Friday 31 July 2015

Letter to the impossible dream, July 1998

About a month ago Erica passed along the message that you would be willing to begin writing to me so that we could re-establish contact.  I've really thought about it and have decided that I think I would like to try this.

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

This leads me to the next point, which is what I think would be beneficial for us to talk about, at least at first.  While I don't want to limit the subject of our letters to some impossibly restrictive list, at the same time I don't want to get into what caused the separation, at least not yet.  As I'm sure you know all too well, we can't solve our problems in a letter format, and I just don't think it would be useful to try.  Instead I'm hoping that we can simply share things about each other's lives so that we can develop a level of trust; once that trust exists, we can then address what led me to take the steps that I did.  I'm sure at some point we will both feel a need to discuss the choices we each made during these past six years, but that too is something that I believe is better left until a later date.

Thursday 30 July 2015

A sliver of blue


Diary entry, January 11, 2007

I am sick of my dreams at night, sick of the struggle with myself about my past, sick of advice, sick of worrying about doing the wrong thing, sick of fear at all, sick of always waiting waiting waiting...

Tuesday 28 July 2015

New Years' Eve, 1982

And I remember how something could
break every word you spoke,
make you sound like you were
choking
as the heaters along the floor blew
your sheer polyester drapes in
an uneven ballet,
        suspended,
        mid-air.

Dream Journal, February 22, 2005


Was having terrible thoughts last night before I went to bed; felt like I was going crazy.  Had a very rough week.

I had a dream I was back in school, but with a teacher I really liked.  I loved the class so much that I was almost sad when it ended, I hadn't been watching the clock at all.  When I got out of school it was pitch black outside.  I had a long walk home and to get there I had to go down this short stretch of really dark street. It scared me so I started to walk very quickly.  There were trees and the sidewalk was narrow.  When I noticed shadowy people around me I stuck to the curb so that cars passing by would see me if anything happened.  I wondered why I hadn't gone the way home I normally did, that was better lit with crossing guards.  The problem was, I couldn't remember that route anymore; it also wasn't the most direct path.  Nor did it seem that much safer, because I thought I still had to walk down a dark block at some point.

I felt massively relieved when I got to the well-lit section of the street, but then I started hearing this ominous voice telling me how everyone was going to blame me.  No one would believe that he, the voice talking to me, was the one who had planned everything.  I couldn't see who was talking until I passed a man wearing a very scary mask and a robe.   I attacked him and fought him, managing to pull his mask off.  It turned out he was the head of the local Chamber of Commerce.  Once again he said no one would believe me.  As he went off I had this thought that he was going to be caught—that I would catch him on tape.  Seemed like it might be okay in the end.  


Monday 27 July 2015

Knots


Diary, March 14, 2004

I don't like being tired.  In fact, I hate it.  I hate having these sleep disturbances - they terrify me.  I also detest knowing that for the next whole day I might feel like shit, and that I still won't sleep all that well the next night.  But this is all part of the game.  Every single process has some part of it that's detestable.  I can hardly expect this to be any different.

Sunday 26 July 2015

Saturday 25 July 2015

Letter from Steve, 1990


I never got a chance to finish reading the letter you sent me, but I think I got the general overall idea from the first couple paragraphs.  I can appreciate the fact that you worry about me - it really doesn't bother me that much, because I guess I expect it.  I have been kind of wild, but I think I'm starting to burn out a bit now.  My brain is feeling really spacey from doing a lot of harmful things to do it.  And I like being on top of things, so I'm going to have to lay off for a little bit.  Don't worry - I'll be all right.  I really will.  I guess I just have to find out certain things for myself - the school of hard knocks never goes out of session for some of us.

It was really good seeing you.  I know I look burned out, but you look really healthy.  Have you gained a little weight?  Not that you're fat, but you look more full - I don't know, even that sounds bad.  You know what I mean.  

Friday 24 July 2015

Reckoning, 1993


Notebook, 1994

First day of school, but I didn't have any classes. Tomorrow is my first day.

It's the peace, girl,
it is the stretching of boundaries of
spatial time.
        It is the nightmare you expected
        and it will save your life.

Wednesday 22 July 2015

Reality

She slips and she slips and 
she slips again.
She slips up the stairway,
down the elevator,
she brings the keys with her, because
she knows where they will
release her.

But she isn't singing love songs
anymore.

