winding this up -

i'm distributing my readings and books on grief. i can feel the torn fibers wanting to heal in my heart and i'm doing what i can to encourage that. i have worked so hard on this mourning stuff and, guardedly, i can say i feel a forward movement. and i am recognizing that the days that i don't want to get out of bed or talk to anyone or do anything much but cry, those periods of time are lengthening. i don't miss my mom any less, i will never miss my mom any less, but those times of howling wilderness, they visit me less. and, again, for that i am grateful.

grief and mourning, my experience of these in any case, i see as kind of a metronome. life swings way far to the joys of life; these times are the good punctuations in my life; love, good good times; EXTRA good times. and that weight swings over, from time to time, and totally out of my control, to the other side: loss, sadness, death. but mostly life is spent in that middle place, going from one to the other and thank god for that.

i have always been a big fan of Life with the capital L - but i've done that in frank denial about the loss end of this thing. i saw the sad/loss part as the "other," not part of my own experience, an interruption of it. but to take the buddhist view of it - it is the whole thing. it is no less part of my life than the parts i would accept invitations from. and it's the part that makes the ordinary life and the extraordinary life appear so Technicolor for me.

doesn't mean it doesn't suck and hurt and feel like shiat - but that's part of it too.

the whole enchilada.

another house dream ..

this time, my mom was by herself (where was dad? i don't know), and she had bought this HUGE house, with so many suites of apartments, each one with its own kitchen. and each one was stupendously grand and gorgeous and i had no idea how my mom was going to pay for this house. in the dream i was trying to figure out how much her monthly payments would be - $10,000 a month? more? in my dream, she was very removed from this concern. i could not figure out exactly what all these rooms were for.

dwelling dreams.

a dream that haunted me for the day from a few days ago: i was at a landmark forum meeting - you would have to know what this is - and in my dream, somebody came in and massacred everyone - including me. but then i was alive and trying to get out, and i was trying to escape something terrifying that was chasing me through some woods. this is quite an amalgam of dreams, i think.

there's no way to avoid it, it seems

this week, my cubicle-mate at work lost her sister after a long illness - a sister who was also a best friend. i have heard them laugh together every day and whisper over family secrets. i know that my friend is relieved her sister isn't suffering anymore, but she has been just dreading this end.

so, i thought - WELL, at least i won't have to suffer THAT loss, the loss of a sister. but you know, i have many girl-friends, and they ARE my sisters, they have always been my stand-in sisters. when i was a kid, i used to imagine i had sisters, lots of them; younger, older, twin sisters. the last death of a friend was when i was a teenager. but nothing since and that's because i've been lucky that way.

but i will be grieving many losses of sisters; i can see that now. just when i think i've got an "out" to avoid grieving, i understand that there is no such thing in this life.

regret teaches me

this is one of those things i knew before but didn't really KNOW before, or at least understand it fully.

my dad and i have had regrets surrounding the end of my mom's life; he had his and i had mine. and in trying to comfort him about his, i've had a moment of clarity about my own and how, ideally, i would like to live my life.

regarding my wonderful dad, i told him that he couldn't personally, tom-to-judy, ask forgiveness of my mom or give it either. that moment was gone, and at some point he might like to take himself off that hook. me, among some other things, i really, really wish i had taken her on a day trip to Poipu beach on Kaui. she didn't go because, according to the information, it wasn't a flat, easy surface. but she had been to poipu beach; she had stayed with my dad at the hotel that is on it. i could have made it happen. but, because i wanted, really, an afternoon by myself, like a nurse away from her case, i didn't take her with me. and i regret this.

but neither my dad nor i knew that we were all in her final weeks of life. had we known, we would have acted differently; i know this because we loved her so much. we never meant to be cruel; we were just being human. and just this morning, because sometimes i'm a slow learner, i really got that we should all treat each other as terminal cases - because that's the case, isn't it? i didn't know i'd never get another chance to get it right with my mom with Poipu beach; but i should have acted as though i did know. and i should, and will try, to extend that to all whom i come upon.

