She's somebody's hero...

I wrote about this in October, but couldn’t bring myself to re-read it and edit it until now, so please forgive any tense mistakes.

My mother taught me about the power of inspiration and courage, and she did it with strength and a passion that I wish could be bottled.

Carly Fiorina

These last seven months have gone by in the most distorted blur I think I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I say that having a lot of blurred out moments that were not alcohol induced. August, September and October were worse than the rest, and I’ve been trying to think up ways to write about it. Ways to explain the feelings of complete terror and helplessness that wouldn’t sound contrive or cliché, but the writer in me knows... that’s not possible. When explaining things like this... the descriptions – the explanations – are cliché for a reason.

And of course, it started with a dream I had in the early morning hours on August 18^th...

I woke up in my room, under a canopy bed I’ve had since I was ten. A light was shining in my eyes and some show was on the TV, but my thoughts were more focused on the sensation pulling me out of bed – calling me out of that room. I pushed off the covers, slid out of bed and walked out into the hallway of my mother’s house. It was chilly for August. I turned to the left and started down the hall, the kitchen light was on and it was dark outside as I walked towards the sliding glass doors. An apparition appeared just in front of the glass and I knew who it was (for the purpose of this recollection I’ll refer to it as the person I later interpreted it as; Mema, my grandmother who passed when I was one).

Mema’s face, usually smiling or laughing, watched me, somber now. She waited until I stopped just at the edge of the counter before saying, “There’s something wrong with your mom. She’s going to be okay, but there’s something really wrong with her.”

I learned a long time ago how human “adults” are – how prone to mistakes, to breaking, they are. Even when I was a little girl there was a part of me that hated knowing my mother will never be immortal, she won’t be with me forever. There will come a time where I’ll wake up and she won’t be down the hall from me... or a phone call away.

“There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow – that, in short, we are all going.” – Miles, Looking for Alaska

For some reason – one that may come to me when I’m 60 years old washing dishes in the kitchen sink, staring out into a sunlit yard and thinking back on this – whatever something is out there guiding us, felt the need to shove this very cold reality down my throat only six days after I surprised mom for her 50^th birthday. I guess I can be thankful that it allowed me to give her that...

August 19^th, at 2 a.m. ... three days after her official birthday, my uncle took mom to the hospital because the dizzy spells she had been having since the night before hadn’t subsided and there was something off about them. When she explained it to me later she would describe it as she was standing still with the sensation of spinning -- not the room, just her. At the hospital they told her that she had a mass on her cerebellum. They were admitting her and they wanted to perform surgery to take out the mass as soon as possible.

If you’re reading this, I want you to take this opportunity to go back up a little bit and check on the date of that dream I had...

As a kid I used to have a lot of nightmares about something happening to her, I don’t know if a lot of kids think like that, but I definitely did – and sometimes she would chuckle at me, tell me to go back to bed, everything would be fine... and everything was always fine. So, I didn’t really think anything of the dream and I didn’t tell anyone about it, even though it had bothered me that entire day. I had even talked to her as she lay in the hospital, unknown to me at the time, and she sounded sad while repeatedly asking me if I would be at her house that night because she was going to be late coming home. I didn’t say anything to her about the sound of her voice. I only noted it to Sara when I got off the phone.

I didn’t find out about any of this until my uncle showed up at her house with my cousins that night... and told me where she was and why. There are very few moments in my life that have left me incapable of forming a single actual thought, very few moments that have grounded me so completely, all I taste is dust – I can count them on one hand and even that seems like a bit much. All I remember thinking when I finally settled enough was... ‘You can’t cry. Compartmentalize. Pretend.’

Seeing her, the first time Saturday morning, there was a small bit of relief that she was still whole. She wasn’t allowed to walk on her own and she couldn’t help but cry – which is understandable because she was scared – but she was whole and she was mom and I told stories of when Rob and I were little until we eventually had to leave because visiting hours were over.

Originally she was supposed to go into surgery August 22^nd, but they postponed until first thing in the morning August 24^th... the day after my birthday. I have to aside here for a moment because while this was the most unbirthday of birthdays on record – my sister, brother in law and mini munch with the ice cream sandwich the Monday before my birthday... and Lee with the small brownie cake singing happy birthday to me at midnight on my birthday... I don’t have the words to tell any of them how amazing that was or how thankful I am... and how much I love them all for that. Or all of the birthday wishes on Facebook. It all helped when Derrick, Roberta and I were sitting in that waiting room and I was staring up at that screen waiting for mom’s name to change colors, waiting for her surgery to be over – to know that I have people like that in my life.

