Perhaps There is No Other Way?

I've been doing some soul searching of late for a variety of reasons. I'm starting to wonder if I ever stood a chance of having anything approaching a normal life. They say family is the single biggest influence on who a person grows up to be. I'm starting to understand how absolutely true that is. I think a lot of people when they say that are thinking positively; if you bring a child up with love and respect they will go forward and love and respect others. But I think that's the optomist talking. I think reality is something far darker and twisted and upside down than that. I think the reality of families is what makes us who we are; and that reality is far from being the result of positive outcomes.



I grew up being bullied by a sister two and a half years older than me. My mother encouraged her to be strong and independant and to have a take charge attitude. And inadvertantly my mother encouraged her to walk across people in the process. In raising us my mother only had her role models to work from, which is probably why my brother remains fairly removed from the insanity. My mother had two sisters growing up and no brothers. In short, she didn't know how to screw up a son, but she knew how to make sure her daughters didn't get along. She raised them as she had been raised by her mother; a woman who'd herself had a highly chaotic childhood lacking in stability. Grandmother's parents were killed in a tornado when she was young and she and her siblings were shuttled from relative to relative till she married a much older divorced man at 16 or 17. She must have a had a very hard upbringing, and I'm sure she survived it by being tough as nails, competitive, strong and independant. She taught her daughters those skills without knowing I suspect how to teach them to be friends as well. That I saw, my mother and her sisters were never terribly close.



So I grew up being criticised at every turn. I was slapped, pushed, kicked and verbally and emotionally abused by my sister. To this day I don't think anyone saw anything terribly wrong with it. I know they didn't then and don't now understand how crucial that was in my turning out the way it did. Why should they? I didn't figure it out myself until this week. What do you get when you criticize everything someone does? You wind up with someone who communicates as little as possible in order to avoid criticism. You wind up with someone who will empathize and sympathize with the oppressed absued discounted and marginalized people of the world. Yeah, you wind up with me.



The flip side to that is that I idolized her at the same time. Some part of me knew she was being unfair and cruel but I would have done anything to win her approval and friendship, so I buried any negative feelings. I kept hoping someday she's like me. Someday we'd be friends. Someday she'd respect me. I kept trying to figure out what I could do, how I could make that happen. As a result I also grew very good at gauging how people were feeling, what they needed to hear at that moment and how to communicate something important to them. Those were all skills that came to help shape not only who I am, but what I've done for a living.



I made excuses my whole life for her. I rationalized the way she treated me, or believed that I deserved it. I rationalized or ignored the way she treated other people. She told me I was fat. I not only believed her, I ultimately became fat. Keep in mind we're about the same size now, as we were then. I get now that she pushed the worst of what she believed about herself off onto me and then ridiculed me for it. All this time I thought all my negative beliefs about myself came from my mother. While she had something to do with it, an awful lot of it came from my sister.

So I "got" all this with sudden clarity the other day. I thought she and I had been forging a new relationship with elements of mutual trust and understanding for quite some time now. I thought that my sister and I would one day be on equal footing and be friends. I thought one day I'd make her proud of me. I know now that could never have happened. I can never make that happen. Nothing has changed. Well, not true; I have changed.

She went off on my on my facebook page. Yes, I now understand one shouldn't have relatives on your facebook page. Anyway she did that in front of all my friends, real and cyber. It was pretty vicious. I cried for days. Then very early one morning I got it. Nothing has changed and she's a bully. I suddenly saw all the connections I'd missed all these years. I suddenly understood what a lifetime of bullying had done to me. It was a light bulb moment. I've been trying to win from her the one thing she would absolutely never give me, becuase to do so would be to give up her power over me. That power she believes she has is part of what keeps her propped up and going . . . at my expense. I wasted 47 years searching for an approval I was never going to get. That's all.

I still don't know if there's any value in trying to communicate any of this to her. She'll deny she was every a bully, and most likely will just call me worse names than she's already called me. Insert eye roll here. I don't know. I'm still thinking on it.

I'm an Alien, That Must be It

As I was laying in bed this morning crying, that's the realization I came to, however impossible; I must have been left here by an alien race; designed to blend in and pass for the real thing. I look too much like both parents and my siblings to be adopted or otherwise conceived so what does that leave? I've felt a good part of my life like an alien, surrounded by another species, not at home in the environment I'm in.

I am incredibly unlike my siblings in emotional temperament, political outlook, religious beliefs and on down to the clothes I wear. I don’t consider NASCAR t-shirts a fashion statement. Call me weird.

I’ve tried, Gods knows I’ve tried to find a way to fit in somehow. I once sat through two hours of NASCAR conversation with a brother and sister. I didn’t understand a word of it and could have cared less, but damnit, I faked interest, I nodded, I smiled, I laughed. I can’t see that it got me anywhere, those two hours of “bonding”. There’ve been other attempts. There has been lots of nodding and smiling and ignoring barbs and jabs and stabs in the back and I think I was run over with a 18 wheeler once, or was that a bad dream?

If our parents were still alive maybe they could have been a buffer of sorts, a common ground as we got older. But they passed away over twenty years ago when I was still in my twenties. I’m 47 now and the intervening years have not given me a single clue as to how to fit into my siblings alien world. I don’t say my family’s world because I don’t believe my parents were this radically different. My father was a fair man to a fault. My mother, well, she was a narcissist who really didn’t give a crap about anyone and was mostly just angry at everyone because she was not the center of the universe. Yeah, I know, crappy role model from day one. Don’t think I don’t know that.

The thing is there is this person inside of me, you know. I know who I am, I’ve lived my inner life and brought it out into the open. I’ve crawled into the dark places and made it a part of my reality. I can’t pretend that their reality is mine. And that ought to be okay. I don’t understand why it’s not okay for me to be who I am. I don’t understand the hate directed at me for being who I am. And yet I do understand.

Years ago I read a book by John Bradshaw, On the Family. Light bulbs went off and bells began to ring. Years? Um, decades now that I think about it. I am the youngest of four children. Yes, sigh, the baby. I prefer youngest, but people think it’s so freaking cute to call me the baby . . . I’m 47 and my breasts are dropping down to my navel. . . whatever makes you giggle people.

Bradshaw related a scenario that stunned me. He said something to the effect that all family members have roles and if a child acts outside of that role they will most likely be ignored by the family. The family will literally not hear or see that child when they are not playing the proper role. He gave an example and it floored me. His were the first books I ever highlighted that weren’t text books. I kept coming back and coming back to that highlighted page. And each time I read it I was angrier and angrier and angrier. All that time I thought it was me. All that time. Twenty some odd years, all my growing up years I thought it was me. God damn I thought it was me. I was supposed to be cute and funny and the baby for the rest of my life. I wasn’t supposed to have a serious thought in my head or contradict anyone or be anything other than what the family role dictated for the rest of my life.

See, they used to ignore me when I spoke. We’d be talking about something and I would make a comment and they’d ignore me. Sometimes I thought maybe I said it too softly and they didn’t hear me. Sometimes I‘d say it again louder. But most of the time I thought they were ignoring me because what I’d said was stupid. But they literally didn’t hear me. I conducted an experiment one night; an impromptu one. I was dishing ice cream out of a carton and it slipped. My response was unprintable here. My mother, I swear to the Gods, looked around in confusion and said to my oldest sister “Did you hear something?” My sister said “Oh it was nothing, no, didn’t hear anything. This wasn’t a sarcastic “Did you hear something”, this was an honest statement of confusion. Just for the heck of it I tried that experiment several more times in vary degrees. Their response was almost funny. Almost.

I think I was 22 when I did that. It was all downhill from there.

There is a part of me that still looks up to them, my siblings; that wants their approval. It’s inevitable I suppose, being the youngest. Well, how do you secure the approval of someone who feels that your entire life is unacceptable? You can’t. But it doesn’t stop that part of me from continuing to hope. I wish it did. It makes no sense to hope. My siblings are not my friends, they never will be my friends and they’ll never be proud of a single thing I’ve ever done with my life. They can’t accept who I am, not one minute not one second.

