roadside puzzle piece

On my walk, I saw 

a puzzle piece

on the side of the road.

A few days later on another route

I saw dozens.  I wonder

if they are lonely lying there

separated from their whole.

roadside puzzle piece

soon to be buried in leaves

things fall apart

so beautiful

forests burn

and the moon is so

beautiful

Autumn 2020 Keeping Warm Enough

It's autumn here.  Cold, dark, brittle, rough, sharp, raspy, and dry in every way.  Through my windows, I can't tell if I'm hearing music from forgotten summer wind chimes or bare tree branches.  I am craving tenderness, reading and watching the equivalent of blankets and sweaters, fuzzy socks and warm tea.  I want kindness and gentleness, and I feel repelled by rage and stupidity, sound and fury, and all the vague and unformed fear people are radiating like the coming the winter.  I am reading about/watching people making food for others (What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Sweetness & Lightning), making art (Barakamon), learning to connect and grow despite trauma / mental illness (Natsume's Book of Friends, March Comes in Like a Lion, Fruits Basket, A Man and His Cat, Solutions and Other Problems), and growing up (Honey & Clover, Yotsuba&, Penric, Silver Spoon).  

I'm not looking for escape, I don't think; I'm not craving Aria or Strawberry Marshmallow.  Many of these works I'm currently drawn to are not anything like escapist.  Many of them are hard to watch/read.  There are stakes.  Bad things happen.  Some things cannot be fixed.  Some wounds cannot be healed.  Some hurts are terrible.  There are tears.  (Sometimes even cried by the characters. : ) Despite that, all of these works have something in them (their tone?) that makes them like hugging and being hugged, a feeling of relief and warmth and comfort.

I refuse to completely be directed by my desires.  I am reading hard things, too, like *Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?* and *All American Boys*.  But I am reading them slowly, and I am watching myself and stopping when I start to get overwhelmed.  I refuse to stop learning altogether, but I also refuse to grind myself into the pavement in these Unusual and Hard Times.  It's okay to take a break.  It's okay to get warm if you're cold.

I am tired and thirsty, and we are in a pandemic where I have been prudent and have not hugged anyone in half a year.  If you were around me when my health was at its worst and I was in pain most of the time and had such a wacky immune system and I had stopped hugging, you may not think this is a big deal.  But I had a friend at work, and we hugged all the time, and it was a kind of lifeline.  And at least once I month I would visit with friends, and there would be hugs.  And before all that, before my brain's response to pain signals started to go more haywire, I was a hugger with people I was close to.  So much that it used to annoy some other people I was less close to. : )

I am okay without hugs.  Really.  Even if, as seems likely, it's another year before I get to even cautiously return to them.  Being okay without them is not necessarily a good thing in my case, since it seems to be based in an emotion-dampening trauma response, but right now I think it's quite useful that I don't need hugs because I live alone and work from home and can't have any.  

It's also quite human to want the thing you can't have, so I want to hug people.  But I don't do it because not hugging is a way to be kind right now, to help show my neighbors love and help keep them safe.  Also, I don't have many opportunities, but even when I spent time with folks over the summer outside and at a safe distance, I did not hug even when I wanted to and when I would have Before.

I want to be After, where I am making up for lost hug time, where I feel more like I'm whole instead of holding it together, where I can rest and recover, where the shattering doesn't feel so close to the surface.

Until then, it seems like I'll be drawn to Fafner over Eureka 7 and A Bride's Story over the Way of the Househusband (I'm stretched thin enough that sometimes my laughter has a more disturbingly hysterical edge than my silent tears).  And impulse is just fine.  

I have enough blankets and sweaters and fuzzy socks to wear and read, and I will be okay.  I hope you feel the same.

What she said and what I saw

"We have to send anyone with any upper-respiratory conditions there," she said when she refused me treatment at the urgent care for an ear blockage because I have asthma and allergies.

"Because there are so many pregnant women at this clinic," she said.  

In the 30 minutes I am there waiting, I see no pregnant women.  After 30 minutes, her superior comes to answer my question about why I have been allowed into their other clinics for physical therapy and orthotics appointments with the exact same answers to the screening questions for the past few months.  She glares at the lady who denied me service, and I sense that she would have let me in, but since the first lady said no, she can't contradict that.

I drive to the city half an hour away.  To "there."  The first person I see at the entrance is a pregnant woman. She is Black.  

Inside at the screening desk, I am required to take off my well-fitting, three-layer cotton mask and put on a uselessly loose, cheap, one-layer mask. There is no hand washing available before I put on my new mask. When I ask about it, I am told there is a small, enclosed, poorly ventilated bathroom I can touch a door to go into or a hand sanitizing dispenser I can touch. I'm told to proceed down a number of hallways.

