Dear Shangning:

"Dear Rufus, ... Today a kitten called Jenson was returned to us because of his biting... I wished I could just talk to you to ask you what you were feeling when you bit someone... What were you trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

My Dearest Shangning:

You asked about a biting cat. I can answer, but I'm afraid I can't answer directly without first sharing a lot of things that will seem very disconnected. Or they will seem very connected, depending on your perspective.

*

First: not a lot of people know, but I'm divorced. I got married at 19. I thought I was too young, but he wanted to be married, and I thought I'd better go ahead, otherwise he'll dump me.

I wasn't ready. I hadn't finished becoming myself yet. I learned things about myself that were incompatible with what he wanted in a partner. He also lied to himself about who I had been all along. 

Obviously it didn't work out. I wanted to stay together and try to grow back together but his father insisted he divorce me.

*

When I adopted Rufus from The Cats' Cradle, you told me he'd been returned twice already. You also gave me an information sheet about his vaccination history. It said when he arrived on the 13th of April, 2019, the vet estimated that he was 1 year and 11 months old. How old is that in people years? Was he 19 yet? Had he finished becoming himself? Did he learn things about himself that surprised him, or pushed others away?

*

There's this surge of a theme online recently, an attitude for (usually) women who've been treated badly by (usually) men who can't handle them. There are tons of platitudinous quote images to be found if you google "you are not too much." They look like this:

*

My second long-term partner came to me in my mid to late twenties. We had two amazing years together before he went to war in Afghanistan. When he came back, things were much more difficult. I didn't understand what had changed or why, but he no longer seemed to be interested in me. I no longer felt wanted or desired so much as just kept around, and quite often I felt he found me annoying. I spent two more years trying to save things before one night I realized I was planning suicide and stopped myself. I put myself and my dog into my car and drove two days across the US until I arrived at my father's house. I arrived around midnight, crying at his back door, saying, "Can I stay here for a while?"

*

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the first time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle. 

I wonder what it was like for Rufus the second time he was returned to The Cats' Cradle.

*

*

I have so very many flaws. I try to work on them, even though I know I will go to my grave before I finish fixing them all. But I've made a lot of progress on my anger. Once when I was younger, I got so angry I blacked out. When I came to, my mother had been punched in the head and my hand hurt. In my defense, she'd been abusing me for over a decade at the time. I had to run away from home I was so afraid of what she'd do. When I got in touch with my sister, she told me that my mother was in my bedroom, putting my belongings into bags to donate to charities.

I know what it's like to have to heal from trauma. I know what it's like to never be completely healed. I know what it's like to have so many strong feelings that you can't stop yourself from hurting someone. I know what it's like when someone whose love you desperately need instead decides they don't want you anymore.

*

The ex-partner who went to Afghanistan is married now. I found photos online of him and his new wife, whose name is Fawn because of course it is, and they ride horses together, because of course she's into horses, across beaches in low tide and they splash in the surf and laugh at their reflections.

I guess he found his forever home.

*

My ex-husband also married his next serious partner after me. They have so many daughters at this point I've lost count whether it's four or five. She's a child psychologist, I think, or maybe psychiatrist, or counselor. Something like that. Right before he left me he told me a terrible story about childhood abuse he'd been through.

I've also lost count of how many of my exes married their next serious partner after me. Where is my forever home?

*

*

In March of 2020, I left my partner of nearly five years in Korea to move back to Taiwan. It was a happy relationship, but I was unhappy in Korea and was once again fighting suicidal ideation. I had to go back to the last place my heart remembered being happy. Corona was just becoming big news at the time. The borders of Taiwan closed four days after I arrived. In June or July I asked him to marry me, and he said yes. But by August he dumped me.

We were friends for a year and a half before we ever considered dating. He knew exactly who I was during all that time. But I think he started lying to himself about who I was when we got together. Because something that has always been a part of who I am, something he always knew about, came up, and suddenly he declared it a deal breaker.

*

When I adopted Rufus, you told me the story of his rescue. You told me he had loved the smell of a steak restaurant so much that he actually got his head stuck inside a hole in the roof and you had to go and get him out of it.

I can easily understand what it feels like to love something so much you hurt yourself trying to get to it. I wanted to stay with my ex-husband until his father pushed for the divorce. I tried to fix the relationship with the veteran who wouldn't acknowledge PTSD for two years. I think my last partner knew he would eventually dump me when I first left Korea. But I still proposed to him.

When I pictured the story you were telling me, it wasn't Rufus's head I saw stuck in that ceiling. It was my own.

*

Sometimes when I'm angry I lash out. Sometimes when I haven't slept enough, I get cranky. Also, I'm a poet, a chef, and a teacher. I'm a good listener and a caring friend. Honestly overall I'm a great person 99% of the time. But who among us is perfect? Do you know anyone without flaws?

*

Rufus teaches me many things, but most of all he teaches me mindfulness. I suspect I still have some of the ADHD I was diagnosed with in my adolescence because I've never been successful at meditating, despite trying for years. I simply cannot quiet my thoughts for any length of time, and I mean, I truly have tried it so many different ways with different teachers and texts and all sorts of approaches.

