Thirst

Mary Oliver has a new book of poetry,Thirst, out now.
It is exquisite.
There were poems that made me hold my breath in awe of their loveliness.
But, methinks that many of us, who love Oliver for her seemingly paganistic love of the earth, may be disturbed because, in the wake of the death of her life-partner, Oliver mentions Jesus.
As far as grief is concerned, I believe that whatever gets you through the night is the right thing to do. Ms. Oliver is entitled to whatever comfort she can find.

My grief has not made me turn to Jesus. It has revealed to me aspects of the sacred that I was not aware of, but it is too early for me to talk about that in anything that doesn't resemble babble.

Go buy the Oliver book. You won't regret it.

And I don't want to violate her copyright, but I do want to offer the shortest poem in the book. It spoke directly to me.

The Uses of Sorrow

In my sleep I dreamed this poem

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

Unborn-Child Pain Awareness

Sometimes, as my dad always says, "you don't know whether to shit or go blind." (It's an English idiom.)

When I see what the members of the Right have done to the language in an effort to try to change reality, I know exactly what my father is talking about.

This week, in one of those grandstanding fuckwadded-up pieces of bullshit that they specialize in, right-wing Republicans will introduce House Resolution 6099, The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. Because, according to the bill's sponsor, fetuses of 20-weeks gestation are capable of feeling pain. The answer? Is not to assume that it's a medical fact and require doctors to administer pain to these fetuses. No. The bill requires that doctors INFORM women about to undergo post-20 week abortions that their fetuses will feel pain.
See? That's the "awareness" part.
It's all part of the wicked baby-killer thou art woman bullshit.
According to Yahoo news,

The bill, by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., defines a 20-week-old fetus as a "pain-capable unborn child" — a highly controversial threshold among scientists. It also directs the Health and Human Service Department to develop a brochure stating "that there is substantial evidence that the process of being killed in an abortion will cause the unborn child pain."

Abortion providers would be required to inform the mothers that evidence exists that the procedure would cause pain to the child and offer the mothers anesthesia for the baby. The mothers would accept or reject the anesthesia by signing a form. The bill allows for an exception for certified medical emergencies.

Seems kind of ironic that Mr. Smith is getting all verklempt about unviable fetuses, when shit like this is happening across the country:
Women in prison give birth while wearing shackles and without pain meds.

Shawanna Nelson, a prisoner at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Ark., had been in labor for more than 12 hours when she arrived at Newport Hospital on Sept. 20, 2003. Ms. Nelson, whose legs were shackled together and who had been given nothing stronger than Tylenol all day, begged, according to court papers, to have the shackles removed.

Or, perhaps a more obvious parallel: House Resolution 855

Commending the cooperation of important allies in counterterrorist operations, condemning the criticism of such cooperation by the European Parliament, and commending the counterterrorism efforts of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Whereas renditions are an anti-terror tool that the United States has used for years, consistent with its laws and treaty obligations;

Whereas the Central Intelligence Agency does not condone or tolerate torture , transport individuals to other countries for the purpose of torture , or knowingly receive intelligence obtained by torture ;

Whereas the counterterrorism efforts of the Central Intelligence Agency contribute to the security of the United States and Europe and reduce the likelihood of terrorist attacks;

We don't torture. Therefore, the pain felt in the torture cell? N'existe pas--you traitorous, pathetic, American-hating, terrorist-loving assholes.

And, of course, there's always circumcision: removing the foreskin of a male infant can be alleviated with a little wine-soaked rag, but a 20-week fetus, which is incapable of life outside the womb, suffers horribly--maybe--so doctors need to make sure that the ignorant sluts thinking about aborting the fetuses must be informed of that fact.

If it is true that a 20-week fetus feels pain, than yes, by all means, alleviate that pain and suffering. But this is so clearly not about that. This is about voicing objection to abortion.

Just for good measure, the bill reiterates, with pornographic, horror-film relish, the following:

(A) The dilation and evacuation (D and E) method of abortion is commonly performed in the second trimester of pregnancy. In a dilation and evacuation abortion, the unborn child's body parts are grasped with a long-toothed clamp. The fetal body parts are then torn from the body and pulled out of the vaginal canal. The remaining body parts are grasped and pulled out until only the head remains. The head is then grasped and crushed in order to remove it from the vaginal canal.

(B) Partial-birth abortion is an abortion in which the abortion practitioner delivers an unborn child's body until only the head remains inside the womb, punctures the back of the child's skull with a sharp instrument, and sucks the child's brains out before completing the delivery of the dead infant, and as further defined in 18 U.S.C. 1531.

If you listen closely, you can hear the slap-slap-slap of someone beating off to the idea of such exquisite violence, all perpetuated because of the sin and depravity of woman, with her ever-devouring womb and her dangerous, but oh so tempting, vagina dentata.

In one of those bursts of irony that take the breath away, the bill further explains the following:

(7) There is a valid Federal Government interest in preventing or reducing the infliction of pain on sentient creatures. Examples of this are laws governing the use of laboratory animals and requiring pain -free methods of slaughtering livestock, which include, but are not limited to the following

So, animals are entitled to pain relief before being slaughtered. Fetuses, who are also being slaughtered according to the semantics here, should also be given the same treatment that we give animals.

