It has come to this
fresh
starts
steps in the direction of
this actual horizon
just as it appears
Gone are the coined
psychobabble terms
waded through just to find
the pebble I could hold
fitting into the place
made for it
There is goodbye in it
fare thee well
all that means
take it how you will
heap blame or
deny any connection to
the outcome
There is greeting
tidings of joy and welcome
missing and joining
dancing into now
the present of the present
knowing it's all there is
all and whole
everything
Friday, August 6, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Why the silence
Small, slight and wired. A scrawny bag of nerves, she is. Three going on 40 and she doesn't even know it; just tries to play the part, wear the pretty yellow birthday dress and hold the ball as though she knows what to do with it.
What has gotten into her, anyway? One can't tell a thing from the face or sitting style of the mother just beside her, collected and ladylike and dressed quite appropriately, stylishly even in a way that evokes some sort of reality that doesn't match with the child's tension and pallor and nervousness.
I quake and crumble in the face of disapproval. I move forward through whatever a given time presents as though everyone is nurturing and caring; as if the whole world is inclined to take confessions and keep confidences. The most recent slaps of otherwise send me back inside the place I went when everyone else thought it was finally all right for me. I knew it wasn't though; I believed it could and would never be all right for me.
Where now ... ah what an enticing and delicious question that is. Where now? To the place that is mine and in which I am enough, for I am tired of renting space in other people's homes and lives. It doesn't fit to even bring anyone along.
For now there's a room and a pad of paper and I've got to tell this small person's whole damned story before I go anywhere because the world ... well, no, not the world, the world will go on spinning, but ...
Somewhere there's a girl who is being made to feel defective. Maybe later, when she enjoys some aspects of being a girl but has not even a remote interest in boys, and doesn't see what they have to do with her but thinks she needs to know, thinks she is obligated to find out ...
There's someone broken and doubting and afraid, and she needs to know the story of someone else who was just like her, only different. Always different; so different that even as she learned she had some things in common with some other people, she was still different. Someone who needed a circle instead of all the damned squares. Someone there was never a box that could fit.
Oh, but tonight I feel broken and tired, and as though it's futile. It isn't though. It's the one thing I know I can do that might just be a gift to someone. It's what I have to give.
Just a ditch along the road.
What has gotten into her, anyway? One can't tell a thing from the face or sitting style of the mother just beside her, collected and ladylike and dressed quite appropriately, stylishly even in a way that evokes some sort of reality that doesn't match with the child's tension and pallor and nervousness.
I quake and crumble in the face of disapproval. I move forward through whatever a given time presents as though everyone is nurturing and caring; as if the whole world is inclined to take confessions and keep confidences. The most recent slaps of otherwise send me back inside the place I went when everyone else thought it was finally all right for me. I knew it wasn't though; I believed it could and would never be all right for me.
Where now ... ah what an enticing and delicious question that is. Where now? To the place that is mine and in which I am enough, for I am tired of renting space in other people's homes and lives. It doesn't fit to even bring anyone along.
For now there's a room and a pad of paper and I've got to tell this small person's whole damned story before I go anywhere because the world ... well, no, not the world, the world will go on spinning, but ...
Somewhere there's a girl who is being made to feel defective. Maybe later, when she enjoys some aspects of being a girl but has not even a remote interest in boys, and doesn't see what they have to do with her but thinks she needs to know, thinks she is obligated to find out ...
There's someone broken and doubting and afraid, and she needs to know the story of someone else who was just like her, only different. Always different; so different that even as she learned she had some things in common with some other people, she was still different. Someone who needed a circle instead of all the damned squares. Someone there was never a box that could fit.
Oh, but tonight I feel broken and tired, and as though it's futile. It isn't though. It's the one thing I know I can do that might just be a gift to someone. It's what I have to give.
Just a ditch along the road.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Judys
Writing the memoir I feel so compelled to write is a very strange process. It is full of vulnerability and vigilance. At this point, extremely early in the life of this project, what is written seems stiff and stilted and very boring to me. That in itself is a revelation, and an interesting one as well.
I have moved past the self-pity that used to well up in me as I reviewed or retold the rough passages in my life. This bodes well for a product worth reading at some point down the road. It also shows me that I have indeed grown as a person, and that I will be able to meet my own purpose in embarking on this project in the first place, even as I can see myself taking time out to write advice columns for my kids!
The Judys who are helping me are:
My mother, Judy the First, who ... as I encounter her now ... is a fascinating young woman who in some ways strikes true reverence and awe in me. She was a holy terror during her short life, and during the extremely brief time I had any contact with her at all, but she was also indomitable and fierce in her own extremely unique and individual way. It is a strange experience writing about what I knew of her and the effects she had on me as a small child; not an easy time to remember at all. I found forgiveness for her fairly early on in my recovery, but now find even more: respect and affection and many other feelings that weren't able to exist before.