Rufus comes to me and he makes this silent, breathy, squeaky meow. And I realize I have my face in my phone and I'm not doing anything important at all. Literally nothing in any of the different apps I'm switching between has any great meaning or will accomplish anything helpful in the long run. So I put it down.

I get down on his level and I start speaking to him. He meows back in that strange, almost-silent way. And he will take as much attention as I want to give him for as long as I will stay focused on him. He never runs off. He stays right there, meowing at me for more.

I know what it feels like to need more.

*

Did you do the time math earlier? I said my ex dumped me in August. I adopted Rufus the first weekend in October. I had been looking for a place to adopt from for over a month. I needed to rescue someone because I needed to believe rescue is possible. That trauma doesn't make us worthless. That a hurt thing can be loved. That a flawed thing can be cared for. That a difficult personality can still attract someone who won't give up on them.

*

*

Another of my exes who married the next serious thing used to make me feel very strange. He was a hardworking capitalist who loved to blow money on his poorer friends. One day I was finally able to put my finger on how he made me feel. He wasn't loving me as a full, complex individual. He liked me as an accessory. Just like he would spend $300 on shirts randomly, to make himself look good, just like he adored his French cuffs with cufflinks, he liked having me on his arm. Me, the poor bartender. The poet. The activist. I gave him a sort of credibility, a boost to his personality. I made him feel good about himself.

A lot of people keep pets without loving them as full, complex individuals. To that ex, I was just a bird in a cage.

*

I work a lot. If I ever go a couple days without really focusing on Rufus for a while, and really giving him attention, I find out. He reminds me. As he's following me from room to room, like he does, at some point he'll let out a strange meow and rush past me, biting my leg on the way. I don't think it's painful, but I do have a high threshold for pain. It's more of a warning. Or sometimes on the arm, if I'm just lying on the couch ignoring him.

I know what it feels like to be ignored.

But just like me, and just like cats kept in cages, and just like dogs kept on chains, Rufus is a whole, entire, living being. He has a personality. He has desires. He has needs. 

He prefers to be watched at mealtimes. He loves falling asleep in my armpit. He adores chicken liver so much that once I forgot some on the counter and he ate a quarter kilo in one go, even though he'd already had his meal. He doesn't scare or startle easily. He always wants belly rubs and will never do the hind-leg-kick so many cats do when they ask for belly rubs. He likes his ears to be petted. He goes crazy for catnip. Sometimes if I'm eating something meaty for dinner he wants to get his face all up in it, just like that steak restaurant roof, and it's really hard to convince him to leave it alone. His ginger spots on his nose look like a funny moustache. His white-tipped ears look tie-dyed. He loves climbing and jumps like a gazelle. He truly enjoys it when I sing him lullabies.

And sometimes, he gets moody.

And sometimes, I get moody.

I wonder if Rufus ever has nightmares about being returned to The Cats' Cradle once again? I had to board him one weekend and chose the poshest place I could find. They had a camera in his cubby and every time I checked on him he was curled up in his bed, doing nothing. When I returned, they asked me to come get him out of the cubby because he wouldn't come out for them.

When I came into the room and said his name, he heard my voice and his eyes went as big as Baby Yoda's. He poured himself into the cat carrier like liquid, ready to go home.

Home. Forever. Forever home.

*

So to answer your question, "What [was Rufus] trying to tell us? What can we do to help Jenson?"

I think Rufus was trying to tell you, I'm hurt. I don't understand why, or how to get better. What I really need is someone to be patient with me, and focus on me, and make me feel safe. Someone to treat me not as an accessory, but an actual living individual.

I think to help Jenson, you need someone who will give him those same things. Someone who understands a thing or two about trauma. Someone patient. Someone forever.

*

Dear Shangning, thank you for helping Rufus and me find one another.

Dear Jenson, so many of us know what it's like to feel so strongly that you hurt people. But there's someone out there for whom you aren't too much. I pray they find you soon.

Love,

Someone who was also too much.

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

Rufus and me the day we first met, heading home from The Cat's Cradle:

The first time Rufus slept on my lap:

Rufus sleeping in my armpit:

Cuddling at home:

Would you get a load of this cuteness?

A couple of clowning lovebirds:

After I brought him home from the boarding place, he fell asleep holding onto me:

21/30: lasts

The first time she picked me up I was
a fraction.  Less than a tenth, surely.
Swaddled, capped, or maybe still
covered in blood and shit and god
knows what.  Not one tooth to my
new name.  Yes, there was a first time
she held me. Who could forget it?
But there was also

                          a last time

she set
me
down.

11/30 erasing mom

I had this bright idea today to do an erasure poem where I find a particularly long and painful email from my birth mother in my email archives and turn it into something beautiful instead.

Turns out I've deleted all the old painful ones. So, probably, thanks Past Self.

I found one kinda neutral one and one that was only a little hurty, so I tried those instead.