I remember thinking as they wheeled mom from the PACU into the surgery room, she looked like a little kid going to school for the first time, terrified and unsure of anything but the people she was being wheeled away from. She kept looking at the people in green scrubs on either side of her, like the teacher and T.A. taking her into the classroom for the very first time before she glanced at me and slipped out of my view. All I wanted to do was follow after her.

Sitting on the floor of the waiting room, watching that screen and waiting for her name to change a color that told me she was out and safe... it almost seemed as if my brain stop processing anything but colors the entire 6 hours until I was able to see her again. When the surgeon came up behind me and told us that everything went well, they got the entire tumor... I felt like I was 10 again. I had jumped in the pool and held myself under until I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, and that first breath I took when I resurfaced was like waking up. She was out... she was safe.

They ran every test under the sun the first few days before the surgery and then the day after, swearing that there had to be cancer or another tumor somewhere because there was only a 20% chance that it would be the only one. Turns out mom may not be immortal, but she won’t ever be normal either, lol. There wasn’t any sign of cancer or another mass. She’s clear! =]

August and September were spent going back and forth between the Bronx, Sullivan County and Albany. There was a return trip to the hospital September 7^th – 12^th because she ended up with an infection and they had to do more surgery to clean it out, but she’s been out and up and moving again. She’s even returned to work, although I keep trying to convince her to take another month off -- it hasn’t worked. We have to keep reminding her not to push herself too hard, and she’s trying, but she’s anxious to just be better already. Which, this has taught me that mom and I share way too many bad habits.

It’s one of those things that can go without saying, but still needs to be said. I love my mom. I love the way she smiles... and the way she tries so hard. I love that no matter what crazy thing I decide to try next, her advice is always along the lines of “Do it. Just be careful.” Mostly, however, I love how much I am like her. Her strength. Her wisdom. Her crazy. I get all of it... and I’m so grateful to her for everything. I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am without her.

Dreams are funny things...

I go to bed alone tonight
for the first time again, it feels like.
There's no hand to hold,
no warmth to feel...
just my own.

And I dream of you,
again and again.
Every time, a bleeding, beating heart
suffocating in your hand.
Just yours alone.

The moon is black and full.
Beyond the fullness, it is whole,
and your hair is nearly as white as the sky is.
Why are we so blinded?
It is on its own.

Everything is backwards;
nothing where it should be
and air that can't breathe anything.
We're just trying not to be lonely.
But, we're really all alone.

...we know time and time again...

Carve my own path.

Looking back on it... forward... any which way really, I have always thought that this was exactly what I was doing. I have been through things, lived through things, caused things that some people would never understand; and then there are those who would. We underestimate people... especially the people we love because we are so terrified of getting hurt. We’re scared to be left behind, as if the truth as we know it were a total lie. That’s all the truth is... it’s what we know, as individuals; our interpretation of some cosmic unavoidable event. Maybe I’ll return to that thought, but for right now I want to stick with this one, which is that I am a horrible friend sometimes.

I owe a really close friend of mine a really big apology. A friend who, for nearly a year now, has seen me through the hits that just wouldn’t stop coming after I got back from Denver; we’ll just call them “Q.” We reconnected, as is usually our way... whether that is our paths constantly crossing (“cosmic unavoidable event”) or some innate ability to find each other when it almost seems out of dire necessity – I still haven’t figured out yet. For the most part, Q and I started talking again because Q needed someone to listen... and I needed to hear someone else’s voice inside my head besides my own. I could sit here and pretend that I have no idea how this situation switched, but I got over lying to myself a long time ago. So the truth, as I see it, would be that I needed someone other than myself to hear me.

You take people like that for granted sometimes. Believe me, I know, which is why I’m kicking myself at 5 in the morning because I’ve now been on both sides of that fence. Yeah, my life has royally sucked on occasion, and yeah, there are bad days and there are worse days... and there are really good freakin’ days. This does not give me any right to diminish Q’s truth, to make it seem as if Q’s problems – whatever they may be... I hope one day I’m trusted enough to find out – are somehow less than mine. There’s a deep, deafening sadness to it... that two tragic lives find each other so constantly. Are we hopeless? Is it because it’s something comfortable or is there something “cosmic” to our lives? The question I find myself asking a lot lately is... why Q?