So who am I that’s so unacceptable? I’m a liberal single Pagan female. I’m socially and politically fairly liberal, though others stand further to the left than me. I’m Pagan, this means I don’t believe in the bible as a frame work for my beliefs about the Gods, life, the afterlife or the point and purpose of living. That's it. Haven't killed or maimed anyone. That's it.

That I didn’t turn out like my siblings who are right wing republicans appears to be a major source of discomfort and unhappiness for them. I can’t say I’m thrilled about their point of view, but they are who they are and if it makes them happy so be it. I don’t believe I’ve ever condemned them for their beliefs or practices. I learned long ago and I continue to relearn and relearn that what you do comes back to you. Condemn others and it will bounce back at you. But just being who I am seems to be condemnation in their eyes. There’s nothing I can do about that. The old if you’re not with us you’re against us theory of life. Gods, but that paradigm so needs to die out. How many people have been hurt killed maimed and abandon by that power over point of view?

So I’m crying again. I’ve been called self centered, myopic, unrealistic, irrational and uncaring. And that’s all in the last two hours. The words and the hate hurt, but what I hear from the words is “You’re not anything like me and you frighten me.”

I’m sorry, I can’t help you there sis. Your fear is not my responsibility.

So, if my real parents would be so kind as to beam me up now I’d really appreciate it. I’ve had enough and I want to come home to my real family; the ones who understand me, love me, believe in me and want me in their lives as a friend and sister. I’m a pretty amazing woman, damned intelligent and insightful if I do say so myself and I think you’ll be proud of me. Ready for beam up anytime now . . .

On Having

I've been struggling ever since Jessie died. There's been one or two days that we okay, but most of them have just been hard. She passed February 14th. In some ways I think that's just one very cruel vicious joke: Valentines Day. It gave me pause. I wondered if the Gods really did love me. If they did how could they do that? Why take my best friend from me on that day? You could call it coincidence, but I tend to think there are none. Taking her from me on that day so suddenly is hard not to take personally. It's one of the few slights in life that didn't make me angry but just hurt. It still hurts. It's not like there's a man to bring me flowers or children to buy me useless things on Valentines Day. All I had was a dog okay. Some kisses and a cuddle here and there.

I've been trying for the last few weeks in earnest to find another dog. Nothing seems to be working. I thought I'd found a local breeder who's dogs I liked and could afford but it turns out the breeder doesn't OAF or Penn her breeding dogs. If I were to adopt a shelter or rescue dog I wouldn't know diddly about their parents either, but I can't bring myself to buy from a breeder who cares so little about the puppies she might be bringing into the world to suffer short painful lives because of hip dysplasia.

The way I found out pissed me off beyond words. I'd joined an email group of large shepherd breeders figuring that would be the best way to find a local breeder. What I forgot, or chose to forget from previous experience is that breeders are the most inbreed, nasty tempered, suspicious, back stabbing sniveling bunch of pantie wastes on earth. Dealing with them one at a time ain't so bad, but get a group of them together and watch the knives come out and the blood spill. Given that they create soft fuzzy life out of that never ceases to amaze me: how absolute opposite they are of that which they give to people. Had someone simply said "Have you asked about hips yet" I would have been fine. That was on the list to ask about, but I hadn't gotten that far yet. But some smarmy little backwoods breeder had to insinuate that breeders dogs all had bad hips. This is the same shit that privately contacted me the week before wanting to sell me one of her puppies from all the way over in freaking West Virginia. So I walked quietly out of that group and left them to their backstabbing and I declined to buy the puppy.

I tried going back to the rescue where I got Jessie from. They keep precious few dogs in their rescue now and seem to prefer to dedicate their time to a permanent facility for unadoptable dogs. I got no where with the volunteer who contacted me. When I asked about cat friendly dogs I was told to "Just come on down some Saturday and meet the dogs." It's a three hour drive to just come on down. The idea of spending three hours in the car to see dogs who may or may not be cat friendly is not appealing. Why they don't temperament test the dogs is beyond me. Perhaps I'm the only person on the face of the planet who wants a German Shepherd and has cats? Yeah, but that's the way they make you feel when you ask. I've since come to realize that attitude is pretty common with breed rescues. I tried another breed rescue in another part of L.A. and that hasn't gone much better for the same reason. As I told a friend the other day, it's far easier for Madonna to adopt another child from a third world country than it is for me to adopt a dog.

That leaves me with county shelters. There's a cheery place, a county dog shelter. My fear with going into one of those places is how many dogs I'd walk out with, "Excuse me but is there a limit to how many dogs I can't adopt at one time?" If you've never been in one, county shelters are the most dismal hopeless places on earth. That any of the animals ever get out of there alive and rebound in spirit from the experience is a miracle.

I know, yes, I know it's not supposed to be this hard. If it's this hard I'm doing something wrong and the wisest thing to do is step back and take pause. I realize that. But there's the thing, grief makes it hard to accept that.

Alright, wait, slight tangent here. Dinner tonight was miserable. It sucked. It didn't turn out right. But then I was trying to make egg rolls with rice paper yet again. I want to track down the tramp on the gluten forum who claimed you could bake them. Uh, no, you can't. The texture turns to plastic if you bake them. First I tried frying one of them tonight and it stuck to a non stick pan and came apart. I gave that up and got out the steamer. You are supposed to be able to steam them. The other three fell apart when I took them out of the steamer. I had deconstructed rice paper egg rolls. I'd have killed for proper egg roll wrappers. I've tried repeatedly with rice paper. This is the fourth or fifth attempt. Mercifully I used up the last of the package tonight. If you make them light enough and you're lucky you can pan fry them but they're a freaking mess. Make them too big and the weight of the filling tears the paper and you have what I had for dinner. I was furious by the time I was done. Not mad at the wrappers mind you; that would be pointless. But mad at life, mad at fate, mad at the Gods because I can't walk into the fucking supermarket and buy egg roll wrappers like most everyone else on the planet. I was mad all over again that it was taken away from me; other people can have it but I can't. THAT is what gets to me every single time.

And I'm angry that other women have husbands and children and grandchildren. I can't. And it's as much grief as anger that all over this planet men and women met and fall in love and have children; billions of people do that every single day and I can't.

Sense a pattern here yet? All I want is one relatively young cat loving german shepherd to take into my home and love and spoil and take on walks and watch tv with and I can't have it. Truth be known I don't even want that. I want Jessie back and I can't ever have her either.

I don't entirely understand what it is that set my life apart from what is normal. I haven't a clue actually. Not a single clue why. Most days I can ignore it, and can focus on everything else that works and be happy, but some days I just can't see the light no matter how hard I look. And unfortunately its mostly been like that since Jessie left. Yeah, other women get men and children; I got a dog to love.

My Other Half

My other half is gone. I didn't realize that's what she was until now. I had to put Jessie to sleep last week. She suddenly had trouble breathing and it turned out she had advanced lung cancer and there was nothing that could be done to help her. I couldn't let her suffer though I was so not ready to let her go. Letting her go was about the most gut wrenching thing I've felt in awhile.

She was this big beautiful exuberant lug of a German Shepherd. We were together pretty much 24/7. I realize now she was literally a part of me, my other half. We were a pair. I'd look over at her to see what she thought of who ever had entered the room, and she'd look at me to see what I thought. She was much kinder to people than me though. That kindness taught me a lot about life. If she could have talked we would have been finishing each other's sentences.

I always marvel at how pets do that; how they become so attuned. I finally figured out a few years ago that she viewed me as her job. That was a somewhat humbling realization. I needed looking after in her estimation. In return I tried not to be too obvious about having to look after her, particularly as she got older and simple things became harder for her to do. I didn't want her to think she was letting me down in any way. I told her if the positions were reversed you'd do the same for me so don't worry.

I can't seem to get past the grief of loosing her. At first all I wanted was another dog, another Shepherd. I missed having a dog almost as much as I missed her. But I look at rescue and shelter and breeder sites and all I think when I stare into the eyes of all those dogs is that they're not Jessie.

