10 things I loved about him

I think I'll have to give it a break, this blogging about my past, but not before I tell you about the 10 things I loved about him. They say hate is just perverted love and the opposite of love is indifference, so I guess this makes me a pervert, I don't know, you be the judge.


I have to think back to when we first met, I was a sophomore in High School. If you read my post about Happy? Anniversary, you found out that I married at age 16, and hubby #1 (B) and hubby #2 (J) were best friends, I met them both on my first day of school, when I transfered there because my family had moved. 


I didn't get involved with J until my marriage to B began to sour. You see, choosing to get married because I was pregnant wasn't the right choice, which is hindsight, a precious commodity. B was an abusive husband too, I finally left him the day he kicked me in the crotch, with a booted foot. My mother took me to the hospital, and I remember the humiliation of being examined down there. Nothing they could do really, rest and put ice on it.  


When J found out what B had done to me, he came to visit, and offer his condolences. I wonder now if it was pity, or having heard about my swollen genitals turned him on, I'll never know of course. This was the beginning of our relationship. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)


I loved the color of his eyes. Blue as a cornflower, I thought I saw sweetness, and happiness there. Those blue eyes shone with the brightness only a hero can have. I can still see those blue eyes, every time I look at my daughter's face.

I loved the way he kissed me, when we first met. Long and lingering, soft and sweet. No hurries, no worries. At 18 years old what did I know about sexual addiction? Nothing. I so utterly confused sex with love that I didn't know I would be dominated by his compulsive, coercive, gotta get me some, behavior. Love is, by the way, blind. 

I loved how big he was, 6'2". I felt protected, safe in his presence, nobody was gonna hurt me if he were around. He wore big shirts and big pants and big shoes, he was big all over, if you get my drift.

I loved his sense of adventure. We had only been seeing each other for about a week, when one night he decided we'd go to Florida! He packed a bag, I packed a diaper bag along with my own and off we went, making it to the state line that night and then continuing our journey the next day. Breakfast was a bag of doughnuts and a carton of milk, to be shared between the 3 of us. My son, sitting in the back seat, there were no baby seats back then, had free range. The horrible expression on J's face when he turned and looked at the mess my son had made with his doughnut, well you've heard that one, if looks could kill. He quickly turned off the interstate, bitched me out and forced me to clean up that mess, right then and there. But I didn't mind too much, it was a nice car.

I loved his independence, his rebellious streak. So it didn't occur to me that upon crossing state lines he was in violation of his probation. He had gotten arrested for possession of drugs, busted as we called it, and they let him off with just probation. His arrest happened before we got hooked up, so it didn't really concern me.

I loved that he took me to places I'd never been before. Seeing the ocean for the first time was exhilarating, seeing palm trees was exotic, going to Miami Beach was extravagant in my Midwestern mind. It was eye-gasm blended with my first orgasm, absolute heaven on earth.


I loved the way he could make a quick decision. He ran out of money on the way home from Florida. Me, I didn't have any money to begin with, I was on Welfare. He traded his camera for a tankful of gas somewhere in Georgia. When we were about to run out of gas again, somewhere in Tennessee, he thought I should be the one to pan-handle, beg, bum whatever you want to call it. A couple of the truckers said I could make $5 if I followed them back to their truck. I was starting to get scared! I collected enough money from nice people and we managed to roll into Ohio, with a few fumes to spare.


I loved the way he took care of things. Once we were back in Ohio he wanted us to be together, live together. He didn't like my apartment too much. He used to joke about there being so many roaches in the bathroom, that they were playing football in there. So we moved into the apartment house that his parents owned, and began our life together.


So, you see, there were many things I loved about him. When he got fired from his job, for showing up inebriated, we just started our own business. He was resilient, flexible. I just wish I had known more about the downward spiral of alcoholism, the damage drug abuse would inflict and the real core of domestic violence, the power and control that would erode any love I thought I had. 


I am much older and wiser now. In the years since the death of this man I have learned many things; about myself, about life, about love. I have learned that love is a choice, not just a feeling. That sex is sex, you can love sex, but sex is NOT love. You can love the person you are having sex with, and that is making love. 


