stories of failure

4. pierre

 

I had arrived at the airport late and had less than an hour to spare before my flight. I was completely strung out on H and could feel my stomach churning. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. I didn’t feel right. I bought a bagel and orange juice and sat down, noting the looks people around me were giving me. I didn’t care. I knew I didn’t look well. I would sleep it off on the flight. I was going home for a week and I needed to pull it together.

I managed to drink the orange juice but I couldn’t handle food. I heard the announcement that my flight was boarding. I grabbed my bag and began walking quickly towards the terminal. My stomach lurched and I looked around wildly for a bathroom. I spotted one and began running, one hand over my mouth. I didn’t make it and vomited all over my hand, my coat, the floor. When I reached the bathroom, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I was a mess. I had to get on that plane.

I just made it, and found my seat in between two sorority girls who took one look at me and became fast friends. Neither wanted to change their seat with me but they continued to talk across and over me. I sat back and closed my eyes. It was going to be a long flight.

What the hell was wrong with me, I thought. How stupid of me to get high before the flight. How stupid of me to fuck up my life. I had transferred to the university as a philosophy major, and wound up dropping almost all of my classes the first year. I was searching for purpose in my life. I could find none. I turned to drugs, thinking I was expanding my mind. But I was on a path of escape and self-destruction. The second year I dropped out completely.

I had woken up that morning with the guy I had been seeing in my bed. He had left the bag on my kitchen table from the night before. He wouldn’t get anything for me. He would only share his stash with me, and only in the smallest, safest increments. And that kind of pissed me off. So that morning, I hit it before I woke him, and I had taken too much.

I had taken too much.

Pierre had warned me, but I didn’t listen.

Pierre.

I didn’t know Pierre well. By the time I arrived on campus, he already lived off-campus, in a place that he quickly turned into a notorious drug house whose parties were legendary. I had heard of him in a number of different ways before I actually met him. One of his friends and I used to skip class and go back to my dorm room to get high. At that point in my life, getting high was my way of maintaining a sense of normalcy, and I was indiscriminate about the drugs I took. Getting high was my state of being, my purpose. I had no desire to exist in sober reality, in a world I didn’t want to be part of.

“You’ve got to meet Pierre,” he said each time we hung out. “You’re just like him.”

But for some reason, it took some time before we actually met. My roommate had taken to hanging out at his house and she began pressuring me to go to some of the parties. I was perfectly content to stay in my dorm room, reading and getting high. But eventually I did go to some of the parties, where I’d start off in the basement where the bands were and wind up in some smoke-filled room upstairs for the rest of the night.

When I did meet Pierre, it was at a bar. He was cool, confident, popular. He had long black hair, ice-blue eyes, and a leather motorcycle jacket. Girls were all over him. Guys tried to impress him.  I didn’t see how I was like him at all. He had pulled me onto the dance floor, saying “you’re the Michelle I’ve been hearing about,” then twirled me around and around to disco music in a drug induced haze until I was dizzy. I didn’t think I liked him very much.

The next time I went to one of the parties at his house, I was waiting for the bathroom when the door directly across from me opened. Pierre and I stood face to face, then he took my hand and pulled me into his room.

“Come in,” he said, pushing aside the pile of papers, photographs, and comic books that were on his bed, offering me a seat.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked.

“This is my room,” he said. “Want to get high?”

Despite my reservations or the absolute awkwardness of the situation, that was the one question that he knew I would say yes to. We smoked a bowl together, and the whole time he talked. He talked so much I could barely process what he was saying.

“I know you understand. I can see it in your eyes. What color are your eyes? Are they green or gray or … “

“Hazel.” I had answered.

“You’re so beautiful.”

I laughed. Beautiful was not quite the look I was going for. I was anti-beauty. I had very short razor cut hair, shaved underneath. I didn’t wear makeup. I had piercings and tattoos. I wore the utilitarian clothing of the early 90s, flannel shirts, one piece work suits, army jackets, combat boots.

“Your eyes are like magic. I love your voice. I wish you would talk to me. You’re so quiet. Why are you so shy around me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re just like me. You can help me. We can help each other …”

He turned off the light and fumbled against me, kissing me, pushing me onto his bed, all the while trying to unzipper my work suit, my one piece shield. I didn’t know what to do. I was overwhelmed. His need was so strong.

