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Archive for the ‘My Chinese Checkered Past’ Category

“Hope Flings Infernos” and other verse

Posted in love, Men, My Chinese Checkered Past, Poetry, Sex on November 9, 2010| 25 Comments »

Anyone else noticing it’s been too heavy around here lately? All this blah, blah on
time and religion, and I’m heading ’round the bend.

So … time for a bit of verse. Some of this stuff is new, but some has been sitting around for a couple of weeks, so if you think I’m up to something fishy … well … today’s post is just for the halibut.

Hope Flings Infernos

When the going gets tough
so gnarly and rough
and nothing is working out right
what can a girl do?
just sit there and stew
or fuck it and put up a fight

It’s exhausting, it seems
that so many dreams
end up like a punch in the nose
What appeared to have hope
ends up in a ‘nope’
and you just have to roll with the blows

Cuz hope flings infernos
so cover up your nose
and breathe through the space in your fingers
remove glasses rosy
stop being so dozy
and work toward something you know lingers

The “y what rose joe” is an intentional mess inspired by exposure to the punctuation-impaired in a comment on an article about politics:

y what rose joe
(or punk28 2 c)

little joe didn’t make it
he died in the war toendallwars
but jack did he make it
preferring the stars toendallstars

young rose was defective
so joe made a directive
to get her life lobotomized
while kath was being criticized
for falling for duke protestant
and eunice married sargent

patty did the star thing too
and broke that old divorce ground
while bobby had a zillion kids
he had the catholic rules down
jeans quiet and so still around

ted bridged the generations
politically for family
60some years veneration
that dc has a kennedy

Can’t do verse without angst now, can we?

Grim … and bear it

The idea has come niggling that
a thought I should be giggling at
might actually have merit

That you and I should suck it up
and try not now to fuck it up
and see if we can wear it

It seems it’s been not all that great
since what was ‘us’ succumbed to fate
but, Lordy, could I bear it?

You say that if I marry you,
yet promise not to harry you
on women when you share it,

perfection would be happening
we both could have our little fling
but that would be the rare bit

If giving all that in and out
while putting yourself all about
means I cannot care, it

seems it may not be so wise
to do this drastic compromise
for what can I inherit?

Oh, yes, I get to be the Queen
but what that gives me can’t be seen.
With what shall I compare it?

Two artists living as they will
by different rules, but yet there’s still
the worry: Can I bear it?

And, of course, we get down to the meat of the matter:

Spank the Monkey

Got a hank, hank, hankerin’
For who? I don’t know who …
sigh …
So a wank, wank, wankerin’
seems just the thing to do …
my! …
Give a thank, thank, thankerin’
if it happened to be you …
guy …
but not bank, bank, bankerin’
that a promise would come true …
sly …
There’re those skank, skank, skankerin’
bitches with their brew …
sty …
that you drank, drank, drankerin’
since it’s all about you, you …
lie …
simply blank, blank, blankerin’
but this we know you knew …
fry …
So we sank, sank, sankerin’
until all was painted blue …
cry …
But this hank, hank, hankerin’
is through and through and through…
why? …
So I’m spank, spank, spankerin’
the monkey till we do …
try …

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2010: The year I was rated XXX

Posted in Loss, love, Men, My Chinese Checkered Past, Sex on November 4, 2010| 10 Comments »

LIFE

Since we’re heading toward the end of another year, I’m starting the mental wrap … and rap … of 2010 and coming to some compelling conclusions. Yes, I’m sure I’ll be sharing more of these than is possibly wise over the next weeks, but there’s one that hit me upside the head this morning that cannot go without being harvested for blog fodder.

It has come to me in some weird bolt of lightning from a clear sky … it is lovely here today, but that’s merely an aside … that at the beginning of this year my love life officially received the XXX rating.

Although some might be ashamed to find themselves rated XXX, while others would be bursting with pride, for me it’s nothing more than the way it is. Neither an achievement, nor a humiliation, one thing leading to another, as it goes, leading to this.