Oh, but shit like this?

That's to be commended. Iraqi people don't feel pain. Why the fuck should their fetuses?

What It's Like

I think I may be at the losing my mind stage of grief. It's combined with the "I must have made this all up in my head" stage. And a few days ago, I would have sworn I was fine. But this morning, it's as if I've stepped on a rake.
As usual, when shit like this happens, I lose all sense of my body's proportions. I got up this morning convinced that I now weighed more than the HMS Queen Mary, but when I stepped on the scale, it said I had lost weight since Y died. Of course, the only things I've eaten are eggnog lattes, an occasional cookie, and "bites of food." I make food, take a few bites, and then don't want to eat anymore.

I read the news and nothing gets in. I think to myself that I should write about bloggy stuff--who the fuck cares that my life right now is trying to sort out what the fuck happened to me--and I should go back to being an intellectual.

It's the little things that make you crazy at times like this. A sunset the other night that was gorgeous--and knowing that he could not see it.

I was sort of lost in those thoughts when I dragged myself over to the cafeteria to get a tuna melt. And the woman behind the counter, the same woman who I get stuff from every day, asks me if I saw the Kramer "thing." And then she goes off about how no one knows that the hecklers had been calling Kramer names beforehand. "He needs to stop apologizing" she says. And I think she's coming dangerously close to making some racist statement (she heard Kramer on Bill O'Reilly last night, she informs me) and I'm thinking in my head, "Please, please, please make her shut up. I can't let her make racist statements, but I can't fucking deal with this right now. Shut up. Shut up. Please shut up." And then she changes the subject and says her husband can't find anybody to do welding anymore and soon, they'll have to import all those jobs, too. And I castigate myself for letting this shit go, but she's a cafeteria worker and I'm faculty, and I become aware of the class/power differential, and then I get all fucked up in my head and I take my sandwich and pay for it and take about five bites, and throw it in the garbage. Wasting food.
And that's what it's like inside myself right now.

Interjections

In an attempt to teach my students grammar and all that stuff they have previously failed to learn, I'm returning to Grammar Rock.

This time: INTERJECTIONS!!!

Be Vewy Vewy Quiet

What's Opera, Doc, one of the classics. I learned more about opera from Looney Tunes than I did from anyone else until I grew up.

The woods are closed

It's unwise to walk in the woods right now. It's gun season, and the woods are full of hunters looking for winter meat and frightened animals. By the time I can go back in the woods, it will be snowshoe season, and this last canopy of leaves will have become the basis of next year's humus.

Memories of Summer Heat

This summer, it was so hot in my poorly insulated old house that candles drooped in response. Now, months later, the bent candles remain.

Friday Nights

Friday nights are hell. There is something about anniversary days, regardless of how close or far-removed they are from the actual event, that set something off in my psyche. Yesterday was only the second Friday that had passed since Y's collapse. Last Friday was the memorial service, and this Friday, well, this Friday I needed to find something to do with myself.

Wednesday night, I was driving with a friend due west. The sun was setting, and the vermilion sky cast the barns and the trees in a sort of blood-amber light. In the midst of all that redness was the palest sliver of new moon. Inanna's moon, and I was reminded of the legend that says that the sliver of new moon is Inanna's boat, carrying the souls of the worthy from the underworld to heaven.

I could not take comfort from that legend. The only thing I could think was, "When you're dead, you don't get to see these things anymore." And the idea that Y could not see what I was seeing pierced me. Death is not about the dead. It's about the living. It's about how we make meaning out of the sudden disappearance of what was once a presence.

I keep seeing his ghosts everywhere. They're private moments, and I'm collecting them all, trying to piece them together so that perhaps, if I gather enough of them up, I can glue them together and make him present again.

Ridiculous. I'm a rational, intelligent human being. And yet.

Un-Named and Uncounted

When Caoily was 10 months old, she came down with rotavirus. If you have children, and you've been through this, then you know how awful this common infection is. Everything you put into your child--in my case, breastmilk and some solids--comes out in a very short time as a watery, noxious, seemingly neverending river of shit that overflows diapers. I would breastfeed her, and she would be shitting simultaneously, covering both of us in it as I tried to get fluids into her to keep her from dehydrating.
Our pediatrician hospitalized her after 12 hours. For three days, she stayed on a simple solution of electrolytes and fluid through an IV in her leg, the only vein the anesthesiologist (I had insisted on an anesthesiologist) could find to puncture.
She was one of the lucky ones.
1.6 million African babies will die in their first 28 days of life. If it takes you five minutes to read this diary, 15 babies in Africa will have died.
But hey, apparently, we're making progress.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Each year more than one million babies in sub-Saharan Africa die before they are a month old because of a lack of essential health care, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.
"Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most dangerous region in the world for a baby to be born -- with 1.16 million babies dying each year in the first 28 days of life," said the report published, in Johannesburg and Geneva.

According to the World Health Organization:
New report shows improvements in child survival in Africa for the first time since the 1980s - but more than a million African babies still die in the first month of life.