Perhaps it was a mistake having her with me all the time. On the other hand I'm glad I was there for so much more of her life. So I don't know. I suppose there's another dog out there somewhere who belongs with me, I'm just having trouble imagining that right now.

HLA-DQ 1,1

I should have paid more attention in High School biology. It might have helped. It might not have. I'm awash in a sea of DQ's and I am fighting for every bit of understanding. The more I read it the more I glean from it, but the definitive answers I want don't appear to be there.

I took a gene test to determine which gluten sensitive genes I posses. I've seen estimates that as much as 60% of the population has one or more of the genes. Problem is they just aren't sure what it all means. They have some idea that certain genes are worse than others, and they've begun to understand that different genes can cause different symptoms and present different challenges for gluten sensitivity. But the science is far from exact. I have two copies of a gene they seem to be calling HLA-DQ 1. I say seem to because apparently even the protocol for naming genes is an ever evolving one. Everyone has sets of genes, with one gene in the set coming from their mother and one from their father. I received the very same gene from both of my parents; the DQ 1. According to the literature a double DQ 1 gene means the sensitivity is more pronounced and probably unavoidable. It is a gluten sensitive gene and it's most associated with gluten ataxia. Ataxia is a word I didn't know until today. I could probably have gone the rest of my life without hearing it.

I read today about something they call the Romberg Test for Ataxia where a patient stands with their feet together and their eyes closed. That's it, that's all. I read the description of that test and immediately thought, "Well, no one can do that." Well, actually most people can it turns out. But I have never been able to. I'm better than I used to be, but standing with my feet together and my eyes closed I start to wobble and run the risk of falling over. Hell, it's a miracle I haven't fallen off my treadmill yet my balance is so terrible. My balance has improved in the last two years, but it's obvious even to me that some things are never coming back. They know that a gluten free diet improves balance and coordination in affected people, but they don't know whether or not it can reverse all of the damage that's already been done. On the up side I don't fall down anymore so I guess I should be grateful.

But the part that got to me, that freaked me out is that gluten can actually change the cerebellum, leaving deposits and changing the shape and function of the part of the brain most responsible for balance and movement and coordination. This freaking gene and the subsequent gluten sensitivity has altered the very make up of my brain. There are mentions of links between ataxia and Alzheimer's and dementia as well as schizophrenia MS and several other things.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I live in my head too much. Maybe other people don't. I don't know. There's this huge disconnect between my thoughts and the fact that I'm a physical being dependent on things like the structure of my brain for cogent thought. I'm anchored to this body and that's a hard thing to process for some reason. I can't transcend the physical body. I'm bound by its health and abilities. And that makes me angry.

More than that it scared me, more than anything else on this journey through gluten hell has. And I'm mad. And I'm confused by all the uncertainties. And dammit none of this makes sense. Why me. But of course me.

Someone somewhere posted a snip from Slaughterhouse Five this afternoon on a local website.

Tralfamadorian speaker: We know how the world ends and it has nothing to do with Earth, except that it gets wiped out too.
Billy Pilgrim: Really? How does it end?
Tralfamadorian speaker: While we're experimenting with new fuels, a Tralfamadorian test pilot panics, presses the wrong button, and the whole universe disappears.
Billy Pilgrim: But you have to stop him. If you know this, can't you keep the pilot from pressing ...
Tralfamadorian speaker: He has always pressed it, and he always will. We have always let him, and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.

What is meant to be will be. You can't go back and change it, and even if you could it would do no good because what's meant to be will always find a way in the end. Everything has a point and purpose.
But accepting that is a struggle.

Just Ask

If you ask the "universe" often times it answers, or at least helps you figure out what the answers are. I put two and two together last night. Well, actually this morning.

I had a series of dreams last night that I remembered this morning. I don't always remember dreams, but these seem to have intentionally stuck in my brain at least enough to finally make the connections happen. I dreamed about the house I grew up in. In the dream someone had walled over the front door of the house. Where the door should have been there was just stucco. Literally I could no longer go inside. And I can't. The house belongs to someone else now which is an idea I'm still getting used to. I wonder if they're happy there? I wonder if they survived the ARM crunch? I wonder if they love how the sun comes in the living room windows in the afternoon?

I also dreamed about the car I used to own which is now also gone. Gone from my life. So many things are gone.

I found out last week, Christmas Eve that my cousin is being treated for rectal cancer. She's undergoing chemo and radiation. She's fighting for her life. She and I share the same middle name. Why in the hell both our mothers had to fucking do that to us mystifies me to this day. What the hell were they thinking? It was my grandmother's middle name, but you know, it's not like there was much more to it than that. Great grandmother named her daughter after a silent screen actress so our middle name was someones last name. And no, I'm not publicly saying which one because then the whole freaking world would know my middle name and quite frankly it's stupid. No white kid from Pacoima should have that as a middle name. Let alone some white kid from Pacoima who's mother was born and raised in Oklahoma. Long story, but trust me on this.

Anyway, when I heard about Teri I was stunned, saddened but not surprised. Her son has been battling POEM's disease for a couple years now. How terribly hard for all of them. I can't imagine what that is like.

I wasn't surprised because rectal cancer is a digestive cancer. People with untreated Celiac Disease are prone to digestive cancers. Some numbers give them a 50% higher risk than the average population. With treatment, which is a gluten free diet, the numbers go down significantly, returning to normal after a year or so.

I carry a Celiac gene, that's pretty obvious. Which one and in what combination I don't yet know. It's possible I inherited a double gene. I'm pretty sure my mother had Celiacs. I would not be surprised if my father did too. I finally ordered a gene test to try and find out. While it no longer matters to me which gene or genes I have, I'm hoping I can use it to convince my siblings, at the very least my siblings, to get tested for Celiacs. My mother's entire family should be tested, but most people don't want to know. My siblings don't want to know. My sister is truly mystified as to where I could have gotten this "rogue gene". The odds are good she carries the same gene. but she'd rather pretend I'm some how extraordinary.

And that's why silence scares me. In theory I'm in a better place now because I'm gluten free. But the years, decades, maybe a lifetime of eating gluten have already taken a toll on my body. I know that, I experience that every day. I regret not knowing, and I'm angry at doctors who never had a clue. But what can you do? You can't go back and relive your life. This is the life you're handed, the one you're meant to live.


It may have already shortened my life, and the lives of people I love. And I get angry all over again at the way whole grain products have been pushed down our throats by a government trying to artificially support it's farmers. I see that stupid food pyramid and all I see is blatant commercialism in the guise of healthy living. Whole grains kill.


The silence I now fear is mortality. Teri's battle brought that home to me to live.


I wonder if anyone ever dies thinking "I did it all, everything I wanted and I have no regrets"? I've never known anyone who died who felt that way. It's not the dying I fear I don't think. Either there is something after this physical life or there isn't. Either way works. It's this nagging sense that perhaps I'm not doing it right; living that is. It's not even about regrets. I want some guarantee that I did what I was supposed to do here; some nod from some God that says I'm on schedule and headed in the right direction.


Does knowing about the silence stop the fear? I don't know yet. Time will tell. I need to figure out what to do with all this. How do I guarantee that when I die I do so thinking I covered all the bases I was supposed to cover? How do you do that?

Silence

For some reason silence bothers me these days. I can't put my finger on why exactly. Not silence just in general, but specifically silence when I'm home alone. That never used to bother me.

I've always loved silence. It probably came from growing up in a house full of people and not having anywhere to go to be alone. My childhood was a cacophony of sounds; the TV, arguments, discussions, music, dogs barking, traffic. That may be all it is actually; traffic. I grew up two blocks from the 5 freeway. There was always traffic, even in the dead of night, on the freeway. And we lived on a busy four lane street as well. So the nights were never silent; not ever, not for a second. The freeway made this constant chorus like sound at night as cars speed along. When I was very young, under five, I thought it the sound of angels singing. Why I thought that I couldn't tell you. How I knew what angels were I couldn't tell you. I wasn't raised with religion, never read the Bible, never went to Sunday school. Why I decided that was what singing angels sounded like I don't know. How I knew what angels were I can't tell you.

