December 31st 1146p

Each day I watch as my son's world shrinks just a little bit more. Each day I watch as he no longer does the things he use to do. The things that he did everyday, without fail. I seldom see him sleep in the living room fort anymore. I rarely see him run around anymore. He never does his welcome home from work race about the house leaping over the back of the chair at top speed to land in the middle of the sofa anymore. He never has that goofy look on his face that made his sister chase him. All the things I cherished about our life together, all the things I cherished as I bore witness to their shared life together. All of it now seemingly gone.

He and Sylvia were a team. They did practically everything together. They slept in the living room fort together, ran around the house together, laid on the hot spot together. They would eat their midnight snack together after lights out, they would run around to the back of the house to talk to the birds in the garden, they would follow me around as I went about the apartment together. All of those things they shared, all of which he rarely does anymore.

I am afraid that his life will consist of sleeping with me, eating, paying stick, and napping in his loft. That he has in some way lost his will to live. These are all that he seems to do now and I am powerless to affect any change; and it is killing me.

I am watching as my life slowly shrinks too and I am just as powerless to affect change there either.

I brought Sylvia's ashes home yesterday. She had been staying with my friend Guido since the Vet called. At the time I had asked him if he could pick her ashes up because I just could not bear to do it.

I just wasn't ready to bring her home.

I don't think I would ever be ready but I had to do it. When I picked her up I starting crying. All the way home my jaw was quivering while I kept the tears at bay. As soon I walked in the door Lars knew it was her. There was the oddest look on his face as he looked up; one filled with equal parts of pain and happiness; all intermixed with longing.

I walked into the bedroom, putting her down on the dresser where all her cards are. As I laid on the bed I let the tears come. While I laid there sobbing, Lars climbed on the bed curling up behind my knees. That is one of his favorite places. It was both Sylvia's and Lars favorite place. I wonder if he knew it would comfort me to feel him resting against the back on my legs. That somehow it might help me cope. In a way it did; but in a way it just made the pain more profound. I laid there looking at her cedar box urn, crying, for a long time, the pain just as deep and abiding as it had been since the day she died.

Laying there I realized that even after a month I am no better than I have been; laying there I wondered will this pain ever subside? Will I ever be able to breath freely again?

Sometimes I wake up during the night, my chest hurting, feeling as if a 300 pound weight is sitting on it. I wonder in those waking moments, is this just another facet of my abiding grief? Is this just another sign of how my body is coping with loss?

Or not coping?

In those moments I am truly scared that I may never recovery from losing her. That maybe, finally, something has been triggered inside me that can not be reversed. That maybe something or somethings have finally accumulated over the decades due to all that I have experienced. That in this moment my body and/or my mind has finally reached its maximum breaking point. In those moments I wonder;

What comes next?

I worked in the garden today for the first time since Sylvia's death. I knew I needed to get out to at least start my regular chores, chores that I have basically neglected from the fall and before. But when I thought about changing into my gardening clothes after breakfast I just kept getting sick to my stomach. Before I went out I decided to lay down in bed for a while so I could stare out at the fern grotto.

The play of light and shadow in the winter is one of my favorites. The light is soft, like it is just barely caressing the fronds as the wind gently moves them in the breeze. As I was laying there I thought about how integrally connected the act of my gardening was to Sylvia. To both her and Lars. I remembered how I would turn around to see her sleeping on the perch that overlooks the fern grotto. And how she would sometimes stand on the bedding box and watch me as did my chores. How I use to talk to her as I worked. Then when I was done, how I would come in to shower, after which I would lay down on the bed so they would come and curl up against me as I napped.

I didn't dare turn around to look when I was out there although I did, just once, briefly, before I came in. I had to, if not only for honoring her memory. I think though down deep I just was hoping to see her there sleeping as always, her head curled under in that adorable way of hers. Hoping that maybe this last month without her had somehow just been a prolonged nightmare.

But she wasn't there.

In those tiny moments of clarity when all of me knows she is gone for good, that I will no longer be able to hold her in my arms, it is during these moments that I have that uncontrollable urge to claw the earth backwards with all my might, digging my fingers deep into the ground, as I try with all my might to somehow reverse time. To somehow get her back.

But I realize that I can't.

That she is truly gone.

And my pain gets only deeper and more profound.

It is nearly midnight. Nearly that time when the new year begins and the old one ends.

But for me there will be no celebrating. No clinking of champagne glasses. No midnight singing Auld Lang Syne. For me, midnight will signify just another threshold that takes me yet another day further away from my precious baby girl. Yet another day away from the last time I held her, from the last time she looked up into my eyes with unconditional love. Yet another day away from the last time I sang to her as she laid next to me, purring quietly, her head curled under in that adorable way.

December 27th 143a

I did the stupidest thing last night. I accidentally erased the 3rd revision of chapters 1, 2 and 3 of my book, I Am an Old Soul. It really is indicative of my life right now.

I am a fucking mess!

And not like I have been in the past either. OK, well a lot like I was in the past. But just different.

I have never really seen myself as a together guy. Oh, I put up a good front. For years I made it look like I knew what I was doing. I was in a long term relationship. Held down a good job. I even graduated Summa in college.

But I wasn't really fooling anyone, especially me.

I have always been on the outside, looking in. Wanting to be a part of something. Anything, really. When I went in to recovery I finally felt like I had arrived, become part of a healing community. Then the outside looking in bit took over again. I suppose it was because I didn't open up, didn't take a chance, didn't reach out. Even though I was desperately needing to.

Then we got the kids.

And slowly I did start to open up. To take risks. To allow love to come into my heart in a way that I never had before. I was ready and I suppose they knew it. They were ready too, waiting to be loved, wanting to be loved. To be a part of a family. And that is what I created for them.

Lars is looking for his sister again. Sniffing around, going to all of her favorite places.

My heart is breaking as I watch him.

I am a mess now because I can not seem to do anything right.

One of my neighbors said she was so sorry to hear about Sylvia. Before I realized it I had said, "I loved her to death."

Ironic that I said that. A true Freudian slip.

I suppose there is a part of me that believes that is true. Believes that I am toxic. That I will eventually destroy anything that I touch.

I have come up against this before. Many times.

I wonder, is it really possible to love someone to death?

Part of the mess thing is that I am also shutting down. It has been happening since Sylvia died. I remember during those first few days there were times when my breathing gradually slowed down as if I was dying. I remember, I was aware of it too, in the moment. And I didn't fight it. It just felt so natural.

I can feel myself shutting down emotionally as well. Just like how my breath did. It also seems so very natural. I hide it well. Or I would like to think I do. I suspect though many people can see right through my facade. Especially if they look closely.

Generally, I have just painted on smile here, a laugh there, maybe some self deprecating humor. It's all just a front. Just an act.

But who am I doing it for?

Hell if I know.

What is the old saying; "Act as if until it is."

I am trying to act as if. As if I am dealing with her death. As if I am grieving, or at least starting to. But in reality I just do not see it that way. Every time I watch Lars looking that way, searching in vain, my heart dies just a little but more. Every time I have to engage in a special "them" thing with just Lars, I breath just a little more shallow.

I have to say I am fascinated by all of this in a weird sort of way. It is an experience I have never really had before. I have, as I wrote before, lost many many people in my life; but for some reason this is different, unlike anything I have gone through before.

So, will I survive?

It's anyones guess.

Because really, I do not know.

What does it mean if I do not survive?

I do not know the answer to that one either.

I suppose the answers to all of these questions and more will become apparent when they do.

Until then, I think I'll just keep writing.

December 23rd 125a

Looking around, I wonder, Is this what hell really looks like? It's the same walls, carpet, and ceilings as before. The furniture is the same too. So why am I seeing things so differently? Is my grief actually so powerful that it can change inanimate objects right before my eyes? I guess the answer would be yes. For what I see around me are the shadows of her, my precious girl, reflected back as if her spirit has infused the very grain of every surface here.

Or is it just me?

I wonder in these quiet times whether I have succumbed to a version of grief induced glaucoma. That my eyes have grown a sort of film over them that is my pain, a film that distorts everything that I see.

Everything is still real to me. I can run my hands over any surface and feel it. But it has changed. Though I wonder if someone who has never been here nor knows me would see the same thing?

They say death leaves a pallor that animals can detect, sometimes months later. Is that what I am experiencing, the pallor of my girl's death? Even though she did not die here. Certainly her spirit lives on here.

Or is it just me wishing it did?

I actually love these quiet times even though they are laced with pain. I could say that I really crave the quiet. These periods are the bread of life for me. It is during these moments that I hear the things that normally get drown out by the noise of daily life around me. Like the sound of my boy purring; or the sound of a gentle breeze rustling the leaves of the poplars out back. Or the sounds of the birds as they bath in the fern grotto. Sometimes I think I really should live out in the country where it is quiet all the time. I actually dreamt about that a lot before Sylvia died. Still do. It was something I wanted to do for me and the kids. Have a modest house on couple of acres with a proper garden. Where I could see my kids romping about, rolling in the grass, tummies pointing towards the sky. I wanted to take walks with them just like we did here in the halls outside my apartment.