7/30: almost made it a week without writing about my mother

thanks and bonus

Dear friends, I know I'm not writing up to my full potential this April. I'm not writing like I can, or should, or have in the past. But you've been so wonderful and supportive. You're leaving me comments, you're sharing my words with others, and that does my heart so much good. I'm sharing, as thanks, a piece with you I am proud of that I wrote in a workshop a month or two back led by the inimitable force named Rachel McKibbens.

I call it, "How I Got my Spots."

In this freckleless nation, my students ask why I have spots. Why. What a half-loaded gun of a word. I tell them my birth mother was a cheetah. They do not believe me and they do. It is a lie and it is not.

There is a song in my blood, a sonata in three movements, the cheetah woman put it there. The first movement begins with the particular onliest sound of her keys on their rings, the way the sound could make me snap to, and the sweetfear sourlove taste of the sound. In this movement I surrender one third of all future kisses and a handful of teeth. Ocean sound and the hotel room that night three sequential strangers came and left and could not epoxy me whole. The smell of sewer steam and the silence before a clap of thunder. In this movement I cannot love the mirror because it is broken, too.

In the second we hear her lacing her shoes, hear them so hard we see them, still pristine white after all those years of running away. In this movement I bury a flock of childhood memories in the soil behind our house, they will never sprout and I will not remember why not, I put them there and turn lose forever, kick dust over them as I turn my back. She turns her back and there it is again like it never stopped, the staccato crunch of driveway gravel, even the rocks sound angry. They will call at you caw at you claw at you tell you they know why you did it, they saw it, how you held on to a corpse for two thirsty years, they mock you for holding so long, they mock you for letting go, dare you to run for the cold comfort of the bathroom floor.

You won't realize the third movement has started at first. It opens with the echo of no more words, the wish to deserve the word home, the feeling of death tucked behind your left ear. Then a dream of flying, then rubber bullets, applause that does not catch on, the last glass he drank from before he left, sound of rain, unlocking, floorboards creaking, look, the cockroach is getting away before you can kill it. The tinkling of icicles, a spider's footsteps, an ecstatic eulogy, and behind it all, still, the echoing silence, overripe fruit hitting tiles. And the grand finale, the most dulcet of terrors, the sound of a cheetah hungering home.

Mom and Dad

26/30: And you thought I was gonna go all month without writing about my mom.

When my mother dies
I will plant her body
inside my belly, safe
to grow again.  I will deliver

her back to life.  I will deliver

someone
who has never hated me.
Not even once.

8/30: For Noah, who tried to run

I may have my detractors, but you must
give me this much, at least:  Never
were any children more clean,

more well behaved, more perfectly still,

more faces of angels, more Sunday best,

all arrowstraight and godliness.  What is a bathtub

if not a baptismal font, scrubbing every speck

of sin away?  My three boys, the disciples, John,
Paul, and Luke one by one and then Mary,
sweet Mary, the baby that broke

this camel’s back.  Noah saw her there, floating

face down in the holy water, Noah my firstborn,

my eldest, my king

                                         of troubled seas
and he was afraid.  I sang to him to coax
him back, and I sang to him as he struggled

beneath the waves, then placed him there

in the waterstorm he was named for, holding Mary

in his arms, my Alpha and Omega together

and my three straightarrow boys laid out

in the quiver of the bed where I made them.  I loved them
more than I loved God, so I sent them home to him
so nothing could come between us.  Their earthly father

loved me still, told people he wanted me to smith
more for arrows for him and for God.  But I failed him,
failed our quiver, failed God.  My babies stumbled

because I stumbled and when I let their souls fly

I gave them that gift at the cost of paradise, knowing

full well that eternity shall deliver my reward.

Monosonnet with Parenthetical

When
Holland
Taylor
Slapped
My
Mother
I
Thought

(or perhaps realized, for the first time, that I'd always wanted to do that myself, but I was so small and she was my model for God, authority, and the nature of what I should become, and the fact that a child had slapped this mountain this monarch over something so trivial when I had good reason but had always held back shook basements of thinking, made me quake in my small jelly sandals, planted some kind of seed in my guts until finally the day came when I no longer had any buttons left unpushed and the world went grave-dark and silent and when it came back there stood the woman who was my first home but her face had been punched and my fist was singing its loudest, highest notes, and all i could think was how neither of us had told the other "i love you" in years)

I
Should
Have
Done
That
First.

17/30: In which the wolf is not so big nor bad

In the video, I am almost in
my mother's lap, but not quite.
She is holding a book with one arm
around me; I am not yet four.  I struggle
to read the words, letters leading into
syllables climbing into words, I sound
it all out awkwardly, aware that there is
a camera and pretending I am not.
My mother laughs with love when I get
a whole sentence out.  She is proud
as a whole mountain, and in this moment
I can believe that there was once a time,
however brief, that she loved me.