Love is about respect, and self respect must be there first. Respect is not a given, it must be earned. I've learned I cannot change anyone but myself, and it's the hardest job in the world! I've learned that I can be loved, not everyone is out to get me. I've learned to love myself because I'm the only one I've got. And lastly, I've learned that God really does love me, why else would I be here telling you this story?

10 things I hated about him

I watched a movie the other day, 10 things I hate about you. Heath Ledger was in it, and I can't remember who anybody else was. But, I thought hey, this might be a good way to stir things up, this will be a walk in the park, a piece of cake because I've never forgotten. Writing 10 things will be really easy. So, maybe this will help me purge. I will warn you though, it's a treacherous road you are about to embark on.

So, let's see....


I hated the way you bullied me around. Just because you were bigger than me didn't give you the right to block the doorway, so I couldn't get out and away from you. Or pick me up and plunk me down on the couch, just because you didn't want me to go somewhere. Or just because you could.


I hated when you spanked my son, with the bottom of your sandal, and bruised his bottom.


I hated you when I saw you walking down Main Street, with that woman on your arm, headed into the bank. You hadn't been home for days, and never called, and I was due to have our 2nd child any day.


I hated you and your friends, they would come over and drink beer in the kitchen with you and watch pornography on the 8mm, using the refrigerator as the screen.


I hated you when you came home from that drunken bout, the one where I saw you with her walking down Main Street. When you came home, you stunk to high heaven, piss all over your pants, and your wedding ring was missing.


I hated it when later that day you pointed the shot gun at me, and called me a whore. You said that nobody would ever want me or my kids. I hated that I said, "Go ahead and shoot me". I hated that you pulled the trigger, and laughed like the devil, because the gun wasn't even loaded. You just wanted to see the look on my face. Or maybe, even then you were contemplating something else. I really hated you for that.

I hated when you had a hangover, like you did that day, and made me sit on your face while you jerked off. I really, really hated you for that.


I hated that you would never let me have any money, I always had to sneak it. I worked too, the business was run by both of us. I think you were afraid I'd leave you, just like your mama did.


I hated that you hated me. I think you were a coward. I think you hated yourself, and you couldn't find a way out of your misery and self loathing. God only knows why the alcohol and Quaaludes didn't kill you, and you goaded me into doing it for you. Why else would you trap me in the bedroom like that?


I hate, hate, hate you for holding my son in front of you like a shield.




This hate, this loathing and repugnance that poured out of my mind, and from my guts, was like someone took the top off a fire hydrant. Once I got started the images and feelings weren't in any particular order, just jumbled up and tumbling. I was typing as fast as I was thinking and feeling it.

Now, I sit and look at all this crud and wonder: Is there a shelf in my brain where all these hates were just sitting? Waiting for the day when I would take them down and dust them off? Even the word hate, cannot adequately describe the depth or magnitude of what I have just recounted to you, there aren't enough words to describe it, without cussing of course! the only thing I can conjure up that comes close, is a blood curdling, shrieking, penetrating to the bone, primal scream.

I'm still shakin'

I'm still shakin' from writing that 'Letter to Susan' yesterday.  When I finished the last word, I started crying. After I cried for 10 minutes or so, it reminded me of that scene in Romancing the Stone, where Joan Wilder finished writing her story, sobbing with all those tears streaming down her face, that's what I looked like, that's how I felt.


I was crying about the love that I had for my deceased husband. Damn if I didn't still have tender feelings for him...after all that's been said and done.


Having those feelings emerge surprised me, maybe now I can continue with my life and thoughts of him aren't freeze framed at that one spot.  I mean I walked around with the image of him laying on the bedroom floor for a long, long time. After the gun went off he instantly fell to the floor. I screamed, a real blood curdling scream, not like those fake screams you hear at the Halloween store, and I bent down and touched his arm, ready to jump back in case he was gonna grab me or hit me for knockin' him down. He was 6'2", and about 250 lbs. and the only time I'd ever seen him fall down was when he was drunk. 


Nobody really messed with him, because he was so big, even my Dad was afraid of him. My hubby had a fight with a guy at a bar one night, my hubby must have beat the guy up pretty bad, because the next morning this guy shows up at our apartment, with a buddy, and there was a struggle at the door. Next day we had a 25 caliber hand gun in the house.