She is waiting for you, you know.
She waits with the patience of a
hungry child.
She knows where those keys
are going, she knows
how to turn them.
But the lock is in an
ocean with a name no one
can remember, a name someone
forgot to give.
Without a name an ocean is
nothing more than an endless pool 
staring up at the sky.
Nothing more than water we cannot
even drink.

She is not singing love songs
anymore.
You should hear her, you know,
you should hear her silence your      
half of her whole. 
This is not her world--
still starving inside for you,
she waits only to slip on home.

Monday 20 July 2015

Dream Journal, January, 2005


In the dream I returned to high school and I had to bring my mom for some reason.  I found this fairly embarrassing for obvious reasons but I coped with it.  We were in my algebra class with my old teacher, who was being really nice to me.  I was actually having fun in the class, thinking maybe I would be able to catch up (I knew I would fail unless I made up the work), when the class ended and my mom was gone.

I was still sitting in the room at a desk right in front of the doorway, with my back to the door.  I was working on the computer (apparently planning a trip to Spain and worrying that it would rain as it the forecast predicted it) when Derek, a friend from high school, shouted that someone had a gun.  I realized that I was a sitting target where I was and so I ran into another room where a lot of people had gone, screaming.  Along the way I saw the guy with a gun.  He was from another high school, a football player.  Everyone took off again and for some reason I couldn't understand I went into yet another room instead of running out of the building.  There was a telephone there (rotary, of course) but when I dialed 911 they put me on hold.  The guy came into the room but I managed to escape with some others.


Everyone got ahead of me and ran off in a direction they knew he wouldn't think to follow.  I was trying to keep up but suddenly I couldn't run at all--it was massive effort just to lift my feet.  The guy with the gun came outside with Derek and a girl and they were all laughing together, like they were having fun killing people and scaring us.  I climbed a brick wall and tried to hide in a really large drainage ditch—dropping my wallet & computer along the way—but they’d seen me.  As I was climbing the girl took the gun and shot me in the foot.  While I was crouching in the ditch she shot at me again and just missed my stomach.  I would have died had that bullet been even half an inch closer.  Finally I managed to jump out of the gutter and escape by running through a cemetery, where I had to avoid big holes dug into the ground.  

Once out of the cemetery I ran through side streets, even through people’s houses; I was following signs that said “TO LILY ROAD” because I knew Lily Road would get me home.  But then suddenly there the girl was with me on Lily Road, walking alongside me.  She seemed very queer and scary, but she wasn't holding the gun on me although I knew she was still dangerous.  I was just trying to pacify her with small talk.  We made it to my house, where I managed to go down to the basement without her.  People were home but no one in the house was helping me.  I grabbed the phone in the basement bedroom and called the police, but the police wouldn't let me tell them what was going on.  They just kept blathering on about how they knew the shooting had taken place and they were looking for the suspect, while I was trying to get a word in edgewise to tell them one of the suspects was in my house!  

Then suddenly the girl was standing in the doorway to the basement bedroom. She accused me of calling the police.  I shook my head and tried to say things into the phone that made it sound like I was just having some random phone call.  The girl obviously didn't believe me.  This is when she said in a very somber tone, “Think of all the lives you’re going to ruin.”    

Suddenly the police officer was sitting on the couch next to me and I knew I was finally safe.  However, my credit card had been stolen and so had my computer.

Saturday 18 July 2015

From unsent letter to Brian, 1992

I'm doing better since my appointment Tuesday.  Gina says I'm doing wonderful with everything.  I'm still afraid of going to sleep at night but I know that will go away.  I don't think he has enough guts to come here, and if he did, it wouldn't be a very good idea on his part.

I hope this letter wasn't too depressing.  But you really should know what to expect, and I'll keep you posted.  Thank you for believing me and for all of your support!  It means a lot.

Thursday 16 July 2015

Diary entry, June 9, 2013


Nothing changes.  Ever.

But we like the house.  And there is an okay dog walk not too far away.  So maybe not as big of a disaster as it first appeared.  Maybe.

Last week you got lucky, little girl.  Don’t you dare think you can be lucky again.

Diary entry, October 31, 1983


This week’s saying:  Being alone is an art—you have to learn to make the most of it.

Wednesday 15 July 2015

Waiting

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.” 
― Langston Hughes

Tuesday 14 July 2015

River, 1999

This is what I know.