Sylvia loved our walkabouts when I came home from work. And so did I. Almost every time I would look down visualizing us out in our country garden. Our toes damp with morning dew while we were surrounded by the sweet aroma of damp earth. It was sometime I wanted to give to her and her brother. The gift of the outdoors. The gift of nature. The one thing that I could not give them here.

Now I will never have that chance.

Just another facet of my deep and abiding grief.

I try to stay busy these days, trying as much as I can to fend off the pain. I have to say that it isn't working. Not that I thought it would anyways.

There is no easy out for getting rid of the pallor of death. No magic wand to wave about the air. No soap that will wash away the pain.

Just life as it is now. Without my girl.

I wonder if the glaucoma will ever disappear of it's own accord? That in time I will see things as they were, not as they are now.

People tell me that I will heal. That it gets easier in time. I don't know though. I suspect that I will never get that peace back. The one I had in those moments of solitude with my kids by my side.

That's the problem with death.

It's so final.

You can never go back.

No matter how much you want to.

Or need to.

December 16th 143a

Every day another bit of my soul dies off. Another part of my connection to my precious girl; gone. Often I find myself just pacing back and forth not really being conscious that I am doing it. I pace at home. I pace at work. I suppose if I paid attention I would probably find myself doing it on the street as well. I have to say I would fit right in in my neighborhood too. But that's a whole other story.

If I tried to figure out why I guess it is because if I sit too long with nothing to do, it will all just start flashing back as if I am there again, in the vet's office, with my girl laying there on the table wrapped in a towel, dead.

I am there again on my knees all over again, screaming at the air around me,

"Not my baby girl, please God, not my baby girl."

I can feel the tears starting all over again, my chest tightening, not being able to breath.

Sometimes the flashbacks are of our last look, my eyes meeting hers, in that one brief moment before I left the room. So much was said between us in that last look. So many emotions. So many thing left unsaid.

The pain of it is more than I can bear.

I have been apologizing to my son. I feel so responsible for her death. That I should have done something, anything, that would have altered the course of her life.

But I didn't.

And that I will have to live with for the rest of my life.

I look into Lars eyes, especially when we play. I can see him react at the slightest noise in another room. His eyes focusing, head up, with his ears pricked, listening intently for any sign of his sister. Then I see the pain well up from deep within him again, his eyes going vacant, as vacant as mine.

I hate looking into mirrors now too. I just can't stand to see the reflection of my own loss staring me in the face day after day. The same pain I see reflected back to me in the eyes of my son.

Every day I am attempting to restart my life, trying as much as I can to dull the pain. I do it because more or less I do not know what else to do. I can say though that my heart is definitely not in it.

I can't see a life going forward without my girl.

There is no life to go forward to.

I never really got that she was the center of my world when she was alive. That she was the energy that made it possible for me to go on. I didn't plan it that way either. I didn't say to her,

"This is your assigned role."

It just happened that way. Maybe it was because that was who she was. Maybe it was because that was who we all were. I don't know.

All I know now is that I am lost without her, lost in a wilderness of my own making.

I didn't realize until today that my bodily shock of the first few days had just been replaced by an emotional shock. That in reality I am no better off than I was the day she died. I am only different.

I do understand that it will take time, a lot of time. I do understand in my head that I will survive this. I'm just at a loss for the reasons why my grief is so all pervasive. I have lost so many during my lifetime. More than I care to count. I buried two ex lovers, many very close companions, and countless friends. All of who I loved very much. All of who were integral to my life. So why now is this loss so strong? Why now is this loss making me feel like I am dying a slow and painful death?

At this very moment I have to say that I don't really care if I know or not. And in a way I do not care if I survive this either. That is how deeply painful it is in the moment.

I remember Blanche saying on The Golden Girls,

"Life as I know it has ended...... I'm only holding on so I can read Danielle Steele's next book."

I wonder why I am holding on. Why yet again I am trying to white knuckle it?

I guess my answer would be, "because I really wonder if there is actually life after death? Sylvia's death that is." Whether I will survive to live another day being happy and fulfilled?

Or maybe like Blanche I've decide that I'm just going to hold on so I can read Toni Morrison's next book.

December 10th 208a

It's 1am and I just got through playing stick with my boy.  He was insistent we play when I got home from work.  All he did was meow over and over again as soon as I got in the door.  I know he is missing his sister because every day he seems to be a little more needy, a little more clingy, and a lot more vocal.  

Right now he is sitting next to me and purring as I write.

I notice subtle changes in his behavior too.  Things that indicate how deep his grief really is.  The way he hangs his head.  The way he lays on me at night.  He now has started to sleep near to my heart, laying his head on my chest the way he used to lay his head on her.

I try to help by doing things that Sylvia use to do, like I pet his head in the same way she used to lick him.  I try to make goofy eye contact like she did too.  All in an attempt to help ease his way as he misses his sister.

But I miss her too.  

Intensely so.

I miss how she would curl up on my lap in the morning while I had my coffee.  I miss how she looked up at me indicating she wanted me to follow her throughout the house.  I miss our one on one at her favorite nest in the back of the bedroom closet.  

While I was having my lunch before work today I realized just how dead the apartment actually feels without her.  There is a distinct lack of energy, a lethargy of sorts, that hangs over the apartment night and day.

After our stick play Lars went looking for his sister again.  I can tell he was looking for her while we played too.  That was how it use to work.  I got the stick out because he wanted to play and when we settled in, Sylvia would saunter in to watch us.  I still see Lars looking off in her direction, waiting for her to come out from wherever she was hanging out in.  I am haunted by this too because I expect her to come out as well, to she her in the corner of my eye.  Then I turn, but she is no longer there.

I am becoming haunted now by overwhelming guilt.  Guilt that I did not do enough, that I did not pay attention enough.  I know that many say it is part of the grieving process and I get that, but this for me is different.  I have real and valid concerns that I could have done more, should have done more.  Yes, I know, hindsight is 20 20.  But again this is different.

I feel so inadequate as a father.  Always have.  I never had any pets when I was a kid except for a very short time when my brother got a poodle; but then Mom and Dad gave her away.  I never really knew the real reason they did that.  I suspect it was because it was my brothers dog and that my mother and I got the responsibility for it instead.  Mom trained that dog perfectly.  But then that was my mom.  Perfection was a necessity.  Nothing less would do.  Everything was perfect, from the outside looking in that is.

But perfection is not what I was striving for.  Far from it.  I just wanted to be a good father.

I have made many mistakes with my kids and sometimes that caused some hurt.  I learned the hard way too.  By trial and error.  And I am proud of the fact that I am not a perfect father. Frankly I could not stand the strain nor to I suspect could have the kids.  I just have this nagging feeling that I should have addressed her flu like symptoms earlier than I did.  That had gone even one step further, she would still be alive.

That is a crushing thing to think about.  But thinking I am.  And all day long too.

I do not think I could have bared the thought if that had been confirmed after she died.  That she died of a simple chest cold that was never treated.  One that had progressed into pneumonia which attacked and destroyed her heart at the end.

The thing was, her behavior never really changed, even up to the day she died.  In the morning after I got up she and her brother were chasing each other through the house and wrestling. Then it was breakfast time after which they settled in for their usual naps.  

It wasn't like I just ignored her cold symptoms.  I didn't.  I researched on line, called the vet, and monitored both her brothers breathing and hers.  I even bought a stethoscope.  However, after al of that I thought that her sinus troubles that kept reoccurring were just that. Reoccurring sinus infections that would come and go.  I remember in the beginning that I even did research on whether cats had sinus' and how they would react when cats has a cold.

Still I am haunted by the fact that I did not react sooner.  That if I had taken her to the vet again just a week earlier she would still be alive. 

I didn't have an autopsy done.  I just could not bear the thought of anyone doing that to her.  I suppose if it had been done, there then would have been some confirmation of the causes.  That I would not be sitting here now in the wee hours of the morning beating myself up.  But what if they had come back and confirmed that I did indeed miss the fact that it was just a chest cold.  

I don't think I could have handled that.  I don't think I could have handled knowing that I killed my daughter by shear neglect, however unintentional. 

But I am not handling the unknown very well either.

What is the old saying; I am damned if I do and damned it I don't.

Welcome to my hell of the damned.

December 6th 1053p

The rain is coming down,

like the perpetual tears

of our Mother Goddess,

for she too is mourning

the loss of my precious girl,

but only for a time,

as she knows, 

that soon Sylvia's essence,

will flow back again,

into her waiting arms,

thereby completing the cycle,

that is known as life.