Li-Young Lee said something that’s stuck with me ever since he came for a reading at Oswego last year. He told us to think of all the steps that have to occur in a precise order, at a precise time... to create one rain drop. Not his exact words, but they’re on my facebook somewhere. The point is, think of all the steps that have to occur in order for you to be held up at your front door because a delivery you’ve been waiting for all week has just arrived, and so you just miss the red light and you’re standing on that sidewalk with the blinking red hand telling you it is not your turn to go when that first rain drop falls, and it’s cold and it’s wet as it slips down your cheek. Imagine if that rain drop were specifically designed to fall on you...

Where are the coincidences? I’m blowing my own mind here. Let me back up a bit.

We underestimate people and their truths because, as prideful creatures, we hate to be disappointed; we hate to be wrong. No one is ever truly who we thought they’d be. Sometimes they can surprise us... with the good and the not so good. Over time, some of us learn to expect the worst out of people... we have to relearn how to let ourselves be surprised. I appreciate Q for everything. It wasn’t at all the person I expected to be trying to help me through some ridiculous – some not so ridiculous – things, but I wouldn’t trade Q for anyone else. That qualifies as a good surprise.

Carve my own path.

Thinking on it, I’ve always found more fulfillment in surprising myself then in waiting for other people to step up and surprise me. Which was always mom’s big advice – you can’t expect people to live up to any expectation you wouldn’t hold yourself to.

So I’ll leave those reading this with the amazing words of one Leigh Wilson, “She is a rolling stone. She gathers no moss.”


Blog Theme song:




Yours in a rolling Peanut Tin,
Carissa

...I should've proudly claimed that oh my head's to blame for all my heart's mistakes...

Not to toot my own horn, but... I’m good at a lot of things, not great, but good. Like a jack-of-all-trades kind of good, never perfecting it; never making it into something worthwhile before moving on to something else. Currently, and for the past few months, mostly I’ve been really good at making a mess out of my life. Not just small aspects of it either, it’s pretty much been a mess of my entire life – personal, emotional, physical, mental.

So I’ve decided that I need something consistent and while re-reading the Percy Jackson series has kept me fairly grounded the last few weeks, I’ve finished it again, it’s left me with an itch to do something more. The job search has sucked, but I haven’t given up... I can’t, and there’s still an offer lingering in the back of my head that I can’t shake, but I should. The something consistent I think has a lot more to do with my writing than anything else because if nothing else, I’ve let myself falter when it comes to the thing that I would tell everyone was my saving grace. I definitely need some of that right now.

I’m going to try to use this blog for just that, again, but just as before it might not exactly work. I have to try though. Starting with these crazy thoughts that have been going through my head. Well, the last two days my head has been filled with Greek gods and demigods and the awesome story Rick Riordan has written, and is still writing, bringing Greek mythology into the present, but I’ll get to that a little later. Before all the gods and demigods filtered into my head, I was thinking a lot about my generation, about the kids born mid 80s early 90s.

We’re the “life is too short” generation. I think that has a lot to do with the Y2K scare we all faced as kids – my parents and neighbors toasted with champagne and I would’ve died along side people who weren’t very fond of me – and then the attack on the Twin Towers... and the war that’s still happening. I think yet another end of the world scare looming over us for 2012 has come just in time to welcome another generation of neurotics into the fold. The good part about the whole “life is too short” argument is how it gets many people to own up to their fears and take that risk sooner rather than later – the bad part is what if you aren’t prepared for the consequences? We talk about kids growing up faster and faster these days and I can’t help but wonder if that’s because we’re all trying to look at the bigger picture and missing the smaller pieces that make the picture whole.

We’re scared. I’m terrified; terrified of being in this room forever, of never doing anything worthwhile or living up to the expectations people have for me – the expectations I have for myself. In the words of one Colin Singleton, "How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?” (An Abundance of Katherines) The how, for me, comes from stories like Percy’s and Naruto (yeah, I’m a nerd)... it comes from Margo and Alaska... you just can’t ever give up.

Fear is paralyzing. I am scared of so many things. I’m scared of failing, of letting myself and others down. I’m scared of success, of getting a taste of what it’s truly like to know what you want and to get it because you deserve it... because what if the success doesn’t last forever? But a lot of the time, I’m simply just too terrified to follow my broken heart because my rational head gets in the way, and I walk away from closed doors I should be walking through; I walk away from people I’m too terrified to walk towards. Which puts a big red circle around my biggest fault because that doesn’t come from my fear... it comes from that broken heart I sometimes can’t follow. It doesn’t let go easily... or give way to change. It won’t close, but it’s never really open either – keeping things, people at a distance. And it gives way to my conscience so willingly... steps away from people it believes need me are so unbearably heavy. It’s gotten harder to tell myself day after day that I can’t give up... that this room which was inhabited by that 13-year-old girl is no longer a place of refuge, but a box I have become so much bigger than.