Perhaps it’s my present work writing erotica that prompts this specific self-labeling, but there is no denying the assignation … or designation for those sidelined by the “ass” bit in a post about the Triple X … and I do know that I’m far from a rare woman in having earned three of the bloody things. (My mother is XXXX, so there’s something in the genes, perhaps.)

It has taken a lot of fortitude and no little imagination to reach the point where XXX marks the spot I inhabit, and that tendency I was born with to throw caution to the wind and indulge passion. Sure, it turns and bites me on the ass … and, yes, sometimes I even like that … but living and loving any other way has never seemed an option.

I put too much into it. I know this. Too often I’m full-bore, heedless, yes, yes, YES!

Three of those yeses earned me my X1, X2 and X3. In order of appearance: Stan, Scott and Mark.

Sorry, if you want to read about graphic sex buy the next book when it comes, but this post is about having been married, then unmarried, three times, and if you feel that I’ve lured you in with hints of satisfaction … well … welcome to the club … that’s happened to me three fucking times. Okay … three times that involved paperwork … more that never got that far.

Yes … yes, yes, yes led to ex, ex, ex, and although there’s probably a poem in there somewhere I’m in no mood to put this to verse today.

Rather, I’m pondering the possibilities of ever again contemplating heading toward the end of the alphabet that begins with M and ends in X, since that has been my only Xperience … although I’ve done bloody well with everything up to about F. (I did do the E thing for some years, and still have the ring, thankyouverymuch, but it hit L and that was that.)

It could be best that I take my XXX rating and rest on my laurels. Okay, rest won’t happen since I’m not one for ZZZZZZZZ as a steady diet, but I have no desire to add another X.

I now have a toy I call by the anglicised version of what in Spanish is pronounced Haysoooose , so named because, although I am far from religious, calling that out comes natural when I do. It is true he’s not much of a conversationalist, no challenge at all and missing all but the one limb, but I know where he is and what he’s up to, and we do have our rating in common.

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“It takes a long time to become young.” ~Pablo Picasso

Posted in Fun, Hopeful thoughts, I wanna, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Older women, On getting older on October 25, 2010| 12 Comments »

Not bad for an old broad ...

We turn not older with years, but newer every day. ~ Emily Dickinson

Some time back while perusing facebook, I came across a status update from a friend whose grandfather had just celebrated his 90-something birthday. In the comments it was asked if he’d spoken of any regrets he might carry from his many years of life. The answer went something like this:

The one thing I regret most is having felt old in my 50s and 60s. I wasted those decades because I had convinced myself that I was too old to enjoy them in many of the ways I well could have.

Of course!

To someone close to hitting 100, 50 is a kid only half way through, and with 50 more years on offer.

Although there is little to no chance I’ll ever get anywhere near 100, I’ve incorporated this man’s thinking and keep the words of Mark Twain handy:

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

And the fact is, I don’t mind. I don’t mind my age … I’m really crap with numbers, and like Erma Bombeck, “As a graduate of the Zsa Zsa Gabor School of Creative mathematics, I honestly do not know how old I am”, and in dog years, I’m dead …. and I don’t mind the ages of the people in my life. I don’t mind that my youngest child is 5 and that my oldest is 41 or that my last boyfriend is 39 or that some of my friends are in their 70s and others are in their 20s. I don’t mind that my mother is close to 80 … although I wish she was more comfortable.

I do mind that my son died at 38, my father at 69 and the boy I could have grown old with at 19.

As that prolific sage, Anon, once said:

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.

No. I don’t regret my years. In fact, there are few minutes that ring the regret bell for me.

I do, however, fear senectitude … not the numbers, but the toll … much more than I fear death, although both come in the natural order of things.