a kindred spirit - Meghan O'Rourke

somebody at work printed off an article from an on-line magazine - a writer from Slate - lost her mother just a few months ago - there were six essays - and each one of them resonated with me - she also has been going through didion and cs lewis - and also shakespeare - hamlet wasn't depressed, he was grieving the death of his father! meghan writes, in the second article, that a friend asks, "Have you found a metaphor?""A metaphor?""Have you found your metaphor for where your mother is?" and i loved the idea of this. Meghan writes that her mother is the wind - not like the wind, but she is, indeed, in the wind - she can speak to her mother there. of course, she "needs to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head," but she acknowledges that the metaphor is an option and having her "in the world" is not. i think this is lovely and true. and it spoke to me. it spoke to me enough that, as i have done several times this year, i found her email and wrote what her words had meant to me - and this is what i shared, also shakespeare:
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o're-fraught heart, and bids it break.

i am so tired tonight -

my fatigue can be more tied into what's going on emotionally for me than how much sleep i get - which is plenty. i come home some days, and i don't even take off my jacket or get anything to eat - i just crash on the couch until i get the urge to go to bed. and i haven't been going to friday-night yoga. takes too much energy just now.

i wish there were eight days in the week - i would devote one of them to nothing but sleeping.

love, christine

we're coming to the day - one whole year

my dad and i are coming to the anniversary of my mom's death. i am writing a "thank-you/tribute" that i'll be sending out, if i can get past the wordiness of it. i find that i can edit down and edit down and it's STILL longer than i wish it to be. i make every word fight for its life in a lot of stuff i write. and especially about my mom. my mother loved good writing - concise, spare, terse. she never read any of MY writing, though. would she think i was too "out there" with my heart? that would have been too sloppy for her - say it and move on. say it with less words and move on.

mom, i am trying, i truly am.

xx, christine

today i am thankful for lots of things .

the smell of daphne - i snapped a sprig from a bush at the UofW today - it's in my pocket, crushed, but still smelling of spring

my family

my friends

my cats

lil weber charcoal grill and a steak to put on it

the promise of spring

a comfortable bed with a heating pad for my cold feet

dairy products and dark chocolate

converse low-top shoes

the ability to walk as long as i want - walking has been my drug of choice - a good compulsion that clears my head and steadies my hands -

and those are just a few of the things for which i am thankful.

love, christine

i wish i had a crystal ball

i have the day of the anniversary planned; i'm taking it off. i am also walking with stacy in the morning; lunch and the cemetery with my dad later. it's passover but i am not going over to uncle sol's and eleanor's. what if it's not as bad as i fear? what if it's 10 times worse than i fear? what if i have nothing to fear?

i really don't hold a lot of stock in anniversaries - i can never remember them - i think i wrote that in one of the earlier posts. but this would be like forgetting the day a meteor fell on you.

i miss her. today i went for a medical test and it would be that i would call her after to tell her about it and that impulse is always there. so i visit her in my thoughts. mom, i went to minor & james today and had an x-ray. ah well. it is what it is. even she would have said that.

much love to all
christine

inviting me to sit and think - earth sanctuary

this was in this amazing tree (willow?) - i think in the summer, it must be like standing inside a green house - so much scope for imagination with a ladder leaning against a tree -

the bell

i saw this bell at earth sanctuary and i wrote: Deep-throated bell - i hit you and you toll and keep on even after i hear you no longer.

earth sanctuary

This past saturday, i went to Earth Sanctuary: http://www.earthsanctuary.org/

it's a little hard to explain what it is; please see their site. i was there for a cancer survivor work-shop - but i went there to sneak in my mom, quiet-like, under my cloak. we sat in a circle and introduced ourselves, and i loved everyone of these women immediately - they were so lovely and vulnerable and honest. there was one woman, 10 days out from her first chemo. her long blonde hair came out in baby fistfulls, and she would, as she was talking, arrange these bundles of blonde hair in a figure-eight on her leg; like you would pull pills off your sweater and arrange them.

i shared my tattoos, which they thought were lovely, and i shared my mom and things i had thought about on my walk through the property. chances are i'll never see these women again but i don't think i'll be forgetting them and their stories. the picture above is one of the many places where people left things that meant something to them, things they wanted to leave in this sacred place - i left a chestnut from paris from when my mom and i went there - and this is what i wrote in my notebook: i leave her here, surrounded by stones, having seen other stones in other times - always here until we see each other again.