Then there is Judy Garland. I recently was handed yet another biography of her to read. I can't even bother to finish reading it. She was an alcoholic and addict, and as one myself I can easily identify with certain aspects of her story; as one myself, I can also see the BS she was unfortunately and fatally enabled to surround herself with more clearly than ever at this point, with 23 years of sober life and meetings and working on my crazy self in my life. I know how her story ends; it's how mine would have ended if I hadn't been blessed with being a nonfunctional sort of drunk and addict in whom no one had any vested interest in flattering or feeding my ego, which was every bit as sick as hers. I stopped reading when it dawned on me that she was as addicted to her self-pity and victim role as she was to the substances she ingested; which, of course, makes perfect sense, as those are classic forms of fuel for raging addiction. Hers was a great talent, and the story of her life is indeed a tragedy. There but for the grace of God go I, but it is of major importance to the end result of my current project that the grace of God was there to make of me an anonymous falling-down wreck of a drunk who, at the age of 26, had nowhere to go but into detox, rehab, and AA.
Judy the Third is Judy Carne. She was a happy part of my childhood, one of the cast members of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In." I loved that show and its cast; they were zany and talented and a lot of fun. Of course, my favorite then and now was and always will be Lily Tomlin, but I definitely have a nostalgic soft spot for the entire cast of that show. At some point some years ago, I picked up a book by Judy Carne, which was meant to be autobiographical; and, well, I suppose it was. I was profoundly disappointed in it, though. I couldn't then nor could I now know much about the facts and events of which she wrote; what struck me most, though, and made me rather sick at the time, was how she rationalized everything; and how she blamed other people for all sorts of "bad luck" that had befallen her. It was a dishonest book.
Writing in depth and keeping honest with myself and in my story: if this project of mine is to be of any value at all, whether personally or, in the future, as something I share with others, I must demand of myself these things. I thank all of the above Judys for helping me, each in her own way, to know how I need to proceed.
I thank every angel met along the way that I am alive, reasonably well, and able to embark on this project with a (reasonably) clear head.
I have moved past the self-pity that used to well up in me as I reviewed or retold the rough passages in my life. This bodes well for a product worth reading at some point down the road. It also shows me that I have indeed grown as a person, and that I will be able to meet my own purpose in embarking on this project in the first place, even as I can see myself taking time out to write advice columns for my kids!
The Judys who are helping me are:
My mother, Judy the First, who ... as I encounter her now ... is a fascinating young woman who in some ways strikes true reverence and awe in me. She was a holy terror during her short life, and during the extremely brief time I had any contact with her at all, but she was also indomitable and fierce in her own extremely unique and individual way. It is a strange experience writing about what I knew of her and the effects she had on me as a small child; not an easy time to remember at all. I found forgiveness for her fairly early on in my recovery, but now find even more: respect and affection and many other feelings that weren't able to exist before.
Then there is Judy Garland. I recently was handed yet another biography of her to read. I can't even bother to finish reading it. She was an alcoholic and addict, and as one myself I can easily identify with certain aspects of her story; as one myself, I can also see the BS she was unfortunately and fatally enabled to surround herself with more clearly than ever at this point, with 23 years of sober life and meetings and working on my crazy self in my life. I know how her story ends; it's how mine would have ended if I hadn't been blessed with being a nonfunctional sort of drunk and addict in whom no one had any vested interest in flattering or feeding my ego, which was every bit as sick as hers. I stopped reading when it dawned on me that she was as addicted to her self-pity and victim role as she was to the substances she ingested; which, of course, makes perfect sense, as those are classic forms of fuel for raging addiction. Hers was a great talent, and the story of her life is indeed a tragedy. There but for the grace of God go I, but it is of major importance to the end result of my current project that the grace of God was there to make of me an anonymous falling-down wreck of a drunk who, at the age of 26, had nowhere to go but into detox, rehab, and AA.
Judy the Third is Judy Carne. She was a happy part of my childhood, one of the cast members of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In." I loved that show and its cast; they were zany and talented and a lot of fun. Of course, my favorite then and now was and always will be Lily Tomlin, but I definitely have a nostalgic soft spot for the entire cast of that show. At some point some years ago, I picked up a book by Judy Carne, which was meant to be autobiographical; and, well, I suppose it was. I was profoundly disappointed in it, though. I couldn't then nor could I now know much about the facts and events of which she wrote; what struck me most, though, and made me rather sick at the time, was how she rationalized everything; and how she blamed other people for all sorts of "bad luck" that had befallen her. It was a dishonest book.