And the trains. The train tracks were several blocks beyond the freeway. It was common in the sixties and seventies to hear train whistles at night and to hear the engine sound. I've always thought growing up listening to something traveling that fast and that far through the night did something to you; infused you with a wanderlust of sorts.

So there was never silence, even when no one spoke. There was always background noise. And light too. Not only is the Valley one of the most populous, light polluted places on earth, but there were streetlights every few houses. One shone right in through my bedroom window. And everywhere I lived down there in the flatlands there was noise and light in the dead of night. That's one of the reasons I leave the outside porch lights on here. Total darkness is nice, but it makes it hard to navigate around the bedroom in the dark. More importantly though, it's just too frightening. There, I said it.

I'm still afraid of the dark. I wasn't always. But it's still there, tucked in the back of my brain; this fear. It started after the Northridge earthquake. Again, I was living in the valley where there was always light coming through the window. When the quake began I was thrown out of bed and dove under the computer table next to the bed. I held onto the table as hard as I could with my eyes screwed shut repeating over and over "Please stop, please stop." When the two initial jolts finally did stop I opened my eyes. I thought for a split second I'd somehow become blind. There was a confusion between what I should have seen and the total darkness I was in. It was a shock on top of a shock. There was something about that moment that just buried itself in my brain, that moment of shock when I opened my eyes and was greeted by total darkness. I had a hard time with darkness after that. It was months before I could handle being in the dark, even the quasi darkness that returned to the valley once they got the electricity back on. Whenever there's a quake that fear returns, even if just for a few moments.

But I've never feared silence. And it's not exactly fear now that I feel. Where once silence was full and rich with possibilities and depth, now it just seems to stretch out in front of me somehow barren and empty. It's lonely. Why now I don't know. I feel no more vulnerable than before, no more at the mercy of fate or possibility. It's as if there's no longer anything to listen for in the silence; it's just empty. And that makes no sense to me. I feel like I've lost something, but I don't know what. Did I loose my nerve? Is my strength deserting me? Am I simply tired of being alone? The silence is empty feeling and I can't tell you why.

Little Little Lightfoot . . .

That was what I crooned to him while we were stuck on Highway 18 this Sunday. We spent about thirty minutes or so parked on the highway waiting for an airship that used the 18 as a landing pad to transport an injured skier from Snow Valley. I was going nuts sitting there and he was none too happy sitting in the carrier so I pulled him out and we talked a bit.

He's an unaffected little fellow for all his recent trials. He's only three months old and three pounds, but he's already known freezing cold, hunger and abandonment. Such big ideas for such a little brain to live through. I think maybe that's the key. Big ideas pass unacknowledged and only little things register; like a chuck under the chin or a warm bed and good food.

Yes, I'm a Gordon Lightfoot fan. This would in part explain the name. He's handsome with red hair, very charismatic, has a lovely voice and holds meaning in my life. But he's also got four white feet. Light-foot, get it? Yeah, anyway, it's his first name. He doesn't have a middle name yet. I have a tradition of giving all my pets middle names that say something about why they're in my life or what they've brought to my life. I'm still working on his middle name.

I came to realize, watching him bound around the bedroom this morning, playing footsies with the dog from under the bed that I did the right thing in letting Cinny go. I don't care how many times you have to help a pet pass over, there's always doubt in your mind about whether you did it too soon or waited too long or was it fair to the animal to not let it choose it's own time? I know, watching Lightfoot bound about the place, that it's what Cinny wanted. He wanted to have this little happy healthy young body again. I think he knew what came next and he wanted it more than he was afraid of leaving.

I've come to believe over the years that these animals follow us, reincarnating again and again through this life and past lives and future lives. I knew the minute I heard about Lightfoot that I was supposed to take him in. I knew without seeing a picture that he was Cinny. I just knew in a way that defies explanation. When I met him it felt like coming home to hold him again.

Already I'm doing the "What the hell made me do that" examination which always means I did what I was supposed to do. I mean come on, I drove to Lake Arrowhead in Winter with ice on the road and insane people parked in turn-outs. I hate ice and I hate insane people. We won't even talk about what my car looks like now after that insane drive. I personally am praying for a good rain. It took me nearly two hours to get home when it should have taken less than an hour. I met a woman I've never known, sat down in her home, had my crotch sniffed by her dogs all to take in an orange kitten when truth be known I could have gone to the local animal shelter, thirty minute round trip tops, and adopt some other kitten. I think, when you look back on an experience and wonder why in the world you stepped so far outside your life or your comfort zone or your experience or understanding of the world to do something that makes no logical sense, you've done exactly what you were supposed to do.

So Lightfoot is home. Now I just have to get Bailey to stop hissing at the poor boy. Bailey is going to be the hard sell I can see that. The dog could really care less. It's just one more cat. She's thrilled that she can sniff cat butt without significant blood loss, but that's as far as her interest goes. Bailey though is going to take a long time to unwind from the knots she's wound herself up in. All in good time I suppose. What's meant to be will be.

Saving Lives

Years ago, someone saved my life. No he didn't push me out of the way of a careening bus or anything. But I was a sucker for him straight away. He had this lovely long strawberry blond hair that would make Robert Redford jealous. And green eyes that were the most amazing color, like new aspen leaves in spring. That's how he got to me, with the strawberry blond hair and the big eyes. I fell for him not long after I met him.

He claimed he was lost. Somehow he'd lost his way, his family had disappeared, he was all alone in the world. I believed him of course. I found out years later from his former family that in reality he was a habitual liar when it suited him, but I never held that against him. He did what he had to do. Ultimately he did what he was supposed to do in this world; he saved my life. I think he was born to be at the right place at the right time and it was all somehow planned. Whether he knew that or not I was never able to get out of him, but I'm convinced of it.

See, a lot of our conversations were one sided. I talked and he either listened contentedly or ignored me, depending. I never took it personally when he ignored me. He was attuned to a higher calling, he was listening for more important things than the sound of my voice most days. He was closer to God or the Gods or the universal spirit than I. He had a wisdom about him that was both ethereal and ageless and at the same time very down to earth and to the point. I never knew which point of view I was going to get from him on a given day. He could be brutally frank in his assesments sometimes. Many is the day I wanted to kick his butt across the room because he was being a stubborn SOB, but I never did. In the end I'd just take several deep breaths, curse the Gods and then trusted that he knew what he was doing. How someone could be both of the Gods and a royal fucking pain in the ass at the same time is one of the mysteries of the boy. He was unique.

Those of you who've met him probably know who I'm talking about by now. Cinny showed up at a time and place in my life where I needed to move on, literally, but I didn't know how. He was the most unaffected, happy go lucky, sweethearted individual I'd ever met. How anyone could dislike him I will never understand. He was ten pounds of pure personality with the sunniest disposition of any cat I've ever known. But my oldest sister took an immediate disliking to him. This is not surprising given her sour personality. I guess it was like nails on a blackboard to her to see a creature so happy and positive bounding around the place.

I was living with both my sisters when he showed up. When I was young I used to wonder if I'd ever be free of my family. I was afraid I'd die in that house I'd grown up in, that I'd never find the strength to leave or never be allowed to leave. After my mother and then my father died still I couldn't leave; I was too afraid I think, too convinced that I couldn't survive on my own. Growing up in an abusive family like mine you come to believe you're somehow fatalty flawed, fated to live and die in a cage. I didn't think I'd ever escape that house. I wasn't welcome or wanted there, but I didn't know how to survive out there either. I grew up in some inbetween place, some no man's land where there was just me, unwanted and unconnected to the family that brought me into this world and ill equiped to live in the real world that I didn't understand and that didn't understand me.

