Good Life?

I abandoned my blog almost two years ago, largely because a lot of crap went down in the month of December 2009. Like a ton of crap that I still can't disclose because the person involved would not appreciate it.
Suffice to say that things have changed. I came back and read my postings, each one a time capsule, and thought to myself that I had a lot of making up to do. I think I almost forgot the price of being out here, and of failure. I got caught up in the everyday struggle and lost sight of what mattered.

I am now a newly-single lady, partially because of that very issue.

I plan on blogging about that for a while. Stay tuned.

Dios

"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children." - William Makepeace Thackeray

Sometimes I wish I could quanitfy the way I see things. The definition is always changing. Most times, thoug, it is like walking on a narrow causeway with time as an abyss on one side and insight's gaping maw on the other. The more I learn the more I know I need to learn. I am overwhelmed at this moment by the weight of knowing that my mother is fallible. Not only fallible, but incapable of taking care of herself. Nor am I capable of taking care of her. I have to watch her throw herself to the winds of fate and hope that she lands somewhere safe. I don't know what else to say.
With my mother's falliblity comes that old saw about the day I realized my parents weren't as smart or in control as I thought they were. It was a long time ago, but it seems like one of those lessons you learn over and over as you wait for your mother to come to her senses and she just...doesn't. She doesn't and you wonder what you'd do if she called in the middle of the night; her little ice floe in the middle of the ocean has shrunk once again from the vast, stable landscape it once was to something akin to the coffee-table; able to be rowed easily but also vulnerable to the slightest wave. How do you keep her from sinking?
As a mother, things my mother does make me think about the kind of mother I am. Wait. No--the kind of mother I seem. Does my daughter, at 7, think I have it all figured out? Probably. Will she think the same thing at 15, 23, 30--it's important to me that my daughter have a mother that has it together, and acts like it. It's important to me to show her a strong, postive role model that she can lean on--not one that leans back more than anything else. I am sure my mother never really thought about it that way. Maybe just thinking about it is a step in the right direction...

Before Night is Through

I stole the title of this from a book I read; I'll admit it. It's a good book on a scary subject: death.
I am having to come to terms with what death means to me as I get ready to train as a hospice volunteer. Everyone I have talked to about it is concerned. A few think I am crazy to take on what could potentially be a depression-inducing situation that most people would pay the devil to avoid. Here I am rushing into it. Well, not rushing in a sense that I haven't thought it through. It's been occupying my mind almost non-stop for a week or more. I've probably been doing a normal person's 6-months worth of thinking, though. When I get to contemplating, it's fairly serious.
I've already had insights, the kind some people wait a lifetime for. That tells me a lot.
Lesson #1:
It is not my place to assume the worst about someone when they make a decision I would not make. Sounds simple, right? But how many of us have criticized the person who brings their new girlfriend to a funeral? (Ah ha! We've all had that niggling little thought that they are being somehow disrespectful! We've heard our aunties call them 'show-boaters' and whisper about how disgraceful it is. And maybe, deep down, we thought so too.) I specifically criticized (in my own mind) the decision of a parent not to hold a memorial for their son.
Lesson #1, Part a: I am an ass sometimes, as are we all. Who am I to tell someone how to grieve, and what does it say about me that I automatically assume that a decision made during a time of grief in any way reflects that the person making the decision cares less than they should? It might say a lot. I'm still working on it.
Lesson #2:
It might be really, really important to look death in the eye. Ignoring any problem or uncomfortable thing allows all sorts of fallouts to happen. In the case of death, you really can't go back and say "But I really wanted to be cremated", or "I hate white lilies. Why are there white lilies everywhere?" You can't give your iPod to your cubicle mate post-mortem, and you can't make sure that your Aunt Edna's patchwork quilt goes to the one kid that can actually appreciate it and not try to sell it on the Antiques Roadshow. One of death's ancient names means 'The Great Leveler"--we're all going there and we're going there with nothing but ourselves. This one has me thinking a lot.
Lesson #3:
There is no destination. Maybe there really is no time in your life that you should say "I'm here." When it comes to grieving, it is more likely that you will always say, "It's getting better." It's okay if it's never gone. We live in a fast-paced society that says you should be back to work in a few days and fully functional in a few weeks. Really? Who says?

Lesson #4:
I'm learning. If I had a deity to tell that to, I would. Instead, I'll throw that out to my painfully mortal brothers and sisters. I think the definition of a life well-lived includes something about being open to learning even past the time that I feel that maybe I should know all this stuff by now.

Time and place

It's the smell of candles. I often wonder what it is that I miss about Christmas so much. Why I am bitter at this time of year once again. It has nothing to do with presents. I love giving presents, don't get me wrong. I'd rather give than receive any day--I feel weird getting presents. I feel like there is an expectation there for a reaction. I know where this comes from. That's a whole different blog.
The point is that I miss the smell of candles, the sight of a Christmas tree softly lit in the dark, the feel of wrapping paper under my hand and the sound of tape as it gets cut. I love the color silver and the one time of year that it is acceptable to incorporate it into the decor. I miss touching all of those ornaments I made when I was six or twelve or even eighteen. I miss the feeling that I am safe and comfortable and surrounded by familiar things. I miss the smell of pine trees. I miss the snow and feeling like you are surrounded by a heavy silence that can only be found when the snow is deep enough to wade in and the night cold enough to shatter your voice.
I miss the songs and the memories, and I miss my family. Sometimes I don't dare to say that for fear that it will seem that I want to go back. I don't. I just miss my family. I miss my mom, and my Aunt Rose, and my crazy, messed-up family. I miss Emma.
So I've lit every candle in the house. Somehow it isn't really doing it for me. I think it's time to find a new tradition...