Up to half a million African babies die on the day they are born - most at home and uncounted. According to the report, Liberia has the world's highest newborn mortality rate at 66 deaths per 1,000 births compared to less than 2 deaths per 1,000 births in Japan and 6 deaths per 1,000 births in Latvia. Half of Africa's 1.16 million newborn deaths occur in just five countries - Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda. Nigeria alone has over 255,000 newborn deaths each year.
"The health of newborn babies has fallen between the cracks - Africa's un-named, and uncounted, lost children," said Dr Francisco Songane, Director of the Partnership. "We must count newborn deaths and make them count, instead of accepting these deaths as inevitable. The progress of these six African countries demonstrates that even the world's poorest countries can look after their newborns, their most vulnerable citizens. They have shown the way-we must seize the opportunity."

It's that fucking phrase, "un-named and uncounted," that is sticking in my craw.
Uncounted.
Uncounted.
That's what we're doing in Iraq, right? Not counting the dead? That's what we do when the dead don't matter. We don't give them names. We don't count them.
That's what we say to each other in games where nothing's at stake. "That doesn't count."

Did you know that American Indian infants are 1.7 times more likely to die than "white" infants?

Does that count?

Did you know that in Massachusetts, in 2003, black infants were 3 times as likely to die as white infants?

Where the fuck are the right-to-life crowd on all this? Oh yeah. Busy trying to protect potential zygotes. Fuck the born. Fuck all of them.

I can hear some of you muttering now. Lorraine. Dudette. We know you're kind of flattened by grief and all, but you're not making a lot of sense. African mortality rates and the anti-choice faction in America? What's the connection? If you pay attention, you already know the answer to that question. You see, the reason that so many mothers and children are infected with HIV in Africa, and thus, the reason so many un-named children die, is because that same sanctimonious, woman-hating, fuckwad-loaded group of organizations in America and the Vatican who spend all their fucking energy weeping and gnashing their teeth over sacred sperm and holy ovaries are the same fucking groups who support Gag rules, and oppose the distribution of condoms, and who continue to preach that sex is bad, abstinence is the only way, and dead babies are God's way of manufacturing little angels whose wings fan his magnificent face and keep him cool.

If you want to send, oh, I don't know, the equivalent cost of a can of cranberry sauce to one organization that's making a difference, may I suggest Medecins sans frontieres?

Angel

Because I have not yet finished crying.

Ashes

Me. In the hotel room. Right before I left for the memorial service.

Y. A photo he sent to me when we were preparing to meet one another.

I feel as if I've dropped a box of marbles on a hardwood floor. They're rolling everywhere. They are my memories of Y. I'm afraid I won't be able to gather them all up, that some will never be found again. Maybe years later, when someone is renovating the house, they'll find a single cat's eye underneath a floorboard and someone will wonder at its significance.
Note from my notebook as I've tried to write down what is happening to me right now.
This is the letter I sent to his friends and family after he died.

Y's last day

Dear Friends of Y,

I want to tell you about November 10, 2006, about the hours that I was with Y. I know that Yves was a private man; he and I talked about that, but I believe he would be okay with my talking about such personal matters with his friends. I think he would like for you to know that on November 10, he was a very, very happy man, and that except for the last five-to-ten minutes of consciousness, he was in no pain.

I ask you to indulge me for writing in English. I do speak and understand French, but there would be no way that I could tell you all of these things in a language other than my native one.

Y and I met on-line. The online personals. Both of us felt rather dorky about meeting this way, but in this modern world, sometimes, it's the only way to reach across the miles and find someone interesting. I had been out on internet dates before. Some had been good, some had been awful. Y had never posted online before. The weekend of November 3, we made contact. First, at the site, and then very quickly, through our private e-mail accounts. Instantly, there was a connection. And Y called me on the telephone when we had been in contact for less than 24 hours. From then on, we talked on the phone a lot, e-mailed a lot, exchanging bits of information about our lives and our families and what we wanted.

I found myself impatient to meet him, and I "dared" him to meet me Friday. I had the day off work, and I offered to drive up to Montreal to meet him. He agreed. And both of us were very nervous. We kept talking about our "butterflies," how we were taking such a chance to meet a total stranger and hope that there would be chemistry. We had agreed that I would most likely sleep in the guest bedroom, although there was a lot of flirtation back and forth about whatever possibilities might occur. We had seen photos of one another, and there was already a feeling that we were going to be attracted to one another.

I stopped by my work to pick up my reading glasses and called Y about 9:15 to let him know I was on my way. At about 1:15 pm, he called me to ask where I was. I pulled up in front of his apartment building about 2:30 I think. He came out to my car, helped me in with my bags. We were both happy to meet one another. As soon as I arrived, I walked over to his refrigerator and looked inside. He was puzzled, and I said,
"My girlfriend's a little worried about me coming up here without meeting you first." So I made him listen as I called my friend and said to her, "Well, I've checked. There are no body parts or decapitated heads in the refrigerator."
And Y said, grinning, "You better check the freezer." And we laughed.