So along came this cat. I'm a sucker for soft and cute I will admit, but more than that he was so determinedly happy. He had done nothing to anyone and shown nothing but love to total strangers without qualification. My oldest sister didn't want to keep him. We argued about it, it was two against one but that didn't much matter. One day while I was at work she took him to the pound. When I came home that day and he didn't come running up to me I instantly knew why. I sprang him the next day and took him to live with a friend while I started looking for an apartment that took cats. He spent a month living with a friend who had just had knee surgery and couldn't walk. He spent most of that month camped out in her lap purring. Once again he was where he was supposed to be. The kid had a knack for being at the right place at the right time.

I moved out and took him with me. He was my best friend for a lot of years. I will never forget the time he decided to play in the christmas tree with his housemate and got caught up in the bead garland. He paniced and ran down the hall with garland wound around his neck. When I came out of the bedroom to see what all the noise was about he tried his best to look nonchalant with bead garland wrapped around his neck and trailing out behind him, the other end still attached to the tree. "Do, what do you mean what did I do?" I still laugh when I think about that look on his face. Like I said before, the boy was a habitual liar, no doubt.

He saved me and gave me my life. Without him the last 12 years would have been very different, if I even would have survived it all. I owed him big time.

I let him go today. He was unhappy and in pain with a half dozen physical problems. He told me last night, in his own way, that he'd had enough so I set him free this morning. He saved my life and the best I could do for him was set him free. It somehow doesn't seem like it's enough for someone who gave me so much.

Leaving the Parking Lot

Well truely, this just sucks. How does that Hiatt line go? "You think you come so far, in this one horse town, and she's laughing that crazy laugh because you haven't left the parking lot."


I have gray hair. I'm 46. A few grays is inevitable. I don't have a few, I have lots. I let the hair go too long between dye jobs and took a good look today. I'd say I'm about half gray now. *insert inconsolable crying here* I'm only 46 and I have gray hair and I'm entering menopause. I'm not enough of a writer to convey the grief I feel. And yes, I have the mood swings to go with all this. I'm starting to think that my mood swings have mood swings.


Life is indeed a journey. I know this. I've taken comfort for several years from knowing I'll live to grow old. Long story, but I know I have a relatively long life in this world ahead of me. I do believe that change is life and it's all part of the process and I embrace the process. I do. Really. I do. SHUT UP, I DO!


So why is it so hard right now? Why am I having such a hard time with it? I'm not afraid of dying some day. I haven't been afraid of death for quite some time. It's not death that scares me. I think I have trouble shaking this feeling that I had other options and I regret not taking them. And that's nonsense. I'm here for a reason, for a purpose, and obviously that purpose was never to be stunningly gorgeous and thin and wealthy. Yeah. My reasons for being though seem too far outside what this physical world believes are the reasons for living. They're convinced it's about being rich or beautiful or whatever amazing thing is in this week. How does that old line go "He who dies with the most toys wins." I know better. That's just a cover in the end for why we're really here; to learn and grow. The toys and the looks and the celebrity are carrots to keep you breathing.


See I know all this. I think I've come so far. But then I spot the gray hair enmass and none of that matters. Have I even left the parking lot? I had or am having, you can never tell with forums, a discussion with some other Pagans about definitions. The word spirituality came up. I defined spirituality as the part of me connected to a greater whole, the part that is not physical of this physical world body. I am both. I am physical and I am spiritual. But am I really? See, there's the buggy little thing about it; who really knows? I mean I assume because spiritual beliefs have played such a big part in the evolution of the human race that there just must be something to it. Right?

You can never be 100% sure can you? Once you die the truth whatever it might be will become obvious, but you can't know before that second can you? On the other hand what does it really hurt to believe you are as much a spiritual being of soul and energy as you are a physical body? What's the harm in believeing? Wait for it . . . because then the "dies with the most toys" people will be right if you are wrong. There is no lesson, there is no God to stand before, there is no Summerland, there is no eternal soul. It was really all just about the toys.

This one is right up there with pancakes or french toast with your eggs, ya know?

Underwater

That's what it feels like these days; that I'm underwater, struggling to make it to the surface and breath again. Drawing that breath, that simple single breath that would be so lovely, that would mean life.

There is no constant state of bliss here, or even acceptance or in fact any kind of even, consistent existence; an even calm breathing in and out. It's like I spend all my time and energy trying to create that; trying to get to the surface and breath again. Part of that is merely living, I know that. We spend a good part of each day recreating or lives in one way or another wanting tomorrow to be better, happier, stronger. But it's more than that. It seems that each step forward I take knocks me backwards two steps in ways I couldn't anticipate.

Give you an example. I bought a treadmill about four months ago. I used to be a runner, doing two or three miles a day when I was in my twenties and I loved it. I have no illusions about running again; I don't think me knees will allow it. But I had hoped to do some fast walking on the treadmill, timing myself, pacing myself and building endurance and muscle. See that was what started this; endurance. I weed wacked the yard. By the time I got done I was seriously winded and exhausted. I decided that 46 was not supposed to feel like that. What I now understand is that it wasn't just being out of shape that did it, it was more than that. But I bought the treadmill hoping to regain some endurance and seriously thought it was as easy as that to do. For many people it may indeed be that easy. But after almost 20 months my body has still not recovered from Celiacs and a hemoglobin of 7 and vitamin and mineral deficiencies and all that comes with this disorder.

I can't just go out and recreate my body. My body can't stand the strain just yet. And I'm frustrated because maybe it never will. Maybe this is as good as life will ever get. No one knows how completely I can recover, not the doctors, not me, no one. I've built up some endurance and some additional muscle. I can weed wack the yard without passing out. Yes, it's better than it was after four months of working out. But with that has come pain, very slow recovery, tendinitis and a plateau I can't get off.

Every time I think I understand the depths of this disease, the reach it has into my life, my past, my future I realize I've misjudged it yet again. I thought I would simply get better and better and that was how I would progress. But perhaps there is a limit to what I can do in the future. I hate limitations. It's one thing to not want to do this or that. For a long while there I didn't want to power walk or run. It never entered my mind for years. But now that I want it I've found I can't just have it if I work hard and behave myself. That idea that you can have anything you want if you try hard enough has it's limitations. I hate limitations. I can't work out more than three or four times a week or my body is incredibly sore and just getting out bed in the morning is hard. Forty six isn't supposed to feel like this, but apparently forth six with Celiac Disease is. My vitamin and mineral levels are still low. And I'm still weeding out allergies and intolerances. Okay, I'm also still trying to accept that I have allergies and food intolerances. But hey, you try avoiding corn and see how far you get!

Fooking Shieetteee

Okay, once again, in case you missed it the last time you I AM NOT AMUSED! Got it? I AM NOT AMUSED ONE FUCKING LITTLE BIT.

With all the work you've got to do in this world how on earth and heaven do you find time to fuck with me? Come on, you got cyclones and tornados and earthquakes in your arsenal, why bother with penny anty nonsense like fucking with my little insignificant life? Go fuck with a continent or two and leave me alone for awhile okay? How hard would that be?

***************************************

See, there's a problem for people with Celiac disease that no one really thinks or talks much about. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't, forever stuck in this no man's land in between your worlds of experience knowledge and attitudes. I will attempt to explain. But given how fucked my head is right now I make no guarantees.

I shop more and more at the organic store; necessity really, they carry gluten free products no one else does. But the organic industry thinks all things organic are good for you. This would include small organic farmers. Here in lies the issue. Strawberry farmers in California almost universally grow strawberries on a synthetic bedding material that is at best, well, plastic. Organic farmers prefer older more organic methods. This would mean they grow them on straw. In theory I should be able to buy California grown strawberries and be safe. But I bought some from the organic store, from an organic grower who believes straw, which is essentially wheat and barley shaft, is a far superior growing method. The strawberries grown that way are simply cross contaminated from birth with gluten, no way around it, no way to wash it off. I didn't know that. Nor did I know about organic strawberry farmers until this week.