It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life’s parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time.
~ Simone de Beauvoir

But I’m not there yet … neither destination … and although I’m faced daily with the evidence of my own personal senescence, I can still ignore much of it, so I do. I wear what I damned well please, parent little kids, dance with whomever I like, talk too much, sing loud, add tattoos to my collection, do tequila shots, take my top off at the beach … whateverthefuck I want to do, I do.

There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward. ~ John Mortimer

No shit.

Given that I’m single again, I have been giving some thought to just how many years of cute I have left in me, so was encouraged by an article in the news today that showed Jane Fonda, 72, and Raquel Welsh, 70, looking and obviously feeling good.

Despite their combined age of 142, Jane Fonda and Raquel Welch were still turning heads as they appeared together at a charity event in Beverly Hills.

Okay … it sucks that men get away with this all the time without anyone making a big deal of their age (Did anyone ever think Cary Grant at 70 or Gregory Peck at 84 looked anything but hot?), but this is Planet Earth in 2010, so I live with it.

I know people decades younger who are too old for me … lackluster, boring twits with little imagination and no curiosity, wastes of space and youth … and that’s depressing as hell. Thoreau was too right when he said, “None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. ~ Henry Ford

I know that timing has been lucky for me. I’m a Boomer and people have been talkin’ ’bout my generation for decades. I’m aging along with the likes of Keith Richards, although he has years on me, as he wades back through his foggy past and reminds us all what a fuckin’ good time we’ve had … and how much fun we’re still having.

And because my generation has buying power, marketing is finally setting out to make us feel pretty … after all, we’re neither blind, nor stupid, so do know that what hugs a 20-year-old ass won’t ride quite the same on one that’s been ridden longer … and models in their 40s, 50s and 60s are making the point of beauty beyond presumed boundaries well.

‘It’s been really fulfilling to create shots that celebrate the wonder of getting older.
‘It’s important to challenge what we see in our media with a broader reflection of beauty.
‘Enjoy the magic of these women, their confidence, their attitudes and their allure.
‘These wonderful faces express the joy of getting older – not something we see enough of.’

Would I turn back the clock if I could? Nah, although I’m not opposed to a bit of the old nip and tuck to make it look like the calendar missed a few pages and may go that route someday. I see nothing wrong with someone opting for a trade-in on a new set of tits or less eye baggage. I, like Oscar Wilde, do have limits, however:

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

As Brigette Bardot so aptly put it: It’s sad to grow old, but nice to ripen.

Yes … I’m ripening, and I’m okay with that. What was once firm isn’t so much now, my hair has less brown in it daily and I don’t shake off a hangover with anywhere near the ease I did a few years ago, but I’m still here and I’m still cute and I’m smarter than I used to be. And I have a good bloody time.

Unless I’m lucky enough to have death sneak up and bite me on the ass, the day will come, however, when I’ll wake up one morning and know I’m old. I’m hoping it will be a false alarm:

There is always some specific moment when we realize our youth is gone; but years after, we know it was much later. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Call me delusional, but I’ve not yet experienced that “specific moment” and I plan on putting that off as long as I can. After all …

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?
~Satchel Paige

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Living the year the music died …

Posted in Celebrities, History, Loss, Music I like, My Chinese Checkered Past, On getting older, tagged , , on September 18, 2010| 12 Comments »

“I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.” ~ Jimi Hendrix

One of the great things about not being young is having a raft of experience that has pitched up in some interesting places during momentous occasions, so when a day like today comes along I don’t have only vague notions of pop culture-fed imaginings, but personal recollections that pull me along and surround me in a sea of memories I can touch, smell and taste.

I can cast my mind back to the day before today 40 years ago … September 17, 1970 … and conjure that world of long, flowing locks on everyone, Indian bedspread material curtains on widows of VW vans, the fragrance of brown rice bubbling with patchouli and weed undertones wafting just about everywhere, the tingly-tongue-taste about to bloom to bare feet from a dot of blotter.

Was there ever another such time? Has history ever gifted such a hopeful youth, one so committed and convinced it perched on the edge of greatness and could easily force feed a future on hope, dreams and hallelujah hallucinations of humanity humbled?