We sat down on his couch, began to talk, and he said that we should go to the market to get a few things because there was nothing to eat in the house. And so we had this plan to go run all these errands, and I went into the bathroom. I came out, and simultaneously, we reached for each other and kissed. "Made out" as Y said. And at one point, I asked him, "Do you think we're going too fast?" And he said, "Yes, but I don't want to stop."
And we made love all afternoon. It got dark, and we were laughing and touching and Y just kept telling me how lucky he was, how amazing this was, this thing that we could feel happening between us. And he said a lot of personal things to me that meant a great deal to me, lover's talk.
Anyway. It got dark, and we agreed that it was time to go to the market and get some food. We took a shower together, and then we set out to go into the village. We were going to go buy some food to bring back and cook, but both of us acknowledged that we were starving, and Y decided we would go to this restaurant he knew. So, we turned the corner, and Y just lit up because there, in front of us, were H and M. M got out of her stroller, and she showed her daddy her banana popsicle, and I heard him tell her that he would come get her from daycare and spend time with her, and she told him about the banana popsicle, and they hugged and kissed.
Then we walked on, and he was grinning, and he said that seeing his daughter had made the day even more perfect because she was everything to him. He said that when he thought of her, he could think of nothing else.
And he stopped at a little store and bought some cigarettes and he and the shop clerk talked about M and her banana popsicle. And then we went to the restaurant.
We were very silly at the restaurant, making jokes, and flirting, and having a good time. And Y said, "I think I've won the lottery." And he talked about how happy he was that this date had turned out to be so perfect.
We talked about all the things we needed to buy at the market, but Y had a little headache, so we decided we would go shopping the next day.
So we walked home, and we ran into Y's friend and her daughter, and we walked with them until we got to the apartment building.
We went into the apartment, and I told Y to lie down after he had taken some aspirin for his headache. I rubbed his scalp, and his neck, and shoulders and back, and he talked about how much it meant to him to be touched. And we talked about how amazing this all was, and then, again, we made love.
And he kept saying, "I've won the lottery." And "I know I'm repeating myself, but I've won the lottery." And we were making jokes about all the ways we could find to get ourselves arrested that weekend. And he was going to make pancakes and fruit and yogurt for me for breakfast. And coffee. Definitely coffee, because we both loved coffee.
At about 9 pm, Y started apologizing because his headache hurt and he wanted to sleep for a while. So I curled up next to him and I got out a book of poetry that I had brought and read to him while he lay there.
The poems are all by the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, and the first one I picked to read to him because I knew it would make him laugh.

A Dog After Love

After you left me
I had a bloodhound sniff at
my chest and my belly. Let it fill its nostrils
and set out to find you.

I hope it will find you and rip
your lover's balls to shreds and bite off his cock-
or at least
bring me one of your stockings between its teeth.

And we did laugh at the absurdity of the poem, the jealousy and such.

I was flipping through the book, and the next poem I read was completely random:

In a Leap Year
In a leap year the date of your death gets closer
to the date of your birth,
or is it farther away?
The grapes are aching,
their juice thick and heavy, a kind of sweet semen.

And I'm like a man who in the daytime passes
the places he's dreamed about at night.
An unexpected scent brings back
what long years of silence
have made me forget. Acacia blossoms
in the first rains, and sand dunes
buried years ago under the houses.

Now all I know how to do
is to grow dark in the evening. I'm happy
with what I've got. And all I wish to say is
my  name and address, and perhaps my father's name,
like a prisoner of war
who, according to the Geneva Convention,
is not required to say a single word more.

And then I said I wanted to read to him Amichai's most famous poem. And I told him the story of how when Yitzak Rabin and Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize, this was the poem that Rabin read. I wanted to read it to Y because I knew he had children. It was only later that I realized what was contained in the poem.

God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children

God has pity on kindergarten children.
He has less pity on school children.
And on grownups he has no pity at all,
he leaves them alone,
and sometimes they must crawl on all fours
in the burning sand
to reach the first-aid station
covered with blood.

But perhaps he will watch over true lovers
and have mercy on them and shelter them
like a tree over the old man
sleeping on a public bench.

Perhaps we too will give them
the last rare coins of compassion
that Mother handed down to us,
so that their happiness will protect us
now and in other days.

Y was tired, and he closed his eyes. I read a novel for a little while. I have chronic insomnia, so I took my sleeping pill and I fell asleep.

About an hour later, Y woke me up. He got out of the bed, and he said "My headache is killing me. I'm going to take some tylenol." And I listened as he went in the bathroom. I heard a noise, and and I heard him turn on the water to get a drink, but the water was running really hard. So I got up to see what was going on. Y was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, and the pills were spilled on the floor. He said, "Please help me take the pills." So I got them and gave them to him and a glass of water. I grabbed a washcloth and soaked it in cold water and gave it to him to put on his forehead. I knelt down beside him and he said, "Help me back to bed." So I tried to help him stand up, but he fell against me and I fell against the vanity and felt myself bruise. He was rubbing his arm, and I said to him, "We should call the doctor." And he said, "No. I'm just a little dizzy. Just let me sit here for a minute and then we'll try again."