7/30: ghost line from Melissa May

The day I killed my mother, I got out
my Sunday best, washed it again, just
to be sure, pressed it with starch,
curled my hair, flossed.  I wrote her
a love letter and wrapped it
around the blade.  I ate well,

two eggs over medium, bacon medium,
toast and gravy, orange juice, coffee, hot
and black.  I went to the chapel and prayed
for the first time in years.  I kissed
a stranger and stared directly
into the sun.  The day I killed my mother,

I went to her house, rang the bell,
placed the love letter directly into
her heart and then left, cut off
all my hair, didn't cry, burned the clothes,
didn't cry, tore the pages from the books
she'd given me, carved her name
into the soft flesh of my belly, didn't cry.

Exercises in Honesty

1.
I only make a promise if I know
I can keep it. Put another way, I never
make a promise I'm not sure I can keep.
Promises

aren't always words. Sometimes they're sighs,
glances that linger, pleading eyebrows
raised in fear, my mother's fist, fingertips
taking their lovelong time, my mother's slow-burning
whisper in public, each barometric syllable a portent
of things to come.

2.
The first time my sister walked in on my parents,
I refused.
Cuddling, canoodling, that's all, kissing, playing, that's all, how
can I love anyone if I can't love the woman
who birthed me, how can my father
love me if he loves a woman who burns me
how can my partner love me if all
I know how to do is burn?

3.
Fire isn't the only thing that burns.
My mother's hands, my mother's voice was a burning my love
for him is a burning, acid
burns too, these things don't burn
like fire. Acid touches
and takes hold, moves in, spreads out, consumes
in such a way that nothing
was ever there, leaves scars,
leaves melted, leaves raw, leaves.

4.
This isn't supposed to be another poem about my mother.

5.
I want nothing more than to stand
somewhere sacred-
a courthouse, a chapel, a childhood backyard-
to hold his hand, grip his gaze and say,
i promise. i promise. i do.
But what if some acid
slips out accidental?
It isn't polite to burn guests.

6.
I lose
my shit
if someone touches my head.
I never knew why
til somebody asked me, "Did someone
hurt you there?" and i'm two years old, 

six, eleven, fifteen, laid out
on my parents' bed, my stubborn curls
draped over the edge as she claws
the brush through trying
to square peg my round hole straight.
I like for my lover to pull my hair.

7.
In my dreams my fist is a brick and her face
is pudding, layered, vanilla opens to strawberry,
a slapthump symphony, sweet and wet, I like for my lover
to slap me sometimes.

8.
Our bodies promise, too,
without using voices,
knot themselves around other bodies, other hearts.
When I rest my head on his chest I can hear
his heart opening

When he wraps his cradle hands
around my head
I'm home.

9.
Sometimes I hear
her laugh claw out of

my throat.
I thirst
for acid.
But I stop.
I can not tell you
I love you
through scars.

10.
When I tell you
I love you
I want it to be
a promise.

10/30 in which the poet slacks off

Today was okay i guess because
i drank wine last night so i slept in
real late and i woke up a little woozy but
it was okay because it's sunday so
i didn't have to do anything, just
pee, which i did, and eat, which i did,
because Nancy came over with scallops and I
had rice so with our powers combined
we had a nice little meal while watching
a movie which helped the fact that my
mother wrote me today, the one who gave
birth to me not the one I love now, and she
was up to her same old tricks, of course,
like she could look the grand canyon right
in the eyes and make it feel guilty
for being so big, like she could stand out
in a monsoon and insist she were dry
as a bone, don't you dare tell her otherwise,
and no, at the end of today I didn't write
the poem I'd have liked to but fuck,
even G-d took a day off from creating,
so sue me, and anyway, the weather
was great.

day 8 of 30

For Tyshani, in the hopes that she can forgive me for writing it:

As sure as you know that you love her
with all the wild strength of a runaway train
despite never having lived with her outside of your body,
you must also know she loves you,
that the not knowing you doesn't matter.
When she plays make believe, it's your voice
she speaks in, the tones of your voice
a soaring tune she wakes up humming, never really
caring why. When she was given the doll that she knew,
sure and immediate, would always
be her favorite, she instantly gave it
your name, or perhaps some variant,
Tiffany, Bethany, the exactness
of the consonants muddled during the swim
to her tongue from the depths of her dreams.
When her adoptive parents ask how she conjured up
such a name, she shifts her weight from foot to foot,
anxious and darling, scratches the exact same place
on her body where you have the tattoo on yours and says,
iono, i think i dreamed it; in the dream
a pearl-covered mermaid brought me the name,
carried in a basket hand-woven
of love songs and tears.

Catching up - thoughts mostly, few events.

Before I left, people warned me about a lot of things. I tried not to roll my eyes – of COURSE there are dangers any time anyone travels anywhere. I was cautioned against swine flu, against kidnapping, against rape, against drug wars, against drinking the water… all sorts of nonsense. Well, I don’t want to say nonsense, but drug wars and etc are on the border and in Mexico City and of course I won’t drink out of the tap, every place has filtered or bottled water from which the ice is made and swine flu’s on the decline and I’m not a YOPI anyway…

No, I don’t think my biggest threat is human nor bacterial. My biggest threat is mechanical. If something horrible happens to me while I’m in Mexico, my money is on getting hit by an automobile. It’s like a constant game of frogger. I’ll tell you how it’s going to happen, too. I’m pretty good at checking the lights, checking the traffic, etc. The one thing I keep forgetting is that even though you think you’re good to cross, sometimes a car comes speeding up from behind you to make a quick right turn without doing a lot of checking first.

