Thursday, February 24, 2011

Conundrums/Sleeping/Waking








Surrounded by all of this and yet, anxiety is ripping me from stem to stern.
Owen is coming today and yet, I cannot find my housewife heart.

I hate brain chemicals. Or at least the ones I have.

I couldn't get to sleep last night and read for a long time. I am reading a book of fiction, trying to love it. I checked it out of the library on the recommendation of Pat Conroy who spoke of the author, Janis Owens, on NPR and she writes of where I live. For all I know, she may be my neighbor.

Oh, the good ol' Southern stories of religion and incest and drankin' and daddies, and mamas too shamed to protect their babies and violence and men growing up to be hard because they had to and girls growing up to be married and pregnant because that's the way it was and the tender arms of a man holding you tight beside a river offered some sort of peace that seemed like the hand of god when God seemed deaf.

Yeah.

And then I did sleep and dreamed of things that turned the key to let the anxiety out again, to flow like a burst-through drainage ditch of sludge and woke up like this, like this.
Like this.
No wonder I don't like fiction anymore.
I'd rather read about Keith Richards and dope and five-string tunings and the mysterious magic of song-writing and waking up in the bed of a woman/girl and her mama at the door saying, "Y'all want breakfast?"
and that's another sort of Southern story but removed away from me and my life by six degrees, no threat there.

And why the hell has the train STOPPED on its track right behind my house?
Well. Probably to take in the glory of this yard. Oh sure. Right.

Anyway, here's the glory and I'm going to put on my shoes and try to walk off this thrumming of panic, this train stuck on my own track, try to get the wheels greased again, try to find the switch to close the floodgates. None of that shit is real and I know it. But I wonder, I have to wonder- how much true love/steadfastness/spring flowers/sweet hens/proud rooster/sweet grandson/sprouting garden/walking does it take for the goddam wounds that happened in childhood to heal over for good?

15 comments:

  1. Because wounds like that are the deepest. They don't really heal... They only grow a little skin over them, but not much is needed to rip that skin open. The best thing you can do if possible is learn some handles to cope when the skin is ripped once more... Remember you are not that little helpless child anymore, you have found your power and whoever did bad things should rot in hell... if there is a hell for evil doers.
    Hold on to your found power...

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  2. I love you, Mary. I HATE that cocksucker who ruined your childhood and made you feel unsafe in the world. I'd like to take an aluminum bat to him, and I don't care that he is old either. Fuck him.

    On another and vastly more pleasant subject, that Elvis is one FINE looking bird. He really is.

    I hope your day improves with Owen's arrival.

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  3. I do believe Photocat and SB said it all. So I'll just say hey there. Have a good walk.

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  4. I commiserate with the anxiety. You are one up with that beautiful springtime around you. Soak it in. Breath deep and bliss out the demons.
    Those demons live in the cold white north too.

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  5. I had bad dreams, too. I hate it.

    This is why I dont read books like that anymore -at least not for a long time. I can't handle more sadness or "reality" in the midst of just life.

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  6. go gently ms. moon. hold yourself tenderly today and imagine me holding you, too. what your chemistry is doing this morning will pass. hold tight and gaze upon your grandson's face. that is what is real. i send love.

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  7. Photocat- I know. Shit. I know.

    Ms. Bastard-Beloved- I adore you and the ground you walk on.

    Stephanie- I did. Thanks, baby.

    Jeannie- Unfortunately I am aware that those demons live wherever humans live. We southerners just seem to love to drag 'em out and autopsy them, over and over and over.

    SJ- Dang. I'm sorry it's true for you too.

    Angella- I know. Thank-you. Damn, you made me cry again.

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  8. I ask myself that every day. At least we have each other in it, right? That comforts me.

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  9. You face the fear over and over again and sometimes you have to fight like hell to get through to the other side.
    I admire that you face it. You have to feel the emotions, you do. No shame in that okay. Just don't stay stuck there.

    love you

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  11. I think you should put down that damn book and don't pick it up again.

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  12. Ugh, I do know that sort of fiction, and how it lives bright in you when you read it. I don't like it. I prefer to avoid, avoid, to be honest. Some fiction just isn't good for us when it taps on our strings and resonates just so.

    Like my friend who believes we must educate ourselves, and read the difficult stuff, and sent me an Anne Patchett book about bereavement when I was recently bereaved. It was very good, but in hindsight, I really wish I'd never read it.

    A pox on it, I say.

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  13. there is something amiss...
    some darkness seeping in at the edges.

    walks usually help put things in order, if not, tearful believes in cleaning and polishing the whole entire world. i prefer settling in with my needles.
    XXOO

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  14. Just letting those wounds see the light of day will help them heal. Lancing them is a good thing. We call it peeling the onion in recovery. All those complex layers. Thinking of you.

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  15. Ruth- A big and loving amen to that.
    None of us are in this boat alone.

    deb- Thanks, baby. I try. We all do, don't we?

    Jill- I'm pretty sure you're right.

    Jo- But here's the thing- the books I have written are filled with the same. Maybe why they were never published?

    handandspirit- I try to do it all. Walk and clean and polish and keep my hands busy, at least in the dirt or the kitchen. Or both. It all helps. It all saves our lives.

    Syd- It has occurred to me many times how many layers there are to this particular onion. I am sending love your way and a lit candle. All will be well.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.