It has been a week now since my precious baby girl died.  Gone are the obvious signs of bodily shock, the overwhelming grief, and the unending tears.  Gone is the pounding pain that has many times taken my breath away.  Gone is the need to curl up into the fetal position on the floor because I am simply not able to stand.  What has now taken its place is the dull ache of loss, an ache that has permeated deep into my core.  It's hard sometimes for me to describe the felt sense of what that means.  In suppose I could say it feels like an anchor, one that has been intrinsically tied to my heart, one that I am dragging through the depths of hell.  Or I could say that it feels like a stone yoke, one that has been put around my neck, and one that is constantly in danger of causing my knees to buckle under the strain.  I suppose this is an apt clinical description of depression.  And I guess it is; my depression.

My parents have been amazingly support; albeit in their own quirky sort of way.  My father, who is 85 and a half, wrote me an email describing my mother's reaction, quite similar to mine, after she had lost her first born.  My sister Muriel died at the young age of 5 as the result of Leukemia.  I remember hearing when I was young hushed conversations about it, about how my mother had a nervous breakdown shortly after my sister had died and that she had attempted to take her own life.  It wasn't until I was in my early 40s that I heard the real story from my parents.  And it was a harrowing one too.  My sister had become ill quite early on but that the actual diagnosis of Leukemia hadn't come until quite late near to her death.  And this was in the mid 50's when there was precious little in the way of effective treatment.  My sister died soon after.

Mom, after her breakdown, went to live with her eldest sister for 6 months before returning home.  Many say she has never been the same since.

I can empathize.

I have, over the years, become intimately acquainted with death.  I saw many of my friends die. More than I can count.  More than I want to count.

Death changes things.

Unequivocally. 

I walked into the bathroom yesterday to wash my hands; a seemingly simple act.  Looking down I saw that Dino had put on a new roll of toilet paper.  Instinctively, I bent down to flip it around the other way so it fed out of the back inside of over the top.  Half way down I realized, it doesn't matter anymore.  Sylvia is gone.

I am in my own personal hell.  Not the one I have known though, the one that is tied integrally to my abuse experiences.  This is an entirely new one.

Everything I do seems to be connected to her.

From the simplest acts to the most complicated.

I guess that was what having a family meant for me.  That in some way Sylvia's and her brother Lars' love for me had crept, slowly and deliberately over time, into my very soul.  That in my everyday experiences they had become my partners, in many ways, my familiars.

It seems to me in the depths of my present grief that their unconditional love, the kind I got from them very day of my life, has become just as deadly as not having the love at all.   I guess that is what we all risk when we choose to open our hearts to love.

My boy is curled up in his favorite chair, sleeping soundly.  He looks so much at peace during this moments.

I cherished every moment with my girl.  From the moment we brought them home to the moment she died.  I remember the day we got them.  I had gone over to Pets Unlimited to get a box to bring them back from Martinez.  They had lived their first 3 months with my ex's brother and sister-in-law.  As we drove back into the City over the Bay Bridge, both Lars and Sylvia kept popping their tiny heads out of the box to look around.  His, all ears and tiny head; her's, with that distinctive calico coloring of soft whites, browns and blacks.  I remember telling them,

"look, over there, do you see that, that is going to be your new home.  Isn't it beautiful."

Both of their eyes lit up as they looked, all innocent and pure, at the lights of downtown, as they shimmered upon the calm bay waters on that cold crisp October night. It was a magical moment.  All new beginnings.  Love flowing.  My heart wide open. 

The road to that moment had not be easy for us.  It had taken us some 7 years before we had become ready for new kids.  For a long time we had struggled to make sense of our grief and loss after Vester had passed.  Not that his death had been unexpected or untimely.  He had actually lived a very long and happy life with us until he died at the ripe old age of 20.  

In the later part of 2003 we had talked about the possibility of new kids discussing over and over again the fine details about what we thought would be right.  We talked about how many we should get, what gender they should be, and if they should be litter mates.  And as we did we were able to work through the last of our pain of losing Vester.  That's why I think Sylvia's death has been so hard for me.  Sylvia and Lars were not just an after thought, or a replacement for Vester; they were to be are new family.  

That's was the inherent danger for me although I did not know it at the time.  Of opening my heart up again, fully and unconditionally.   

I had made a promise to myself that night that I wanted to create an environment that would allow Sylvia and Lars the opportunity to develop their personalities naturally to their fullest extent possible.  And I kept that promise.  That is why they became who they were and that is why I mourn so deeply for my precious girl now. 

She was an Original.

Just like her brother is now.

I wonder though, in these quiet moments while I listen to the rain, how Lars is going to change after he has finished his grieving process.   I wonder; will he unequivocally be forever effected by his sister's death?  I wonder; will he ever have that look of complete safety and relaxation in his eyes, the one that speaks of a life absent of pain, danger, or loss.  I wonder; will he be able to love unconditionally again without fear of losing the person he is loving?

In these quiet moments I am also asking some of those same questions of me.

December 5th 207a

I lost it at work tonight.  It started simply enough.  I caught a glimpse of my picture of Sylvia that I have at my desk.  The one we took just after we got them.  I was deliberately trying not to look all evening but I just turned and there she was.  She's was adorable as a kitten.  All bright eyes and tenderness.  Even then you could tell what a beautiful soul she had.   And it only got better the older she became. 

Once I got the glimpse I had one flashback, then another, and still another.  Before I knew it I was in a quiet room sobbing; tears streaming down my face.  

And it continued.  

For a long time.

Grieving is such a difficult and messy business.  I thank the Goddess that I was alone at work tonight.  I'm just not ready to be around people yet.  I'm not  because I do not want to answer the inevitable questions about what happened, how am I coping, and to hear how sorry they are for my loss.  I realize that these questions are coming from a true place of compassion and that means a lot to me; but I'm not ready yet.

Dino had a hard time tonight too.  It was the first time we had been separated for an extended period of time since Monday.  He told me he was crying in a test message.  We were sendinga lot of texts during the evening  just to check in and stay connected, albeit through cyberspace.

As I sit here I am thinking too about my baby boy who is hanging out on the chair next to the bed.   The chair is covered with an old sheet.  It was a fort that Dino made for the kids. Under the chair is just another fort to hang out in, the top is the loft.   Sometimes Lars just likes to sit on the roof of the loft instead of inside, like he is right now.  

He has had his moments of deep depression tonight while I was at work.  Dino spent a lot of time with him while he was in the loft, talking to him, loving him, even crooning to him; all as a way to show his love as Lars tries to cope with the loss of his sister.

He has just come up on the bed and is laying across my legs.

I'm worry about him.  I weighted him before I went to work and again when I got home because I noticed when we were playing "stick" that he was thin around his hips just like Sylvia had gotten near then end.  The though of losing him too scares me deeply.  I can't image a life without my kids.  That was part of what set me off at work too beside the fact that I would not see my girl when I got home.

Grief is so all pervasive.  

It's seeps slowly into your bones becoming one with the marrow.

I can feel it there; becoming one with both my body and my soul.  

This is the first time that I have lost someone so integral to my life this far into my recovery. There is something to be said for being present in my body but not when I'm grieving so intensely.  My therapist suggested the unthinkable; that I should stay in my head more often.  I was, well, flabbergasted that he suggested that.  We have spent so much time trying to do just the opposite.  Jettisoning myself from my body was how I coped with the abuse and getting me back in there has been excruciatingly difficult; mostly because my abuse memories come with. Issues in the tissues is how my yoga teacher calls it.  And I have a lot of them.  If I were to tally all of the memories I have recovered by counting the minutes of each experience I would have to say I have probably recovered maybe about 2 hours off actual memories out of 4 years worth of abuse.  Being in my head was my escape then and it is my default place now even though I try my best not to go there.  What I am realizing as each minute passes is that my grief and pain seems to follow me even into my default place.  

So much for being in my head, eh doc.

I have to ask myself, what good does it do to hide from the pain anyways?  It will just bubble up in other somatic ways anyhow.

This is the paradox of grieving for me.  

There really is no where for me to hide.  

And in an odd way I guess I'm OK with that.   

Well it's bedtime. 

Lars is already asleep and so should I, especially since I have to be up for work in, oh, about 4 hours.

December 4th 327pm

I am trying to resume a somewhat normal schedule since last night. As painful as it was I decided to do laundry because I would have to at some point. Doing laundry was an integral ritual for me and the kids, especially Sylvia. Whenever I would wash towels and jeans they knew that they would get to climb into it when I was done. Dino offered to do it for me but said no because I would sooner or later have to face up to it anyways.

Sylvia loved laundry day. She would most always watch me as I gathered up everything, then when I would bring it back dried, she would follow me into the bedroom jumping up on the bed before I ever made it there. Then I would pour it out and fluff it and she would jump in. She equally loved jeans too but never liked to dig in like she did with the towels. With jeans she just curled up on them and went to sleep.

I use to tiptoe over after she was sleeping, gently laying next to her on the bed. She would stretch her hands towards me curling her head under, purring. Sometimes I would fall asleep laying next to her for an hour or two, waking up later, only to tiptoe away again.

