. No, I should be authentic, and feel what it is I am feeling. Perhaps label it, or at least describe it in a gentle and objective tone. Truth is, I'm not sure what I am feeling right now. What I do know is that I've spent the day cleaning up for the girl who's coming over to watch the fuzzies. My house is practically clean, which is just shy of a miracle. My house is practically clean, and I have yet to pack a single thing. I just spent two hours in the bathtub, watching reruns of "The L Word". Being absorbed in someone's else's drama for a while.
This is the first Christmas I didn't go visit the family I already know. I recognized clearly in September what an emotional battleground it is for me to be with them. My defenses are always up, and I put up with some amount of degradation and obnoxiousness pretty regularly. I just wasn't up for it twice in one year. My mom understood, or at least took it amazingly well. I admit, I was shocked. But so, so, so grateful for her grace.
My choice to stay clear of the Schulers this year has now allowed me to accept an invite from the Devaney's. Well, from Bobby Devaney. He's my cousin, his mom is twin siblings with my biological father. I've met my biological father three times, for a grand total of two weeks. I haven't heard from him since the trip to Tahoe. The family reunion where I met Bobby. That was nine years ago. I was glad to meet Bobby then, and was even more glad to have kept in loose contact for almost a decade. A few weeks ago, he dropped me a line to say he was coming in town, and did I want to meet up? Of course I did, and while hanging out at his friend's graduation party, I talked him into letting me come visit him in the Las Vegas area. That's when he invited me down to Portland to meet the fam. Aunt Nancy and Uncle Robert (or Bob? who knows but me?) and my cousin ... damn I don't remember her name. She's got kids, though, two daughters I think. I don't know their names either.
So what I feel right now is some sadness, some grief. My mom and I were talking on Christmas about this trip and she said that it had been too long already. Meaning I guess that I should have met these people a long time ago, that I should have already developed relationships with this invisible family I've been toting around with me my whole life. A giant trunk full of mysterious heritage and genetics and traditions and infamous recipes and familial traits and stories ... there's a part of me that mourns the fact that I have been carting all of this around without having opened it yet. And I guess I have started opening it, back when I was fourteen and I asked my mom to help me find an address for my biological father, so that I could write him a letter.
But I think I'm also sad because it is this mystery that has defined me for so long, and, after tomorrow, that mystery is gone. More or less. It will no longer be Cecily, abandoned by her biological father. It will be Cecily, reunited with the other half of her birth family. In some way, my life as I know it will be over. It may still be some amazing story to outsiders, but it will mean something different because the ending will be different. It will no longer have that lusty sense of imagined neverhood... "perhaps I'll meet them....someday..." Instead, there will be a date and some time and descriptions and characteristics and actions and feelings. Very very very palpably real things.
I'm nervous they won't like me. More nervous that I won't like them. I'm getting sick of having family that I don't like. I've worked really really hard to like the family I know, with some moderate success. It's been some intense internal battles, and I have grown in incredible ways from having the family I have. But GOD, it's been a lot of work. And now...there is more family to meet. I guess I don't HAVE to keep in touch with them after this week. I mean, if we just really don't click, then we'll have that date and that time and those descriptions and characteristics and actions and feelings...and really we could just go on with our lives like nothing happened. It would be more like I was a boarder for a week, just passing through. There's no obligation to remember birthdays or to call or to track each other's lives. Because we've spent my whole life apart, they didn't even know I existed until a few years ago, so there's not like....god I don't know what this is like. I used to think that everyone's life is a bit fucked up and random like this, but I haven't seen this too often. There isn't a preforged path to read up on before I get on that train tomorrow. This is just me and my heart being brave and curious and ever so fucking hopeful that life is okay and that family is safe and loving and that I mean something to somebody. This is me feeling really frightened and awkward.
A few weeks ago, he dropped me a line to say he was coming in town, and did I want to meet up?
I have written this before. I have written this in a journal nearly a decade ago, when my biological father first called me on the phone. I wasn't home, and he left a message. I remember going numb. Stumbling into my bedroom and staring out at the pine tree outside the window of my Tallahassee apartment. I remember dropping back onto the bed, struggling to breathe. My heart was clutched with something warm and intense. It knew. It knew that This. Was. Huge. Huge and ultimately healing. It was excited to grow, regardless of whether it was into or past a relationship with this man, it was excited to grow out of the festering shithole of worthlessness it had been moping around in for 19 years. This man cared about me enough to pick up the phone and arrange a meeting. My God, did that just mean the entire world to me. I can't explain this incredible feeling of acceptance, of belonging, of beleiving, even for a second, that you're worth something to someone who is really important to you for reasons you can't explain and shouldn't have to.
I don't know what happened. I guess we just didn't click. I haven't heard from him in nine years.
But now there's Bobby. And Aunt Nancy. And Uncle Bob. And a girl cousin with her girl kids. And they are inherently different than my biological father and from each other. And I am willing to have no expectations of them. And I am willing to have this part of my life, the invisible family part with the victimology attached to it, die and fall away. I am willing to replace it with some memories of joy and surprise. I am willing to be whole, all on my own.
Ok. Now I am willing to pack for this adventure.
It's after 11pm. In twelve hours, I am on a train to Portland, OR, to meet an aunt and an uncle and a cousin I have never met before.