this spring weather - -

i was driving down pine street, window down, sun setting ... and the thought of the very evening that my mom died came into my head; while it was still cold and snowy and even rainy, my molecules didn't remember that we are coming to the season, the first time through, of when my mom died. but it's coming quickly. and i have made arrangements for it, which is not the same as saying i'm prepared for it. i wish i had a crystal ball to see how the next couple of weeks are going to be for me.

this molecular memory, your DNA knowing your history - i've known this existed before; my mood changes without me knowing exactly why, and then i look at the calendar - OH, THAT's why. big hits shake the body, soul whiplash - effects for how long? i know how long; as long as it takes.

tomorrow i'm going to an all-day retreat (with labyrinth) for cancer survivors - but i'll be sneaking in my grief for my mom - suggested questions to consider on the hand-out: How might walking this path heal me? who am i if not my disease (my grief)? what is truly important to me? and a few more questions that intellects better than my own have given thought to. i will give it my best, for sure.

love,
christine

king midas in reverse -

today was odd - nothing turned out quite like i had in mind - and i had an odd thing with the phone that i still haven't figured out. it's kept me up on one foot for the day. very surreal -- i still am having trouble believing that the person i spoke to on the phone wasn't the person i thought it was.

and i know none of this makes sense to anyone - and it doesn't to me, either. just a very odd, weird day.

a very full weekend -

it was a remarkably full weekend for me - just the kind i like, spent with the people i want to spend time with the most.

i split up my work day, 4 hours on saturday and 4 on sunday - i find that 4 hours is just PERFECT - if only a person could get paid for the 8. i really, really, really want to buckle down and start making consistent incentive - i could do it so easily - but my train derails pretty easily - :) but i WANT a few things right now - these things cost money.

i saw the watchmen yesterday - i thought it was terrific - i'd been looking forward to this ever since i'd seen the previews. lots of things to think about in that movie - i think, though, at this point i could probably see the profound meanings in caddyshack. i see them everywhere - even when they're not profound at all.

had dinner with friends later that day - and it was wonderful meeting new folks. and then today helped friends make and assemble invitations - it was playing with colored paper and tape - everything but crayons. art therapy.

when i'm this busy my mind doesn't work at being sad. and for that i'm grateful - mundane as the stuff of life.

peace
christine

what i'm grieving now - the meaning of life

besides the grief for my mom - which comes and goes in varying volume - i realized today that what i'm struggling with, and struggling hard, is a notion, an idea, a basic basic thing of life. i'm grieving what i used to think of the permanence of things, love, life, health, your footprint on the planet. life just keeps going on - time erases all evidence that we were ever here - it will for my mom, and then my dad, and for me, and for all whom i love. nobody who is alive now, including me, ever saw my great-grandmother bridget cassidy. i can say her name and place her in time because i was told about her by my papa, who is now gone, and soon, after I die, there will be nobody who would have personally known james cassidy, my papa.

how is this right? how unimportant are we in the scheme of things? the prima facie evidence suggests, to me, this week, that we are not important - no more so than any other thing on this planet at this particular time. just because we wish to be somehow of value in this world, doesn't make it so.

i've learned about impermanence about many things over the years - and each time it's been a slap in the face, a wake-up - don't think that by treating your body you won't die, you will and here's the proof - breast cancer. don't think by loving someone, you can fence out loss - you're actually penning it in with you and your loved one - either by death or by some other means.

reading this over, i am definitely not somebody i would take drinking for fun right now. life has never felt so like standing on a piece of glass, waiting to be blown into shards. little cracks enter from the sides, and it's just a matter of time before it's all blown to bits.

christine

my mother's closet

my dad and i went out to dinner tonight - and instead of him driving in to the city, i went out to his place - he mostly prefers to meet me in town. i always make a point of going to my mom's "office," her bathroom - it's been comforting to go to a physical place that i associate with her - it was her smoking area - but it's hard to catch that smell now. and my mom's smell (cigarettes, perfume and dryer sheets) is disappearing from the clothes that still hang in her closet. i was not prepared for that. and i don't half like it. without that smell, it does not feel like she's just stepped away for a bit. she's disappearing from that room and that house, incrementally but surely, one molecule at a time. i still bury my face in her sweaters and coats, but even with my eyes shut and me concentrating on what i can detect, there is less and less of her there for me.