I’ve started having bilingual dreams. That started pretty early, actually. Like my second or third night here I had this bilingual dream in which I was a man but also at the same time somehow (dream logic, don’t ask) a dog who was chasing a horse that was also at the same time an Indian. Native, not Hindustani. Every time I managed to catch up to him we would talk, I can’t tell you what was said, but in both languages at the same time and telepathically. Then he’d wrap a rope around my neck until I backed off and the chase would begin again. No idea.

There are no clocks anywhere here. Like, in the States every bank has a big clock out front, whether analog or digital. But I don’t have a phone anymore and can’t wear a watch since the metal screws up my skin for some reason, and when I leave the house in the morning, I make it all the way to the classroom without ever finding out what time it is unless I ask someone with a phone. Bizarre.

I’m thinking in Spanish, too. What’s more, I find I’m losing English words sometimes, or slipping up, or finding that there’s just no English substitute for the Spanish word I want to use. One American friend told me about something he’d ordered, how it wasn’t fitting like he’d expected, and I couldn’t remember the English word for “acostumbrarse.” I had to get out my damn dictionary and look it up to find out I’d lost the phrase “get used to it.” I was talking with the mom and sister here, telling them about a lady I know who lived up until age 96 perfectly healthy and of sound mind, even peppy and able to drive around and etc., until she caught… and since I didn’t know the word in Spanish I couldn’t think of it in English either. After three days of struggling with not being able to think of it, but knowing it started with a P, I sat down with my dictionary and read every friggin entry under P until I got to pneumonia. And words like “platicar,” it just doesn’t have the same meaning in any English translation, and what on earth do I use in place of the magical word “Bueno”? Not when it’s used as an adjective but when it’s used as a placeholder. I can’t think of an example, so I’ll just slip it in for the rest of this entry when it’s appropriate.

I still don’t really feel like I’m in a foreign country, and I’m not really having culture shock like I did when I worked in Scotland. Bueno, clearly I know I’m not in Little Rock anymore, Toto, but I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re in the same time zone or that I didn’t have to cross an ocean to get here or that I spent so much time getting to know Mexicans while I was in Arkansas and Kentucky… I did get a little emotional either last night or the night before, thinking about how the mother in this house has made me feel more loved in the last week than my own mother has in the last decade and a half. Really I love this woman, you guys. It’s kinda pathetic. She reminds me of my own mom just enough to substitute… well, those of you who know me know I’ve always looked for substitute moms, but I’ve never gotten to live with one before, and this is really just some glorious stuff for me.

One other way I might die is from starting a fight with one of the men here. Apparently not only is it culturally acceptable for passing dudes to whistle, hoot, yell, bark like dogs, squeal like monkeys, or conjure up names or phrases, but some girls, if they don’t hear it, are actually upset and wonder what’s wrong with them. One day some horny asshat is going to be driving past and honk and holler and I’m going to flip the bird and he’s going to stop and ask what’s wrong with me and I’m going to ask what’s wrong with him and there will be fisticuffs. Bueno, I probably won’t do that, but just in case, this sassy gringa keeps a knife nearby.

Got to see my football playing husband again. That’s football as in futbol, not as in handegg, or American Footbal. When I spent last Thursday with my homo boyfriend checking the team out, he really wanted the team so I bartered to get just one. I figured they might be practicing again, and you know, I like to go to museums or go see nice buildings or cathedrals – I like looking at pretty things! So I thought I’d go see if they were there and they weren’t and as I turned to walk away, the one I bartered for walked right past me. Didn’t notice me at all, but you know, destiny’s tricky sometimes, and he might not know about our impending affair yet.

I guess the last thing I have to talk about is another cultural difference. Americans are really direct in the way we communicate. It’s no big deal to walk into an office and say “Can I sign up to go on the such and such here?” But like here, you really have to take the time to say Hello, How are you or Good morning before you launch into a conversation. I’m getting better at it. I catch myself and say Disculpe, Buenas tardes, and then go on…

A lot has been going on besides these random thoughts – classes, laundry and hanging it to dry on the roof where the dogs live, taking taxis with random locals, buying shoes, having Mexican sushi delivered, the extended family I’m picking out, a trip to the city center to see some local dance stuff… but this is long enough. I’ll try and catch up soon. I’m a busy girl between class, homework, piano class, dance class, long-ass walks and bus trips to get anywhere, and wanting to spend time with my friends and family too. I’ll hopefully post pics on a site somewhere soon besides just on facebook so other people can see them.

Anyone who wants to send me love, just ask for my address. Bueno, Anyone who doesn’t, I love you too.

Whoops.

I woke up Sunday wishing I could remember what my mother's voice sounded like. She used to record stories for the local library, and you could call a number to hear it over the phone. I knew they used her stories for years after she left the job, so I called it up. It was a new voice telling a bilingual story. Guess they finally got with the times.