Well, I knew when I touched his hand that he was dead, but I ran to the phone and called 911 anyway. On the way to the phone, I looked in on my son, as he had been part of the scene just minutes before the gun went off. My hubby had gone into my son's room, got him out of his bed, and held my son in front of him as he stood in the bedroom doorway.  


The realization that I was pointing a gun at my son caused me to back off (this particular image has stayed with me as well, and often feeds my negative self-image as a parent) which caused my hubby to back off. But, the hubby showed up in the doorway again, with the gun still in his hand, and when he took one step, just one step, my survival instincts took over.  I did not rationally pull the trigger, it took me years of therapy to understand the power of my survival instincts. (I didn't know I had them!)


I don't know when I'll quit shakin' and it doesn't really matter. I truly believe that reliving the past, dredging up this stuff that is really, really stinky, (Ha, this stuff gets a 10 on my stink to high heaven scale!) I am feeling what I couldn't, wouldn't, didn't let myself feel back then. I had to get back to normal, get back to work, and get on with it. But now, no censoring, no holding back. It is what it is and I'm gonna get through it.

A letter to Susan

If I were to write a letter today, I would write one to Susan Truitt. I don't know Susan, but I know about her. She's a local artist who lives on Lansing Island, a gated enclave of 'well to do' folks, with her husband and sons.


I learned this about Susan through the news media, when her husband, a local Dr., attempted to murder her by assaulting and hitting her repeatedly on the head and face, with a hammer.  She survived that violence, was able to testify at his bond hearing, and is now a widow because her husband later killed himself, in a local hotel room.


Why, pray tell, would I want to write a letter to Susan?


My reason for writing is because I know how she feels. I can relate.


My late husband didn't have a hammer in his hand, instead he held a Saturday night special, a 25 caliber hand gun. My attacker confronted me face to face, while Susan's attacked her from behind. Or so I've garnered from all the articles I've read.


The shock, utter horror, the sheer terror of realizing this person with whom you've lived with, kissed, hugged, had his babies, cooked for, cleaned for, cared for...okay, disagreed with, argued with - all the things you do with someone you're married to. And one day, THAT day, he hates you so much, that he want to destroy you, er me.


This is an experience no amount of time or therapy will erase. Forever etched in my mind is the rage, the unadulterated hatred, that I saw in his eyes. It's said that the 'eyes are the window of the soul', and I glimpsed an anger so toxic, so dark and reckless.........it was as if the devil himself were standing there preparing to devour me.  (I don't care who you are, THAT is some scary shit!)


If I were to write a letter to Susan, I would tell her to please grieve her losses. Miriam Greenspan states, "grief is one of the most powerful emotional forces there is - powerful enough to shatter the self we've carefully constructed."
Not only has Susan lost her husband, physically, but also the man she thought she knew.


For a period of time she also lost her privacy, as the whole world stopped and turned to look at her and her life and family. I don't know why tragedy does this to folks, but it does.


The weight of the peering, judging world was more than I could cope with. I cracked. I felt as if my soul was exposed to each and every person I met. At that time in my life I was lugging around an enormous amount of guilt and shame from unresolved incest and strapped to that was dysfunctional issues too numerous to chronicle. In a nutshell: my soul wasn't a pretty sight, it was downright F'UGLY. (excuse my French, but it was fuckin' ugly)


If I were to write a letter to Susan, I would tell her that it will get easier, to live that is.  Take your time and give yourself permission to feel whatever you're feeling and do it without fear, without shame or doubt or condemnation.


It was NOT YOUR FAULT.


You will NEVER 'get over it', but you will get through it.


You will NEVER 'get back to normal', what's happened is too profound. What you will get is a new awareness of yourself, of your family, friends,  and community, of the world, and perhaps even of God.


You'll find joy in the pink glow of dawn's early light, in the ripple of the flowing river.  You'll find gratitude in the budding of flowers and trees on a crisp Spring day and also in the dried and crumpled leaves and petals blowing in an Autumn wind. And happiness, you'll find happiness in the smile of your grandchildren and of the last glimmer of life in the eyes of someone you have loved.