I bought and ate some organic strawberries grown on straw Thursday. I was deathly violently ill Thursday night. Accidental gluten has never made me this sick before. My body has become more sensitive as time goes on. That scares me. I was close to calling an ambulance Thursday night. Fortunately the abdominal distress came and went within an hour after I upchucked everything in my stomach and then some. But the side effects then began to set in. The rage and depression came back with a vengance yesterday and today. I know this will pass, but I hate it. And the more I understand about myself, the more I also understand about my mother and I hate that too. I hate being anything like her even for a day. And today is mothers day. Fuck fuck fuck. I'm afraid to go out. I need to go to the store, but I'm afraid of what I'll say if anyone mistakenly wishes me a Happy Mother's Day. I should wear a sign or something if I do go out.

I've been sitting here thinking. I realize now she never was much of a mother, not ever really. I don't think she knew how to be and I don't think she really tried. I grew up without a whole lot of nurturing. So I've been seeking that from other people, in bits and pieces when my pride would allow me, and doing without, and now lastly trying to figure out how to nurture myself. That is a recent development and I don't think I understood on a conscious level that I was doing that. I get it now. I have no fucking clue how, but I get that I have been trying to do that the last few months in bits and pieces. It's nice when the subconscious and the conscious finally start to read each other. So what the fuck do I do with Mothers Day? I never really had a mother. I'll never have one. You can't go back, you can't recapture or recreate or even reinvent. There is no one out there who can make up for twenty five years of abuse and neglect and abandonment. I've never felt so alone. I know, I know, it's the gluten talking too, but Gods it's just so fucking hard.

It's Too Enormous

It was just too enormous a task no matter how you look at it. And it's a lesson to be learned. I spent a couple weekends early this month going through what was left of my parents house. I say left because my oldest sister took many things we'd specifically asked her to leave that belonged to all of us; namly family pictures, slides and documents. I wouldn't say I'm angry with her. For me to be angry would mean that I'd thought she was capable of better. I fully expected her to do worse than she did. I would not have been surprised if she'd dragged everything in the house out onto the back lawn and set fire to it. Many of the documents and photos we found we found because she simply missed them. There was just so much. Imagine what a family of six would accumulate - if no one every threw anything out - over the course of fifty years. That's about how long the house has been in our family, since it was built in 1954. There were boxes of stuff and we had to look through every box to be sure we weren't tossing anything important or wanted or needed.

It was exhausting and draining and mind numbing and heartbreaking. I think I came home with about eight boxes of things. Mind you all things I couldn't stand to see left behind. And there is still a large piece of furniture sitting in my friends house in Woodland Hills that I need to find a way to get home to me here. I couldn't stand to see that secretary go to a stranger, or get lost to time or worse dumpstered. So I took it, and I will find a way to get it up here.

I brought home old everyday china we used to use growing up that my mother never threw out. Thank the Gods she didn't throw it out. They are of course classic vintage patterns now. But it's more than that. It's a visceral connection that I have to this china. The touch, the colors, the feel is something rooted so deep in my soul. It was like coming home to touch them again. I hadn't held any of it in probably twenty or thirty years, but my body instantly remembered the feel and the weight and the colors. It would have been like abandoning a part of me to leave it behind.

And my grandfathers books. I took all of his books that were there; all his old books with the yellowing pages and the old spines and the lovely old book smells. Many of them have either my father or my grandfathers names written into the front cover. They're like an anchor of sorts, a connection so deep as to be almost unfathomable. We share that literature, those stories, the love of good books and storytellers and words and rhyme. The line is unbroken from grandfather to son to daughter. There is something shared by all three of us, some quirk of DNA or maybe just upbringing that makes us gravitate towards lovely lovely books with hard spines and words on pages.

I took many of my father's books as well. The collection was so vast though, and many of them were beyond me. I only understand so much about astronomy and there were too many technical books that I will never grasp. He and I always approached the night sky differently. He saw "The Winter Sky" and the stars in their place and which ones were visible and which would need a telescope and he knew where to find what he was looking for, where to look past the horrizon. While I would lay there and just marvel at them. It's always been one of the reasons I live up here, so I can see them all. No one in L.A. sees stars anymore; at least not in the sky. They see one or two and call themselves lucky. I see billions every night and am overwhelmed by the enormity and depth of the sky beyond our planet.

And I took what slides of my father's we could find, and his slide viewers. There is lesson in photograph there. Take more pictures of people. Twenty years from now no one will care what kind of roses you grew in the back yard, or how well your orchids bloomed in 1967. But they will want to see photos of grandmother and grandfather and the kids with the new puppy. Still the images of us he did capture made up for alot. I had forgotten so many things I saw in those slides. I'd forgotten about the old white station wagon, and the summer he put the first pool up, and those hedious matching sailor outfits, and how much he loved my mother. There were so many pictures he took of just her. I don't think she knew how often he captured her, how often he aimed for her and her alone, taking the picture just becuase she stood there. I truely hope at some point she understood how much he loved her. It would kill me to think she never understood or indulged it or even realized it. I doubt she returned the love. I wonder if she ever even understood what love is. But I hope she realized how much he loved her even if she couldn't return it. How hopeless a wish is that? Still I cling to it because I can't bare to think she was that oblivious. His love was there, all over those slides, screaming from them. What a wonderful quiet man he was.

So with the help of a few friends my sister and I went through it all and decided what to take and what to leave behind. It was daunting and traumatizing and gut wrenching. It still is. By now it is all gone. The Salvation Army came and took the furniture none of us wanted, and the knick knacks and the books. And what they didn't take the contractor dumpstered. And he has begun working on the house. And soon he will be done. And soon it will go on the market to be sold to strangers. And it will be gone from my life forever, never to touch or stand in again and I don't know how that will feel. I know it's not normal in this day and age for people to keep a house for fifty plus years, let alone grow up in the one same house. How does it feel to drive past a home you grew up in and know you're not welcome in it, that it belongs to strangers? I don't know, it's never happened to me. I don't think I could. I will go and see it one last time when he'd done renovating it. I want to see it happy again and repaired and beautiful. That is what this has all been about after all. But I will never willingly drive by it again. I don't think. I don't think I could stand it. Better it live in memory and go on from this point to be someone elses home. Bless and keep another family my friend.

duhhhhh . . .

The answers were literally HERE all along. At least I think they are. I read back a bit though old posts and found it last March. That's when I figured it out. This has never been the best stretch of months for me, not in over twenty years. In December of 1986 my sister in law passed, and two months later my maternal grandmother and a month later in March my Mother. I was 25 at the time and unprepared for any of it. Three years later, again in March my Father passed. Four years later same time my best friend, my oldest friend passed. This time of year has been painful too many times I guess.

I've never been one to give a season an emotion or a meaning. Winter isn't dark and dismal, how can it be when the snow lights up the world so brightly I need shades? And there have been years where it didn't bother me. I wish I knew why.

But I suppose I've been in too fragile a state lately. It's not just the dog, though that's certainly part of it. It's his house. We're finally at the place where my father's house can be renovated and sold. And I believe I have lost a sister in the process. But for so many reasons this is what had to happen. And in truth at this point I will miss the house more than the sister. I grew up in that house, spent my entire childhood there. It is my childhood. But it has to go on and house another family and belong to someone else. That should have happened decades ago.

So I'm still sad, in a general weepy sort of way. I think I will be for who knows how long. But it's easier knowing why. At least I think I understand.

I'm Too Old for This

I did a few truly stupid things the other night. I ate a pizza and I had a glass of sparkling wine. For me that was a pretty stupid choice. The pizza was gluten free. I'm not that stupid. But the tomato sauce on it was a poor choice. Couple that with the sulfites in the wine and I had a hideous night followed by a worse morning. I know better. I know what tomato anything does to me now. I know what sulfites do to me. I'd love to be able to say it was an accident. But I can't. I had to make the pizza dough and open the can of tomato sauce and open the bottle of wine. Those were all deliberate acts on my part.

I believe it was a futile gesture of rebellion. Futile because lets face it, there is no ONE to rebel against; no one but me to care what I did. I was only hurting myself and absolutely no one else. It was one of those insane gestures that you make when you've had enough and you don't know quite what else to do. Dumb dumb dumb. I wish I could explain it better than that but I can't as yet.

