Art therapy, 1993

In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
--George Orwell

Lucky

I want to tell a story, before I get lost in the telling.

She does not see herself at the age of 43, wounded, in crash position on a black leather couch in the front room of a Victorian townhouse.  She does not see the gauze curtains that protect her from the curiosity of passersby, or the Klimt prints on the wall, or the gas fireplace that is never on.   She does not hear the howls of pain and rage, does not feel her own hand slap her face, over and over again, while a voice asks her to stop.  She does not yet know how lucky she is, because she cannot remember how unlucky she has been.

No one other than her much liked the dog.  He had a bit of a temper and he liked to pee on the basement carpet—damning traits in the eyes of the others.  But although he’d nipped her once on the face, she never told.  He was her best friend.

“You want to do this,” the witch whispered into her ear.  “His love is only for the worthy.”

But she did not want his love.  She wanted only for the old woman in the crinkly clothes  and who smelled so badly of lavender powder to let her go.  Let me go.

He always knew in which hand she held his ripped, tattered yellow ball with the nobbles, even when she held the ball behind her back.  It made her laugh.  She thought he was a genius.

“His name was Lucky,” she told him.  “Lucky the unlucky dog.”  Her boyfriend laughed, so she did too.  Because she was still only 19.  She would not be 43 for a long, long time.

Confusion, 1981

Diary entry, June 7, 2001

I chose to come here.

But the sadness

            the sadness...

It crackles.

No one told me, you know.

Heaven

Dream Journal, February 16-17, 2005

By the time I went to bed last night I was seriously starting to lose whatever good feelings I’d mustered up since Monday night.  Thoughts like I’m crazy, I make things up, I’d rather be dead than deal with all of this…that kind of stuff.

The dream I had I only remember a part of.  I was staying in a house—not permanently, I don’t think.  I don’t know if it was a relative or not.  A small group of people lived in the house, including one woman who, it turns out, was a demented serial killer.  I was sleeping on the couch in the living room but everyone else had a bedroom off of one main hallway—like my house growing up.  The people living in the house called the hallway Death Row because every so often someone would be murdered during the night, while they slept, in a very gory way, I think with a knife.  We all knew it was this one woman—she very proudly announced it, & seemed to take pleasure in our fear—but for some reason we didn’t seem to think we could stop her.  

She enjoyed the fact that we didn’t know what night she would strike.  At one point I looked in on her & saw her lying in bed with a smile on her face, like she was awake & knew we were scared.  She had threatened me, too, so I was terrified to go to sleep, as was one other woman who lived there (although she seemed to take it for granted that she just had to deal with this).  I was tired but doing all I could to stay awake.  I just wanted to make it through the night & get out of there, although it wasn’t clear if I could leave in the morning.  I just wanted to go back home.

I don’t really remember what happened after that.  I might have made it until morning, however.

The dream wasn’t a pleasant one, obviously.  I feel scared thinking about it.

Secrets

The Day After

            It was not the water I feared but the coming

                                                down

                          the expelling of the clouds from my lungs

            I was not alone but I could feel the earth tearing

                                                it was torment it was joy

                                    it was for one morning dream to know

                                                I would not be           

broken

           

            Until full of torture full of faith I woke up in another place

                                    The coming back

                        the coming

down

                                                           

                        back here where all one can do is breathe

           

air

            believe in me   because it is not the water I fear

           

                        to cast a net

            to hide in a shadow

                        to be that misleading and without any meaning

                                                            when I am this full of

             

            impossibilities inside

                        and as I lay here alone I would not complain

                                    if I could just resurrect

                                                what we killed to survive

                       

            In a bold moment

            I said it had been worth it

            but knew you did not believe me       and neither did I

                        my black and blue hope you were hearing     

                                    to come

                                                to fight

                       

I am so tired of death

            please

                                   let it just once be life

Searching

Notes from meeting with Ruth, February 11, 2004

EMDR
calls up familiarity & then begins to desensitize & reprocess it

-abuse background
-paralyzed by anxiety

abdominal breathing - count to 5 - 7 (breathe in)
make sure abdomen rising
then hold 7
10 times
helps to relax

reassure myself that I'm safe & okay

not really about the book
working on plan to get to a better place

Awake

Letter from Steve, 1989

I got the two greatest turtlenecks for my birthday from our loving, charitable father.  (GAG!  Charitable toward charities, maybe!)  Anyway, the turtlenecks are really great, and I just KNOW that you're going to want to borrow my "time warp" variety turtleneck - it's striped red and black (narrow), and it's too cool looking to be true.  But it is, and I'm not complaining.

Dad's getting whacked out and I'm worried, but he's a big boy now, so I guess we'll have to let go of him.  He almost started getting all gross and nostalgic, but I managed to curb him well by simply changing the subject.  He's a sucker for that one.  Overall, I had a really good time, I guess.  He still tips like shit, though!

The Future, Unfinished -- early 1990s

Diary entry, February 10, 1983

Dear Diary,

Nothing much happened today.  I don’t feel too good lately.  I suppose it’s just because of the lousy weather.  I guess I didn’t mention it, but some day we had off because we had so much snow.

Diary entry, April 27, 2014

10:57 a.m.

Working on this is giving me a fucking raging headache.

Serenity

Dream Journal, June 14, 2005

Had a dream last night that I was in school again.  It was the last day and I had to go to confirm that I wanted to withdraw—I needed to sign something, or else I’d receive an F in all of my classes.  I started to go but I forgot my backpack, and then I realized I didn’t have a shirt on, although I had a cape on, so I could cover up.  I somehow found a shirt but I was still without my backpack, and I was losing time.  