Writing in depth and keeping honest with myself and in my story: if this project of mine is to be of any value at all, whether personally or, in the future, as something I share with others, I must demand of myself these things. I thank all of the above Judys for helping me, each in her own way, to know how I need to proceed.
I thank every angel met along the way that I am alive, reasonably well, and able to embark on this project with a (reasonably) clear head.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
A Grand Design, or Not
People who come across me via email or various online places know that a few years ago I began to use the moniker pilgriimpoet (or, in its more formal appearance here and there, Pilgrim Poet). These are two identities I have embraced in and for myself.
Life is a journey; its purpose, I believe, is to instruct and grow our spirits. This involves all of our earthly beings: our minds, our souls, our bodies and our hearts. I use the word "heart" to mean my emotional life, although of course it is also the most vital of vital organs in any living human being. The brain and the heart are our most vital organs; in defining emotional being by using the word "heart," it seems that we are combining and sometimes setting in opposition to each other two distinct organs as well as two distinct parts of ourselves. I believe that part of my journey, my pilgrimage, involves lessening conflict between these two areas.
At the beginning of my life, a sense of safety and security ... I have named it home ... was ripped out from under my rather scrawny self. By the time I was five years old, I felt jaded and sullied and in constant danger of being rejected as defective goods. Add to that rampant alcoholism and drug abuse throughout my early 20s, and what you find is a human being who, while graced with recovery at an early age, nonetheless has developed at a startlingly slow rate in some areas related to those organs, those parts of being human mentioned above.
Hence, I have had to eschew any normal relation to chronology. My journey is my own, and cannot really bear comparison to those of others. Of course, I think interpersonal comparison is a treacherous and dishonest measure anyway. One of the fine tools I have been given is full membership and use of a recovery program; this journal (yes, it does make me smile to see journey and journal together as they should be) is not about that but, as I have been a member there for over 23 years, references will of course arise from it. After all, that membership keeps me evolving and going further on the journey of which I will write here; without it, I would be wasting space here and on this planet, if ... of course ... I weren't long gone from it already. Early on, a friend of mine within that fine setting said "There is no valid comparison we can make apart from who we are now to who we were when we walked through those doors." I am grateful for that, as well as for the volunteer at the rehab I attended who used to say (over and over and over again, the man really believed in sharing his mantra) "God don't make junk!"
Anyway: In some ways I am far younger than many people who are chronologically the same age as I am. As with nearly everything in life as far as I can see, this is both a blessing and a curse. I want to build on the blessing and minimize the curse.
I find that each day brings with it less of a need for the approval of others and more of a need to find my own individual path in this world. It's about who I am; my likes and dislikes; my values ... mind you, my values, specifically not those of anyone else. With a nod to Abraham Lincoln, I'd say my values coincide with those of others just as fooling people works: all of the people some of the times, and some of the people all of the time, and everything in between those extremes. Of course, people being people, "all" is probably out of the question; and the "some" is often enough rather a tiny group.
I once explained to a woman I was dating and a couple of her friends that I am not interested much in my external presentation; in truth, I have never developed a facade, tough or otherwise. I believe that a person's externals mean nothing unless they are connected with and caused by that person's internal reality. A brief discussion ensued about taking care of oneself etc. etc. My point was relatively simple though. I have encountered people whose external appearances belie some deep seated and rather dangerous internal damage; they are glittering and beautiful to behold, but what goes on in their minds and souls is very dark and not in tune with reality. At least one such person caused me to doubt my own perceptions in such a way as to totally shake up my own hard earned sense of reality! It felt as though I was left small and without a concept of home again.
I can't afford to let that happen. So: I know that I seek a home for myself, a place of safety and security, love and acceptance. Here is where I will write and link and illustrate various things that mean home to me, as I move away from one sort of home into my own home. This might take one or a few years, I don't know really yet. But this is the place where I will record this aspect of my journey.
"There is no hearth like one's own." ~ Irish seanfhocal (proverb, saying)
Life is a journey; its purpose, I believe, is to instruct and grow our spirits. This involves all of our earthly beings: our minds, our souls, our bodies and our hearts. I use the word "heart" to mean my emotional life, although of course it is also the most vital of vital organs in any living human being. The brain and the heart are our most vital organs; in defining emotional being by using the word "heart," it seems that we are combining and sometimes setting in opposition to each other two distinct organs as well as two distinct parts of ourselves. I believe that part of my journey, my pilgrimage, involves lessening conflict between these two areas.