I didn't know if Lars would want to jump in like he most always did or shy away because it would be too much for him.

It was such a "them" thing.

Most always he had to curl up against her before going to sleep. He was that way generally. Either he slept on me, slept on her, or next to one of us. Rarely at night was he off by himself. It was so wonderful to witness, that love they had for each other, and me.

When Dino became a part of our lives, Sylvia adopted him and ended up sleeping against his feet at the foot of the bed with either Lars next to her or with me.

When I finished the laundry and I was loading it into the basket my heart sank. Bringing it up to the apartment was harder then I thought it would be. When I got to the bedroom, I poured it out as usual laying the folded pants at the foot of the bed and the towels up by my pillow.

He didn't budge.

My heart sank both at the though he would never have that experience again and that I would lose such an important bond with not just Sylvia but with Lars too. I decided to do something I rarely did. I went over picking him up and carrying him to the bed. He immediately moved on to the jeans settling in for a good clean and then nap. I laid there with him for as long as I could stand the pain. He stayed, napping and just hanging out for a good part of the evening.

I so wanted him to enjoy laundry day because he had slipped into a hard depression earlier in the day. He misses his sister.

I have tried to maintain the before bed ritual with him too. I feel it is so important for him; and for me. Last night was no exception. I told him "OK it's time for bed." I had already did his food and water just like I did ever night, scooped to box too. Then I brushed and flossed my teeth.

Sylvia loved to watch me brush and floss and she loved watching me do their food and water. Most every night she would follow me into the kitchen and watch as I washed out their bowls, filling them again. I always did the water first, then the food. When I had filled the food dish I would bring it over, setting it down in front of her and her brother, who, by that time, had made his way in too. The look on her face melted my heart every night. There was such tenderness and love in her eyes.

After I was done, I would scoop their box, washing my hands afterwards, then brush and floss. She would always be there with me when I did. When I was done she would meow and purr, rubbing up against me until I would get done on my knees so I could be next to her. I always got down on their level. It was so important to me to be a part of their lives down there as they were a part of mine.

After going to bed last night I laid awake thinking of my baby girl and how resilient the pain of losing her is. I fell asleep when Lars curled up into my arms.

A few hours later I woke up, my chest so tight that I could not breath. I know what an anxiety attack feels like and I knew that this was no anxiety attack. Thanks to my childhood experiences, I have become intimately acquainted with them over the last 10 years or so. I laid there with Lars thinking, am I actually having a heart attack. After a while my chest did let go some and I was able to cough some. For the next hour or so I struggled to breath, coughing up liquid from deep in my lungs. It finally calmed down just before Dino got home.

Afterwards, I wondered, can intense grief actually liquify, settling in a persons lungs?

I am still wondering.

As I sit here before leaving out to work, my son has again sequestered himself in one of their many forts. The one his is in now I call the Loft. It was exclusively his. Sylvia and Lars had many places they shared but the Loft was never one of them.

Both Dino and I have gone over to him, stroking him, telling him we love him; but he will not respond. I guess there are going to be moments like this.

I had a long talk with the vet about Sylvia. Asking him questions that had come up in my mind once the shock had worn off. We talked about Lars too and the fact that has and is exhibiting some of the same symptoms as she did. The vet wants to see him next week.

I am scared but I know I need to do this for Lars. If there is a chance that he has the same thing as Sylvia I want to do everything I can to help him through it.

The thought of losing him too is more than I can handle.

I miss my girl so much. Everything I do, everywhere I go, she is there. She was a part of everything in my life.

I have to get ready for work now.

More rituals gone.

My precious baby girl will not be with me as I get dressed.

She'll not be there in the hall purring, waiting to say good bye.

I will not be able to knee down to make that fort between my legs so she could curl up into it, purring so loudly that you could hear her in the other room.

And she will not be there when I get home, waiting to do our walk down the hall like we did every time I got home.

My heart hurts so bad.

December 3rd 1004am

The house is so quiet and empty. Lars is sleeping on the hot spot where they both always ended up after our morning rituals. I laid with him there for a while, talking to him, reassuring him, looking into his beautiful eyes, trying to tell him and me that it will all be OK. But the pain is too much.

He has woken up and has come up onto my lap now as I write.

I realized this morning that Sylvia was the light we all gravitated to. She was the energy that held us all together.

And now that light is gone.

I'm petting Lars and listening to him purr wondering what is he thinking right now? Wondering how deep is his pain? Wondering does he understand?

Last night as he and I were getting ready for bed I watched as he went around the apartment looking for his sister, sitting near to her favorite places, sometimes staring as if he was looking at her. They say that this is normal for a grieving cat, to hang out at all of the places where their siblings use to be; but it is killing me, slowly, and assuredly, it is killing me to watch. Yet I do. I do because I need to bear witness to his grief just as I use to bear witness to their lives with each other.

I try to make eye contact with Lars as much as possible. That really has never been a problem either. He has always been an eye contact laid back sort of guy. That's why I nicknamed him my Homo Vegan Hippie Boy. I always tell people that I can picture him being right at home, hanging out in the Haight, with a joint, saying "Hey Man".

Last night when Dino got home he struggled to keep it altogether again. His grief is deep and unending. After he was able to ground himself somewhat we laid together in bed, holding each other, and talking about Sylvia, about all her quirks; and she had many of them too. That was what made her an amazing being. Her energy, her uniqueness, her constant unconditional love. She always knew she had the knack to make us laugh just by turning her head in a goofy way or doing something unexpected; and she used it endlessly.

I just can't take the pain of losing her.

It is just too much to bear.

I wanted to cry this morning but I do not have any tears left. Just the unending pain. I am starting to feel guilty now too. Was there something I missed, something I could have done, was there a way to reverse, or stop whatever it was that was slowly killing her? The doctor feels it was heart disease that was the issue and that there was not any real and effective treatment that would have corrected the problem. He said treatment would have just prolonged her life for a while; but it would not have been a quality or pain free one. He also told me shortly after she had died that many of his patients owners had said that they would have preferred their kids to have gone early instead of having to watch as they slowly declined into a painful and prolonged death. Sylvia's was quick, only 5 hours of real agony, of being separated from her brother and us.

In those last moments of her life when they had grabbed her from my arms to try and save her life, she turned and I turned, and we both looked at each other as I left; our eyes meeting for the last time, for one brief moment. That look keeps flashing back into my head, her scared bright eyes and harried look. Panic stricken. As I sit here writing about it, my heart feels as if it is going to explode.

I never even got to say goodbye.

All I have is just that last look.

My heart is breaking. The pain is just too much for me to bear.

I haven't been able to eat since Monday. I have tried. Dino fixed me oatmeal that first morning and he sat with me, feeding me a bit of it at a time. I got a few bites down but that was all I could do. My friends Jenn and Hana have been here too bringing food and trying to help me eat something; but I just can't. And that has been true since Monday afternoon. My body just will not accept food in any real quantity. I was able to eat some cold cereal and a P and J last night. I thought maybe comfort food would work. But I struggled to keep it down all night long. And now I have a small bowl of half eaten oatmeal sitting next to me.

Since I have been writing here I have been trying to take a bit here and and a bit there, knowing that my body needs something to sustain itself, and so far it's been OK. But I don't think I can eat anymore. In a way it just doesn't seem right to eat anyways.

I have to go back to work tomorrow but I do not want to. I don't feel I can handle seeing other people even though they have been amazingly supportive. I'm just not strong enough. But I have to. And I will.

Dino and I talked about making sure that Lars is not left alone for very long. He and I are trying to arrange our schedules but that will only work until next week. Then Lars will have to be on his own. That will kill me. To think he will be here without his sister. That was the reason my ex and I got siblings in the first place, because we didn't want to have our new cat be lonely like Vester was when he was with us.

But now, Lars is alone anyways.

I wanted to grow old with my kids, to watch them as they matured, bearing witness to their full and happy life. I wanted them to see me progress in my recovery too. To become the person I am striving to be. I wanted them to experience what it means for me to be my True Self.

They were there for me and with me through the intensely rough times just after I woke up to the abuse. They were there during the times when I wasn't sure I would make it into the next day let alone into the next week. They were there, sitting with me, loving me, helping me to be sane when being that was constantly in question. I wanted them to see me happy, truly happy. I wanted them to experience me in full recovery, the kind of recovery that seems to be just over the horizon.

But she is gone.

And I am devastated.

Sitting here now I just do not know what to do or where to go.

I am lost without her.

December 2nd 933pm

My grief is profound. I lost my precious baby girl just 48 hours ago and I can not bear it. Sitting here on my bed I do not understand why this has happened. Why she was taken at such a young and tender age? Why it had to happen now? I have been railing at God and I can say that at this very moment I hate him for taking my girl from me.

Her brother is lost.

Or maybe it is me.