This is what I would write, if I were to write a letter to Susan.

Just a little story

A conversation at dinner last night was funny and I wanted to post it just because.  The music was Jimmy Buffet, the room was crowded and the cacophony was quite loud. My friend sitting next to me began telling me a little story.

Friend: When I was a bouncer at a club in Pompano, this guy would come in who had published one book. He dis'd me once, I guess he thought since he was published he could shit ice cream cones. I would send all the women over to his table by telling them he was Jimmy Buffet, they harassed the hell out of him!

Me: I always wanted to do that.

Friend: What, write a book?

Me: No, shit ice cream cones!

That cracked me up, even today I told that little story 3 times!  I just had to tell you all.  P.S. dis'd is slang for insulted.

A Cathartic Experience

I didn't know my last blog about the Perfume War would cause such a stink, an uproar, a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace. When I posted it, I wasn't aware of the magnitude of emotion that I had. I just wrote it because the pain of my daughter's experience at work was fresh in my mind.

The outpouring of comments on Facebook had me walking around in circles, I mean, I had never incited a riot before. It's heady stuff! I had never garnered such attention before.

At first my replies to comments were still full of indignation, I mean really, can't anybody wear perfume anymore, without it offending some co-worker, or attendee of a bible study?

The generous comments were mostly from those who have reactions to perfumes, hair spray, and lotions. Skull splitting headaches, gut wrenching nausea, 10 times the magnitude of morning sickness. And brain fog, let's not forget about the brain fog.

One comment was about a foreign high school student who did not employ the use of perfume, or deodorant either. The entire school was assaulted by this students B.O. (body odor) and it was left to the guidance counselor to guide the offending student to the use of regular bathing habits, and deodorant. Of course that conversation had me imagining that poor little foreign student at a table in the cafeteria, sitting all alone, and the rest of the assembly had the scowl of the P U on their faces. Not a pretty picture, but I imagined it never the less.

One comment in particular helped me become aware of what this topic was stirring up in me.  I choose to look inward and ask myself, is there something deeper here? Is this more than just righteous indignation? I mean, just the power of sharing my opinion, with anybody and everybody here in cyberspace is a huge thing for me, and when I stayed up till 3 a.m. just so I could publish the post before I went to bed should have told me something else was going on.  I don't think I've ever gone to bed with a chuckle about what I had written, but my little comment about the 'stink to high heaven scale' had me chuckling to my pillow.

While writing my reply to my commenter, it hit me....It was easier to write about my stink scale than it was to feel the hurt I'd felt from my fathers disgust of me AND what I hadn't talked about at all was the reason I wear perfume that way that I do. Because I've believed that I really do smell, and therefore am a stinkin, worthless human being. Who would have thought?!

After crying the tears that real healing, a true catharsis can bring, I feel so thankful. For the courage I had to look at myself. For the friend who brought it to my attention that there was something else going on. For the friend who stayed with the sparring of words long enough to realize I didn't really  like disturbing the peace.

Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, "There are three things that are extremely hard: steel, diamonds, and to know thyself." 

Perfume War

Today is a good day because I am not on the front line in the war to end all wars, the perfume war. Now I can just hear you guys saying to yourself, what is the perfume war?  Excuse me just a minute while I do a little war dance. I've got to prepare myself for the gruesome details of this hideous conflict I'm about to share.

Okay, this all started when I was still a girl at home. I would take my babysitting money to the mall, and look in all the stores until I could find a bottle of perfume that I could afford. I thought my wages, 50 cents an hour was pretty good at the time, and after an evening of babysitting I would bring home the bacon, or $2 to $3 was more like it. 

So finding perfume in my price range was a little bit of a challenge, but I hit pay dirt when I found Emeraude on sale. I was elated when I got some Chantilly and the best bargain of all was Jovan's Musk.

I loved my perfume and it loved me. I loved it so much that one spray to my wrist wasn't enough. I had to have more, so I would spray it on my throat, my shoulders and the back of my neck, and I could smell it all day, and evidently so could my dad.  Before I could even get out of the bathroom he'd be yelling "Who's spraying the perfume?" and when I would emerge he would grab it out of my hand, and look at me with that disgusting scowl that P U makes, and say "It's giving me a headache!" 