Unexpected Lives

In all fairness, I really hate it when people write vomitously unrealistic crap about their relationships, when they tell people they are made for each other when they fight all the time. Or when they are sure they have met Mr/Ms Right two weeks after they met (and one week-three-days after they start sleeping together) and they ramble on and on about how great this person is in a public forum, only to rip them to shreds a week later when they break up.

This isn't one of those moments.

I'll instead relate that I live with someone that I can laugh at, laugh with, and who is probably the only person I will allow to laugh at me within strict guidelines. Somebody I can talk about poop with, someone who knows when I am off, and someone I can feed my food experiments to. Someone I can actually sleep next to (this is rare) and someone I don't mind driving me around. (Also rare and there are days I am a pain about it.) The only person I have ever wondered what I'd do without...then answered that it woould probably involve a lot of sticky notes with directions and a lot of sad music. I would brood, I expect. I would be a workaholic and an entirely too serious person, for even when I am yelling that I want to go home sometimes it's not the best idea anyway and maybe she's smarter than me when it comes to that kind of stuff.

And yes, I am the yeller in this relationship. Most of the time it's play-fighting that defuses the real stuff, and sometimes it's the real stuff and thank god it only lasts about a minute. That's about the time her face changes and I feel like maybe I should really think about whether or not its really worth yelling about. And before you think that's an act of fear, think again. It an act of self-control and maturity. Back in the day I would have ridden whatever horse I was on until it died, regardless of how petty it was. Now I think a little bit more (sometimes belatedly) and realize that it really is ridiculous and often has nothing to do with her at all. She's just a vent for something else I can't get at and how fair is that really?

It comes down to balance and she is mine. She makes me laugh, shooshes me when I am out of line, and makes me melt with a look. I love her, and I want to stay this was a long time. It's been two years, not two weeks, and I think we're doing pretty well. We've had three fights we can remember, and they were mainly unrelated to us and more related to everything and I think that's an important distinction.

I guess what I am saying is that I really wish there was some way I could quantify what it feels like to be in comfortable, passionate, friendly love with. To actually want people to meet the person you love because they are fun and they bring out the best in you instead of the worst. Too bad they really haven't invented a proper word for it, really...

Magic Tree

It's funny how easy it is to give advice without ever really acknowledging that you are talking to yourself.

I remember telling someone that they had to decide where they were going to be. That they could not perpetually be in two places, trying to hang on to a place that was irrelevant while never quite committing to the place that could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I think I exempted myself, saying quietly that I didn't count, that mothers can't make that choice and that my situation is different.

But it's not.

I think I chose, and I think that its a choice I am going to question perhaps all of my life. Instead of desperately stretching for that next plane ticket, that next visit and living in a dangerous place and being broke every day had become an untenable situation for my mental stability. At some point, I have to look next to me and the person whose presence in California I am solely responsible for and ask if she deserves better. And ask if maybe I do, too.

So the focus became on getting out of here and improving the every day quality of life as much as possible. Going to see Emma is now something I will do if I can instead of always scrambling to get back there as soon as I get off the plane. It was time to focus on where I was instead of always looking somewhere else. I have always looked somewhere else because it's easier to spin it in any direction you choose--what's in front of you is there in sharp relief and reality.

Damn reality sometimes...lol

So I am packing boxes and putting away a year's worth of acquired objects and stories. This will always be our first home in California, the place we didn't have to leave. The first place that was ours ever, and the place where we learned who we really are as a couple. That in itself makes it a special place, despite the trash in the yard and the broken glass in the streets.

Wrapped in blue

Subtle are the chains that bind us, woven of fear, and failure, forged in pain and doubt, and bound with hope and faith. It is faith that holds us through the night, keeping lights burning even when the fuel runs out. It is hope that makes us skew a vicious attack into a simple bid for our attention. We train ourselves to look for the good in people, force our eyes to see what might simply not exist. It is this vulnerability with provides the holes to set the hooks that undo us.

There is beauty in believing in good; there is is danger in believing in absolutes. Nobody, I repeat, nobody is all one or the other. This is not Hollywood, where the bad guy carries a creepy mustache and is someone you've never met before. In fact, finding the 'bad guy' might be equated to a 'Where's Waldo?' from the space shuttle--or it might be as easy as looking in the mirror or a sweet photo. Statistics state that we know our abusers, our attackers, our stalkers, and our killers. They are people we know lightly, people we love, and people we marry.

They will use our parents, our pets, our children, our reputations, and our weakness to bring us to heel. They will beg, they will lie, and they will promise to be different. They will fail to deliver. Every time. If they feel threatened, they will begin the cycle anew, pushing farther and farther over the bounds of acceptability, breaking through the conditioned behaviours of civilization until the boundaries are gone and there is nothing left but a body. Once it's realized that a person can be touched without retaliation, that they can be struck or choked or bloodied without a true price being extracted, the course is set. Until there is a cost, there are no boundaries. It is a simple step from speaking words that cut to cutting skin that bleeds. From there it is but a simple thing for rage to turn to violence that leaves marks and love to turn into something that takes a life.

They are the people we trust with our hearts, our lives, and our children. They are people we believe in, and to admit that they might bring harm to us is to admit that maybe, just maybe we were wrong about them. That we have to love ourselves enough to be wrong, and to value ourselves more than someone else. It's so much easier to leave it alone to save yourself the hassle. It is so much easier to believe in the goodness of a killer, isn't it?