I know I shouldn't really know how to feel, or try to imagine what someone else might be feeling and then be that. No, I should be authentic, and feel what it is I am feeling. Perhaps label it, or at least describe it in a gentle and objective tone. Truth is, I'm not sure what I am feeling right now. What I do know is that I've spent the day cleaning up for the girl who's coming over to watch the fuzzies. My house is practically clean, which is just shy of a miracle. My house is practically clean, and I have yet to pack a single thing. I just spent two hours in the bathtub, watching reruns of "The L Word". Being absorbed in someone's else's drama for a while.
This is the first Christmas I didn't go visit the family I already know. I recognized clearly in September what an emotional battleground it is for me to be with them. My defenses are always up, and I put up with some amount of degradation and obnoxiousness pretty regularly. I just wasn't up for it twice in one year. My mom understood, or at least took it amazingly well. I admit, I was shocked. But so, so, so grateful for her grace.
My choice to stay clear of the Schulers this year has now allowed me to accept an invite from the Devaney's. Well, from Bobby Devaney. He's my cousin, his mom is twin siblings with my biological father. I've met my biological father three times, for a grand total of two weeks. I haven't heard from him since the trip to Tahoe. The family reunion where I met Bobby. That was nine years ago. I was glad to meet Bobby then, and was even more glad to have kept in loose contact for almost a decade. A few weeks ago, he dropped me a line to say he was coming in town, and did I want to meet up? Of course I did, and while hanging out at his friend's graduation party, I talked him into letting me come visit him in the Las Vegas area. That's when he invited me down to Portland to meet the fam. Aunt Nancy and Uncle Robert (or Bob? who knows but me?) and my cousin ... damn I don't remember her name. She's got kids, though, two daughters I think. I don't know their names either.
So what I feel right now is some sadness, some grief. My mom and I were talking on Christmas about this trip and she said that it had been too long already. Meaning I guess that I should have met these people a long time ago, that I should have already developed relationships with this invisible family I've been toting around with me my whole life. A giant trunk full of mysterious heritage and genetics and traditions and infamous recipes and familial traits and stories ... there's a part of me that mourns the fact that I have been carting all of this around without having opened it yet. And I guess I have started opening it, back when I was fourteen and I asked my mom to help me find an address for my biological father, so that I could write him a letter.
But I think I'm also sad because it is this mystery that has defined me for so long, and, after tomorrow, that mystery is gone. More or less. It will no longer be Cecily, abandoned by her biological father. It will be Cecily, reunited with the other half of her birth family. In some way, my life as I know it will be over. It may still be some amazing story to outsiders, but it will mean something different because the ending will be different. It will no longer have that lusty sense of imagined neverhood... "perhaps I'll meet them....someday..." Instead, there will be a date and some time and descriptions and characteristics and actions and feelings. Very very very palpably real things.
I'm nervous they won't like me. More nervous that I won't like them. I'm getting sick of having family that I don't like. I've worked really really hard to like the family I know, with some moderate success. It's been some intense internal battles, and I have grown in incredible ways from having the family I have. But GOD, it's been a lot of work. And now...there is more family to meet. I guess I don't HAVE to keep in touch with them after this week. I mean, if we just really don't click, then we'll have that date and that time and those descriptions and characteristics and actions and feelings...and really we could just go on with our lives like nothing happened. It would be more like I was a boarder for a week, just passing through. There's no obligation to remember birthdays or to call or to track each other's lives. Because we've spent my whole life apart, they didn't even know I existed until a few years ago, so there's not like....god I don't know what this is like. I used to think that everyone's life is a bit fucked up and random like this, but I haven't seen this too often. There isn't a preforged path to read up on before I get on that train tomorrow. This is just me and my heart being brave and curious and ever so fucking hopeful that life is okay and that family is safe and loving and that I mean something to somebody. This is me feeling really frightened and awkward.
A few weeks ago, he dropped me a line to say he was coming in town, and did I want to meet up?
I have written this before. I have written this in a journal nearly a decade ago, when my biological father first called me on the phone. I wasn't home, and he left a message. I remember going numb. Stumbling into my bedroom and staring out at the pine tree outside the window of my Tallahassee apartment. I remember dropping back onto the bed, struggling to breathe. My heart was clutched with something warm and intense. It knew. It knew that This. Was. Huge. Huge and ultimately healing. It was excited to grow, regardless of whether it was into or past a relationship with this man, it was excited to grow out of the festering shithole of worthlessness it had been moping around in for 19 years. This man cared about me enough to pick up the phone and arrange a meeting. My God, did that just mean the entire world to me. I can't explain this incredible feeling of acceptance, of belonging, of beleiving, even for a second, that you're worth something to someone who is really important to you for reasons you can't explain and shouldn't have to.
I don't know what happened. I guess we just didn't click. I haven't heard from him in nine years.
But now there's Bobby. And Aunt Nancy. And Uncle Bob. And a girl cousin with her girl kids. And they are inherently different than my biological father and from each other. And I am willing to have no expectations of them. And I am willing to have this part of my life, the invisible family part with the victimology attached to it, die and fall away. I am willing to replace it with some memories of joy and surprise. I am willing to be whole, all on my own.
Ok. Now I am willing to pack for this adventure.
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