I got this idea. I went into the bedroom to grab the duvet, and I came back and said to Y: "Crawl on to this blanket and I'll pull you into the bedroom. We'll put you back to bed." And he tried to move forward. At that point, I said, "I'm calling 911" and I called the number.

Y pitched forward, putting his head down on the blanket. His eyes fluttered closed, and I wrapped the blanket around him. He was breathing very hard, and he was unconscious. He could not hear me. But I kept rubbing his back and sitting with him, waiting for the ambulance. He was shaking. But he was in no pain. When the EMTs arrived, they could get no response from him. I believe he was already on his way to somewhere else.

They worked on him for a few minutes, and then they took him to the hospital. I went in my car. I waited in the waiting room. Two doctors asked me to describe everything that had happened before Y collapsed and I told them. I asked if I could see him. They would not let me, and they told me to go home and they had a lot of tests to do and they would call me.

So I went back to Y's apartment and I lay on his bed. I slept a little, and then the phone rang and they told me the bad news that he had had a massive brain bleed. They told me they didn't know how to contact his family, but I remembered that Y's cell phone was on the kitchen table, so I went and got it. I remembered that when we ran into M and H, that Y had told me the name "H" and I looked for that in his phone list. I gave them the phone number. They told me they were going to take Y to another hospital.

You know the rest. H called me at 7, and I went to the hospital to say goodbye.

I want you all to know that Y did not suffer. He had a headache, but I do not think that even when he was feeling dizzy that he knew he was dying. He was so insistent that he did not need a doctor when I first said it. And he was not alone as he sank into unconsciousness. I was there with him. He knew he was being cared for.

I have done so much crying since Y died. There are so many things to be sad about, including my own sense that I had found this man with whom there seemed to be this bright future, and then it was snatched from me, from us.

But I am so grateful that I got to be there for Y. It has struck me repeatedly, all the strange things that happened. Why did his brain bleed happen when I was there? Why did we change direction and then run into H and M? Why was it so intense between us? Why did Yinsist on telling me, over and over again, how happy he was?

I have been shattered by this experience. I feel as if I got to be a part of something so much greater than myself, that I got to be present for Y and take care of him in his last conscious moments. That I got to help him to have such a happy day.

Part of me is so angry. Angry that he leaves behind Z and M who still need him. Angry that he will not see them grow up. Angry that I got to have just a few hours of Y before he left. I am not a religious person, but if I meet God someday, I will kick him in the shins. I think Y would approve.

------
So that's what I wrote to his family. His family has been insisting that I was the angel in all of this, and they asked me to be at the memorial service. Y had been alone for two years before he met me.

I was fussed over at the memorial service, and I was asked to tell the story of his last day. Which I did. And at some point, I'll be able to write about what I said and how I let all those people know that Y had not suffered, how he had given me the gift.

I was okay at the memorial service. Before I spoke, his friends, who were all musicians, took turns singing various songs in French and English. I was sitting, and one of his friends got up and said, "Y was not alone on his last day. He was with an angel, and she is right here now with us." And then she started playing this song, by Sarah Maclachlan, and I fell apart.

Angel
Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There's always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there

So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lie
That you make up for all that you lack
It don't make no difference
Escaping one last time
It's easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
This glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

So, I've been listening to that song. But I've also been listening to this song, by Dar Williams, especially this part:

After All

But now I'm sleeping fine
Sometimes the truth is like a second chance
I am the daughter of a great romance
And they are the children of the war

Well the sun rose with so many colors
It nearly broke my heart
And worked me over like a work of art
And I was a part of all that

So go ahead, push your luck
Say what it is you've got to say to me
We will push on into that mystery
And it'll push right back
And there are worse things than that

'Cause for every price
And every penance that I could think of
It's better to have fallen in love
Than never to have fallen at all

'Cause when you live in a world
Well it gets in to who you thought you'd be
And now I laugh at how the world changed me
I think life chose me after all

This is the first time I've tried to write about this. There is so much more left to say. I think there is a book in here somewhere, but right now, I'm the blank page.

I want you all to know that your kindness to me sustains me.

I miss him so much.

Dirge Without Music

Some of you know that I was with Y. on Friday night when he suffered a massive brain bleed and died. It is why I have been so quiet the past few days.


I have been writing down notes everywhere since Y. died. At some point, I will be able to make sense of things. There is something profoundly sacred in what happened, and right now, I am riding the waves of the universe, allowing myself to float. Eventually, there will be a spilling of ink. My sense is that once I begin to write about all of this, there will be no stopping.

This is the poem I'm clinging to today.

Dirge without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Thank you to all the people who have reached out to me these past few days. I am grateful. But right now, I am feeling quiet. And I know that I am loved.

Freedom

Light at the End of the Path

Is that light I see before me? November 8, how I await you.

Amanda Rocks

Amanda at Pandagon has an amazing post about the Haggard clusterfuck. Turns out, the person responsible for Haggard's straying is none other than his wife. If she'd just been more loving, poor old Ted wouldn't have gone looking for cock and meth.

Is there nothing that Fundies will not stoop to if it keeps them from having to re-think any of their positions?