There was a war happening and we shook off our parents’ orchestrated baaing and sang back into their faces that we should all give peace a chance instead of playing dominos and watching our friends and brothers fall in organized lines … confident in the fact that if you want to end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.

Much of mass media was kept well beyond our reach, but we had our music, and it took over the world. Any song had anthem potential and could become a rallying point, and those who made the music became heros … but everyday heros. The stars of those times inhabited the world we lived in, not some distant, exotic celestial body. They created music for the world, not at it, dissecting and reflecting common experience. (Even the most obscure themes were easily grasped when minds eagerly altered to span distance, ethnicity, exposure and any other differences that weren’t.)

Yes, it was a sanguine saga, a buoyant, confident and expectant generation, but by definition youth lacks experience and growing up had to happen.

Some of that growing up started today 40 years ago … September 18, 1970 … hence this post, today being the anniversary of the death of one of the best guitarist to ever pluck a string, Jimi Hendrix.

Sixteen days later, the world lost Janis. Nine months after that it was Morrison.

We had been accustom to death by war, by accident, by disease, but we’d rather missed the specter of death by life … by excess of passion, by a profligacy of youth, by presumption that power manifested assured immortality.

Or did we?

We grew up … for sure … grasped impermanence and assimilated the assumption of disillusionment into our core just like every generation before us. We’ve shifted gears and goals, darkened the rose tint on our shades, and some have developed a conservative shell to fend off what they once may have embraced.

But … and this is huge …

the music lives, and will outlive us.

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Aging and Goofy encounters

Posted in Men, My Chinese Checkered Past, Older women, On getting older, Younger men, tagged on August 14, 2010| 4 Comments »

Me younger

After having some 20-something-Eastern-European-wannabe-porn-queen-facebook-crawler point out to me that I’m older than Ernesto, apparently thinking attempts to reveal her skanky bits on webcam will win his heart … good luck with that, Bitch … I cast my mind back to a time when I was really bloody cute — pretty much most of the years between 13 and sometime last week — remembering the effect youthful beauty can have. (Not that she’s a beauty, but she is young and has a decent enough body she exhibits indiscriminately, although with the chest of a 12-year-old boy and destined to be terminally hag-like before she’s 45 … but that’s her problem. And it’s amazing, and pitiful, how many of these sleazy bags are insistently chatty with their cyber heros).

I have no problem being who, what and how old I am; conversely, I’m rather proud of all that stuff. I am not young, and although the world is full of girls who still are, their days are numbered. I’m not saying there’s any great advantage in age, simply that it happens, as does life in the process.

As Yoda said: Luminous beings are we; not this crude matter.

Crude matter that begins to decay immediately, is subject to stresses and toxins and gravity, the effects of which have more to do with our genes than we yet understand. (“Crude” being also otherwise definable, however, we can be happy enough with our matter a lot of the time. I’m a big fan of crude between consenting adults.)

It’s true, however, that the Sandra I am now doesn’t look as much like the Sandra I once was as I might like.

Recently a story popped up that reminded me again of what it’s like to be young and beautiful … as opposed to not-so-young and beautiful.

The setting is Disney land, and the story is about a 27-year-old woman not one bit happy after Donald Duck grabbed her boob.

“Who are the strange people in the furry costumes at Disney World, and are they pervs?

I’m not clear on how boob grabbing happens with the sort of mitts a Donald impersonator must wear to pull off the look, and I’m pretty sure it takes a certain je ne sais quack to opt for walking around in a duck suit for a living. I’m also not getting why this chick is being so fowl about the whole thing, unless the fact that he never wears pants has her freaked.

But this isn’t about the Romanian tramp, the Disneyland babe, or even about ducks … it’s about me and Goofy, some guys in stripes … and a monster.