We kissed for awhile and then just laid together on his bed. I listened while he talked and talked in the darkness. After some time, I told him I had to go. He didn’t want me to go. He asked me to come over tomorrow. He asked me to go out to dinner with him. He said he wanted to see me again. He said he needed to see me again.

I didn’t believe him, but I promised so he would let me go. I kissed him goodbye and didn’t see him again for months. After I had dropped out of school and was living off-campus, working at a restaurant near the college to pay for rent and drugs, sometimes Pierre would come in and we’d say hello, but that was it. He was in graduate school for film, keeping himself somewhat clean, and had moved out of the party house into a nicer, more respectable apartment.

My old roommate was dating one of his friends, and that’s how I found myself meeting up with him again one day towards the beginning of fall. We were all hanging out, waiting for our connection to show up, talking about drugs, the one thing we all had in common.

“Yeah, H is heaven and hell. You got to be careful though,” Pierre had said.

“Can you get it?” I had asked.

“Yes …” he said. “But I won’t get it for anyone else.”

“I would never do that shit,” my old roommate’s boyfriend had said.

“I just want to try it,” I said.

“You want to try everything,” Pierre said. I must have given him a strange look because he continued, “I know, because you’re just like me.”

He smiled sadly at me and I blushed, avoiding his eyes.

That would be the last time I saw him. During winter break, he od’d. He was only 22 years old.

During the week I was home, I did a lot of searching and decided that instead of avoiding the world, I wanted to change the world. I wanted to be a teacher. I decided to go back to school and began applying at different places. Several months later, a wonderful school in Manhattan accepted me and offered me a scholarship based on both academics and financial need which would cover all of my tuition. Even though they didn’t offer a BA in teaching, I knew I would have to go to graduate school eventually, so I focused on reawakening my love of learning. It was at The New School where I began to seriously consider myself a writer and blossomed in that transformational space. That summer, I moved back home to begin classes in the fall. I cleaned myself up. I had spent enough time trying to die. I wanted to live.  I would live.

 

*

“I am young, still young, and poor / and all my beauties sacrificed to hope.”
~ Cynthia Huntington

stories of failure

3. giving birth

 

Out of all the books I bought about pregnancy and childbirth, the one I loved most was After The Baby’s Birth – A Woman’s Way to Wellness: A Complete Guide for Postpartum Women by Robin Lim. In chapter 2, the author encourages the reader to “use these pages to write about giving birth to your baby.” She reminds us that “this is the story of what may well be the most profound experience of your life – the birth of your child, and your own rebirth as a wise woman.”

I gave birth to my first child when I was 24 years old. The circumstances surrounding my daughter’s birth made this the most difficult and challenging experience I have ever had. It changed me. It affected how I would approach my new role as a mother. After the birth, I wrote in the pages provided in the book. I remember sitting in the hospital nursery visiting room, reading this book, waiting to see my baby. I was alone. What should have been the most joyful time in my life was the most devastating, the most painful. I was sent home without my baby. I spent my days at the hospital, then I went home and slept from midnight to 6am. Then I’d go back, waiting to breastfeed, waiting to see her and hold her, waiting to take her home. My healing process was delayed. I was wounded physically, emotionally, mentally.

This was what I had written:

The due date came and went. Everyday we waited. We were so anxious. Finally, on thursday August 27, I began to feel labor pains. It started at 5 am and I would get pains every couple of hours. I had an appointment at the obgyn and we went and there was nothing! At 5 pm – I remember 5:12 on our clock, I got the first contraction. They were about 5 minutes apart and were getting to be between 3 1/2 – 5 minutes so we called and they told us to go to the hospital. We were admitted about 10. It was really funny as we prepared to go. It was so hectic. He was getting the ice ready and gathering clothes for laundry. Turns out that the contractions lasted like that for hours. We even walked for two hours on the hospital floor,  just dragging an IV with me. I remember looking up at the ceiling and just thinking – no one told me it would be like this. All this pain. And the waiting, waiting, waiting.

By 3 am, they told us to go home. We left the hospital. I still had contractions and they were getting worse. I vowed to wait until at least 6 am to go back. By that time, my contractions were 2 minutes apart. This time, my sister drove to the hospital because he was exhausted. She was driving erratically and doing like 80 on the parkway. I almost had a heart attack. I was so nervous, but I couldn’t even yell at her because my contractions were so painful.