We Shall Not Be Moved (Backwards)

The Pomegranate
by Eavan Boland

The only legend I have ever loved is
the story of a daughter lost in hell.
And found and rescued there.
Love and blackmail are the gist of it.
Ceres and Persephone the names.
And the best thing about the legend is
I can enter it anywhere.  And have.

As a child in exile in
a city of fogs and strange consonants,
I read it first and at first I was
an exiled child in the crackling dusk of
the underworld, the stars blighted.  Later
I walked out in a summer twilight
searching for my daughter at bed-time.
When she came running I was ready
to make any bargain to keep her.
I carried her back past whitebeams
and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.
But I was Ceres then and I knew
winter was in store for every leaf
on every tree on that road.
Was inescapable for each one we passed.
And for me.

  It is winter
and the stars are hidden.
I climb the stairs and stand where I can see
my child asleep beside her teen magazines,
her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.
The pomegranate!  How did I forget it?
She could have come home and been safe
and ended the story and all
our heart-broken searching but she reached
out a hand and plucked a pomegranate.
She put out her hand and pulled down
the French sound for apple and
the noise of stone and the proof
that even in the place of death,
at the heart of legend, in the midst
of rocks full of unshed tears
ready to be diamonds by the time
the story was told, a child can be
hungry.  I could warn her.  There is still a chance.
The rain is cold.  The road is flint-coloured.
The suburb has cars and cable television.
The veiled stars are above ground.
It is another world.  But what else
can a mother give her daughter but such
beautiful rifts in time?
If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.
The legend will be hers as well as mine. 
She will enter it.  As I have.
She will wake up.  She will hold
the papery flushed skin in her hand.
And to her lips.  I will say nothing.

Caliberal has been in despair about what has happened to women in this country. I love Cali; she's my girlcrush, and I wish we lived closer so I could hang out with her. But here, in my home, I have two reasons for every move I make in honor of women. Two daughters, born of my body, and the lights of my life.

Sometimes, I just want to throw up my hands and give up. We are going backwards when it comes to women's rights in this country. The Fundamentalists, whose fear of women is so pronounced that they can't think of enough ways to punish us for having vaginae, currently seem to have direct access to those in power who make decisions about women's rights.

Of course, it's the same in various parts of the world. Bob Herbert's columns this week dealt with violence against women--violence that was directed at women solely on the basis of their sex.

My friend, Amy, said it more eloquently, I think, but then again, I think poets say most everything more eloquently than those of us who write clumsy prose in offering to the Muse.

Voices
Amy Small-McKinney  

  Rwanda, Africa

Lake Kivu plaits through the Rift valley,
a current of despair and revenge.
I was the Hutus' favorite daughter,
Pauline Nyiramashuko.
I am their nation; a lakebed,
my mouth a volcano,
a danger to anything that breathes.
My nation insisted I become a nation,
scissors, opened and closed, life sliced
in two.  I sent my son, Shalom,
to young Rose, the Tutsis' plea to God,
to where she hid, to the fields
where her faith fought back.
I called to the Tutsis, exhausted as rain:
Here is your food.  Here is your shelter.
All of their death took only an hour;
a red chested cuckoo asked why.
I told him: My eyes are split open,
I am sorry; I am not.

  Bombay, India

This will never end, my wandering
into the twilight, out of my Bombay
backyard, my parents' final basket of fruit,
my peafowl sashaying to the males' courtly
help help of recognition.
I miss my peacocks more than mother or father,
birds of prey who could not comprehend
this girl's longings. 
When the males release
their plumage, they call ahhh ahhh;
the peahen mutters Hell-o  Hell-o.
I can not tell you
what you want to hear,
cannot remember the travelers' eyes, faces, words,
any kindnesses as I drifted out of my skin,
as my mouth became the rapist's chick, wingless, blind. 
This will never end.  No, I am not that girl:
her sorrow song not mine.

  Provincetown, USA

I do not wake up every morning and thank God
that I am a man; I love my mother. 
I will never tell my wife.
What I love most is morning,
my line cast for stripers,
their obedient mouths.
The girl was pretty, tall, lean enough.
In the graveyard, the headstones
shut their eyes, their mouths sang
silently, she did not hear their sympathy.
All of my life looked
meek in the setting sun.
I heard her No, but who
could stop in the throes of opening.
That was another life.

  Meerwala, Pakistan

She was never my true child.
My snow white crane,
her red right eye, her hysterical cry
entreating me, Faz Mai, to feed her.
I hear her
in the shallow waters of the Indus,
but my breasts are not milky,
the weeping sustenance that calls
my fledgling home for food
is only rain.  Even my tears
have dissolved into breaths I take
when I must breathe, have to breathe,
for the child who floated out of me
into my blister of nothing.
And for my cousin Naseem,
like me, forced to spread herself
into our country of dread,
into the fields where white bulbs
of cotton are slowly dying.