Everyone I see, patients and staff, are people of color. A number of them are pregnant Black women.

When I find the correct desk, I am told the wait is 90 minutes, or I can schedule an appointment, drive home, shower, do a little bit of work in great discomfort, drive back, wait an unspecified amount of time, finally get treated, drive back home, shower, and finally focus on work. No appointments are available around my work meeting. The ones that are, they cannot guarantee I would actually be seen at those times.

I haven't slept. I think hard. I ask for a number to call and schedule, and I take it. Then I drive to the place I should've gone first. They don't even ask screening questions. After several hours, and three sets of exposures to whatever is floating around, I get home and wonder why they don't care about people with chronic upper respiratory problems being around the very real pregnant Black women in the city but do mind us being around the theoretical white pregnant women in the suburbs.

August 2020

On resuming writing after a major hiatus

It's been a while.  You made some rookie mistakes.  You forgot to put the speed to fast/ draft / ink saver and had to get more ink in a pandemic.  Forgot to put in page numbers for the first several chunks.  Forgot to print in reverse order.  You did finally use up a lot of that case of paper you accidentally bought, what, 15 years ago?

Seeing this stack of some of the things you blogged from 2009-2017 (even though there is so little after 2014 when I moved for real), you feel inspired.  Organize them.  Connect them with clips.  Read them in chronological order, a time machine to a decade ago.  Look at all these things you thought about, crafted into a rough shape, and launched.  Some of them are even good.  Look at the pile.  Just look.

And do it again.

seriously how

how am I so bad

at accepting compliments

even at my age

two in a row

two perfect moons rise

huge as they dance through the veils

did you see them, too?

ending

the leaves 

on the decorative 

crabapple tree are 

rusting away

maple trees 

are finally 

bursting 

into 

brilliant 

red 

flame 

against wet dark wood

the rain seems incessant

while wind splatters wet 

leaves on everything and 

on days with no sun 

when the light is

being eaten 

away by more

darkness it feels

like everything

is ending

to rise

Go outside now and look to the moon limping

low on the horizon where it rolled to a stop

after it was kicked and now glowers, half-collapsed

ball of copper, misshapen lunar lump waiting

to rise

the heart never lies?

Is it a saying that the heart never lies?

When work stress was on, my heart rate

(average resting) was 74,  When I visited

family, it was 78.  When I got back home

and was on vacation, it was a better 71. 

When I sang with folks at the pub today,

it was 60 bpm.  Maybe my heart is

deceitful and desperately wicked, but

I think it loves music an awful lot.

if you only believe

I was taught
if you only believe
when it costs you
nothing
you don't
really believe.

Shuubun in September

This.  There is a word for this

direction we are sliding toward

this melancholy rage against

the dying weakening waning

of the light this moment when

darkness and light are in balance,

and then the darkness takes over

for a time and we slide into slumber

praying to wake again at some next

balance point when darkness is at

its height and then it turns again

and we see at last what light breaks

what I want to do for my birthday

she asks what do you want
to do for your birthday, and I don't answer
for days because I am composing lists
in my head of all the impossible things
I want to do on my birthday

bask in a hammock in the warm sun of early summer
not drive anywhere
take a bath

read a book,
a whole book,
and not be in too much pain
during and afterwards

make delicious food without pain
eat foods I like that make me sick
and not get sick

enjoy time with my friends without stress and pain
talk to my sister without mental illness getting in the way

write without pain
walk without pain
rest without pain
laugh without pain

sleep deeply and well without pain
wake up refreshed and alert without pain
live one day without pain

she asks what do you want
to do for your birthday, and I think about how much
I want to finish something, anything, today

but then I think maybe that's not the most important thing
to do today, maybe instead I should
start something new with or without pain
as a new year of my life begins, and that is something
I can and will do on my birthday

I would believe him

I would believe him

if he says

'I don't remember'

because who

remembers

every

      curiosity satisfied

      strength exerted

      small pleasure taken

      destructive act towards another

our brains 

do not 

work that way

I surely do not

remember, but

I hope 

      that I am wise enough to know

            that what I do or do not

                  remember does not change

                  what did or did not happen

                  to anyone else

      that when someone says

'you hurt me when you did this'

      that I will be humble enough and strong enough to remember and say

'I am sorry I did that to you.'