During those moments when my body is in full reaction, when I am shaking uncontrollably, barely able to breath, tears streaming down my face, I wonder; Is this what a nervous breakdown feels like? I wonder; After all that I have survived during my 53 years, after all of the horrific torture and abuse I endured as a child, this, the loss of my girl, is this going to be the one thing that finally destroys me.

I have to ask God,

To what end?

TO WHAT END?

When I wrote the blog recently about my life crumbling I never thought that it would have included the lost of my girl. I never thought that the one constant that has been present throughout my last 6 1/2 years of recovery, the one constant that I have depended on, the one source of sanity and unconditional love in my crazy fucked up existence, would be taken away from me in 5 short hours on a Monday afternoon.

I can not bear the thought of Lars not having her with him.

They were inseparable.

WE were inseparable.

All three of us had daily rituals that from the outside in looked inconsequential; but for me they were in reality monumental. Things that we did when we first got up, things that we did as we moved through the day, things that we did before we climbed into bed. I had them with her, I had them with him, and I had rituals with them. I also had the amazing privilege every minute of every day to bear witness to their shared life, the one that did not include me. The one of intimate moments, of abiding love, of races through the house. Of them curled up together cleaning each other, of them playing feline smack down before bedtime after the lights were turned out. I was bearing witness to it all. And I cherished it.

When Dino came to be a part of our lives, he too became included. And he established some of his own rituals as well. Ones that I was not privy too; nor was I suppose to be. Things he shared with each of them and with both of them. He too was bearing witness to their unconditional love.

And now that has ended as we have known it.

Through my agonizing pain I know that I have to be there for Lars. To keep up the old rituals, to establish new ones, ones that are unique to us now that my precious girl has gone. I know I must continue to make eye contact with him, to touch him tenderly, to carry him in my arms, all 16 pounds of him; even during my most difficult moments of incredible pain.

I also have to be there for Dino through his profound grief and loss too. And it has been earth shattering for him as it has been for me. Dino was my rock during the immediacy of it all. He held me, stayed by my side, let me rant and rave because the vet wouldn't listen. He let me fall to floor of the waiting room as my precious baby girl was brought to me after she had died, wrapped in a towel. He called my dear friend Guido to help me become grounded, and he helped us get home after it was all over by calling his friends Darren and Andreas. He was my rock but he is also human. And he has feeling, deep and abiding ones. Now it time for me to hold him, for us to hold each other, to be weak together, so we can mourn the loss of our baby girl, Princess Sylvia.

I have to wonder in these moments of my bewildering grief whether the pain I am feeling is not just about Sylvia. It would be easy to say it is, to say it is only about her sudden and untimely death; but in writing in my journal a few minutes ago I realized that I am also feeling all of the grief, loss, and pain that has been with me for 45 years. All of the grief, loss, and pain that I suffered during my insane childhood, during my life time of denial, and now, during my lifetime of my recovery.

I have never really been able to touch into that during therapy, that bottomless abyss. I have stuck my toe in from time to time only to pull it out again for fear of falling in and never making it out. But now I sit here, on my bed, feeling the full effects of that abyss I have tried to avoid during my entire life.

Hating God has in the moment denied me a tether in which I can hold on to, a rope of safety and sanity that is tied integrally to the edge of my abyss. I suppose if I were to focus I would probably realize that it is actually still there, still tied to my core; and that no amount of hate, pain, or despair could ever sever the connection, that intrinsic connection to my Higher Power.

I just feel like I am free falling.

I am free falling.

Free falling into the muck and mire that is my immense pain. I suppose that when I have reached the bottom or wherever I am meant to go, that my rope will stop me, and as methodically as my breath will begin to reel me back up, back to the surface and whatever new life I am meant to have. That we are meant to have. And I guess I will know it when it starts.

However, at this very moment I am unconsolable in my overwhelming grief and pain.

Coming Clean

It's around 4am and again I can not sleep.  I suppose it is symptomatic of the fact that my life is crumbling around me.   I can't really say.  For me though at this very moment it is just plain annoying.  I have decided to call these sleepless nights for lack of a better description, P.R.S., or Phoenix Rising Syndrome.  Not that I have a need to label it or anything, it is just easier to slap an acronym onto it saying,  

"Oh yeah, P.R.S. visited last night and insisted on hanging out with me all night again.  He is a rather annoying chap but after all is said and done he is still a friend."

I think I would rather have him as an enemy if the truth be told.  And speaking of truth telling I guess now is as good a time as any for me to come clean.

Many of you know my story but for those of you that don't, here goes.

In many of my previous blogs I have mentioned my insane childhood without giving details.  At the time I wrote those entries I felt it wasn't really necessary to divulge more other than saying it was indeed insane .  Now I feel it is the right time.

My childhood I suppose was like most when looking from the outside in.  We were the typical "traditional" family unit, the one that many in politics like to refer to so readily.  My father worked while my mother took care of the house.  Originally there were three of us kids.  My sister, who died of Leukemia at age 5, my brother who is 4 years older, and me.  We went to a fundamentalist Baptist church, one that adhered to the literal interpretation of the Bible, twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday evenings.  Sound familiar?  We could have been the poster family for the Traditional Values Coalition.  That was the view from the outside.  My experience from the inside was markedly different.

At the age of 8 I started being sexually abused.  I still do not know who it was that initiated this and at this stage of my recovery it isn't really important.  After while, someone or someone(s) started to facilitate my being "farmed out" to others for their pleasure.  This took a decidedly serious turn when that "pleasure" became, I guess, insane.  At some point in my 9th year I began to be forced to submit to being exploited sexually for the purpose on being filmed.  In my 10th year or so that exploitation slowly changed into me being  sexually tortured as they were filming and as things stand now I feel that eventually I was also forced to submit to playing some type of role in snuff films.  By my 12th year I was no longer "in demand" or even desirable for them as I had reached puberty.   

For many years after that I very effectively suppressed my experiences and by extensive huge swaths of my childhood.  Like many too, I did not "wake up" to the fact I had been abused until I was 47 years old.  That happened in the fall of 2004.  I guess I was a text book case of how that all unfolded as well.  My life and my long term relationship at the time had slowly begun to unravel some years before, not to say that the relationship was healthy before that.  It wasn't.  My partner at the time had been a meth addict for years and an addict of many drugs before that.  I also had my addictions too.  And plenty of them.  Anyways to make a very long story more concise, it was the Spring of 2004 that I started feeling and articulating the need for finding a safe place in which I could exist.  By the summer I had unwound my 25 year relationship with my partner and ended it.  He left and within a month my abuse memories started to surface.  Luckily I had already been with my therapist for a number of years so we were quickly able to handle the change in direction.  However, in hindsight, it did take a number of years for me to find my feet in the ensuing chaos of it all.  

I do feel much better these days and more functional too most of the time.  However, I do still have those days when my life seems just as chaotic as it did in the early stages of my recovery.  So I guess that begs the question to be asked; would I change anything if I had a choice?  I have actually asked myself that question many times especially when I am in what I call "my personal hell."  The answer in the end is always the same.  No, I wouldn't change a thing. 

Am I glad that I ended what was in reality an insane long term relationship?  Yes.  Am I glad that I woke up to my experiences?  Definitely Yes.   My life has become so much more sane now.   This is not to say that it's all kittens chasing butterflies in the meadow.  It isn't. Sometimes and maybe even most times it is messy and very very painful as anyone who reads my blogs can attest.  

I have to say too that the gifts of my recovery have been many.   I would have probably never started writing if I had not gotten into recovery.  And writing has brought so much joy into my life!!  I would not have gotten the gift of hope that one day I would be OK, that one day in the not too distant future I will actually have a life that is no longer affectively or realistically influenced by the fact of my childhood experiences.  More inportantly, that on the way to that day, I would have learnt that living in the present is what life is actually suppose to be all about. 

And finally, I would have never gotten the gift of hope that I could have a sane and healthy loving relationship with someone without losing myself in the process.  Something I am now attempting to build with Dino.  

I guess the bottom line to all of this is that by being in recovery I have finally gotten my life back.  And at the end of the day that is all I really want.  

Well not really.  I also want a country house with 2 acres of land so I can have a proper garden; and money, don't forget about money.  Not a lot of it.  I don't want to be greedy.   Just enough of it so I no longer have to worry.  

Oh, yeah, while I'm at it.  I want hair.  Not Hair Club for Men hair either.  I want my old hair back.  Well not really.  What I want is the wavy thick dark hair I had for about the first 3 minutes after I was born.  OK, while I'm in dream mood.  Goddess, could you get rid of all the hair that incessantly grows in places that it never use to.  Cool!!! 

Thanks Big G!!