It was a while back, for sure, as my gorgeous nephew, Colin, was about 4 at the time, and I was in L.A. doing the fam viz thing. Keeping to the tradition of the day, we headed to the Happiest Place on Earth, home to Mickey and Minnie, for a day of getting nauseous in teacups and going to hell with Mr. Toad.

It was far from the realm of my personal Fantasy Land, but somewhere near the border where Frontier Land meets New Orleans Square I was accosted by Goofy. He took me in his somewhat floppy arms, shoved his gigantic plastic nose toward my chest and started mumbling something that sounded … well … goofy.

My nephew was not pleased, thinking that he should be the one with such a photo op, so we soon moved along toward the frozen banana stand. A few minutes later, Goofy joined us on the bench, moved, maybe, by the sight of me eating a chocolate-covered banana on a stick. We eventually gave him the shake at Autopia where Colin outraced me, hands down.

Eventually, it was time for our day of the Diz to end, so we headed down Main Street where my brother did nothing to defend my honor when I was grabbed by the strolling Barbershop Quartet, plopped on the knee of the tenor and had “Baby Face” belted out around me… in four part harmony … as a crowd gathered, my brother snickered and I blushed.

And you know what? I wasn’t angry. I didn’t contemplate a lawsuit. In fact, I considered the day excellent in every way.

Two days later, it was Universal Studios for us all, and there things got a bit scarier … for my nephew. Every time we got off a tram or exited from an attraction, Frankenstein was there … pawing at me … growling in his mask. For a four-year-old, this wasn’t funny, and the sight of his auntie being monster-mashed had him in enough of a panic to send us scurrying for lunch.

I’d not thought of those adventures in a while, but even though over the years there have been plenty of men who’ve pursued me … some successfully … there’s something special knowing I’ve been desired by sweaty guys in costume.

So …

My thoughts on getting groped by a Disney character? Be happy Daisy didn’t slap the shit out of you.

My advice to slimy bitches slithering around the web, thinking that youth wins out? I don’t have any. Instead, I have my memories …

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An illustrated woman …

Posted in Children, Family, Health, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, tagged , on August 8, 2010| 11 Comments »

At a dinner the other night, as often happens someone noticed one of my tattoos.

“Are you a big fan of auto racing, or something?”

Easy to spot, the Corvette racing flags on my right wrist could give the impression that I’m proud enough a sports fan to permanently ink a symbol into my skin, but as with all my tattoos the meaning goes much deeper.

At present count I have eight tatts, not one a butterfly, fairy, tribal strip, Celtic symbol, dragon or anything else lifted from the Great Book of Body Art folks rifle through at tattoo parlors the world over, looking for something pretty … or pretty ugly … they’d like to live with for the rest of their days.

My ink IS my flesh.

The first tattoo I had done is of a heart. It’s on my ankle. I got it in Singapore after being released from hospital following yet another tinkering on my ticker as it seemed a spare might be a good idea. It’s red, heart-shaped, and includes very visible bypasses … a good representation of the one still beating in my chest. Below it, the Chinese character that translates to ‘long life’. Both of these were modified last year … a boom time for tatts on me … when Jaren’s name was inked into the heart, and my other children’s were written under Long Life.

I had a musical heart done after anther hospital visit in Singapore. (And, yes, there’s a symmetry to getting tattoos in that ancient port city where so many drunken sailors have been inked that appeals to me.) That was Ernesto-inspired, although he is no fan of ink. That’s what happens when I’m alone for such trauma and drama; I make a point of it … or a whole bunch of points as the case may be.

The racing flags I don’t consider a tattoo at all … it’s a scar.

After Jaren died many of his friends had the flags done on their bodies as a tribute to him. Mine are a tribute to those friends, and placed as they are a constant reminder of the love my boy gave and got … a touchstone, if you will.

My tribute to my son is across my upper back; four bars of his music that I am proud to wear. Somehow … and I’m not compelled to examine my motives on this … having this translatable bit of him on me makes it easier to carry the parts of him I miss so much in me.