I do believe I've hit a rough patch on the road. I no longer crave Big Macs of Taco Salads or any of that other stuff. The whole restaurant thing is no longer a part of my life and I'm fine with that. I haven't eaten in a restaurant in over 15 months. I don't really crave any of it anymore. It's not about cravings. It is so not about that. So then what? Why do that to myself?

I was afraid I was going to loose the dog a couple weeks ago. She had to have four teeth pulled, and at her advanced age that's really rough on a dog. The vet and I made an conscious decisions years ago when I got her not to clean her teeth regularly because they were simple so bad when I adopted her at age four that we figured she'd have to have one or two out every couple years. That turned out not to be the case. She went almost seven years without dental work. But the anesthesia was really hard on her. I wondered those first couple days if she was going to snap out of it. As it was it took her almost a week to get back to her old self.

I know how hard it will hit when I do loose her. Somehow that's all part of this. I'm not entirely sure how though. Someone said in an interview the other day words to the effect that he'd lost things in this life he never thought he'd loose. I read those words and sat and cried for an hour. I'd love to track the man down and ask him how in the world he lives knowing that. I don't need to know the particulars he spoke of to understand the phrase. The easy things to loose are cars and houses and things. People and pets are harder to loose. But I think the hardest things to loose are those things that change your point of view forever. Once you turn that corner you can't ever turn back. Once it's lost it can never be gotten back.

I long ago lost the sense that everything would always work out in the end; I know now that sometimes it just doesn't and you have to live with the terrible aftermath. I've lost the sense that your family's love will always be there; people change in ways you couldn't have imagined and the love changes with them. I've lost a sense of knowing exactly who I am and have had to recreate myself without using parts from the past and a whole lot of imagination. I've lost the innocence of not knowing the whys of so much of my own life and history; I understand more and more every day and it draws me deeper and deeper into what was really my past and not the one I thought I had.

That whole wisdom with age thing just truly SUCKS. I don't want anymore wisdom or understanding. Enough. I can't handle anymore. Just let me play catch up for a year or two. Let me figure out why a dozen printed words on a page made me cry for an hour. Just give me a minute will ya Lady?

Affair On 8th Avenue
Gordon Lightfoot

The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Her long flowing hair came softly undone
And it lay all around
And she brushed it down as I stood by her side
In the warmth of her love
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And she told me a riddle I'll never forget
Then left with the answer I've never found yet
How long, said she, can a moment like this
Belong to someone
What's wrong, what is right, when to live or to die
We must almost be born
So if you should ask me what secrets I hide
I'm only your lover, don't make me decide
The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night

Not Again

It's that time of year . . . again. That time of year when many single adult people everywhere cringe and run for cover repeatedly from mid-November till the first week in January. There's nothing like being single and being bombarded week after week after week for almost two months with images of family and hearth and cute children on Santa's lap. You hear constantly about family and love while no one mentions the ugly fights or the screaming children.

I celebrate Yule. Simple concept. I give it no more weight than I give every other celestially driven holiday. I don't pretend it's about some mythic demi-god who was born on this day, but as everyone knows couldn't possibly have been born on this day. It's a movement in the heavens that has held significance for centuries. That is what I celebrate: the idea that the earth still revolves around the sun. These days that simple thing is enough to astound me. I don't need some made up fairy tale to amaze me; I just have to look up in the sky at night and see the billions of stars still there.

But there's what I celebrate versus what I'm bombarded with daily. I think most people simply live through these holidays without conscious thought. That is all that I can think of to explain this fascination with the false birthday of a "savior". They put no more thought into it than they put into anything else these days. They meander down the track laid out for them by the retail Gods and mew contently while emptying their bank accounts in meaningless gestures of gift giving. It goes back to the idea that most people live partly or wholly unconscious lives.

On the one hand I wonder what it would take to change that, but then unfortunately I think I already know the only answer. It takes having your own mortality dangled in front of you like a carrot in front of a mule. "Here you go, live in a conscious manner and get to live." How does that line go? "What is wrong, what is right, when to live or to die, we must almost be born." Rebirth is what saves people. A very painful rebirth into awareness. Most people don't want to go there. Most people aren't capable of going there. If the change is real and authentic it's constant and painful and soul dredging on a daily basis.

I've chosen a life here, and it's mostly choice, that doesn't fit into that mainstream hearth and home view of the world. I live alone with animals. I have no SO and no children and virtually no family. Some of that is choice, some of that is simply what life handed me. But I choose to live as if my way of life is no more radical or different than any other. I no longer want and wish for a man or children or family. I'm not desperately searching for some mythical magical other person who will "complete me". I've accepted that this is how my life this time is to be lived. I accept that there's a point and purpose to my life, and that my path is equally as valid as that of a mother with a husband and four kids. I am not conforming to the norm, I am recreating my life daily into something far from the norm.

It took a fundamental shift in viewpoint to get here let me tell you. And there are times, like around about now, when it's hard to hang onto. It is why I can always tell the real people from the posers whenever people talk about changing their lives or their diets or whatever. On boards and in forums and in real life the real people are the ones who talk in fundamental terms rather than superficial ones. The details are useless to them, but the foundation is everything. It's the foundations they change not the details.

Anyway, people wander through this season for the most part without contemplating it's meaning. I think if they stopped to think their whole world would collapse. I mean how better to celebrate the birth of a savior than with wanton consumerism that further deteriorates the planet he was supposedly born onto? What would Jesus do? Buy a flat screen he can't afford that arrives wrapped in a small fortune of non biodegradable plastic and Styrofoam?

Bringing Determination to the Table

Odd title maybe, but I happened to catch a segment on 20/20 this evening about Jenny McCarthy and her son Evan. He was diagnosed with autism and she has put him on a casein and gluten free diet as part of his treatment. The link between Autism and gluten intolerance has been whispered about by so many, as has the link between mercury based preservatives in vaccines and autism. But main stream media doesn't really want to talk about it and the medical community surely doesn't want to talk about it. I admire her determination and her outspokenness. The passion she brought to that interview left me in tears, huge sobbing tears. So few people take charge of the health of themselves and their family and follow their instincts, choosing instead to abdicate control and healing to some supposedly all powerful doctor. It was heartening to see someone stand in the public light and talk about autism and gluten and damn the so called experts. I'm not sure she realizes how strong the opposition to her simple determination to make her sons life better may turn out to be. But you go Jenny! You'll find a whole lot of us Celiacs standing right behind you.

More and more I find it disheartening and disgusting this hold western medicine is determined to have on our lives. They want to sell you a pill or a surgery as the answer to your problems. They don't want you to seek your own answers that lie outside their reign of influence. I find it revolutionary and yet so common sense this idea that diet and how you live your life has more influence on your health and well being than all the pills in the universe. They would insist that any cure lies outside your body and mind, and couldn't possibly reside within it's very fiber; that they must control your health and well being because you don't have their expertise and knowledge. We've been so brainwashed by them that we've abdicated our bodies and souls to them, keeping very little decisions making capabilities for ourselves.

And I am guilt of falling prey to that mindset. I've been itching for ohhh, about ten months now. Some days are better than others. Some days are misery. The best guess I can come up with, because the doctor was absolutely no help, is that it's a result of nerve damage caused probably by B vitamin deficiencies or pernicious anemia and or gluten antibodies. It seems to be a somewhat common symptom among both Celiacs and people diagnosed with MS and other auto immune diseases. I was desperate for something anything that would stop the itching. I was hoping for some miracle drug and I'd searched the Internet for it repeatedly to no avail. I wanted some drug with a complicated name that had side effects I could live with as long as the damn itching stopped. I'd beg my way into a prescription or sell my soul which ever had to come first.

I found nothing, no drug, no pharmaceutical wonder, nothing. What I did find were references to everything from tea tree oil to milk baths. I was sure they'd have some miracle cure. Surely something must be out there since so many suffer from this itching? But western medicine has nothing, nada, zilch, zero to offer. Then I came across references to Capsicum as being useful in treating pain from things like arthritis and *ta da* itching. I will try anything. You don't know till you have to live with it how powerfully the itch can motivate. So I found a local pharmacy that has topical cream with Capsicum in it.