 

Writing and the Act of Trusting

I just finished some rewrites on my short story entitled The Orchard.  It was one that I had written some months ago while I was in a short story writing class at State.  Like most, the idea of it had originated during an in class free write.  But like most, it ended up languishing in my notebook for about a year before forming into a story during this class.  I finished it and another during the six weeks I was there and on the strength of my convictions I had sent it off to a magazine contest, both to get exposure and valuable feedback.  It was rejected;  but I did get some great feedback.  This was one of the reasons I had chose this particular magazine, because they promised, like some, that they would make line by line comments; and they did.  A lot of them.  The woman who evaluated my story was very sweet and supportive.  Her comments were also eye opening.  She suggested that I add another scene. something to soften the story up.  I reread her comments several times after which I printed them out, filing them away, attached to my hard copy.  And that's where they stayed.  In my filing cabinet.  In the closet.  Collecting dust.  It wasn't because I was angry or hurt.  Quite the contrary.  After reading her comments I knew that I had to just put the story away until Channel showed me some guidance.   That guidance came about two weeks ago just as I was falling asleep.  It was the missing scene.  Not laid out in detail.  Channel doesn't work that way.  I was excited, intrigued, and a little mystified when I sat down because I didn't know how it was going to end up.  But when I began to type the guidance came and I was in the zone for about 3 hours.  That germ that first appeared that night became an idea that became what I can only describe as the main thread of the story, the thread that holds it all together.  So I continued to write furiously, that is until my lap top went, BLOOP.  Yup, you guessed it.  The damn thing powered itself down before I had a chance to save the rewrite.   Now this could have had something to do with the fact that I had neglected to plug it into an outlet in the first place but I refuse to admit out loud that I was that..... well neglectful.  I do remember though crying NOOOOOOOO just after the screen went black but after a while I was OK.  I guess all writers experience this at some time or another.  

No?  

Really?  

They all remember to plug the damn laptop in?  

Really? 

Oh, sorry, I'm drifting again.

The reason I was not mad, well I was mad at me, but the reason I didn't stay mad at me was because I knew that Channel would still be there, waiting, ready with more guidance, for the next time I could sit down to write.

I remember when I first started writing I would stop whatever I was doing if a story began forming itself in my consciousness.  Then, I was terrified that if I didn't write it down immediately I would lose the seed, or even worse, that Channel would just close down forever. It took time, a lot of time, before I realized that I didn't have to capture in the moment whatever was being written in my head.  It took me a lot of time too to understand that my writing wasn't just about the act of writing.  It was also about the vehicle that I was to use to relearn the act of trusting in what I could only describe as a spiritual entity.  I was good with the religious stuff, always had been, even though I laughingly refer to myself as a lapse Episcopalian, if there is such a thing.  But to trust again.  After my trust had so horribly been breached.  That was asking a lot.  So I began to test Channel by writing when I had the time and not when the seed appeared.  At first I was scared but I did it anyways.  I would purposely not write until after a week or so just to see if the idea was still there.  It always was.  Not only that, I was also gaven seeds of ideas that Channel would later build on like my short story entitled The Orchard.  

This act of trusting has also effected other parts of my life as I have also begun to learn how trust the guidance that I now find to be so essential to my daily activities.  I have to say too that I am continually amazed at the power of this; this act of trusting in a power greater than myself.  Maybe, in the end, this is what it is all about anyways.  Why I was given the gift of writing.  I guess only the Goddess knows for sure.   And that for me is the greatest part about it all.  

 

Phoenix Rising

My life is crumbling all around me and my therapist quite frankly will be thrilled.  This is not to say that he is a sadist.  Far from it.  He has always been very supportive and he has always had only my best interest at heart.  The reason he will be thrilled is because he knows just what it all means for me.  And now so do I.

For decades my life has been like a well fortified castle.  Solid, forbidding, and for the most part impregnable.   I suppose it was an outgrowth of my insane experiences as a child.  And I guess that it served a purpose too.  When I was in my 8th year I had needed a place where I could retreat to.  A place of safety.  One that I could call my own.  That castle, the one I built in response to the craziness, became my hiding place.  

It was an idyllic area, this place where I built.   The countryside was amazing and bucolic, all various shades of green intermingled with rolling hills and trees.  The kind of place that Frederick Law Olmstead use to love to create in the 19th Ce.  It even had a meandering stream far off in the distance, one that feed the trees and wild flowers that grew near to its banks.  

However, as time has gone by the countryside has changed.  The once rolling hills have become fallow and full of weeds dotted only with a collection of dead and withered trees whose only purpose is seemingly sculptural.  Too, that stream, the one that was meandering far off in the distance, has itself become a raging torrent, one that is getting closer and closer to my castle all the time.  I suppose I have known all along that these changes had been taking place.  That my pastoral setting had been replaced.  I suppose I have tried to deny the danger that the river represents too.  But the river is too close now and it has begun to eat away at my foundations. 

My castle has not been spared the ravages of time either.  It too has suffered, becoming a broken down fortress that both time and necessity have slowly dismantled.   My once solid stones walls have crumbled under their own weight leaving gaping cracks that allow dusty shafts of golden light to shine down into the soaring galleries.   Even the mighty oak rafters, splintered and aged over time, have become havens for all of the birds who have sought sanctuary to create their aeries.  

I can't say that my life is crumbling as the result of the big reorganization at work which has been brewing for over a month, the one that is my current source of craziness.  If pressed I would have to say that its origins are rooted in the Spring of 2006 when my body gave way and I became ill.  Since that time I have been struggling, both physically and emotionally.  This is not to say that I have not made great strides.   I have come to terms with a great many things over the last three and a half years and I have established a solid and integral spiritual connection with a power greater than myself.  But all of this has not been enough because I have not yet experienced the true powerlessness that will come when my castle is finally destroyed.

So here I stand as the final bits of my life crumble around me.  I have to say I feel a lot like San Francisco did in those first three days after the earthquake, those days when the raging inferno began eating its way across the hills and valleys of the City.  I particularly feel like that group of men and women who were standing at the top of Sacramento Street that first morning watching as the fire crept up the hill towards them, destroying their life in the process, the one they had always known.   

Just like that group, I now stand here watching my life, the one I have always known since my castle building days, crumble as the raging river destroys what is left of my foundations. Watching and waiting, hoping that my Phoenix will rise out of the destruction just as San Francisco's did after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. 

Labels and the State of Being

At the best of times it is extremely difficult for me to be present in my body for any length of time.  I know that this is about the legacy of my insane childhood and it's effects on my body then and now.  My Yoga teacher Darren defines it as "issues in the tissues."   

It is a fact that my body has held on to the trauma of my childhood and that it has had a profound effect on my life.  On any given day my trauma rears its ugly head in a number of different ways.  It may be pain, muscle spasms, frightening visuals, and/or full on body memories.  Recently in the wee hours of the morning I had a full on body memory accompanied by both visuals and audio lasting for a full twenty minutes before subsiding.   It took a huge toll on my body and it took my body weeks to recovery from it.  I can sit here and say unequivocally that my daily life is effected in a very real way by the trauma of my childhood and it is difficult for me to deal with.  

So last week my therapist asked me to write about who I am beside the legacy of my childhood.   I get why he wants me to do this.  Its all about separating the Then for the Now and about my ability to live my life instead of just existing.   I have actually done this in my head many times before I just haven't ever written it down.  Maybe this will do the trick.

So who am I?  

I am many things and I am nothing.  (The word nothing scares me.)  

There are things I do like gardening, writing, and even the occasional whip around with a feather duster.  (I got that last one from my favorite Brit Com.)  But does that make me a gardener or a writer or even a house cleaner?  Or are these just labels?  

What if I answer it by saying, what do I feel?  For instance, do I feel like a gardener or is gardening just an escape?  Do I feel like a writer or even a house cleaner for that matter?  The answer for writing is yes; however, so much of it is rooted in my childhood experiences that the lines between Then and Now often blur quite a bit.   What about a house cleaner then?  I just don't do enough of it to even be qualified to answer that one.

So could it be that I am just a series of labels or do I actually have real meaning?  I guess I would have to go back to what I said early.  

I am many things and I am nothing.  

When I first wrote that phrase I was afraid that nothing literally meant, nothing; that I was devoid of any true meaning.  But that is not true.  I get it now.   Nothing actually means everything.  It means the labels are the ones that lack real substance not me.  I get that it means my life is really all about "being" not "doing".  That very minute of every day is all about "being" present in my body not just active in my body.

So then who am I?

I am my breath.

I am my heart beat.

I am the blood that courses through my veins.

A Death in the Family

There has been a death in the family although it is not what you would describe as a typical one.  The death in the family was the untimely ending 2 days ago of the last major drag show in Polk Gulch.  Anna Conda's Charlie Horse, the Friday night drag show at The Cinch, was an institution here in Polk Gulch even at the tender age of 5.    CH was the place to be on Friday nights.  But it was not just a drag show.  It provided the stage for many of the up and coming drag performers to learn their trade and many of the old standards of New Drag to strut their stuff.  CH was irreverent, political, and amazing.  And the audiences were enthusiastic. However, this is not just about the ending of a friday night drag show.  The death of CH is symbolic of a much wider trend here in the City.  And that is the death of a part of the gay community that finds its roots back to the old days, the days when it was not acceptable for gays and lesbians to be visual, publicly or personally.   Those roots, the ones tied unequivocally to our fight for the freedom to assembly without harassment, are under siege for all sides; within the gay community and without.  