christine

sudden as opposed to drawn out -

my mom died suddenly; the process actually was about 5 weeks - but from the time we knew she was so ill, to the time she died was about 5 hours. we thought she was going to be fine - a surgeon was going to fix her up - and then she was gone. snap, shut, closed, done, just like that - no goodbyes, long or otherwise. and a part of me has wished that i could have had that time, not so that she could suffer, but to have some kind of sweet time that now i can't even imagine.

but a warehouse friend who lives in colorado, his wife is dying of pancreatic cancer, she will be gone within a few months. she's young and she is leaving a 16-year-old son and twin 13-year-old-daughters. M loves his wife so much - she's so lovely and very much the glue of that family. and M can see what's coming to him, and he cannot avoid it, no matter what he does. the loss his daughters are going to experience - it makes me catch my breath. because as bad as he thinks it's going to be, it's going to be much worse than that, by far.

when i think of different people's situation, i evaluate this and then that - like there's some kind of a score from 1 to 10 on what devastation looks like. and for M and M's family, i think this will be off the scale.

christine

a good weekend

i spent this last weekend in langley, washington on whidbey island - the langley murder mystery weekend - 9 of us, friends and family of friends, spending the weekend playing games and wandering the town in search of who killed the victim - victor mills.

the last time this (basically) same group of folk and i hung out was for halloween weekend up at cama beach on camano island - and i was pretty sad the whole time - at its worst, i would feel just this sheet of "sad" sliding down over me and i would have to put on shoes and leave to walk hard, until i could stand it again. this last weekend, i was bracing for some of the same. some nice family dynamics were there that used to be mine and are no longer - and make me yearn for something i'll never have here on earth - something so sweet that it causes me pain to witness at the same time it heals my heart.

something i spoke about today: if there's one thing i want people to know about me right now is that even if i am laughing and having a good, good time, i am still missing my mom, even now, 10 months later, and the same will be true 12 month, 24 months; there won't be a time that i'll be "cured" of this. and i don't want to be. to be cured means, to me, that the loss of her in my life won't matter to me, and it will always matter to me.

but for this past weekend, it was pretty-near as good as it gets for me just lately and for that i am grateful today.

love

christine

a few things percolating in my brain

1. the idea that by losing a parent, there is opportunity for personal growth that wasn't so apparent or so available or so SOMETHING while they were alive. i've been mulling this idea over for a week now. again, i'm thinking the price of this opportunity for personal growth is too high - but it is so inevitable. i read somewhere that all we have is our response - we do not control this ride, but the one thing over which we have control is how we live our life to those unexpected parts. what do i want to be remembered for. and how can living my life make my mother proud when she's not here.

2. i feel parts of me waking up again - sorrow and grief put the screws to some parts of my life, but not totally and not forever. i've been thinking of the movie Fearless - do you remember when jeff bridges' character eats that strawberry at the end and he has that cathartic moment? he almost dies because he realizes that he is alive. great stuff.

3. _____________________________________ - i can't put it into words at this moment - needs further percolating, evidently.

thinking, thinking
christine

hawaii a year later

it was a year ago my mom and i were in hawaii - and i've been horribly hard on myself about some things during that trip. but as i've been looking thru all the pictures i took, i am remembering things, and not the times when i was impatient, but the two of us (i liked writing "the two of us") sharing good times - excellent meals on the cruise ship - not at the all-you-can-eat feeds, but at the French, Italian and Japanese restaurants; looking at some amazing water and feeling such warm, warm air on our faces. there was such grace in those 12 days - especially that final day in waikiki - that is a time that i replay and replay - i know for a fact how happy she was in that moment in time - unallayed joy at being in the sun, in hawaii, in very comfortable beach chairs and with ME. if i don't remember anything else in my life, just remembering that day will be enough.