I had two new tatts done for my birthday last month, both just for me … standards to bear leading me into the rest of my life.

On my right wrist:

Arcum tenderi Veratum decere

Although the explanation of this … two-thirds of a motto Karen Blixen, one of my literary heros, used to open “Out of Africa” … has long held deep significance for me, it’s the basic reminder to “shoot straight, write true” that has it in front of my face every day as I sit at my keyboard.

Running out of spaces on my body that can still hold ink without wrinkling or sagging, I resorted to a tramp stamp for my last tattoo, this one inspired by one a friend gave herself for her birthday.

Quoconque jeceris stabit

Which means: Whichever way you throw me I will stand. This curves over a wonky heart and proclaims my determination to make it through whatever life … and love … can toss in my path.

I’m well aware that wearing my heart so obviously on my sleeve … or wrist or leg or back or whatever … opens me to comments and questions. Sometimes I’m just … yeah, yeah … a big fan of snazzy Chevys, but there are occasions I welcome the opportunity to let my tattoos tell some of my story.

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Larry King off to watch Little League

Posted in Celebrities, Celebs, My Chinese Checkered Past, The USA from the outside in, tagged on June 30, 2010| 1 Comment »

So, Larry King has announced that he’s giving up the desk job, saying that stepping away from his nightly show will result in:

” … giving me more time for my wife and I to get to the kids’ little league games”.

Being that the man has been doing this for more than twenty-five years, there are few in the CNN-soaked world who won’t have some opinion on his retirement, his career, his suspenders.

Being virtually CNNless for a long time, not having him on the air daily won’t impact my life one bit, but I’m sure there are those who will miss regular doses of the King and his lineup.

I would, however, like to take the announcement of his departure as a chance to write a bit about that particular brush with fame, or the time I met Larry King.

Yes, I’ve met many a celeb, and although some consider an encounter of the “This person is on TV a lot” variety an experience worth wetting themselves over, I tend not to get all that jazzed. In fact, the only person I’ve come in contact with who inspired stuttering star-struckness in me was Jane Goodall, and Larry King is so NOT Jane Goodall.

Anyway …

One night I’m at this celeb-filled fundraiser in L.A. hosted by Jay Leno with Sting as the entertainment and the Douglas clan at the next table … no, not Fred MacMurry and his Three Sons, but Kirk and Michael and wives … and a host of faces recognizable by a huge percentage of the global population.

Just behind me, Larry King and a bevy of blond beauties. They’d come in after I’d been seated, and I couldn’t help but notice that in motion Larry looks very much like a six-foot-something insect … a cross between a praying mantis and a daddy longlegs. (And, yes, I do know that a spider isn’t an insect … my brother is an entomologist, after all … but if crossed with a pm it might qualify as an arachnesect … close enough.) He moved almost predatorily as he made his way around the room, meeting and greeting, then folded his limbs much like a skinny spider settling as he eventually took his seat.

At some point in the evening, we had a brief conversation in which it came up that I live in Seychelles. He’d never heard of the place. When I explained enough geography to get the Indian Ocean placed in his head, then mentioned that we only have one TV channel here, he appeared to understand exactly why the country had never made it to his radar.

A few pleasantries, and was I moved along to Mrs. Michael Douglas who actually knew where Africa is …

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June 2nd … One year gone

Posted in Children, Family, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Seychelles, tagged , , on June 3, 2010| 8 Comments »

I’m not up to writing about how it felt to mark one year since Jaren’s death; I’m crap enough at sliding identifying gels over the emotions without coming close to slapping words on them.

What I can do is yack a bit about how I spent the 2nd of June and post a few photos. Yes … I can do that.

Thanks to circumstances, and Ernesto, the opportunity to avoid the dismal prospect of passing the day alone on an island I’d grown weary of, instead visiting a vibrant, exciting city I’d long longed to experience more than the shitty airport of with the man I love had me jumping in that direction.

So, I was in Paris on the day.