Polk Gulch itself is going through a transformation.  For the last 6 years or so it has become the chosen place, by default,  for developers to built the cookie cutter condos that are all the rage now.  In many other parts of the City developers have been stopped from razing whole sections of neighborhoods like mine.   The dot com laid the ground for that as during that time Soma was all but destroyed by redevelopment.  Almost all of the post '06 history was wiped out in huge swaths putting the Leather community among others who called Soma home, under pressure from the forces of gentrification.  The developers, whose only intention in my opinion was the making money, destroyed much of Soma.  In the ensuing "peoples revolt", the City has backed down in  the "wipe the slate clean" mentality of redevelopment.  However, they have lost their way in the process.  Polk Gulch and the ending of CH is a prime example of this.  

Everywhere you look, buildings that even sniff of being underutilized are being targeted by developers.  That was the case with an old church building behind The Cinch.  It was replaced by condos and it is those residents who are complaining about the noise.

We have lost much here in my neighborhood and with each passing day and with each building lost, we the residents here continue to lose a part of ourselves and our community. 

But I can't lay the entire blame at the feet of developers or the steps of City Hall.  We, the gay community, are to blame too.  Not because we didn't fight long or hard enough, but because we are gentrifying too.  It is evident everywhere you look.  We, I suppose, have been seduced by the promises of freedom, equal rights, and the ability to live openly anywhere we chose.  But at what cost?

Polk Gulch had been, in the 1960's and early 70's, the first true Gay neighborhood before The Castro became the place to be.  At it's heyday there were 25 plus bars and tons of gay owned and operated businesses.  That is why I moved here.  But Polk wasn't just a gay neighborhood.  There was a distinct feeling of rootedness here.  Of history.  Yes, the old Polk was wiped out in the great Quake and Fire, but it's reincarnation still lived and breathed it's history.  If you listened closely you could still here the cable cars trundling up and down the Polk, Sutter, and Larkin Streets.  You could hear the clip clop of the horses as they came out of their barns before making their way up to the Mansions on Van Ness.   You could smell the grittiness of McTeague's back alleys.  It was all there for me and I dare say probably for many others too.  That connection to it's roots, the ones so many of us were torn from when our family's of origin denied our existence, became our rootedness, our family.  But that attraction, that pull towards community and visibility has all but gone here on Polk; and if we are not careful, the Castro too.  Not because of redevelopment, although it has hastened it's death, but because we have in many ways achieved what were have always fought for.  The right to, for the most part, live freely and openly whereever we chose.   The problem with that is we, here in San Francisco, have achieved what the rest of the country has not.  And in the process we are losing our community and our meeting places, the very ones we fled to when we were escaping our own hells.  

I feel if we are not careful we may very well loss what we have fought for so hard.  I feel that when we move out of our neighborhoods, spreading out across the City and Bay Area, we loss not only our connectiveness but our visibility too.  In a sense we are willingly going back into the closet from which we came just for the sake of saying we have arrived.  That we have made it.  But again I ask at what cost?  

I feel strongly that we still need our communities like Polk, Castro and in it's smaller incarnation, Charlie Horse, not only for it to be a beacon to the kids everywhere who want to live the dream but for ourselves too.  For our sense of community, rootedness, and more importantly our need to be visible. 

Shadow and Light

The use of shadow and light to produce contrast, Chiaroscuro, finds it's origins in Renaissance drawings but can also be traced back further to illuminated manuscripts and probably further back then that.  Manipulating the contrast between light and dark can actually be a very powerful tool not only in art but in life.  I use it, albeit with gradations of three different colors, in my garden to produce contrast that draws the eye to a particular focal point.   I also use that contrast of three colors to create unity in the garden as mine is broken up into many smaller areas spread over four different terraces.  A good test of this principle is to place a burgundy plant behind a charteuse one.  The contrast in color makes the burgundy disappear and the chartreuse stand out.  These are two of the three main colors I happen use in my garden, the other being a mid range green.  

It's interesting to me that the principles of Chiaroscuro can create a distinct feeling of unity as well as contrast.   But this is not just another bit of art history lore or a course in garden design. Chiaroscuro, for lack of a better term, describes my life.

I have two distinct parts to me.  One exists in the light while the other exists in the shadow.  For many years I didn't even know that the shadow part existed; but it did.  I also didn't know that it was a powerful hidden force buried deep in my psyche, controlling me and my every move.  And the motion that resulted was running.  I ran constantly.  It didn't matter where or when.  I just ran.  From April of 1976 to the fall of 1979 when I moved into the City I never lived in any one place for more that about four months.  I remember how potent the call of the road was for me.  One day in particular is burned into my memory.  I had just got off the midnight shift and was pulling out of the restaurant's parking lot just off the Interstate in southeastern Wisconsin.  I had a choice. Go back to the apartment or hit the road.  It took all that I could muster to turn the wheel of my car towards my apartment.  Soon after, I found the excuse I needed to hit the road.  A few weeks after that morning, I came back to my shared apartment to find my lover in bed with another man.  By 2p that day I was already well into Iowa.  I ended going back though.  Why don't not know.  We split up soon after that and I was on the road again, for real this time.  Bouncing between states in the lower 48 like a superball that was thrown against a wall in a very large room.  Constantly on the move, ricochetting all over the place with a force that defied logic.  (BTW, for all you who don't know what a superball is, check it out on Wikipedia.  Shit, I just realized part of my childhood is now a reference point in an online encyclopedia.  Goddess, do I feel old now.  BRB, got to check the mirror to see if I have just turned 103.) 

Sorry, drifting.  

Anyways, Chiaroscuro and Me.  Wow, that would make a great movie title. 

Sorry, drifting again.  

There is a point to all of this, really.  Now if I could just remember what it is.

Ah; yes; running, ricochetting, moving every four months.  Got it.

Chiaroscuro became a way of life for me from early on.  Shadow and light, pulling, pushing, driving me to the brink of insanity.  The thing I had been running from not that I had realized it yet, was actually me, or to be more precise, the legacy of my insane childhood.  So with the help of a really good therapist, I stopped.  From shear exhaustion I suppose too. But I did stop.  Long enough to see the insanity of my life, my relationship at the time, and my driving need to be in perpetual motion.  By the Fall of 2004 my shadow came out into the light.  And it has been showing itself every since.  

Coming to terms with my childhood hasn't been easy by any stretch of the imagination.  It has been profoundly grueling and intensely painful.  But I did it and continue to do it with every breath I take.  In hindsight, I still do not understand why I decided to stop, not really.  It wasn't just the influence of my therapist.  It also wasn't just me waking up one day saying; oh gee, too tired, don't feel like running anymore, time to stop.  I suppose, if I had to hazard a guess, the change was probably the result of a convergence of many spoken and unspoken things; things that came together with the deep realization that it had finally become more painful for me to run than it would be for me to stop.  But this is only a guess. 

The Chiaroscuro is still there for the most part, pushing and pulling, influencing my daily life.  I don't think that will ever stop.  And I not sure I want it to anyways because I feel I have a lot more to learn about me, about life, and most importantly, about my legacy. 

 

Channels and Memories

I just reread the very first piece I wrote in the Spring of 2006.  It is about my longing to find my place in the world, where I want to be.  That spring day was also the first time that Channel appeared in my life.  And no I am not referring to an apparition of Coco either.  (You've been reading my list of 25 things on Facebook.)  Channel, pronounced just like the Channel Islands, is the source of my writing, a source that seems to originate somewhere deep inside my core.   Channel is not of any gender that I can speak of.  Channel just is.

Ok, I'll stop drifting now and get back on point.

The opening few lines of my first piece are:

I am an old soul.  I can feel it down deep in my core.  I wonder if this is why I struggle so when I think of where I want to be.

"Where I want to be."  It still resonates in me as I sit here in bed, snuggled under the blankets with my kids laying next to me.  

When I wrote this piece I was at a very difficult place in my life.  I had just gone through a particularly bad patch, health wise, and was struggling to just get by from one day to the next.  In hindsight though, I do not think that my piece was just an ethereal reaction to my situation. There was and is substance to those words, especially the word, Be.  For me, that simple two letter word reaches deep into my core and out into the cosmos.  It represents all of the facets of both my inner and outer existences and, for me, is all encompassing.