So I hung up. Checked my email and found a message from her.

It was hit and it was miss. There was a line in particular that gave me deep pause, but I won't go into it here, mostly because when I replied I neglected to edit out my signature with the link to this blog in it, so it's possible she's finally found it and maybe even stalking me right now. Ooooooh, spooky. It's a bummer because this has been a place where I felt free to talk about it and write it out. I may migrate over to my livejournal to do this in the future.

But I do want to catalog the things that helped me get to the place where I am today, and that is a place where her memory can no longer hurt me. I just found myself here recently.

1) Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. The movie works better than the book for my specific purposes. The book is a little too different from our particular problems, but the movie is general enough to apply. I watched it and wished somehow someone would knock me out and take me out of my life and explain everything about her and what made her the crazy woman she became. Never happened.

2) Big Fish. Another movie about a kid who hates his/her parent for the person s/he perceived the parent to be and how s/he goes about reconciling that issue.

3) Postsecret.com and a few secrets in particular that resonated with my situation. One said "I am sorry I can't be who you want me to be, Mom. It's a shame cause I kinda like myself the way I am." Another said "Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering." It's nice to know that even though other people are having lives completely different from your own, our individual sufferings match up on overall themes from time to time. I made one card about us and sent it in, but I never saw it posted on the blog. Lame.

4) Rachel McKibbens's "Central Park, Mother's Day."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlqQzKBfNFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-k-d-dbWHI&feature=related
Neither of these are as powerful as the version I heard for the first time at the finals of the National Poetry Slam in Austin in 2007. It was the first time I really thought about our situation from her point of view and thought, gee, maybe she didn't *mean* to fuck up so badly.

5) A documentary my father gave me about forgiveness. I can't remember the title right now, sorry, but it got me thinking about the process and working toward it.

6) Writing lots of poems about her.

7) Writing lots of letters to her. I never sent the poems or the letters, of course. Because at the end of the day, they were really just for me.

8) This American Life episode 175:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=175
The story that starts at 32:49 wasn't about us at all at first. It wasn't until it got to 53:36 that the neon signs lit up, and they were all arrows, and they were all pointing right at me.

I'm doing this catalog just in case we do meet up, and it turns out to be a terrible idea and nothing but negativity comes from it. These things (and a few more, but these have been the real beacons) can help bring me back to this place where I realize that she quite probably did the best she honestly could, and I can't hate her any more if her best was really that awful. I don't know what happened to her to make her who she was, and it may happen that she's someone else entirely today. Here's hoping.

The saddest part is that I've found two amazing substitute moms and I've loved them so much and valued having them in my lives more than I can ever tell them. One lives on a mountaintop outside Hot Springs and always gives the best hugs and the hugest heapings of unconditional love and delicious tea and is so giving and so loving. The other is actually a transgendered woman (gets her pussy this week, god bless her!) who is the ass-kicking I-got-your-back kind of mom who doles out brilliant amazing advice and delicious dinners at the same time.

I worry that they may suffer in this. Either my bio-mom will turn out to have changed into someone I can have a relationship with and I'll neglect these amazing women (unlikely, but I'll surely have guilt anyway) or she'll turn out to be the same person she always was and these women will have to help me rebuild myself all over again.

Dear God: Thanks for the amazing mothers you've sent me. Do please keep an eye on me for a bit while I deal with this. Love, Ginna.

21/30: TAL#175

Her strictly Catholic mother called her a whore
before she even knew what it meant,
how to spell it even, her mother's eyes
stabbing judgments into her back, so she did
what any kid who wants to survive a parent must do:
she lied.

Their name (she said) was McCreary, a lovely family,
the son six, the daughter five, the wife
just lovely, charming, kind and the husband
busy and important: a secret government agent,
so she couldn't give her mother the phone number,
or the address to the house where she babysat;
it was a matter of government security, of course.

They had a summer home, too, near the lake,
and she had to go with them, and her brother
went too, a good role model for the son, they said.
They spent every weekend out there, all summer long
and her mother was so pleased, her eyes now
clear, now proud, asking the most important question:
"And what do they think of me?"
She gave the only possible reply:
"They think you're wonderful."

Years later, after the McCrearys moved away
and the girl grew up, made her own family,
a real one, she confronted her mother one day,
called her out for all her wrongs, her lies,
each nail she'd hammered in and she broke down,
cried: "I did the best I could."
It was the first truth the girl could remember
being spoken between them.

Learning about that F-word

Technically, if I were going to stay "It all started when..." I'd have to say it all started one sunny Labor Day back in 1982 when Susan Elizabeth Weston Wallace gave birth to an eight pound zero ounce squalling baby girl with a head of curly black hair. That girl came unknowingly into a world of cruelty to learn many very important lessons, and forgiveness was one of them.