Okay, there's an upside to this story and a downside. Capsicum is basically the pepper family. The hot side of the pepper family. On the upside it's virtually orderless when applied to the skin. It does indeed do a really nifty job of numbing the nerves in the skin. And I do mean NUMB. It's a miracle. Applied to the most common areas where I itch the itching stopped. But the skin is numb, LOL. It's an odd sensation. Oh, and while the numbness set in rather quickly it was followed by a mild BURNING where I applied it too heavily. Still, as I sat there with my left forearm on fire I came to the conclusion that it was preferable to the itching. And soap and water don't really wash it off your hands. I still get a mild sting every time I get my hands anywhere near my eyes nose or mouth in spite of having washed a dozen or more times since applying the cream. I'm gonna need to buy some gloves for this stuff I can see that.

But I came to realize something curious about the itching. It's one of those self perpetuating miseries that is as much about my mindset as it is about my physical body. Now on some level I knew that before I began burning myself with capsicum. I knew that I was allowing the itching to aggravate me and take over my life, but there is something about having the power to stop it dead in it's tracks that gave my brain the ability to suddenly cope much better. I am no longer powerless to stop it, and can stop it any time I choose, and that power is liberating. The endless chasing of my tail so to speak has been stopped cold. Just in a matter of ten hours I've gone from obsessed to relaxed. So then the question is, and this is an old question, could I have gotten here without the capsicum cream? Ha. Who knows. And right at the moment I don't much care.

So there's the whole point. I allow myself to be victim to this western medicine mind set. I think I've kicked it, the dependency on pills and doctors, but I still search for the miracle cure outside myself first. I scream in desperation "Heal ME" when I should be quietly saying "I must heal myself". How many times must that happen before the first thought is not "Someone heal me", but "How do I heal myself this time?"

Holding

I've been in a holding pattern of sorts lately. That's probably why there's been no entries here. It seems I have no choice but to wait on the actions of others. I can't force things to happen that I am not in control of. It's odd, but if you called me a dynamic forceful make it happen kind of person I'd laugh, and friends who know me well would probably laugh. Yet most of the major changes in my life I've forced, I've pushed, I've pulled, I've bullied into happening. And now I find that the things that matter most to me I can't effect.

The downside to having these furry children of mine is that I won't outlive them. The dog is eleven and the tom cat is fourteen now. They've both got medical problems that have been burying me in vet bills. But worst of all I can't fix them, I can't make them young and healthy again. All I can do is what little I can and wait for them to choose their time, and hope they choose it and not me.

I've spent most of the day today anguishing over them. My poor boy is mostly deaf now and he's begun to use the carpet instead of his litter box. I'll take him back to the vet next week, but I fear his various illnesses have brought on a senility of sorts. He's always been a stubborn son of a bitch to begin with, and now he wants death his way too. Figures.

The dog is so much more gentle and apologetic about her illness. She takes her pills without a fight and if she could speak would bow and scrape the floor with apologies every time I have to get up in the middle of the night to let her out. She's a dear sweet old soul of eleven with a pancreatic insufficiency that's making it hard for her to keep food down. I've ordered some pancreatic enzymes for her and I dearly hope they'll help. If they don't I'm off to find pig pancreas at the nearest slaughterhouse. I've done many a thing for the furkids, but this will be a new high or low depending on your point of view. Still, she'd do anything a dog could for me. In that way alone she outranks and outshines my own human family.

I'm still waiting on my oldest sister to figure out that she needs to move on. Why the four of us siblings all turned out so differently I cannot explain. Nor can I explain why she refuses to move from that wreck of a house who's ceilings threaten to fall in on her with every minor tremor. She and I are total opposites. I've made every change in my life happen, and she has not changed her life one inch more than circumstances have forced. I've lived in ten different houses and apartments in the last ten years and she's lived in one house, clinging it to it as if her life would end were she to leave it.

And this is what I tried to tell the dog through torrential tears this afternoon. Your leaving will hurt more than anything has in a long long time, but that is what life is, a series of leavings. It's one of the signs that you're truly alive, this depth of loss and sorrow. And from that sorrow and often because of it, more joy eventually finds it's way to you. And that is living; an ever changing existence. To change is to live. To refuse to change is to stagnate and never live. The opposite of living is not death, it is refusing to live.

ARRGGGGGGG!!!!!!

It's a good thing no one is reading this because I'd be boring the shit out of them. I can't help it. It always comes back to how bloody unfair this all is. Why not foist this disease off on someone who's a size one and lives on 800 calories a day of celery and lettuce? Why not give it to someone who wants it? Come on, there have to be millions of women out there living on lettuce and green beans who'd never even fucking notice! Give it to one of them. Giving it to someone who loved to cook bake and eat is just severely twisted cruel and so below the belt the Gods should be ashamed.

I chanced on a "dieters" thread on ROTW. The damn thing made we want to puke. The poor dears have been eating at McDonald's again and regretting it. Give me a fucking break! If you regret it so damn much STOP DOING IT. Better yet, how about we make it so you become hideously sick and physically damage your body and severely drain it of iron and B C and D vitamins every single time you stuff down a Big Mac and fries, thereby increasing your risk of intestinal cancer ten fold? Would that finally do it for you? Somehow I think not. We want what we want and society has taught us that by Gods, we should have it. I don't think any diet can succeed until someone gets past the feeling that they have a Gods given right to do the easy thing. I don't think a diet can succeed until someone finally figures out that they matter. Their health matters. Their body matters.

I know Celiacs who just can't stop themselves from eating a sandwich or a donut or a cookie. The answer to why is always without fail "I was stressed". Have they been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the whole suggestive hypnotic consumerism trance control squad that they can't think of themselves first and the great God of Consumerism second? Why are they so convinced that eating a donut is in any way shape or form going to alleviate stress? Which commercial did they memorize and internalize that sold them that one? Show me where its documented in the medical annals that eating something bad for you in anyway affects your stress level? I don't understand it. I know I've never knowingly eaten gluten since I was diagnosed. Hey, here's an idea. Stressed? Eat some ice cream! Have a potato chip. But for Goddess sake don't ingest something that will kill you! I don't know. Maybe it's like the pink elephant thing. We can't have it so that's all we think about and all we want. I truly hope there comes a time when I can get past the pink elephants and just accept this.

I'd pay money at this point just to have someone else make me dinner, even McDonalds. One dinner. That's it. One positively gluten free dinner that won't make me sick and that tastes half decent and most importantly THAT I DON'T HAVE TO COOK. Well, okay, Mcdonalds, and indeed every fast food restaurant out there can't do that. With the exception of the Sushi restaurant, there really are no safe options up here at all. Big Bear specializes in resort dining. Again, it's that "You can have whatever you want no matter how bad it is for you" mentality. That's what reigns up here. If I lived down there I'd stand a fighting chance in restaurants. L.A. is more sophisticated. Yeah, I live in a backwoods gluttony haven. It would just be nice to have someone else somehow make dinner. The idea of three meals a day prepared by me stretching out in front of me for the next thirty or forty years is depressing.

I was thinking of this very thing the other night. I was terribly sick with some stomach bug. It appears that from now on things like that are going to hit me harder than they did before. Joy. But I was laying in bed desperate for a cup of crushed ice. Two pairs of eyes stared back at me as I moaned and wished, one pair leaf green, the other pair amber brown. Neither of the owners of those eyes posses opposable thumbs. I dragged myself out of bed and crushed my own ice. There is no telling how much I would have given right at that point to have someone else there to crush the ice for me. But that's the rub isn't it? How much would I have to pay? Am I willing to put up with all the nonsense of a relationship and the grief and the pain on the off chance that someday when I'm sick that man would actually be willing to go crush me some ice? What are the odds?

Argggg. I just hope there comes a time when I just accept this. Dragging myself through all this over and over again is just too hard.