We got to the hospital and the doctor that was there overnight had left. So we had a new doctor (Drayton) and nurse (Sarita) and everything was much better. We felt more calm. Sarita gave me breathing tips to remain calm. We weren’t as panicky. The afternoon progressed and they gave me medication to relax me. They broke my water. They gave me an epidural even though I didn’t want one. By 3 pm, Sarita and Dr. Drayton left and I was preparing to go into “birthing” soon. In their place was a nurse I couldn’t understand well, and the same doctor-midwife from the night before that we didn’t like.

I don’t remember much at this point, it’s all a blur really. I remember he was giving me ice chips. I remember the contractions coming in waves right after each other, and the pain – so much pain. They wheeled me out of the delivery room into another room. They were yelling at me to push while moving me on a stretcher to a different room. I still don’t know why. I remember seeing mom at the end of the hallway and how I didn’t want her to see how much pain I was in. We got to the room and all the people there were so mean. They were yelling at me to push and I was pushing and they were saying things like “don’t you want your baby to be born” and it was horrible.

Apparently this ordeal lasted a half hour. The part I remember distinctly is the moment she was born. It was like one great release – no pain – just her slipping out of me. They raised her up so I could see her and then a nurse began cleaning her. I birthed the placenta and the doctor stitched me. He held her and then I got to hold her. It was terrible and incredible and painful and beautiful all at the same time. I never knew how much love we have – for each other and for our child. It is so beautiful it just fills me up inside. It’s the most amazing feeling to know that love has created – something so beautiful and so powerful – it has created a whole life.  We love her so much.

It is tragic that we haven’t been able to take her home yet. She had a fever when she was born and the doctors found a bacterial infection. Although her blood is normal, they took a spinal tap and they said it showed something. We find out today exactly what will be. She may be here for as long as 3 weeks. I have to stop for a minute.

It’s just extremely difficult for us to have her, but not able to take her home. It’s been almost 5 days so far. That’s almost a whole week since I gave birth. She’s been here 5 days without me. My mom has everyone praying that she will be okay. I want her to be okay. I want her to be home. It’s so hard to come to the hospital and see her for such a short time, every few hours. It’s such a bad environment for her first few weeks of life. I feel like this is hell. Yesterday I thought I was having a nervous breakdown when I found out she may be here for so long. As of yesterday it was only supposed to be until tomorrow. I can’t think of anything but getting my baby home. My days are divided into 3 hour blocks of time. I just want my baby to come home

…

During the time I was at the hospital, a large proportion of babies were held in the nursery. Years later, the hospital would close after being exposed for many things, including running unnecessary tests and holding infants in the nursery much longer than necessary for the insurance money. Although my daughter did have a fever and a slight bacterial infection at birth, her blood was normal and there was nothing wrong with her. They never should have given her a spinal tap. A doctor told me this, and appealed on my behalf to release her. My daughter was released to me after another week, a lifetime. I did not look at motherhood the same, after my daughter had been ruthlessly taken away from me right after I gave birth. The nurses were surprised with the tenacity in which I stayed at the hospital, the insistence that I continue to breastfeed on demand even though it meant just waiting at the hospital for nearly 16 hours a day. I remember those moments, rocking her in the nursery waiting room, holding her, feeding her, singing to her, reading to her. Even changing her diaper was precious to me. Just being with her. And I vowed that I would be the best mother I could possibly be to her. I would never allow anyone to take her from me again. I would protect her with my life. I would be more than I ever thought I could be.

 

*

“I am young, still young, and poor / and all my beauties sacrificed to hope.”
~ Cynthia Huntington

stories of failure

2. catching fireflies

 

There were only a few weeks left of summer, and I couldn’t wait for the school year to begin again. I was 11 years old, about to enter 8th grade, and I was having the worst summer of my life. Over the last few months, my world had been turned upside down. My parent’s divorce was going very badly, and my father had refused to move out of the house. Home had become a volatile place and we were barely there. My mother had taken to bringing my sister and I to her boyfriend’s apartment and his sister’s house, a place I hated more than anywhere else in the world.