More recently, though, it started with a movie my father gave to me - a documentary on Forgiveness when I had no idea that I needed it most. I watched it and was overwhelmed, driven to go looking for more learning on the subject. Forgiveness manifests in every religion with different rules applied to it. The Buddhists say that we forgive so that we can clean up our own minds of negative thoughts, for our own karmas. Hinduism sees forgiveness not as weakness but instead as a great power. I told you what the Jewish religion thought about the F-word in a past blog – it’s my favorite interpretation thus far. Psychological and scientific studies on forgiveness have only begun recently – like, 1980s recently. Science has learned that when we originally refuse to forgive, it's actually a survival mechanism. It gives us the adrenaline we need to deal with a situation, and keeps the body moving away from the negative situation. However, when the resentment is held on to over time, it becomes detrimental to our bodies. People who are more forgiving live longer and have healthier as well as happier overall lives when compared to people that hold onto resentment.

When I wrote about it last, a few people asked me to talk more about it when I'd learned more. Forgiveness is so important and so beneficial and something I never thought I would be big on. I never saw myself as a "forgiving type." Those of you who know me well will surely have no problem understanding this. I would like to stress that I am not an expert (and it turns out there are Forgiveness Experts who by the way travel around giving seminars) on anything at all due in part to my twenty-five short years, and I'm just going to tell you what my experience of it has been.

It's awesome. It's completely different from what I originally perceived it to be. I had thought forgiveness was something you gave someone, granted someone, did for someone to help them, to make them feel better, or to somehow grant some magical pardon or... I'm not sure what I thought it was, but I thought the verb "to forgive" was something you did to or for someone else. It is not. It is not. It is not. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself that just happens to impact someone else. Forgiveness does not mean you forget that so-and-so is an arrogant and insensitive punk. It means you accept that they are arrogant and insensitive, and you let go of all resentment you have attached to the fact. You do not feel anger over their actions. Maybe you can feel disappointed, but even that's probably not so great an idea.

And I know that I still have miles to go before I sleep... and miles to go before I sleep... but I know now at least what forgiveness is and I've been practicing it with great results. Shoot - ask me about the fat man at the lake that I ignored at first and then told I forgave for screaming at me that I was an ignorant bitch for swimming near him! Forgiveness is letting go, it is the opposite of holding onto resentment. Acknowledge what happened, acknowledge why it happened and the person who is responsible for it... and let go. Realize and recognize that what happened was negative... and refuse to let it impact you any more. Forgiveness is not Forgetting - forgetting only sets you up to be hurt again and again. Remember, but remember at an emotional-arms-length. Forgiveness is practicing peace in your heart and your consciousness. Forgiveness is saying no to negative thoughts.

A week or two after my father sent me home with that movie, the package from my mother arrived in the mail. My mother, my greatest heartache, the woman I have not had a relationship with for eight years because I could not allow her negative influence in my life anymore. I've resented her for the way she treated me, for the things she did. I've resented myself for allowing her to hurt me. I've resented the other people in my family for not stopping it. And it isn't healthy and now I know this and I am daily practicing thinking of her and the whole situation without negativity.

We may or may not ever have a real relationship again, but that doesn't mean I have to let it bring me down. Someday I hope to tell her that I have forgiven her and to truly mean it. I cannot rush into this - again, those scientific studies stress that premature forgiveness is unhealthy - but I am working toward it every day.

This is what I've learned thus far. Now you know. Now tell me what you know.

Poetry Month Day 22: Secrets I refuse to take to my grave.

I've been reading this weekly blog at postsecret.com for some time now, watching the list of cities where the owner will be speaking and showing his collection, and saw where he'd be speaking an hour and a half from me recently. I had to go. I got a speeding ticket on the way there, got into the speech a half hour late, but it was worth it. It's an amazing project. People there got up to share their secrets as well, and I know I'm not the only sap who ended up crying. The idea that people will take certain things to their grave is tragic. Today's poem will be secrets I refuse to take to my grave. Please forgive me.

Me and Frank:


Secrets I will not take to my grave:

My first kiss was my little sister. My cousin
made me believe I'd been raped as a child.
I still can't forgive my uncle for the way he treated my teddy bear
when I believed it was alive. I still wish my teddy bear was alive.
I don't know if I prefer to date men or women, but
refuse to call myself bisexual. I knew before I married him
that someday I'd ask him to leave me.

If I know in advance that I'm just the other woman,
we'll be okay, but God help you if you hide it. I don't know
if I believe in God, but I do believe in magic. I feel I'm superior
to other people just because I'm intelligent, billingual,
and well-traveled. I think voting makes me hotter. But at twenty-five,
I still don't know how to take a compliment, and if you tell me you think
I'm beautiful, I'll wonder what you really want from me.

I thought I was afraid of abandonment, but as it happens
I'm really just afraid of allowing myself to become vulnerable.
I may be thin, but I still eat my pain. I use my dog to make me
feel better. I use alcohol to make myself feel better. I use sex
to feel better. I believe in ghosts because I believe I've seen five.
My left breast is bigger than my right one and

I have dimples on my butt. I judge people with poor grammar;
I judge people with poor teeth. Sometimes when I'm tired of
eating my pain, I spend it instead. I like to go to movies by myself
for two reasons: One, I like movies, and Two, I want people to
see me and feel like they could go to movies by themselves. I'm glad

crack kills. I can hold a grudge like a sponge can hold water:
it's the one thing I learned from my mother after what type of woman
not to become. I wish my mom had died when I was a child,
so instead of knowing she's alive but doesn't care I could imagine
she was loving me from heaven. I like to climb on top
of abandoned buildings to think because the air is more clear
that close to God, whether or not she exists, and some of the
happiest moments of my life happened on those rooftops.

napowrimo: april 3: last night's dream

Last night’s dream had me back in my father’s kitchen.