aloha

christine

a quickie

people on the warehouse - a few of them have had very very good things happen to them this week - not just a neutral state where no bad things have happened to them, but actually positive things, items to put in the PLUS column. when counting my blessings sometimes, like just now, say, i am listing the fact that meteors haven't hit the planet, i haven't been laid off, the people i love all seem healthy and without life-threatening illnesses. and to really understand what i mean, just put the word "yet" at the end of each one of those phrases. and you'll truly see where my mind is at tonight.

keeping it a quickie

christine

i think i dreamed of heaven

(it's funny what happens after my friday night yoga class) - this is the abbreviated version

in my dream, i went to what i thought was going to be seaside, oregon - i left my scooter (?) at a rental place that would hold it for me for 2 hrs at $20 - which i thought was exorbitant even in my dream (in this dream, i looked in my purse;i had no cellphone and no debit card - this is the definition of my feeling naked and vulnerable) - i went in and from here it got decidedly alice-in-wonderland. i started looking for my uncle sol and eleanor - could not find them. i tried to find a way OUT to the ocean - impossible to do - all the doors turned into corridors. i found a exhibition on the life of anne frank - i asked the OLD guy how long it would take for me to go thru the exhibit and he said, 32 minutes.

i looked outside, and in a field, i saw 3 fighter jets flying too low; the last caught a tip of the wing in the grass and broke apart, caught fire and burned to nothing .. in the hotel, some people looked out the windows, some did not; but i was sure, as were a few OLD guys near me, that the pilot had died, but no, a few windows down in this gigantic hotel, there he was, singed, but giving an interview.

at the end of this dream, i tried to find my way out of this place to get back to my scooter and i heard my mom's voice; i turned just in time to see her talking to a friend as they went into an elevator. mom. it wasn't until this part, right here, that i got that this was even a dream - it had all felt very real to me - but when i saw mom, i thought, oh yeah, she's dead; this must be a dream. and, again, i was comforted. comforted for her, of course. but also comforted a bit for me, also. i miss her so much, but if her heaven is a nice hotel with lots of places to smoke, then i am so very happy for her.

peace
christine

my mind is back - -

and since my melt-down on friday, i have felt lighter in spirit. like kurt says, it was grief raising it's necessary head ... sure felt like shit, though, while it was going on. but it kind of felt like, and the simile/metaphor here is coarse, but the grieving felt like a really angry blister, painful, painful, but when it broke, there was relief. (i might be coming back to edit this into oblivion)

some people have said the breaking is what allows in the light and healing. but honestly, if it were up to me, and god knows i know it's not, i'd just sit this one out.

i was channel surfing and came upon one of the religious channels and this a-hat was going on about how people how are not comforted by the holy spirit, it's because those people are not sorry enough for their sins. and i think this is bullshit.

i always get similes and metaphors mixed up - from wikipedia:
"A simile is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the word "like" or "as".[1] Even though similes and metaphors are both forms of comparison, similes allow the two ideas to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas metaphors seek to equate two ideas despite their differences. For instance, a simile that compares a person with a bullet would go as follows: "John was a record-setting runner and as fast as a speeding bullet." A metaphor might read something like, "John was a record-setting runner. That speeding bullet could zip past you without you even knowing he was there."

anyway, i am better - i got tattooed up today - i'm turning into the "illustrated woman."

again, love and peace
christine

comfort - the mewling self-pitying post - the one i've been fighting

i am going to try to not get in my way here - i just came back from yoga - she asked for us to think of our intention for the class - and my mind was free;the word "comfort" came to me - and i fought tears for the next 1-1/2 hours - and now they're here making it difficult for me to see the monitor - this is the post that has been fighting in my gut - too kind to say out of my heart, but out of my stinking gut - no thought getting in the way here

comfort - i have been thinking of ways i could have been a kinder daughter to my mom in the months leading up to her death. i was abrupt with her in hawaii - we didn't fight but at times she was my impediment, my stone, my chain, the thing that made it so i wasn't having the time of my life in paradise - i told people that this vacation had turned out to be more of a working holiday for me. what a fucking ungrateful brat - i owed her comfort. did my voice, my actions betray this to my mother? she was a very smart woman and she did not say everything she thought; she tried all her life to have me be the same, but i never was so good at walling off what i felt. did she feel my impatience? i thought i hid it well .. but people who suck at this delude themselves into feeling they're masters at it. and this is what i fear - i was not a comfort to her until her final hours of life. i was a total ungrateful shit. i was in hawaii and wanting to be somewhere else - i wanted her to NOT SMOKE in my presence - what a fucking, self righteous prig i was. i wouldn't share her nightcap. i left it to the strangers to do this. what RIGHT did i have? well, i had no right and if i could take back this last year i would, in a heart beat, my heart beat. (these tears - they are scalding my cheeks - i wish they'd leave a permanent trace; stigmata).