Whenever we went to his sister’s house, bad things happened. And it seemed like they were getting progressively worse as the summer went on. Sometimes my mother would leave my sister and I at the house alone. His sister was supposed to be watching us as we stayed with her 10 year old son John, in front of the television or playing video games. What she really did was drink beer in the kitchen with her ex-husband. Many times they would fight and she would leave, and then he would be alone in the house with us. At first, he ignored us. But after some time, he began to seek us out, to seek me out.

I was terrified of him. He watched me with his eyes. He tried to get me alone. I had been successful in avoiding him, but he was getting bolder. One of the last times I was there, John’s mother had left and his father was getting drunk in the kitchen. He began calling my name, calling me into the kitchen.

“Pretend you don’t hear him,” John had said.

We ignored him and kept playing the video game. But John’s father was insistent. He staggered into the room and grabbed my arm.

“I said come here, little girl.”

“Let her go.” John said quietly.

“Shut up,” his father hissed, pulling me up by the arm.

My sister began to cry. John looked at his father, then at me. He grabbed my sister’s hand and yelled “Run!”

I ran, freeing myself from his grasp, following John and my sister out the door and down the street. We ran as far as we could until we were breathing hard. John took us to a friend’s house who lived several blocks away. We stayed in his friend’s backyard, littered with concrete, weeds and broken glass, until it was almost dark and the mother told us we had to go home. When we got back to John’s house, his father had left. We didn’t talk about what happened. We watched tv until my mother and her boyfriend came back and took us home.

Not home. To her boyfriend’s house. That summer, I had no home.

But the summer was almost over. And we were at John’s house again. The adults were drinking beer inside the house, but we were outside. I remember that the night felt wild and restless, because I knew that school would be starting soon and all of this would be over, like a bad dream. Fireflies began to light the night and we ran after them, laughing, trying to catch them with our hands.

I don’t remember whose idea it was to get a jar. But the three of us had gone back into the house and asked for one. John’s father stood up and went into the kitchen. We were told to follow him.

He took a jar from the cabinet and placed it on the table. Then he pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed the lid.

“How’s that?”

“I think they’ll need more air holes,” I said softly, truthfully. The words came out of my mouth before I had time to think.

“You’re never satisfied, are you. Nothing’s ever good enough for you. Isn’t that right,” he said while walking towards me, holding the knife.

No one spoke for a second. I held my breath.

He trailed the knife along my cheek, barely touching my skin.

“You’re such a pretty, pretty girl.”

His eyes were bloodshot blue. His breath reeked of cheap beer. He held the knife towards my face and began touching my hair.

“You’re just like my little Kimmy used to be. Now she won’t let me touch her. Now she’s a bitch like her mother.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t know why I felt so afraid, why I couldn’t move.

“Mom! Mom!” John began to scream.

The other adults came into the kitchen and saw me backed up against the wall, John’s father over me, holding the knife. My mother’s boyfriend pulled him away from me. I thought he saved me. I thought he saved me until one day in the not-so-distant future, the bloodshot blue eyes facing me were his.

 

*

“I am young, still young, and poor / and all my beauties sacrificed to hope.”
~ Cynthia Huntington

 

 

 

 

stories of failure

1. social services

I arrived at Social Services early for my appointment. It didn’t matter. The parking lot was already full. Four lines snaked from the door as people spilled from the sidewalk into the street. I found a spot in the adjacent lot and took a deep breath as I locked the car and began walking, holding my folder of papers, photocopies, letters, and documents and shifted the bag that rested heavily across my chest and shoulders. The only thing that worried me was that my appointment was Monday, September 14 which wasn’t actually a day. The 14th was on Sunday. But I had an appointment, and I figured it was a clerical error that could be easily fixed.

I had brought three books, not sure what might work this time.  Last time, I had brought two short story collections:  Success Stories by Russell Banks and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander.  Neither had been a good choice. I had sat in the waiting room hour after hour, waiting for my number as tears filled my eyes and number upon number was called, never mine. I waited as people within earshot told their stories to each other and the children around me cried. I listened and watched, one eye on the screen and the other on the book, as the words filling my ear and mind and heart left me empty with sadness.