Since I could not be in Paskenta where my son is buried beside my father and ancestors galore, Paris seemed a reasonable option Jaren would approve.

You see, there is symmetry in a cemetery there, to which I was drawn like a mother to an eternal flame.

Jim Morrison's grave ...

Pere LaChaise Cemetery and the grave of Jim Morrison … who died in the same year Jaren was born … offered what seemed a vital pilgrimage to a mom half a world away.

I paid my respects to the Lizard King, then strolled the ancient paths between graves feeling my son beside me.

Chopin ...

We gave a howdy to Oscar Wilde, hummed a few bars at Chopin and noticed a shitload of names that made me smile big.

No doubt ... Jaren found this one!

All in all, it was a good horrible day.

Oh ... the jokes ...


Yeah ... this one, too ...

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Grief: I’m not doing it right

Posted in Children, Family, Friends, Health, Island life, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Seychelles, tagged on May 18, 2010| 11 Comments »

As the first anniversary of my son’s death approaches … on the 2nd of June he will have been gone for one whole year … it becomes increasingly obvious that I’ve not done the greatest job of proper grieving.

Not that there is a wrong way or a right way to mourn; individually and culturally, there are as many ways to deal with death as there are people who die, and that’s about 10,007 humans per minute on this planet, so a lot of variety.

Death rituals can be part of the process when folks are lucky enough to be afforded the luxury of time to conduct them, when death happens by ones and not by thousands and in situations where the rituals themselves don’t deplete resources to the point of costing more lives.

It occurs to me as I write this, that today’s post prompted my first Google search of grief .. an indication of just how not right I’ve been doing this, and in the course of composing a fucking blog post attempt to face my grief, I’m compartmentalizing, as I’ve done from the time I was told my son was dead.

I know why I went to great lengths to encapsulate each wayward bit of grief, then swallow each whole without letting anything touch the sides. There was so much to do … get Sam and Cj sorted out so I could fly to the other side of the planet. That started it. There was no time to fall apart when packing and making sure my kids and my house and my animals would be cared for for the month I would be away, and getting myself from one airport to another had to happen, and being alone meant just that; there would be no one to hold my hand on a 16+ hour flight, and transiting in Dubai could not happen in a puddle.

Once I arrived, there was more to sort out … more than anything I’d ever considered I’d have to consider … the details of death. Jaren’s dad was there, going through this all, too, and my daughter and her family, and much of my family, and friends, all trying to cope with the loss of him.

Again, a reasonably rational mind was required.

I would go through the motions, do what needed to be done. I would meet with Jaren’s dad and stepmom, my daughter and her husband and others as we all tried to understand this sudden tragedy. I went through what was left of Jaren’s apartment, attended memorial services and let others arrange for his body to be transported to the Northern California town where we would have the funeral.

And at the end of each day, I would go to my room, cry and tell myself that if I fell apart, I would not be able to get myself back together.

Once up north, I stayed with my mother, picked out a casket, wrote stuff for the funeral. I hadn’t been in Red Bluff, California in more than twenty years. It was where Jaren was born.

Since Jaren’s dad did not object, it was decided that he would be buried where much of the family has gone, right beside my father in a lovely little cemetery in the foothills. I wandered the grounds for a while, talking to my son and hoping he was happy with the choices made for him.

I spent time with my mother and some dear old friends, and each night I went to my room alone knowing that there was more to do the next day, deciding again the time was not right to slip into grief.

There’s no doubt that I was afraid. Falling apart in an empty room seemed too much like standing on the edge of a dark precipice knowing no one was there to stop a leap, or to catch when I hit bottom.

So, I didn’t. And it got easier. Much easier to keep swallowing the pill instead of chewing the bitterness of it and experiencing all that nastiness.

Now, almost a year has passed and what I find is that through the process of getting good at keeping the pieces of my grief well separated, my whole bloody life is fragmented. I can no longer grasp big pictures, but only shards of here and there. When I find a sliver, I can gaze at it, examine it, ponder it, but I can’t see where it fits.