Something inside me pushes on though. It’s my inner demigod ; )

Yes, I am kidding. I promise, but it does change the topic. Rick and his demigods have been plaguing my existence as a reader since Christmas and it’s become very frustrating. I haven’t been able to pick up anything since reading The Lost Hero – it angered me that much, it was so good and so shocking at the same time – and I thought I’d re-read Percy and everything would be fine, but after finishing I’m not too sure about the fineness of it. I feel like I should pick up The Hunger Games or there was another series I came across that I thought sounded really interesting, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head right now. It’s awful being surrounded by these awesome books (The Book Thief, Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, for cripes sake I even asked for Peter Pan), knowing they’re awesome, and not being able to dive head first into them.

I’ve written a lot for trying to get back into the saddle and while I could probably go on for pages and pages, I think I’ll let all this sink in for now. However, I’ll leave you with the theme song for this particular entry:



Yours in a contemplative Peanut Tin,
Carissa

...it's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert...

I'm horrible at these things... I used to be better -- when they were addicting and it was the cool thing to do. Now I have a journal I carry on my hip and a pencil in my hair. Although, since I returned home, I haven't really been keeping up with that either. It must seem strange that I carry it around and write nothing in it... ^_^

Everything, it seems, has been stalled... my writing having been the most affected. I know I just need to sit down with my notebook and a pencil and it will all come back. I'm just so easily distracted from it now. During and for a little while after Denver I read like I was starved for the words, but since it's been another thing I seem distracted from.

The last book I read and finished was My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares, which was good, but not her best. It's supposed to be a series, yet that book on its own felt like there should've been more to it. I've tried several times since to pick up another book -- from Angels and Demons to Deliverance Dane -- with no success. Suggestions are welcome : )

So I've come to a decision. For four hours, everyday, all electronics will be turned off -- cell phone, computer and especially the TV -- the iPod however is necessary. When I'm working at the restaurant, the four hours doesn't start until I return home and when I'm staying at friends I'll still stick to my four hours (it could turn into longer, once I start it's really hard to stop sometimes) even if it's after they've all fallen asleep.

Now it's just a matter of picking out a book to start off with... oh the challenges...

...i ain't gonna sleep, i don't wanna dream about the things that i used to need...

So, with a new year comes... new mistakes, new adventures, and new realizations - new things to learn. Since -- I don't even know. Since as far back as I can remember, we've been taught... "live for the day because tomorrow may never come." We're taught that you can't rely on things or people. We learn that the people who we love most are the ones who are most likely to hurt us. But, most of all... we're shown that we ultimately have no control over any of this.

I have always been the person who "lived for the moment." I mean, why make long-term plans if you can't rely on anything? It was always so much easier when I was younger to pick up the phone an hour before bowling started and just be like "Bowling tonight?"

There's something to be said about moments though. Sometimes... they're really nice and meaningful... and you could chew on a moment until it loses all of its flavor, but you couldn't live off of that. Kind of like you can't live off of gum or a lollipop. Which is the point here. Eventually, moments lose their flavor. They're fleeting. Anything worth anything has to have more substance than that; more than just a series of moments.

This isn't a new realization really. I noticed this standing at the back entrance to the coffee shop staring out from the shadows into a dirt-parking lot covered in the blinding white sun of a clear summer sky. Some how, in that moment, from that spot everything seemed so much clearer. But, like all moments, it passed and I never did anything about it. From then until right now as I sit in the living room of an ancient house at sometime in the early morning -- that knowledge I gained remained locked in the dirt-parking lot behind the coffee shop. Locked on this Web page in mockery of actions I never take.

Moments... make us miss out on so much because we're so concerned with making moments last longer than they are designed to. But, I'll admit it. It's out of fear. I am terrified. Terrified of happiness becoming just another moment. It's a paradox. I starve on moments -- drink them in and sweat them out but I'm terrified of gaining anything of substance. Anything that lasts longer than a moment. I don't know the name of it... and for a while now I've wondered what it's called when you sabotage everything in life because you're afraid of obtaining anything worth losing?

The things I have now... the people I love... I'd give it all up if I thought it would make their lives better... if I thought they could be happier with me out of the equation. Do I want to lose them? No. But, at that point it wouldn't necessarily be about me. I'd sabotage it all. I guess it feels easier at first... if I'm the one letting go. You can't be let down... if you're the one walking away.