That a window left open when
even the trees shiver with premonition of
sorrowful weather,
it will suppress you.
It will make you wish you had noticed,
make you wish that you had been warned.
You will close your eyes a thousand
times, feel the groove of the wood against
the palms of your hands,
hear the decisive thud that assured you of
closure. 
Until the pang of knowledge forces the
window betrayed again.
And, when you burst through the kitchen door,
find the papers curling at the edges,
a river of consequences running across
the floor,
you will wish you had never pretended.

Sunday 12 July 2015

Dream Journal, February 1-2, 2005

Was feeling strong last night, like I would be okay—wanted to remember.

Had a dream that I was with two people (can’t remember who)—went to Grandma’s house, although it looked like a hybrid of her house and my childhood house.  The house was empty, we were just checking up on it.  Everyone who had lived there had disappeared, except for Grandpa, who we knew had died.  The door to the living room was closed--we’d closed it for some reason having to do with heating or whatever--but it must have opened a crack because a little dog belonging to my companion ran into the room & down to the basement.  We opened the door to that room and called for the dog—we saw him come up from the basement.  But he didn't come up alone.  A girl/young woman came up with him.

I nearly had a heart attack, it was so freaky.  She had been one of the missing, who we had assumed was dead. I didn’t know who she was.  I asked her where she’d been. She said she didn’t know. She just knew she’d be gone for three years.  Whoever had taken her had arranged for her life on her return; everything she wanted to do was set up for her.  She seemed okay with what had happened to her, even though she didn’t exactly know what had happened to her.  All she knew was that they hadn’t done anything evil to her.  She seemed fairly sure about that.  She had a strange air of contentment about the fact that she’d lost three years of her life.  Sort of Stepford-ish, really.

She was going to stay in the house, but I was scared and I wanted to leave.  She told me her name—I can’t quite remember it.  Her last name was something like Westhaven or Westbrook.  Her first name might have been Sharon.  She told me to call her whenever I needed her (which didn’t seem very likely to happen because she scared me).  It seemed like people were staying behind with her at the house, although I don’t know who.  I could see a couple of shadows hanging around her.  She was standing in the front doorway of the house, almost blocking the entrance, on the other side of the screen door from me.  (Here the house looked just like the one in M.F.)  She was bigger than me, and in the dream I felt younger, like I was 21 or 22.  She seemed to be a few years older.  I think she might have reddish hair.

As I was leaving the house I realized that everyone who had disappeared were members of my family—not just random people.  Suddenly I became terrified that whoever was taking them would come for me, too, and I didn’t want that.  Even though they set up her life very nicely for her on her return, I didn’t want to disappear and not know what happened to me for some long stretch of time.  I was completely freaked out.

When I woke up it was in the middle of the night and I felt very afraid.  I thought to myself that maybe I didn’t want to remember after all.  I didn’t feel so brave anymore.

When I fell asleep again I had another dream.  In it is someone whispered to me, “Be quiet,” and I woke up with a start.  Once again I was terrified.  But I thought to myself, no, I will not be quiet!  I am going to remember.  

Thursday 9 July 2015

Essay, 2000

Nevertheless, I have to admit, I get sick of the struggle, of wanting to believe I am something else, only to be daily tormented by the knowledge that, at least in part, I am not.  I have no weapons in my arsenal for self-forgiveness, and maybe that is why I wrote this, to achieve through words what I haven't through thoughts.  I don't know.  In some manner of speaking I do not deserve forgiveness, no matter what my fleet of therapists argue.  Their impression of me and my experiences are necessarily colored through my tell of it, and I cannot ignore that fact.  I only know I never wanted to hurt anyone how I had been hurt.  If my disaster could for one second free someone else of theirs, then, at a minimum, I could be selfish enough to find some comfort in that.  I could know that even though I failed and continue to fail, probably indefinitely so, I helped someone else to win.

In Richard III, Clarence said to his prison keeper, "My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep."  I understand that.  I wish I didn't.

Tuesday 7 July 2015

Poetry Journal, 2000

If you hated me you could have killed me                                                                    
                smote me dead
threw the lightning bolt that cut me off at the knees.

But that would have been too easy.

The time that the car narrowly missed me as I
crossed the street,
the time that she pushed me down the stairs but
I stood up, dusted myself off and carried on—
you know it could have gone differently.