This doesn’t work so well.

And it seems bottom has hit me whether I jumped or not.

I’ve been told recently that I need to grieve, to move myself higher up my priority list, to start doing things that make me happy again. Okay. But how do I do that? (Writing has been suggested, and I’m feeling shitty enough to go with that thought, hence this post.)

It seems to take far too much energy to talk to people, to explain, so I shut down and stay home. If I lived somewhere else, I could join a support group or go into therapy, but those aren’t options here.

It’s so frustrating being this sad and not knowing how to grieve.

Some random thoughts …

On my facebook page this morning, a photo of Jaren posted by his friend Francisco under the heading: He’s still here. In the photo, he’s playing the guitar that now sits downstairs in my office hopefully protected from this climate by the case on which he had written in duct tape, “No talent”.

I started crying one day, and Cj said to me: “Mommy, you’re sad. Did Jaren die again?”

When Ernesto is here I feel better … or maybe I’m just diverted … but he’s not now, and it’s worrying that I’m so crap at being alone.

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Not Dead, Yet

Posted in Children, Family, Health, Loss, My Chinese Checkered Past on May 16, 2010| 13 Comments »

Still tickin' over ...

I have some deep contemplation to do today … some evaluating, some appreciating, a few James Stewart “It’s a Wonderful Life” moments to ponder … so if I’m pensive, there’s a reason.

Tomorrow, you see, will be my eleventh Not Dead Day.

Eleven years ago today, I was in Singapore enjoying day two of the first holiday I’d taken in years. There were plans to visit the zoo in the afternoon, but the morning was to be passed in the company of a cardiologist who could evaluate my meds and send me back to Seychelles knowing that I was on the right track pharmacologically.

That was the theory.

In reality, however, my quick consultation morphed into a series of tests my body failed miserably, and instead of sharing a banana with my favorite orang utan in Singapore, I was admitted to Mt. Elizabeth Hospital and prepped for an angiogram.

What was discovered during that less-than-pleasant procedure was a blockage in my left descending coronary artery, and what I was told, as I was shifted from gurney to bed with the admonishment that assuming any position but flat on by back could be fatal was:

You have between one and thirty days to live … unless we perform coronary bypass surgery immediately.

So, the next morning they did exactly that.

Mark was there, and spent the time before surgery praying to the wide range of gods on offer in this Asian city; the Buddha of Four Faces in Bugis Street got many oranges and joss sticks that night, which is why one representation graces my house to this day.

The now-ex sent his offerings up with the request that cracking open my chest and tinkering with my heart would give me another ten years. (He now says he should have wished for eight … )

It’s been eleven, so I’ve been swimming in gravy.

There’s something about being able to put a date to the time you might have died that lends itself to mental wandering down that path that leads from then to now, and a lot happens in eleven years.

Had I gone then, I would have died a happy, content woman, secure in home and hearth, loved and cared for, with two grown children and a mother and brothers who’d have grieved the loss of me along with many dear friends.

Apparently, however, the lessons weren’t over.

Of course, Sam and Cj are the biggest bonus my extra years gifted. Missing out on them would have been a loss too huge to let myself consider. I would also have missed my granddaughter … the beautiful bit of my mitochondrial DNA that marches forth in time.

I’ve written a few words over these years that may resonate for a while, and somewhere in the big book of my life those count for something.

And I’ve had many amazing moments, and since life is nothing but a series of moments I’m grateful for each brilliant spark illuminating an hour or a minute or a day.

I have no idea when my last moment will come, but having scored the millions played out since my bypass I’ll not be too disappointed when it does.

Death is a door, and when I do pass through there will be no shortage of people I’ll be happy to see again, and hanging around waiting for others to join … as is inevitable … won’t be a lonely endeavor.

So … while you can … wish me a happy Not Dead Day as you enjoy your moments.

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