  Pennsylvania, USA 

That was another life.
I had not yet cradled my daughter,
she had not suckled
my lexicon of milk.
I had not forgiven myself
for being a body,
a dutiful daughter,
for inhaling my era's
numbing acceptance.
I refuse to remember him.
I refuse to remember the Portuguese
stones of loss, the nearby sea
smacking its futile fish.
He kissed me.
He did not kiss our child's sigh
as I slipped it into the waters
of the Holiday Inn, my thumb nail,
my lily, I named No, Please No.
At times, I want to be his body,
to feed him with regret
I need to imagine.
Now white bulbs push up and out
of my hardened suburban soil.
What I have learned is lime, water,
what returns and will not return.
Still, there are times I want to be you, 
Naseem Mai, pesticide flowing through
your still body like fresh milk.
Now I am milk. My daughter has eyes
so blue they become the sea,
daybreak, another country.

  Home

I return to the sink, the toilet, the mop, the clothes,
the little neck splayed opened, my husband's
silky undershirt, its smallest tear.

My husband snaps a picture
of our daughter shaping mud
for her report on the prairie photographer
who fell in love with sod,
the wonders of sod,
gave up everything for sod:
medical school, lovers, home,
to travel, to take pictures
that would be lost
in a fire, all 1500, except negatives,
imprinted on glass,
sheltered from obscurity
so, finally,
nothing was lost.

I love my imaginings of this man,
this Solomon Butcher,
the long stretches of land,
the wind, the occasional tree,
the lone dugout,
how he wanted to discover the world,
discover the woman, her fire
beneath the caldron.

I love my life,
my mislaid child,
this century of tears,
life before life.

This week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on an abortion question. One of the heroines of the right-to-choose movement, Jane Hodgson died a few days ago. Dr. Hodgson was sentenced to jail in 1970 for performing an "illegal" abortion. She acted on her conscience, choosing to provide medical care to a woman who had contracted German Measles during her pregnancy. Rubella is devastating to the developing fetus. But don't think that the anti-choice forces give a shit about any of that. Every sperm, egg, and zygote is sacred. Women, on the other hand, don't count for shit in their world.

Perhaps it's best that Dr. Hodgson not live to see what continues to happen that women fought and died for just a generation ago. Eight men, none of whom will never be pregnant, never face the danger of pregnancy, never have to make a choice about what they carry within their bodies, will rule on whether women and their doctors can be trusted to make the right decision about late-term abortion.

The law lacks the exception for a pregnant woman's health that the court held in the Nebraska case to be constitutionally required; Congress simply declared that the procedure was never necessary.

Congress declared that the procedure is never necessary? Jesus Fucking Christ. Is this the same Congress that voted to authorize the president's search for chimerical weapons of mass destruction? That spent days arguing over whether Terri Schiavo was alive? What, did they all go to medical school during one of their recesses? What the fuck?

But you know what? Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, we will fight them. We will fight them with Emergency Kindness. We will fight them with my nascent plan to create a network of women willing to help minors get Plan B. We will fight them by educating our daughters about the beauty and perfection of their own bodies, their own souls. They will not take our daughters.

For a generation, we have been losing ground. But it is time for a new generation of Bread and Roses. Of Beauty and Sex. Of Love and Pleasure. Of Equal Opportunity and Freedom.

Bread and Roses
by (Lyrics: James Oppenheim; Music: Martha Coleman or Caroline Kohlsaat) (1910s)
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

Twenty years ago, I fought my shame by posing for photos for a friends' artistic portfolio. I never thought I would post any of those photos publicly, but today, for my daughters, and for myself, and for Cali, I re-claim my body, my rights, my freedom.

It's not perfect, but it's mine. And I'll be godfuckingdamned before I let them, or anyone else, tell me what I can do with it. And if they think that they can mess with my daughters, they clearly, clearly do not know the wrath of Mom-Lorraine.

When the Enemy is the Self

Ted Haggard had a bad day yesterday. His self-loathing, his hatred of his body and its desires, desires he has stifled and twisted, caught up with him--publicly, and shamed, he resigned his position as President of the National Association of Evangelicals.

It's the kind of thing that schadenfreude is all about: watching, with glee, the suffering of one who has been hoisted by his own petard.
But, yesterday, I also had a bad day. I spent much of yesterday crying, sick to my stomach, unable to catch my breath, and contemplating the various implements within my own house that could be used to effect my own demise.

Jesus commanded that we should love all people as we love ourselves. But perhaps Ted Haggard and many, many of his compatriots do not love themselves; therefore, they cannot love others.
I get that kind of pain.

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
Emily Dickinson, XIX

My pain yesterday was precipitated by a cruel remark made by someone that struck at the very heart of me. It was a criticism of some essential part of myself. Not a valid criticism, but the kind of remark one makes when one has set out to hurt someone. It found its mark, and devastated, it took me hours to dig myself out of the hole that I had been thrown into. Of course, as anyone who has suffered from these types of events will tell you, once you get in the hole, you are quickly joined by the other monsters, and before long, one remark had become an entire critique of my useless, awful life.