I mean when was the last time you smelled something really stinky? Did your nose wrinkle up, and your lips get locked in that upper lip curl thing? I know everyone can picture it now, I'll even bet some of you are putting your fingers on your nose, and pinching your nostrils closed just thinking of that trash can you just put the trash bag in, or the mommies that have just gotten a whiff of that dark green baby poop, or smelling the significant others flatulations under the sheets last night. I mean Whew! I don't care who you are, that stuff is stinky!

But my perfume? It shouldn't even get one point on the stink to high heaven scale.

How traumatic for me to have my own flesh and blood, my daddy, look at me with disgust and say that I "smelled" and confiscate my hard earned bottle of perfume. And if that wasn't punishment enough, I was forbidden to spray perfume in the house, ever. I have to admit that my feelings were hurt, more than a little.

While I learned never to spray perfume in my parents house, it didn't stop me from spraying it on the way to the bus stop, or in the girls bathroom at school,
I loved perfume and I was gonna wear it.

Fast forward ten years....and I'm working in a shop, beachside. When I first started working there I was the only female employee. Then the boss got a girlfriend and she started working there.  One day she comes to me and she says, "Would you please not wear perfume to work anymore, it gives me a headache." I stammered and stuttered, "I don't know if I can do that."

I went home madder than hell. Who does she think she is, my father? I called in the next day, and told them I quit.

Fast forward another 10 years or so. I'm in California, for a month, helping my son and daughter-in-law await the birth of their first child. I'd been there 2 weeks, and one morning I stepped into the kitchen and my daughter-in-law turns and looks at me with that scrunched up facial expression that I've seen a few other times in my life and says, "Could you please not wear your perfume anymore, it's giving me a headache."  I felt as if I had just been slapped in the face.

I did leave their home that night, and stayed in a motel a few blocks away. I mean, I cried and cried and cried some more. I went back to their house the next morning and we patched things up, and I didn't wear my perfume for the next two weeks. I considered this as another casualty from this blasted war.

Recently my daughter took a day off from work. We were sitting and talking about stuff, the way that mothers and daughters do, and she began to tell me about two women she works with. These women have been holding their nose when my daughter walks by them, and exclaiming loud enough for my daughter to hear "Pshew". 

These women also have little desk fans that they have put up on the dividing cubicle wall, pointing down on my daughters head. (My sweet little baby girl doesn't even put perfume on her body, she sprays it on her clothes AND she doesn't douse herself in it like I do.) My daughter got so upset the next day when she went back to work and the "Pshewing" started up first thing. She exclaimed "Maybe it's your 'stinkin' attitude" and called them into the managers office.

I would like to report that the manager was able to stop the perfume war right then and there, but he didn't.

I now realize that I am not the only soldier in this heated battle and however long it takes, I'm not giving up. I'll never give up wearing my perfume! and so the Perfume war will continue..........

Bittersweet

One of my nieces called last night, she's gonna come visit, (I think it's interesting that my two sisters and myself all had baby girls in the same year)
and during the course of our conversation she asked about Tinga.

Tinga bird, as she is affectionately called, is our sun conure. Sun conures, are originally from Central America and their plummage is very vivid, from bright yellow on the top of the head to yellow-orange on the back and belly and olive green and blue on the wings. They aren't very big, maybe 6 or 7 inches tall. Conures also have a beak like a Macaw, very sharp, for peeling the skin off of grapes and other skin, human included. My friend Alice did a watercolor of Tinga last year, because of the beautiful colors, and I save her feathers in a box and use them from time to time in my art projects.  I might add that some family members think Tinga is pretty, pretty mean. She has drawn blood from every one in the family, and a huge number of friends. Not that she's vicious, just temperamental.

Anyway, we've had Tinga since she was a baby, born in captivity in 1991, and my husband has trained Tinga to fly to him. When we lived on the ranch he used to let her fly free on the property. She would fly into the barn and find him and sit on his head or shoulder. When we moved here to Rockledge, my husband continued to let Tinga fly free whenever he went outside.