Finally I got to the school where they were setting up for graduation.  The entire area around the school (which now looked like a dark, forbidding castle) was being turned into some kind of hideous carnival designed & prepared by vicious monsters of all types.  There was one of those huge herbivore dinosaurs who, when it saw blood in its water, reminded the monsters that they said they’d stop putting “dye” in his water (he didn’t know it was blood).  The monsters just sort of snickered and went on their way.  I had to get through the monsters & past all of their traps to get into the school to sign the papers.  I don’t remember what happened after that.

Keep having dreams that Ryan is doing things he knows I don’t like & he doesn't care.  Wonder what that’s all about.

Indestructible

This sea                   filled with raging suspicions

polluted by the debris         of 1000 amazing inventions

not one in which I could believe

were you caught in the

firestorm of a million

conversations

or lost

in a dying admission

because just one thing I can show

and that is I am here                          

without you                         

alone

               

perhaps                 

just as it should be

but in our graveyard of

convictions

one last night

of fading ambition

your promise on the end of my fingertips

and it falls

it falls

daylight a shade too deep

I want to know

one day I must know

was it ever thus?

the clouds mirrored in our eyes

the end of apology

the apocalypse of

us

                

Hidden

Letter from Steve, 1990

I appreciate your patience with me.  Although I personally may feel I am doing nothing really wrong.  I do know that my lifestyle right now is one which you are not accustomed to seeing me in.  So, I can understand your "worry."  It isn't exactly necessary, but at least I am assured that you care about me.  I guess what I am trying to say is that I appreciate your concern - it makes me feel good to know that you haven't deserted me after all. 

Sanctuary

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.” 
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Ghosts

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
--Albert Einstein

Diary entry, April 13, 2004

I remember this feeling.  It’s the feeling I have before/during a flashback—like I want to crawl out of my skin.  I just have to keep it at bay until Thursday.  I don’t want to do this while I’m alone.  And god knows Ryan doesn’t need to deal with it.  Thursday.  I just have to wait until Thursday.

Life, 1982

Notebook, March 28, 1988

I wish I could find this one flower.

I do not remember its name,

where I found it,

or why I was looking.

I have forgotten the color of

the day,

and the sky,

and which was brighter.

The only thing I can remember

about this one flower is

I plucked it,

then gave it away.

I wish I could find this one flower.

Triumph

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” 
― Albert Camus

Diary entry, January 13, 1984

I went sledding with Steve and Joe.  I went over jumps and everything.  I had lots of fun.  We stayed for a little over an hour.

Diary entry, March 14, 2004

Please be with me.  Please help me not to be afraid or resentful.  Please help me to accept where I am while at the same time never losing sight of hope.  Please help me to be grateful for what I have.  Please help me to see beauty when all seems so ugly.  Please never abandon me.

Hypocrisy

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

--William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 3

Tomorrow is Crying for You, Much Later

            Despair rose up in me like a flash flood, so quickly that it almost reached my heart, when I heard a snuffling.  The dog who smelled like cake shuffled out from behind an overgrown bush.  “Are you real?” I asked her.  “Or are you going to disappear, too?”

            She cocked her head and bared crooked teeth at me, as if to say, does it matter?

            I dropped down to the ground next to her.  When I wrapped my arms around my knees and began to cry, she butted her head against me until I laid a hand on her back.  The setting sun was hot on my neck.  “You won’t be safe here,” I scolded her.  “You should go back into the woods, where’s it cooler.”

            But she wouldn't move. 

            Tiredly I leaned back against the damp, cold ground.  When I closed my eyes I heard some more snuffling, and then felt her fuzzy head against the palm of my hand.  We will be safe tonight, I thought to myself.  Tomorrow was anybody’s guess.   Absolute safety would never be mine to have.  It simply didn't exist.

            Eventually I fell asleep.

            For a while it was the heavy, almost painful sleep of the mentally exhausted.  Soon, however, something began to lift, and dreams began floating in, impossible to chase down at first, until finally one settled comfortably in front of me and opened up a panoramic view.

I walked through an empty, rickety house.  Finally I reached the room with the door leading outside.  It was open.  Before I could leave, however, I noticed a solitary painting on the wall.  In reds and golds and browns it depicted a wood in autumn, the leaves gently falling to the ground. 

I jumped when I heard someone behind me.

Alone, Pt. 2

I talk to God but the sky is empty.

--Sylvia Plath

New Year's Eve

This sea               filled with raging suspicions

polluted by the debris         of 1000 amazing inventions

not one in which I could believe

were you caught

in the firestorm of a million

conversations

or lost

in a dying admission

because just one thing I can show

and that is I am here                          

without you                         

alone

               

perhaps                 

just as it should be

but in our graveyard of

convictions

one last night

of fading ambition

your promise on the end of my fingertips

and it falls

it falls

daylight a shade too deep

I want to know

one day I must know

was it ever thus?

the clouds mirrored in our eyes

the end of apology

the apocalypse of

us

               

Alone

I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.

--Charles Dickens

Letter from Erica, 1991

Dad is going to be here in 41 minutes, and then I can say "goodbye" to my serenity.  It all comes down to me being able to accept our family members for who they are, but it's so much work sometimes.  Dad & I get along fine when we stick to certain topics.  But, once in a while, I need to take rests away from him.  You know, like a little mental health break.  Sometimes I feel like I'll always be riding on this roller coaster.  I wish I could find a nice flat plateau to walk on for the rest of my life.  But for some reason I think that's too idealistic to be true.  If I ever find it, though, I'll certainly let you know where it is so you can walk on it, too!