I mean, I guess you could because they're obviously not coming after you. And that's really the rub. It's when... they don't come after you. You feel a moment of relief because it's then that you think it's some sign sent from way on high -- you're doing the right thing. And we're back to moments again -- and how fleeting they are because once that moment of relief is gone... you realize... you're the lonely one.

I've been talking with a lot of people in relationships lately and it's come to my attention that I'm an extreme when it comes to interpersonal relationships without ever noticing I was. Everything has two extremes... two sides of the spectrum and as humans our "true happiness" is suppose to be the balance between these extremes. On one side of the relationship spectrum there's the extreme fear of being alone. People who are terrified of being alone can never NOT be in a relationship. They jump from partner to partner to partner without ever figuring out what it is they want or who they really are outside of being someone's "significant other."

So, the other side of this spectrum? The fear of being in a relationship. People who are terrified of being with someone are a) afraid of being hurt or b) afraid of hurting someone else. Then there are the really crazy people who are terrified of being happy because what if happiness is only a moment? What if nothing that is said or shared or felt -- is real?

I said this to both Jess and Beth this week but it has been bothering me because it is my disgusting truth. If it were up to me... the entire world would be lonely. I wonder if anything we're taught about love and happiness and just... anything about interpersonal relationships is true. Because from what I've seen, what I've felt and done with my insignificant heart of hearts... it doesn't seem like it. And I wonder if it's ever worth it.

I find myself jealous. Jealous of people who are so willing to lose themselves in another person -- people who find this act legitimately worth whatever pain may come from it. And I feel as if... I've already lost that will... but I don't know when or how... or why.

- Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. -
- Rainer Maria Rilke -

From a frozen peanut tin,

Carissa

March of the Owls

It creeks as it moves
into boards
weary grooves.
Merely shallow,
at first.
Most believe
it's been cursed

Slowly comes
the tick,
tick,
tock.
In the corner sits
the lone grandfather clock.

It calls out to the night
and through the window
'Who' purs in.
Once,
out of mind.
Forever,
out of sight.

Field of Stepford Houses

It’s like a mantra of lies you tell yourself
I love her I love her I love her

It’s like a mantra of lies you tell her
I love you I love you I love you

It’s like a mantra of lies you tell yourself
I love him I love him I love him

It’s like a mantra of lies you tell him
I love you I love you I love you

It’s like a mantra of lies you tell each other
I want you I need you I love you… only you...

It’s like a mantra you tell the universe with chimes and pretty clothes… pretty lies…
I do I do I do

Secondhand Rainy Days

Moments, like water, stave off hunger and stifle thirst, but they are temporary, the satisfaction eventually and unavoidably lost. Moments cannot curve the burn of a broken heart -- cannot sedate the obsession of things that cannot be undone -- just as water will not feed our muscles or build our bones. We cannot survive on moments alone.

It seems so simple... to sit in the shadows of the clouds... or a door way... staring out into the blinding sunny white world. A gentle breeze can caress away the anxious claws threatening to shove a scream tearing out of an already shredded throat. The desire to misbehave -- to give in to desires -- makes its way slowly to the front of a mind too tired to fight it off and meets a frail wall of knowing that it has already been here and done that.

It slips back, hoping to find some other means to go through the wall... and claws drag back down into the hollowed out chest... for now the battle has been won. For now air filters in, expanding the chest as pinked lids close over glazed dark eyes. Bruises mark the skin beneath as lips curve up in certain victory. For now... a lie is a lie -- and it's good enough to believe. Shocks of red vibrate behind closed lids and another breeze blows through... the sun moves over exposed skin warming frozen bits and parts as the taste of the smell of rain permeates every cell.

I am swiss cheese... each hole in my chest burning and festering...

Pride

Is it worth it
if it's broken
in places that it shouldn't be

Was it real
or just a heartbreaking
stomach grabbing
God I can feel it
kind of Dream

You're so much bigger
in my memories
than I ever gave you credit for

Is it worth it
if the smell
still lingers here
everywhere we've been
everywhere I still go
even if you never did

If every touch
I've ever felt
from your hands
the brush of fingertips
across my cheek
goosebumps rise on skin

Yes, I still do

Is it worth it
if I said I hate
knowing how you love
how it hurts
like I'm repeatedly
swallowing my pride
swallowing my heart

I can't live in
beautiful lies
no matter how
beautiful the words

If it's all over
if it's all given up
was it worth it?