Can you forgive me? What

can I do 

for you 

to atone?'

      that I will not lash out

      that in the hot moment of shame

            when accused of wrongdoing

            I will not lie

            by saying it didn't happen

            simply because 

            I don't remember

as if I believed 

that what I remember

could possibly 

change reality

I don't believe that someone

who does not know this truth

of how the mind works,

      that what we remember is not reality,

should be given

power over others

to abuse

What it costs to believe

My mother said

she

believes

me.

It costs

her nothing

now to say

she would have

given up the church

that helped keep

her alive

if I had told

and the church

had not

believed me

then.  When she said that,

I believed

my mother. 

I

believed

my mother

until we talked, and I

discovered that

my mother

does not believe

a woman coming

forward now with

nothing to gain and

everything to lose,

a grown woman

telling now,

when it costs

this woman

something

(maybe everything). 

Believing this woman

would cost

my mother something

that she is not willing

to pay, and I wonder

if my mother really

would

believe

me

if it cost

her something,

and I find

I don't know

if I believe

she would.

This is a well-written, short prose piece from Rachael Denhollander on the same topic.  I highly recommend it.

falling

this autumn I hurt
in all the broken places
fingers to feet to heart

Before you ask

Were you wearing suggestive clothing?

     My 6th grade school uniform

• plaid skirt below the knee
• knee socks
• shoes
• Oxford button-up shirt probably buttoned all the way up

Had you been drinking?

     Hadn't ever had any alcohol
          that stuff smells disgusting

Were you wearing lots of makeup?

     No makeup, no interest in makeup
          gets all over everything when you sweat
               during recess

Were you flirting?

     Am asexual
          had never flirted or shown any kind
               of sexual interest
                    in anyone

Were you in the wrong place?

     In the hallway
          outside the 6th grade classroom
               after school in broad daylight
                    waiting safely inside for my late ride home to arrive
                         looking through the glass doors
                              with a view of the playground

none of this should really matter
because the only reason 
sexual assaults happen 
is because people 
sexually assault
other people

Dear family member

Dear family member,

I know that, to you, this situation is wholly political, that in your mind, there is no way this person could be telling the truth.  I know that’s where it starts and stops for you.  I know that you cannot imagine that any of the controversy is NOT political, that any of the anger and sadness is genuine, real, and not motivated by anything related to party lines.  I know that your party would rather have you believe in a conspiracy that seems rather incredible than believe that someone would see it as their duty to tell the truth about someone who is being considered for a position with one of the highest levels of power in our country.  I know that your party has convinced you that no one, after years of silence, could possibly choose out of a sense of duty as a citizen to speak up about their pain, knowing that

• they would face harassment, doubt, and  judgment outside a court of law
• their life would be at risk
• they would never be safe again wherever they went
• they were giving up the normal-seeming life they had pulled together over the years

unless it was part of conspiracy formulated by the other party.  (I fail to see that she has anything to gain here except more pain made extremely public, but you seem unable to even consider this.)  I also know that you are not trying to hurt people, that you are merely trying to clearly state your opinion on a very fraught topic.

I suspect that there may be a sudden silence about this issue among the female friends who have agreed politically with you on everything in the last few years; I suspect you don’t know what that means.  You seem so blinded by party politics that you don’t see the situation with anything approaching openness or compassion, that you don’t understand how personal it is for people who have been through the same thing.  (I’m pretty sure you have not been through the same thing because I would find it hard to believe that anyone who had would be able to be this blind just because of political affiliation.  I’m sorry if I’m wrong about that and am assuming too much.)

I know that it’s likely you are unaware of the psychology of sexual assault victims / survivors*.  I suspect you have never sought to educate yourself about it. I even suspect that no one has ever personally confided in you their story of their own sexual assault.  My reason for believing this is that you can still react in a way that asks the question: "Why speak out now?  Why not when it happened?"

(CONSIDER SKIPPING THIS GRAPHIC IF YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED SEXUAL ASSAULT)

You posted this on Facebook today, without awareness or irony, and, as far as I can tell, without any shred of understanding or empathy.  It is an answer to the question, "Why don’t victims speak out?"

Family member that I thankfully only see once a year, YOU are part of the problem, part of the reason why victims don’t speak out.  This kind of blind, politically-driven opinion is a slightly different (and much more repugnant) flavor of the same old story that leads to only a fraction of assaults being reported.  When you say what you said above, what people who have survived or will survive sexual assault hear is, "It's safer not to tell the truth.  Even when it matters.  Especially when it matters."

I can now add your view as expressed in this Facebook post to my list as a perfect example of why I would never disbelieve someone’s assault story simply because they didn’t file a police report at the time.