At the beginning of my life, a sense of safety and security ... I have named it home ... was ripped out from under my rather scrawny self. By the time I was five years old, I felt jaded and sullied and in constant danger of being rejected as defective goods. Add to that rampant alcoholism and drug abuse throughout my early 20s, and what you find is a human being who, while graced with recovery at an early age, nonetheless has developed at a startlingly slow rate in some areas related to those organs, those parts of being human mentioned above.
Hence, I have had to eschew any normal relation to chronology. My journey is my own, and cannot really bear comparison to those of others. Of course, I think interpersonal comparison is a treacherous and dishonest measure anyway. One of the fine tools I have been given is full membership and use of a recovery program; this journal (yes, it does make me smile to see journey and journal together as they should be) is not about that but, as I have been a member there for over 23 years, references will of course arise from it. After all, that membership keeps me evolving and going further on the journey of which I will write here; without it, I would be wasting space here and on this planet, if ... of course ... I weren't long gone from it already. Early on, a friend of mine within that fine setting said "There is no valid comparison we can make apart from who we are now to who we were when we walked through those doors." I am grateful for that, as well as for the volunteer at the rehab I attended who used to say (over and over and over again, the man really believed in sharing his mantra) "God don't make junk!"
Anyway: In some ways I am far younger than many people who are chronologically the same age as I am. As with nearly everything in life as far as I can see, this is both a blessing and a curse. I want to build on the blessing and minimize the curse.
I find that each day brings with it less of a need for the approval of others and more of a need to find my own individual path in this world. It's about who I am; my likes and dislikes; my values ... mind you, my values, specifically not those of anyone else. With a nod to Abraham Lincoln, I'd say my values coincide with those of others just as fooling people works: all of the people some of the times, and some of the people all of the time, and everything in between those extremes. Of course, people being people, "all" is probably out of the question; and the "some" is often enough rather a tiny group.
I once explained to a woman I was dating and a couple of her friends that I am not interested much in my external presentation; in truth, I have never developed a facade, tough or otherwise. I believe that a person's externals mean nothing unless they are connected with and caused by that person's internal reality. A brief discussion ensued about taking care of oneself etc. etc. My point was relatively simple though. I have encountered people whose external appearances belie some deep seated and rather dangerous internal damage; they are glittering and beautiful to behold, but what goes on in their minds and souls is very dark and not in tune with reality. At least one such person caused me to doubt my own perceptions in such a way as to totally shake up my own hard earned sense of reality! It felt as though I was left small and without a concept of home again.
I can't afford to let that happen. So: I know that I seek a home for myself, a place of safety and security, love and acceptance. Here is where I will write and link and illustrate various things that mean home to me, as I move away from one sort of home into my own home. This might take one or a few years, I don't know really yet. But this is the place where I will record this aspect of my journey.
"There is no hearth like one's own." ~ Irish seanfhocal (proverb, saying)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Lingua Franca
Image via WikipediaI love that phrase; the look and sound of it, the Latin of it.Although I believe French was predominantly a courtly language, it was in fact used across national borders in the courts of several countries from the time Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II, which I believe was in the 12th century. (Yes, I'm being lazy; still, there they are, Eleanor and Henry, to the right.) Of course, today's lingua franca is English, just to be interesting and confusing about things.
English is the most commonly spoken language in the world today. It is not the simplest language; it certainly isn't the easiest to learn. I have socio-economic-political theories galore regarding why this has come to pass; however, as I am neither a sociologist, economist, nor political scientist, I won't go there.
I was in the local doughnut shop this morning, waiting for my son's cheeseburgers (he's 15 and growing like a weed, so yes, the plural is indeed correct there), and listening to Michelle and a couple of her customers talk to each other in their native language, which is Chinese. When discussing my son's order, Michelle says "cheesy burgers"; somehow that "ee" sound just needs to be put in there. When I listen to her speak Chinese, I am totally awed and humbled by my neighbors' ability to speak English. The two languages are so utterly and completely different from each other; it boggles my mind. Apart from a very few extremely simple phrases in some version of Chinese (I'm never even sure which dialect they're in), I doubt I could ever meaningfully learn enough Chinese to converse with anyone; heck, I doubt I could master enough phrases for a week as a tourist in Beijing!
That these people come across the world to build lives, and learn a language as unlike anything they've ever known, and work incredibly long hours for ridiculously low wages, and really do build good lives for their children and grandchildren: it all fills me with awe and respect, and the realization of just how easy I've got it as an American mutt born into an English speaking family and as an American citizen without any effort.
Okay, that's enough pondering for today.
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