Which also was once my childhood kitchen, but isn’t anymore:
I’m no longer a child, I don’t live there, things have changed

and the only person still there
is my father.
It’s my father’s kitchen today, and so that’s the way it was in the dream.

Except my sister was back too, and so was my father’s ex-wife:
my ex-mother.
She also once was my mother, but she isn’t anymore.
Certain things happened and
I had to live my life without her in it.
Sometimes families are funny that way.

Last night’s dream had me scared and overwhelmed.

Which should have therefore had me brave,
but sometimes dreams are funny that way.
They show us things we think we’ve learned
but haven’t yet mastered.
We all want to learn things;
I want to learn how to be brave, keep my head,
be wise, even-tempered, live above anger.
It’s something I’d been proud of improving until last night’s dream,

Which started with a fish.
I was at my father’s sink,
the sink i grew up with, cleaning a fish that was huge it had
skin and eyes and gills and i
couldn’t even pick it up and
she was there, yelling at me i was
taking too long the
fish was going bad.
Last night’s dream had me screaming:
Please stop it!
and heaving the fish in a rank garbage can
I see color in dreams and sometimes even smell
and this horrible garbage was stinking to hell
so I ran.

Last night, in the dream, my ex-mother was pregnant.
At sixty. Hiding it well until
I came round a corner to run into her big exposed belly
in a striped shirt where lines became waves;
Her face was so many things at once…
it was shock, it was fear, it was anger, betrayal,
confrontation and guilt: her face was a novel
of feelings without names.
3 black crows that used to be her soul
screamed at me through a hole in the mouth of her face
"don’t judge me, don’t judge me, don’t judge me."

Screaming it like she wanted me to, to somehow justify
the judgement she'd already given herself, but I won't.
Woman, your justice would freeze beer.
I'd thought I'd awken then with that realization
but the dream went on and there was an altercation.
I’m not proud to say it: I joined in
lost my head, blew my cool
and woke up with my voice coming out of her three mouths:
"I’m not ready for her yet, I’m not ready for her yet, I’m not ready for her yet…"
Kissing my sleeping father goodbye in the dream,
telling him I wish I could stay and work things out but
I’m not ready for her yet.

Sometimes life's messages can be funny that way.
I want a mommy that loves me for me but she’s not
Ready for me yet I wonder if
She’s having dreams in which she’s a pregnant fish,
stinking and gasping for a breath of cool water
but she’s not ready for it yet.
Guilt runs through her veins like ribbons
and they’re all tied up in knots.

Tonight in her dreams I’ll untie them.
So she can become a baby
in her mother’s kitchen and I’ll defend her
until she’s strong enough she’s ready for love.
I’ll tie her heart to my apron strings
and we’ll forget all about last night’s dream.

Letters to the Friend I Never Got to Have

I’m going to keep writing these until I get one right.

Dear Mom:
I got a scholarship and a stipend. Me - at twenty-five, a two-time dropout! Thought you’d be proud to know. Thought you’d have been proud to know all sorts of things that have happend, though, and you haven’t shown the least bit of--

Dear Suby. Do you even care that I’m alive? Your daughter.

Hello, Suby. This is a message from the UNIVERSE. There are certain things that people are supposed to learn and accomplish and change about themselves in their lives before they die - just a friendly reminder about the big one you’ve left hanging.

To my Maternal Unit:
Hello from your first successful live birth... Just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive, waiting for you to give a rats ass about loving me unconditionally. Let me know one way or the other, would you, so I can quit stressing over not knowing?

Hey, what’s up. I was just thinking about that time I was in junior high and you told me I *could* be so pretty if I’d just wear makeup. Scratch that - all those times you said that. What the fuck were you thinking? You’re lucky I didn’t kill myself, you know.

Hi, Mom. I’ve done a lot of changing in these last seven or so years. I was curious about whether you’re still blaming everyone except yourself for the things that go wrong in your life, or whether you’ve actually gained the ability to accept it when you’re wrong - and maybe even admit it? Holla back.

Dear Mom, I hate you, Love me.

Mother: In these past few years, I’ve visited cities you cannot name. I’ve written books you’ve never seen. I’ve held jobs you know nothing about. I’ve had lovers whose names you’ll never know. I’ve accomplished so many things you haven’t even heard of. I’ve recently had this huge thing happen in my life, I’m so proud I can’t even tell people the news without crying, but the woman who gave birth to me is not a part of it at all. And I still don’t know if it’s because you’re too scared to apologize, because you don’t think you should apologize, or because you couldn’t possibly care less.

Mommy: Camp is scary and the other kids are mean. Please come get me and bring me home.