Last December, we were walking around the house, as my hubby had recently had hip-replacement surgery and needed to walk for his therapy, and Tinga was with him, right there on his shoulder.  Tinga decided to fly up to a low hanging branch in the Magnolia tree we have out front. Little did we know that a red-tailed hawk was sitting on a branch just above her. Tinga wasn't on her branch for more than 30 seconds when that hawk swooped down and grabbed her! and started flying away with her. Not straight up in the sky, but down the street.

I let out a blood-curdling scream. I don't know about you all, but a scream like that comes right up out of the bowels, and immediately activates the adrenaline system, and we started running down the street, after the two birds.  I mean, what were we thinking? We could out run a bird? I don't think so, Opal. The sight of that hawk with our beloved birdie in it's claws flying away was the source of a few nightmares for me.

However, run we did, and to our utter amazement the hawk dropped Tinga right in front of our neighbors house, and kept on flying. Now here is where Tinga's mean temperament really worked to her advantage, she bit the hawk! I will never know exactly where she bit it, but I do know she bit it hard enough for it to let her loose. Tinga didn't hit the ground, she just bounced up and flew into the tree of our next door neighbor.

Unbelievable, ecstatic and overwhelmed with joy, I turned around to high-five my hubby, only to find him splatted on the pavement. As it turns out, when he began to run, hobble is more like it, his first step off the curb wasn't balanced, and he fell onto the asphalt. He tried to break his fall with his right hand, and in doing so broke his arm. The asphalt left some skid marks on his knees and shoulders too.

After retrieving Tinga from the neighbors tree, which took quite alot of time as I think she was in shock, I know we were, we got her down and took her back to her aviary on our back porch. 

Where she has been ever since. She doesn't want to go outside with my hubby anymore, and we are glad she doesn't.  My hubby sits down with her every evening and preens her before she gets her dinner, and that's how Tinga bird is.

Happy? Anniversary

I woke up this morning remembering that 38 years ago I got married, for the first time. 16 years old and I walked down the isle with my high school boyfriend, 3 months pregnant, in a lavendar dress.

These days it's no biggie if a 16 year old gets pregnant, from what I read/hear she isn't even coersed into marriage, at least here in America. She may be counseled to terminate, or if she decides to keep her baby she can continue attending school with the baby.

Back in my day, in my family, my choices were 2. Get married, if the schmuck was willing, or get shipped off to the unwed mothers home. (I wonder if they still have unwed mothers homes anymore.)

So marriage seemed like the smart choice, but remembering how things turned out I wonder...
Attending high school in 1972, married and pregnant, put me in a category that wasn't well received, kinda like the scarlet letter. I was ostrasized by my peers, banished, excluded from social exceptance. What a way to start a marriage, a pregnancy, and senior year. Living in the attic of my in-laws house didn't give me warm fuzzies either.

It was painful enough that I had disappointed my parents, and they turned me over to a young, immature pot smokin man, but going to school in the middle of de-segregation    (It was like someone put us all in a mason jar, black and white, shook the jar up and down a few times and watched while blacks buzzed on one side of the jar and the whites on the other side. Sounds like a Gary Larson cartoon, eh?)   and nobody would talk to me, the girls especially would avoid speaking to me. It seemed as if I were invisible and that was indeed cruel and unusual punishment.

38 years later and I can still remember it, like it was yesterday. Time is certainly misrepresented, whoever said "time heals all" was full of c***, in my humble opinion.

Well, that is about all the reminising I'm gonna do today, and I've gotta say it really is a Happy Anniversary, because I'm not that forsaken girl anymore, and I'm not married to that man anymore, and thank heavens I'm not in high school anymore.

Something new, something different

Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting home alone, which is good for quiet time to write. It is always amazing to sit down in front of my monitor and write a title and see what comes out. I only wish my artwork could be as simple.

It could be because words and thoughts associated with language come from the left side of my brain, according to all the brain research out there. And images, colors and shapes in my minds eye, come from the right hemishere. Somewhere in between the two is the reptilian segment of the brain, which stores and processes all the rest of stuff that makes me who I am. I find that just awesome. I learned and experienced this shift in brain hemispheres from Betty Edwards book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence.