Here’s another list, for you, of some of the reasons why I didn’t report it when I was sexually assaulted

• I was in 6th grade.
• We grew up together in a smallish town and attended the same church and church school, a place where we were never taught anything about sex or consent or anything even vaguely related to the two, and my dad and his dad were friends and my sister and his sister were friends.
• I was mortified and disgusted and had no idea how to deal with the overwhelming feelings and confusion. 
• I knew it would cause trouble, and my mom was (I was pretty sure, though no one would TALK to me about it) dying at the time.The principal hated me and had shown clearly that the consequence of me reporting observing anything having to do with inappropriate sexual stuff was for her to scream at me in her office for what seemed like hours, accusing me of being a liar, troublemaker, and all-around evil human being who was just successful at hiding behind a good girl mask. 
• My father had expressed that old-school sentiment of, "What did she expect when she _______? (She had it coming)" when we heard about some poor girl being assaulted after drinking or being alone on the sidewalk at night or wearing makeup and a short skirt.
• I knew it would cause trouble, and my mom was (I was pretty sure from objective physical evidence, though no one would TALK to me about it because I was only in 6th grade) dying at the time.
• I didn’t even know I had other options.  (See: "I was in 6th grade")

I know it’s not exactly fair to put you on that list of why I didn’t report as a 6th grader because I didn’t know then that you held such a poisonous view, and I know that this present, particular instance is surrounded by a political cloud due to the nature of the situation and the players and seems somewhat exceptional (or was until 2 other people stepped forward to also volunteer to have their normal lives destroyed), but that’s honestly chaff to me at this point. 

For whatever reason, you don’t want to look or listen, you don’t want to see or hear this person’s claims, and you say you want to see their life further destroyed simply because it is politically inconvenient for you that they are talking here and now, that they are saying that someone your political party chose sexually assaulted them.  When you post things like this on Facebook, when you express these sentiments in real life in person, you are encouraging others, especially the young women in your life, not to tell you or report to anyone, and you are hurting people who didn’t report at the time.  People like me.  Your relative.  It may seem simply political to you, but to me it’s personal.  And because you are related to me and likely by blood or friendship to others who have also been or will someday be sexually assaulted, it really is personal to you, too.  Please keep that in mind.





*Today, right before I saw your post, I learned that "being triggered" doesn’t just mean being offended by a difference of opinion from this one.  It’s a physiological reaction, not a difference of opinion.  It’s surprisingly related to a lot of the current research on chronic pain that I’ve been looking through.

Another sci-fi moon

Another sci-fi moon
even more spectacular
than last night: a tall
hazy sliver burning red
with forest fire smoke

Things not to do when you're sick

Things not to do when you're sick

• Go to the funeral
• Lick the thank you notes closed
• Go to the birthday party
• Go to the lecture

Tired moon

so tired I can't quite focus
on the moon shining brightly
as it tags out the last light
of sunset and sends the sun
down to a well-deserved rest

February weary

destroyed car
new windshield already chipped
February weary of winter in Minnesota
$2300 medical bill that insurance said they'd pay
right arm that keeps going numb
broken computer

I am feeling done with optimism
for the new year already
but oh
the snow today
was so very beautiful

maybe

not that we see

but that we look

not that we find

but that we seek

or at least don't stop

(for long) 

being open

resisting

resisting the impulse to do something
just to be done with something, anything,
not even considering whether it is the right
thing to do or do not, unable to see
the choice to try to be,      just be

Slightly Worried, Confused, Relieved, Proud

the sun shines brightly in the sky

above the mess of snow it has made

like a dog after vomiting on the carpet

don't mind at all

Went for a walk without my coat

December 4th because I wanted 

to see if the pond where the turtles

live was as magical as the river 

or the lakes hidden by thick fog

so that anything could appear,

but the turtles and the mist were

gone (if they were ever there),

and I don't mind at all because it

was a very nice walk anyway.

central sensitization

When you miss the warmth of the sun,
but you are glad it is cloudy because,
after you severely overdid it the past week,
light hurts your eyes for the foreseeable future.

my epitaph shall be

No matter how I die
my epitaph shall be

Gone ahead to a place
where I can fin'ly hear
all the stories and learn
all the songs and the names
of all the things.  I pray
I'll see you there (not soon : ).

tomorrow

Tomorrow I would show you
two kinds of purple flowers
that have bloomed since we last walked
that spring-decked path together.

Somewhere lilacs

Will the baby live?
Will depressed loved ones pull up?
Somewhere, lilacs bloom.

La La Land

How
do you go
to the dollar theater
like you planned
to see La La
Land
after you find out she
is in the hospital
for suicidal
thoughts?
You
don't. Instead,
you stay late at work
until you fix something
and then you go home
and cry and pray and
write because they
are the same
tonight.