This time I had brought a thick book of collected short stories by Amy Hempel, a compilation of best short stories from 1973, and a book of poems by Sharon Olds. When I got on line, I took out the book by Hempel and began reading as the line shuffled forward slowly. I looked around me, taking in the people who also waited on line. We were the poor, the desperate, the failures. I had been on unemployment and was looking for a job every day. When my unemployment ran out, I still hadn’t found a job and I had applied for and finally received a job at a large retail store which turned out to be a mistake. I was unemployed again.

I had been looking for a job forever it seemed. I applied for everything I thought I could do. I had both a CV and a resume. Since I have masters degrees in both education and creative writing, I was applying for teaching jobs at every level. Nursery school, preschool, elementary school, university and college. I applied for tutoring, daycare, nanny, and assistant teaching positions. I applied in the publishing industry for editing and writing jobs. I applied for entry level and assistant positions. I applied for web writing positions, writing and researching positions, writing for business positions. Then I started applying for other things as well. I applied for waitress, food service, barista, business, retail, sales, clerk, and cashier positions.

Nothing came back to me. I had no income. I had sold the small collection of jewelry I had in order to buy school supplies and some clothes for my children and pay some bills. But I was running out of money and I was running out of time. It didn’t matter how many resumes or CVs I sent out. It didn’t matter how many local places I went into, asking if they might be hiring. I was in a panic. I was back at social services. I had been there, back and forth for weeks, jumping through hoops, trying to get temporary assistance. I always left in tears.

We waited on line restlessly as the mid-September sun rose higher in the sky, beating down on all of us. I looked around, and read story after story. I smiled at the child next to me, who looked at me with huge sad eyes. The child did not smile back. I was the wrong color. I was in the wrong place. No one smiled at social services, not even the children. And that thought made me bite my lip to bite back the tears that threatened again. What the fuck was I doing here? I had had some bad luck. I had had a good teaching job. It was the economy. It wasn’t my fault. I was laid off and then the job market just closed to me. I looked around again. I wasn’t better or worse than any of these other people.

I was at a low point. I was going to get out of this cycle of poverty. I didn’t care if the people at social services saw me as a poor white unemployed single mother with two children. I was going to get a good job again and make money. I had two advanced degrees. I had potential. I should write about this, I thought. Someone needed to give voice to the voiceless, the poor, the downtrodden. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to make it real. I wanted to leave that wretched place and never look back.

After waiting on line outside for over an hour, I had finally moved into the building. The lines stopped about four feet from the security guards and metal detectors. People were getting angry. Children were whining and crying in strollers and in their mother’s arms. Someone cut the line and a fight broke out and we all had to wait as the line stopped and the fight was taken care of. Every time I was at social services, at least one fight broke out. People waited and waited for hours just to go on to the next step that might bring some help. They were desperate, angry. A woman leaving the building was rushing out and mistook the plate of glass to the side of the door for the door. And all the while, numbers being called ominously filled the space with sound. First in English, then in Spanish, then they appeared on a screen.

I was feeling okay. I had an appointment. I had all my paperwork. I had all of our birth certificates and social security cards, letters of paternity, a letter of custody, proof that I didn’t receive child support, a notarized letter from my landlord, two notarized letters verifying my address, my w2 forms from the last three years, my bank statements from the last six months, documents from my children’s schools verifying their attendance, all of my bills, the four pages of paperwork that listed all of the jobs to which I had applied, documentation that I had met with the job program counselor, my ten page application for temporary assistance, and my picture ID. I had triple checked the checklist. There was no way they were going to tell me that I had to come back this time.

It took almost another hour to get to security. I knew the routine. A brief exchange, a serious nod, and I handed them my bag, my book, and my folder. I went through the metal detector, then held out my arms as one guard used handheld metal detector to trace the outline of my body and the other looked through my bag. They pushed my stuff through and told me I could get on line, pointing to the next line where three women worked at different stations, protected behind bullet proof glass.

“Next.”

I walked forward.

“I have an appointment.” I said, pulling out the appointment letter from my folder.

“Photo ID.”

“Yes,” I said. I handed her my license through the partition.

“You don’t have an appointment.”

“But I do … see, right there, on that letter. It says Monday, September 14.”

“Your application was cancelled.”

“What?”

“Your application was cancelled.”

My heart started to race.