If, like today, I am taking a leisurely walk around my brain, and I find the flowers and fauna lovely to look at, and pleasing to smell, all is good. But, if I talk a stroll through the cerebrum and find myself reflecting on an image from the past, that may not be as pleasant, but hey, it's there, what do I do with that? Step away from that ugly stuff? Or, why not share it? Get it out of my head and on to the paper. Most of the time people don't like to look at unpleasantness, myself included. But what happens when it's stuffed, repressed?

I've found that certain images, like thoughts, just recycle, they go round and round, and come back again, sometimes at inopportune moments, like watching a TV program, or a movie, or worse, in the middle of a conversation or while driving, or having sex, or writing my blog? Ugg, grrrr, I hate when that happens. 

Instead of hating it, which has been my lifelong habit, I am trying something new. Something different. I'm going with the flow, becoming aware of when it's happening: the stuffing, repressing and wanting to run away from that which is dark and apparently ugly, and staying with it long enough to decipher something meaningful. And because I'm blogging, I'm letting ya'll inside my head.
 
I realize that some of my readers are family, and I don't want to have to apologize for references to my humanness, you know the s*e*x* parts, but I will if that makes you feel better, and keeps you coming back here to find out more about me. Sorry.

For the rest of my readers, I have a feeling you want to know more about me, even if does include sexual references, or you wouldn't be here in the first place.

For that I am happy. To feel connected to people as so much of my life I have not felt a connection.

Well the peace and quiet is gone now, as my daughter and my grandson just came home, and we'll let the laughing and screaming commence!

You have to feel it to heal it

This past Labor Day earmarks the death of my second husband 28 years ago. In years past I would find myself silently suffering the memories of that day safely under the covers, all day usually. Or, if my family wouldn't tolerate my withdrawal, I would spend my time doing what had to be done, but I wasn't really there, I was remembering, reliving that scene.

Always the question would be there, "Why?" Why did he hate me so? Did he really mean to do it? Did he really want to kill me?

I've chewed on my guilt and shame for years now, like Vivienne in the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, "I chew on a problem until there is no more flavor, and then I stick it in my hair." Those who have seen me recently know that I got a really short haircut and it feels odd not to have a lock of hair to twirl while I ask myself the question. 

I may have found an answer while reading the Healing through the dark emotions by Miriam Greenspan. She explains on page 61 that "The hypermasculine mode of dealing with helplessness and vulnerability is to kill someone as a release for their own intolerable pain."  Although she is speaking about angry vengeance, which of course my husband could have been in this vengeful state of mind, as I did come home that night really really late, and he did accuse me of whoring around.

The bottom line is that I will never know why, all I can do is make meaning out of my pain, feel it, so that I can heal it.

Writing this blog, and processing through my art are my new emotional exercises. So, I think I'll get up from my mat, dry off the blood, sweat and tears and take a bath.  Oh, and thank you for listening.

Moment to Moment

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day. Everything's coming up roses, everything's going my way.....I can just hear the music in the background, can't you?

Waking up with a song in my heart reminds me of a poem that I read at my Artists meeting last night.

    Moment to moment

     by Joanna O'Keefe

One moment I feel my life

heavily burdened,

weighed down

by the bone crushing weight

of a thousand, thousand stones.

And the next--

by some split-second

rearrangement

in the order of things--

I am a shooting star streaking

through a severe clear night.

(please see www.joannaokeefe.com/joanna/Welcome.html for more about this poet)

This poem also speaks to my Vulnerability.
As Miriam Greenspan wrote in her book:Healing through the dark emotions, "Vulnerability is not just about hurting. It is about openness.  Not only to pain, adversity. loss and death, but also to the things we most desire and cherish: to love, intimacy, creativity, sex, birth, wonder, to being truly touched by another human being, being truly seen for who we are; to the sheer adventure of being alive; to the sacred spirit that imbues the world.  When we are most vulnerable, we are most alive, most open to all the dimensions of existence. In our vulnerabilty is our power.

Ta Da! It's true, I'm finaly a Blogger. A Blogger with Skype.....this is so Jane Jetson.  I'm happy to have set this up all by myself and I will be ironing out some of the design kinks tomorrow. for now I am happy, really happy!