That first piece continues by describing how disconnected I felt living here in San Francisco and how I missed the four seasons of my youth and all that they represent.  Sitting here, I can still call up those memories from my early years, things like seeing the intense green of buds that are just about to break in early Spring; the aroma of the sweet warm humid air wafting in the window at daybreak; the sound dried leaves make as their crumbled edges scrap along the sidewalk; the deadening sound of heavy wet snow as it falls on a windless winter night.  All of the things I still remember and they are all of the things I still long for.  I know that these longings are not superficial or just nostalgia. They are deeply connected to my core in ways that I can not explain.   So why am I still here you ask?  Good question.  The easy answer is because I am.  The real answer is because this is where I am meant to be at this time of my life.  So how did I get here you ask?  I'll tell you.

I moved to California in 1978, not because I wanted to, but because a friend of mine filled my head with wonderful stories about her life in the City by the Bay.  After a brief stay in the East Bay I moved into the City in 1979, first staying with friend, then getting a place of my own.  

I have to say that I have developed over the years a deep and abiding love for the Paris of the West.  I have created here a wonderful life for myself, complete with a family that I love deeply, a family who has sustained and loved me through it all.   A family that continues to grow to this day. 

Over the years San Francisco has also become my home, albeit an adopted one.  I love to walk the streets just to listen and connect with the City around me.  And I have found over the years that San Francisco has an energy that is unique in the world, the same energy that Herb Caen, among others, use to write about in their daily columns.  

One of the ways I have claimed the City for my own has been by learning it's history.  I have become an aficionado of San Francisco history, mainly by studying it.   For many years I have searched local bookstores looking for books written by people who have lived here throughout it's short but spectacular history.  Dino and I have a running joke about it too.  When we are out and about I will point out a spot as we pass repeating some fact of history about it.  Then we both turn to each laughing, saying, useless fact number 432,329.   It's true too.  They are useless for the most part, unless for some reason I am meant to become a tour guide in a future life.  But this is how it is for me, how I have survived over the years.  Learning about the City has become one of the ways I try to combat that instinctive core feeling of loss that is always with me.  The loss that is so prevalent to me in my first piece.   The same loss that is the legacy of my insane childhood.  The one that striped me of my innocence at the very tender age of 8. 

That first line "I am an Old Soul" has also become the working title of the novel that Channel is writing at present.  It's a story full of memories, longings, love, death, and ultimately finding the true meaning of Be.  I too hope to find the true meaning of Be in my life time.  Maybe Channel will show me the way.  Maybe, that is what this is all about anyways.  Why Channel has chosen me to be the typist and ultimately why I am meant to be here in the Paris of the West at this time of my life.

Begging the Question

The repeal of Maine's Same Sex Marriage law yesterday is a none too subtle reminder of our place in the world. Being a second class citizen is disheartening at the very least and quite infuriating at best. The militant in me wants to go out into the streets for some good old fashioned head banging and barricade building. Bring Society to its Knees, being my rallying cry. But is that strategy really effective? Has any strategy been really effective? So far I feel that legislatively it has been a mixed bag. We have had our successes and our failures. Same for the courts. What has been a dismissal failure in my opinion is our track record in getting the general population to support our fight for equal rights through the ballot box.

Looking back I think of all of the different groups over the centuries who have fought for what they truly believed in. History is a great teacher for me in this. It is fascinating to look back to see how effective their fight was and what history has to say about it centuries later.

Generally, there have been many revolutions that were fought in the streets. Some succeeded in overthrowing the established order. Others did not. There have also been many groups that have overcome discrimination through civil discourse of one kind or another, while others have not.

So what is it that we are fighting or better yet who? Some would say religion, others the entrenched bigotry of society at large, still others, rampant homophobia. I feel it is all that and more. Basically, I feel we are considered a threat or have been branded so by society. But are we? No, not in the way they think. We are I feel a threat to society's entrenched denial of itself and the true reality of what "Family" really means. Of all of the those things within "Family" that go unspoken, suppressed, and generally swept under the carpet. Things like domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and the effects that addictions have on everyone concerned. All of the things that we know exist within the house of "Family Values". Basically, in our fight generally for equal rights and specifically for the right to marry, we have become the mirror that is reflecting the truth of "Family Values", their truth. And they don't like it!!

So how do we fight this. We can't. Not really. Denial runs very deep in our society and there is not much we can do about it. Oh there are some who speak the truth, me being one of them; but, generally we are a society in denial; about most everything. This wholesale denial is a slippery slope for us too because if we hold up the mirror for very long we will start seeing our reflections as well.

I for one will continue my quest to live my truth and to fight for what I believe in. But while I do I will not lose sight of what I feel is the reality of that fight.

The language of Life

What is the language of life?  Is it sounds, tastes, touch, sight, smell?  Are only one of our 5 senses involved at a time?  Or can they all sometimes work in concert?  Is it only confined to one ordinary event or could this exercise in language take us on a journey that leaves us a fundamentally different person; changed in ways we could never have foreseen.  And can these moments, whatever their origins, evoke in us responses so integral to our existence that we have a spiritual experience that transcend time and space?  I do not know when it comes to others ; however, when it comes to me, I do. 

So then, what is the language of My Life?

It can simply be the smell of turkey roasting in the oven, or the sound of dried leaves scrapping along the sidewalk. It can be a wonderful piece of art in a museum or the sound of newly fallen snow crunching underfoot on a still winters night.  It can be the sound of an organ in a great cathedral playing full stop, its bass reverberating so strongly through my body that it rivals the beating of my heart.  Or it can be the soft feel of my kids fur as I run my hand gently down their backs.  

It can be complicated as many different things known and unknown converge into one magical moment within time and space; like a newly born star, blazing forth for only one split second before extinguishing, forever.   

The language of my life can also be scary too.   Especially when it is a convergence of fearful things from my past, things that seem to haunt my waking mind from just beneath the surface of my skin.  

It can be many things and only one thing.  

This evening the language of my life was demonstrated while I was having my dinner.  I was flipping through the channels when I stopped on a PBS channel where a European Boy Choir, Libera, was singing in concert.  The music was amazing.   Libretti voices, coming together as one, echoing through an ornate Cathedral in the Netherlands.  (I do have to say I am a sucker for this kind of program.)  I sat enjoying the wonderful music for a long time while I finished my meal. 

Then, a piece began with a boy singing single notes, high atop the scales, accompanied by a synthesizer, an orchestra and an organ.  It brought me to tears.  The piece was "Salva Me".  The words, hauntingly beautiful, pulled at all of my senses.  

“Carry me away from the dark I fear, 

when the storm is near,  

from the endless night, 

from blinded sight, 

to a sky of light.  

Free me to fly away.  

Salva Me.”  

It evoked visions of magical places, filled with spiritual beings, tastes of sweet nectar, smells of a verdant forest with a lea clearing.  I reached out to touch the soft grasses of the meadow floor. allowing my body to sink into the warm accepting earth.  I had yearnings to be free of what haunts me and found that it was actually possible.  To be taken away on the wings of the wind.  To soar into the sky.  All this in a just one song.  One I will never forget.

This experience, as sweet and tender, as spiritual and mind blowing, is the language of my life.  It is, at its end, the power of singular things, of many things, seen and unseen, to take me to places I very rarely visit, places where my breath exists in its totality,  where my life exists in brief but spectacular seconds, and where my True Self exists, unfettered, for all of eternity.  

This is my paradise, my birthright, my home.

Politics Schmalitics

I am an old school militant and I firmly hold to the belief that true power can only be achieved by taking to the streets.  Many times I have joked to my friends that I am so far to the left of the political spectrum I have fallen of the edge. In reality, it is actually true.  

I have not always been a militant though.  When I was younger, much younger, I was a liberal Democrat, loyal to my party.  I worked on a congressional campaign  and was very vocal about the issues of the day.  The transition from being a Democrat to my party of choice was seemingly gradual.  In hindsight, I do believe though that the fertile ground for my militancy was always there.  Much like a rock that is nestled amongst the fallen branches and ferns on the forest floor.  One that is just existing, waiting for the moss to slowly creep over it until the rock becomes one with the forest floor.  I also know in hindsight that this fertile ground is rooted in my insane childhood experiences, ones that predisposed me to fling myself at every injustice I perceived.  There were a great many years when I consistently donned my shining armour, mounted my horse, and rode off into battle.  I fought for the greater good, for the benefit of my friends, for things that appalled me, and for things that were near and dear to my heart.  I marched in the streets, walked down candle lit thoroughfares, fought behind the scenes, flinging myself into very battle that came my way until I was literally exhausted beyond reason.  The turning point was an epiphany I had in my late 40's.  An epiphany that was to change my life in ways I could not very have understood at the time.  My whole world was essentially turned inside out and upside down.  The resulting work I have done over the past 5 years has helped me to understand that much of my donning of armour was in reality rooted in my deep need to save myself.   I also came to understand that before my epiphany, I identified with everyone and everything that was in danger, whether it was real or perceived.  In a very complicated way I internally took it all on as if it I myself was in grave danger of losing my very life.  Things have changed now and my very different.  This is not to say that I no longer struggle with my issues.  I do, and often.   The difference is now I know why.