her final hours - here we go-we're going to wallow deep in that pig shit - hang on
finally, did god/grace allow me to make up some of what ground i had lost?please god please god. i saw her in her emergency room bed - i had not laid eyes on her for about 10 days (another occasion for guilt; why had i not? i'll tell you why - too much into my own thing) and this is what i saw - a dying woman in that bed - my first thought - she looks like a cassidy, a dying woman, she looks like her dad, my papa (oh god oh god somebody else i ignored in his final months until hours before he died, the very night before he died - i hugged that man to my chest the night before he died;i can smell him even now). my lips on her brow, her lips cracked, her breath foul, her breast bone struggling to make it out of the skin that covered it. momma, momma. and this is how i comforted her - please god make it count

#1:her poor tailbone - there was just a sheet on top of hard plastic hospital bed - i found a blanket to put between her tailbone and that hard surface (this was loosened up in my yoga class; we have soft blankets for our comfort). i rocked her body to mine and the nurse slipped that blanket between her precious skin and painfully hard surface. her body weighed nothing against my own.

#2:her cracked lips - she was so thirsty (god your son knew this) and her lips were cracked. they have these swab things with moisture on them and i kept ripping open the packages and rubbing these things against her poor dried lips - she was so grateful for what little moisture she got from these swabs - and what did it matter;she'd be dead in hours - but it gave her comfort

#3; i kissed her brow and held her clawed hand - her hand was cold; i told her how i loved her. my son came in and the look on her face - i'll hold that look forever. please.

#4; i told her when she was being taken away to surgery that she would love anesthesia -i told her she would just fall into sleep and to just fall into it -momma did you just fall into it? - and that i would be there when she woke. she never awakened but i was there 7 minutes before she died - god gave me that grace if grace that was.

#5; i closed her dead eyes - they were open and clouded and dead;they did not close on their own - i had to hold them once, twice and then they stayed closed. momma momma it was so hard to leave you there - but i knew you were just the shell at that moment - "there's nothing sad about a shell" - what i loved was gone.

please all who read this pray for me, a sinner
christine

my birthday - the first without my mom

i was anticipating that this would be difficult to get through - she once told me that on my birthdays, she thought of me all the day - i thought this was both sweet and over-much. but i got it when it was her birthday on january 3rd -i thought of her all day and it was like tip-toeing through a mine-field; one wrong step and BOOM i was back on the planet Grief.

yesterday was also the inauguration of barak obama. i don't know if that was a distraction, but thinking of my mom was actually a sweet sweet feeling - warmth through my veins. a feeling that she was "with" me and that it was going to be fine. that it would be just like this, predominantly so, in the future. i am still struck, like with a baseball bat, at how much i miss my mom - but it does, for the most part, seem more in my control.

do you see how measured and guarded i am about this hope? how i leave an out for when i need to weep? this time next year - this time last year - this is how i've been measuring out time. soon it will be this-time-last-year PLUS one day - 366 days - and then what? do these points of demarcation mean anything?

what i know is that at certain times i'll be sad for no reason i can readily identify; then i look at the calendar - on a cellular level, my body knows there's an anniversary headed my way and to batten down the hatches. as for memories of my mom, i don't ever want to forget these anniversaries. i cannot tell you the exact day or even what year i was divorced; january something. i was diagnosed with breast cancer spring 1994, but whether this was april or may, i'm not sure. but the DNA of my being knows the exact moment my mom died. i had her hand in my hand when i felt her go away from us. and as painful as that might be, it would be more painful if i were to ever forget.