When I contemplated the costs of living as they ranked against
the costs of death,
you could have tipped the scales,
pointed the way home.
Instead I shivered, walked past the knives,
and lived to be stabbed a thousand more times.

I am supposed to believe in the superiority of breathing as I
stand here
                gasping.
I am made to believe that all will be understood as you
speak to me
                in pig Latin.

I could embrace what hysterical preachers teach,
denounce those who make me question my faith.
Instead I am too aware of their pain and their fear.
It could have gone another way.
I could have been allowed even this flawed and thorny
path out of
here.

In my dream he held my hand as I wondered what he
was doing there,
entirely too happy and still unable to see.
You take even my midnight comfort away from me.

I seem resolved here, you know, although for what has
not been made clear.
Every hope, every sneaking suspicion, every wild and
grand fantasy I watched disappear like helium balloons in
the pale and infinite sky.
I wanted to hold on but was cut loose,
left broken but still living on the
ground.

It was not to be.
It was not to be.

Sunday 5 July 2015

Dream Journal, February 15-16, 2005


I remember only a snippet of a dream from last night.  I was at home with my mom , and I was concerned because our dog had disappeared.  I was the only one who seemed worried about it.  Anyway, it was night and I wanted to go for a walk.  My mom didn’t want to but I did the whole, “come on, please,” thing, so she did.  It was dark and we were walking in what resembled a nice neighborhood I've always liked.  My mom was the one leading us & suddenly we were no longer outside, but walking straight through people’s homes.  I was pretty alarmed by this, so I said something to my mom on the order of, “We shouldn’t be doing this,” but she just answered, “You’re the one who wanted to take a walk” in a sort of smug, condescending tone (I’m pretty sure she was smiling when she said it).  I felt very nervous about it but I kept following her.  Finally my worst fears happened—we passed through a living room where a woman was sitting on her couch.  She didn’t seem very surprised to see us—she also had a weird smile on her face.  However, she told us that the front door was locked & we couldn’t go through it—we’d have to go out some other way.  That other way turned out to be a dirty, nasty looking oven.  She opened the oven door and indicated we would have to crawl through it.  I don’t remember what happened after this.

I remember wondering at some point during the dream, “Why does everyone have their doors unlocked so that we can just walk right through?”

The dream makes me feel uneasy.  I don’t quite understand it.

Saturday 4 July 2015

Friday 3 July 2015

Letter, 1998

Here it is: the thought occurred to me over the years that if anyone managed to convince you through words or whatever, that your mother knew anything that was happening, that your mother was "in denial," it is as clear to me as my life is my own, that is totally untrue.  It would be completely and absolutely against my nature.  For anyone else to "assume" that your mother would willingly allow you to suffer, that your mother did not love you, that your mother abandoned you, if anyone has even hinted that to you, they have done you a terrible, terrible disservice.  For they have robbed you of the one thing you deserve (and have): my deep, abiding, unconditional love.  No one who had your best interest at heart would even suggest this.  There was never a time when I would not have protected you, had I known you needed it.  Of that I am absolutely sure.

When you choose motherhood, you will know that to be true.  As humans, we may behave selfishly sometimes, but when a true crisis occurs for our child, something happens inside that goes beyond fear and reason...protecting your child.  There is nothing I would not have done to keep you safe from harm.  Never believe for a second that I would put my welfare above your safety.  Never.  That is my truth and I pass it on to you.  It's the only recurring desire I've had -- to give you this reassurance.

In closing, I hope you won't read anything else into this letter except a sincere desire to offer you the benefits your family can bring, to express my love for you, and to develop a new relationship based on complete and loving honesty.  I will not write again until I hear from you.  

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Notebook, 1993

I wanted to suffer quietly and beautifully
but suffering is noisy and deformed
it spits on the sidewalks in front of innocent
bystanders and it makes no apologies
it wipes its nose on its sleeve and it whines
for sympathy it licks the hands of the compassionate
it howls over a broken fingernail
everything reminds it that it exists everything
mocks its existence everything convinces it that it
is ugly it is a freak at a freak show it is
the rotting leftover shoved in the back of
the refrigerator and it makes everything smell
as its final biting and weeping vengeance that
it exists at all.
Apparently quiet and lovely sufferers exist
I've never met one but this is what I am supposed
to be instead I have made myself obvious and
now the fingers are pointed at me.