I suppose I'm lucky in that I've had to deal with these types of events before. I've learned coping mechanisms--some cathartic, some merely busywork until the crisis has passed. But it was a long, horrible day. For a few hours, my self-loathing was at its zenith, and I fantasized, in exquisite detail, the various ways that if I really wanted to, I could end that pain forever and kill myself. The only thing that kept me from doing it was the memory that this has happened to me many times before, and if I could just hold on, eventually the storm would blow through me. It did. When the acute feelings had passed, I was left with the sensation of being a tree that had been violently stripped of all its leaves. Naked and exposed. My whole body ached.

Life is tough and brimming with loss, and the most we can do about it is to glimpse ourselves clear now and then, and find out what we feel about familiar scenes and recurring faces this time around.

Roger Angell Let Me Finish

One of the toughest things that depression and addiction have taught me is that my secrets will kill me if left in the dark. It does not mean that I have to equip myself with a bullhorn and proclaim my secrets to the world (although some might argue that I tend to use blogging to do such things), but rather, that when something makes itself aware to me, pushing it down into the darkness, ignoring it, is the quickest way I know to start myself on some sort of downward spiral. And so, when I feel some truth, or some urge, or some desire, I make sure to admit it to myself, and if necessary, tell someone else.

Relentless honesty can be exhausting. And as the Dalai Lama said, "Honesty without compassion is cruelty." That's the rub for me. It's all well and good to be honest, but if it merely becomes one more way to beat the shit out of myself, well, that's not the intention of honesty. Which isn't to say that I don't admit the bad about myself; it's just that if I am acknowledging some part of myself that needs improvement, I need to do so in a way that allows me to move forward in change, rather than getting stuck slung over some barrel, where I invite everyone to take a whack at my ass.
Mr. Haggard's secrets, Mr. Foley's secrets, Mr. Swaggart's secrets, Mr. Limbaugh's secrets, Mr. Bush's secrets--have not, as far as anyone can tell, made them more compassionate, self-aware human beings. Instead, they have retreated into addiction, and into projection, where their self-loathing evinces itself as cruelty to others. Pedophilia. Making fun of disability. Going to prostitutes. Sending others to war. Jesus said to love others as you love yourself. If their behaviour toward others is a reflection of their own feelings toward themselves, their inner pain must be overwhelming.
For those of you who don't know Mr. Haggard's story, here are parts of it.

The evangelical association states on its Web site that homosexual sex is condemned by Scripture, and Mr. Haggard has advocated passage of an amendment to the United States Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

The accuser, Mike Jones, told KUSA, Channel 9, in Denver that Mr. Haggard had paid him for sex over the last three years, and that he had methamphetamine several times.
“People may look at me and think what I’ve done is immoral,” Mr. Jones, who said he is no longer a prostitute, told KUSA. “But I think I had to do the moral thing in my mind, and that is expose someone who is preaching one thing and doing the opposite behind everybody’s back.”
Mr. Haggard said in a lengthy interview with KUSA that he had never used drugs of any kind and that he did not smoke or drink alcohol.
Mr. Haggard has been a supporter of an amendment to the state’s Constitution banning same-sex marriage, on which Coloradans will vote next week. He told KUSA that the accusations might have been politically motivated.

Later, however, this came out:

Rev. Ted Haggard, Evangelical Senior Pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, has confessed to some of the accusations against him according to Rev. Ross Parsley, who is serving as Acting Senior Pastor of the 14,000-member Protestant church.
Rev. Ted Haggard, a key Evangelical in the religious right and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said in a statement that he placed himself on administrative leave "pending investigation, spiritual counsel, and a decision by the church's board of overseers" after he was accused of using drugs and participating in a three-year homosexual relationship.
After he resigned, the board of overseers met with Haggard.  "It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true," said Parsley in an e-mail to the congregation.

Earlier in his life, Haggard saw demons. As he told the Colorado Springs Gazette:

Haggard had experienced a vision in high school after he was born again.

He said he saw demons hovering over newborn babies at a hospital, waiting to instill in them negative character traits such as hatred, greed, drug use and masturbation.
These were the kind of spirits Haggard knew he had to fight. Haggard said he never thought of leading his own church.

Masturbation as a demon? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that even as a teenager, Haggard struggled with what his flesh desired and what his brain told him he could have. What a conflict that must have been for him. He married and had five children. If it turns out that Haggard is, in fact, gay, he will have no need for hell. The self-loathing he has lived with is its own hell.
I am not excusing Haggard's deeds as leader of homophobic groups in Colorado and across the country. It will be interesting to see the group's reaction to their former leader: will they turn on him as the mob often does, or will they practice Christian forgiveness, hating the sin but loving the sinner? Will they send him off to be "re-educated," so that he may once again return to trying to mortify his flesh in the name of some despotic God's commandments in Leviticus?
Or, is there a possibility for Ted Haggard's redemption? Will this be his conversion experience? Will this be the moment that, his heart broken wide open by what is happening to him, that he learns to love the part of himself that he used to loathe? Will it cause him to ask forgiveness of the gay community, and to join the ranks of those of us who want all people to be able to love whom they choose to love? I think that's my wish for Ted Haggard. For him to know peace.
I can only love others as I love myself. And as I wish myself peace, I wish it for those who suffer. Maybe, if their suffering is eased, they will stop inflicting their pain onto us.

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small
contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

Rumi Birdwings