peace and love
christine

yoga - beginner's mind

tonight i took a yoga class for the first time ever. it was in columbia city, where i spent just about every weekend growing up - my papa and grandma cassidy lived there -huge portions of my memory cells, all good as far as i could tell, were awakened when i parked my car and walked to the yoga studio - THERE is where papa would take me to eat burgers and he told me THAT was a jail; and if i didn't watch it, i'd end up behind those bars - papa called me bub because he thought christine was too prissy a name.

the yoga class - all cancer survivors & all dressed more appropriately than i. the instructor told me not to compare my form to theirs - too late - before the class even started, i was comparing & contrasting - and i saw that yoga clothes are NOT the same as running clothes - sports-specific clothing - my running pants wanted to roll DOWN (when running, you're not twisting your body into knots) and my tank top kept inching UP.

the class itself - the instructor said to dedicate it to some intention - and so i dedicated it to healing my heart - the instructor was so thoughtful and quiet. she took her time, but not too much, with each pose - my twitchy ferret brain actually slowed down; i could hear the breathing of the other women - the creaking of the floor in this old, old building - and instead of fighting the quiet place because i was scared it would take me to tears again, it gave my "screaming monkeys" a chance to just be still. be still and know that i am. quiet and stillness are not what i'm good at - chaos and motion are my special-tee. but the quiet and stillness were just what i needed at that moment - funny how that happens.

this is what they say at the end of class ..
namaste
christine

blog 101

this is a thought not fully cooked. and this is when i know i've not taken blog 101. do you think first, then post? or post any fool thing that pops in your head and then think on it - and be sorry for your first sorry-azz post. i don't know. i haven't taken blog 101.

but when i think about how complex we are, our emotions, wants, pains, just our way of making it through this world, it makes me want to just sit down - until i die. i am not a "why" thinker. there is no why -i've known this - there is no answer that will ever work for someone asking "why" to any BIG question of life. and if someone claims they can give you the answer, you be very suspicious and ask for their credentials. you'll find they've been photoshopped.

it is the constant change up between one thought/emotion and another that is wearying. every once in a while i get a glimpse of what my new life without my mom is going to look like. one moment, i see this is going to be okay, not MY idea of okay by any means, but i see the whole fabric of life, the duality, the "there's no love without it's flip side," all that stuff that works for most people most times. i see there's no sitting out this grief stuff; i am in the game. at other times i see the other side - life is appreciably less colorful without her; less love for me without her; less trust; less connection. and what is true for me has to be true for anyone else who has lost someone - there is a hole, a big sucking void - and there is no mom-relief-pitcher ready to fill it in.

one has to re-assemble the life. and this is not a passive thing. it never has been for me when i've had the rug pulled out from under my feet. do i have an appreciation for what i've lost and found again, for how many times i've pulled myself out of the pit and gone on? not until now. and again i have decisions to make - what do i do with this raw material that's been placed in my unwilling hands?

books

my dad is clearing stuff out of his house, bit by bit. this week it's books - pounds of books. he had many bags of books lining the stairs on the way out the door - and he said, look through them; keep what you want.

my dad is not a reader. my mom was the reader, and her mother was, and i am - and the books are from all of us. i see tons of books i got from "scholastic" while in school; i loved being the first to crack them open and smell that new book smell - big rush there. a lot of science fiction - isaac asimov, ray bradbury, arthur c clarke - i know they're mine -i've signed them with a daisy for the "i"s in my name. my grandmother cassidy's books - heavy books, serious books about serious women - Kristin Lavransdatter - books without pictures - not my first choice as a kid.

and my mom's books - english history, murder mysteries, biographies, harry potter, true crime - and Virgil - The Aeneid. She took latin in high school and this is her latin primer - i held the book in my hand, as she would have held the book; the spine in my palm - when i opened the book i saw pencil marks and notes written in her 17-year-old hand - mom - tactile memory? when i open the other books, her ghost smell comes off the pages - dryer sheets, cigarette smoke and her perfume. friends have mentioned that i'm not too attached to stuff - but i tell you, if this place were to burn down, her books would be saved by me.

love,
christine

sleep

middle insomnia - this is the insomnia that gets you in the middle of the night - and it's the most annoying - toss, turn, pee, read a paragraph, fluff the pillow, repeat. repeat. repeat. it's too late to take a tylenol PM - it'll feel like anesthesia in 2 more hours.

just before i woke up just now, i had a dream i was at my papa's house - he was gone, but my 2 grandmothers were there - and i had not made enough mashed potatoes. make what you will of that.

item: the cats are very confused by why i'm up - i can tell by the worried expressions on their faces .... just kidding .... they're just hoping that i'll be feeding them earlier than they were expecting.

music

this is when i normally cry - when i am very pissed. which is a problem when somebody sees that and thinks it's because i'm having a soft moment - i'm not

but now all kinds of things trigger the waterworks - people asking how i'm doing - what comes out of my mouth is "i'm okay" (this is what people want to hear in any case), but my eyes know that this is bullshit. eyes as lie detectors. hazel lie detectors.

music can unstop the stoppers. i was stuck in traffic just now,listening to a DMB download that the band recorded right after leroi died. and i actually hear pain in rashawn's trumpet. and in dave matthew's voice breaking - take me back, take me back. what is there in music that can find its way in like that and move your heart? the opposite is true, too, of course - it's hard to be blue when "cornbread" is playing - but honestly, mostly i'm playing "dreaming tree" over and over just for that emotional hit. Tibetan chant can do the same thing:

http://www.healingsounds.com/CATALOG/prodView.asp?idProduct=971

it is deep and profound and if one listens to it very carefully, all the way to the source of the sound, it is everything in the universe - the whole enchilada.

grief (life) is experienced by all the senses. grief (life) can be magik'ed up; grief (life) can be made tolerable (intolerable) by sound, sight, taste, touch (lack of touch), smell .... ooooh smell - another post altogether.

peace
christine

January 4th - Sunday

this is the thing - the process of grief is a lot like a roller coaster (not my own thought - i read this in a lot of grief books/handouts). and the thing about roller coasters, they're tons of fun in short spurts - but being on a roller coaster for months at a time gets very exhausting. you dream of having your emotions look more like this -----. a nice straight line. i sleep a lot - i can sleep for 12 hours at a go on my days off. i dream of trying to find my mom on a boat and just missing her. i dream that all the tires on my car are flat and i can't find my phone to call AAA. i dream of wanting things i can't have.

the major tenet of buddhism is that the reason man suffers is because he wants; he clings to things. but isn't this what being human is? how do we separate ourselves from the clinging? because i'm understanding that clinging and wanting what i can't possibly have is why this is such a struggle.

there are moments where i think, my mom is dead - okay; that's not too bad a thought. life is good, she's not suffering, she had a good life, she loved me so much and i loved her; okay, next thought - look something shiny. but then i think, my mom is dead - and i want i want i want i want - and i cry. how can the same thought provoke different responses?

it comforts me to read how other faiths and people in different places handle death and loss. i think i'll be making a better acquaintance with the dalai lama. i heard him speak at key arena 2 days after my mother's death and it gave my heart some ease.

here's to better days

christine

January 2, 2009 - what have i to say about loss?

how to start? my mother died in april of 2008. it has been the hardest almost 9 months of my entire life. & i can feel myself evolving, changing - for the better? i really don't know - who's to say. what i know for sure is that the pain i have felt over this year, & continue to feel, can literally take my breath away & bring me to my knees with grief. it has shaken what i feel about some very elemental things in my life - love, faith, luck, love's permanence, good, bad, holding on, letting go.

the first thing i feel has changed is the idea that because it's my parent, someone who was supposed to go before me, it shouldn't hurt this bad. something that is normal and expected, it shouldn't tear your heart out of your chest. but some days it does.

and the second thing - which is also still tied to thing #1 - if there is a god who is there at all times for me - & his eye is on me, the sparrow - why can't i feel his comfort? and it might come down to what joan didion wrote: there is no eye on the sparrow. if i'm supposed to learn something by this pain, then that something comes at much too high a price. if god is the cosmic bandaid, then now, almost 10 months into this thing, i feel no healing by god's presence. only a void where i used to think he lived and watched.

i will see where this year takes me. but today, on the second day of this new year, it really does not feel like any place i want to go.