“No. But … it’s Monday …”

“This is showing that you had an appointment for September 14. You didn’t come so your application was cancelled.”

“But September 14 was yesterday. It was Sunday. You weren’t open.”

“Your application was cancelled.”

“But you weren’t open yesterday. It was a clerical error. Can’t you fix it?”

“You’ll have to reapply.”

“But … can’t you do anything?”

“Your application was cancelled. You can take a number but it’s too late to reapply today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

I slammed my book on the counter.

Our eyes met.

“Now I understand why people go crazy in this place.”

She looked behind me, searching for security.

I grabbed my things and walked away quickly, fighting back tears, anger running through me like a terrible, helpless, hurtful thing. A woman in a wheelchair blocked my way out and pushed along so slowly, I felt my anger deepen and then I felt ashamed. I took halting steps behind her as tears just fell down my cheeks, wanting to run, wanting to run away and never come back. I was never going to go back, I thought.

When I left the building, the sun blinded my eyes, dizzying my vision. I broke into a run. When I got into the car, I fell apart.

The next week, I would reapply. It would another few weeks before my application was accepted. The same week it was accepted, a preschool I had applied to called me and asked if I was still interested. I went on the interview, and they hired me at $8/hr. I was going to make less money than I had received from unemployment. But it was a job. It was an opening that could lead to something better in the future. I had potential. I was well educated. I was a great teacher. I was back in the workforce in the teaching field, doing something I loved. Things would get better for me. They had to get better. There was no room left to fall.

 

*

 ”I am young, still young, and poor / and all my beauties sacrificed to hope.”
~ Cynthia Huntington

reading series 9.1

Almost the end of September and I’m here.

I was recently thinking about a story – I can’t remember the title or the author, which is a bit odd in itself, because the story really struck me in a fundamental way. It may have been written anywhere between 1950 – 1970 and was about a woman in college who had gotten married. On one level, the story was about the educational system for women in a time when it was expected that all women would wind up married and taking care of families – so what use was a college education? On another level, the woman was tremendously excited to get married, even though they were young and poor; she was entering a new and uncertain chapter in her life.

In any event, the weekend after she married, she was back in class with a specific professor. The professor was very routine, almost bored, epitomizing the attitude towards women in higher education at that time. When he called her name, he hesitated, because her name had changed by virtue of being married. She answered “Here” or “Present” or some combination of both and was struck by the words, realizing that she had never felt so aware of her actual presence, her mindfulness, until that moment in time.

And that is what struck me about this story, her epiphany was also mine. I had never meditated on those words before. When I did, I understood the full implications of being “here”, really here – living in the moment with active awareness, fully present. This is a place without thought of past and future, without expectation and doubt, without regard to joy and pain. It is. You are. You just are.

Later, I would find this concept in other places. I recognized it while studying Eastern Religion, especially in relation to Taoism. I found it in Yoga – this mindfulness. It is what happens when one shuts off the chatter in their mind and instead is just here, attuning the posture and movements of the body with breath and awareness. Meditation focuses  slightly differently, by leaving the body and sitting in that mental present state. I also think that this state of awareness happens spontaneously during or after sex. Tantric sex is the conscious act of trying to create this aware state for a spiritual union. I also experience this state sometimes when I am writing.

When I taught Creative Writing, I used to tell my students when we reviewed the policies for attendance and lateness: “You need to be here. And not just here physically, but mentally.” Everyone would laugh, but all too soon would they realize the importance of that statement. Later, I would add that they needed to be here emotionally and spiritually as well – that is what writing demands. That is what writing is.

Lately I’ve been feeling very reflective. I’ve been feeling very tested. Sometimes it is easier for me to retreat into myself, which is part of the reason my blog posts have been so erratic over the last few months. I have been writing, revising, submitting. But … here … I tend to post more about my life and my experiences, as an addition to my creative work – which I view as more outside my everyday life. Fiction is a wonderful place to escape for me, and probably is a measure of just how difficult my life can be. It’s a weird thing, to be a writer, to be so obsessed with something as trivial as words. I mean, I can’t even remember the author or the title of the story that profoundly affected me!

As a fellow writer, that hurts. And therein is the double edged sword. We write, without knowing how or who or where or if or when or perhaps never, our work will be received. And yet, something that someone wrote has the power to affect another person deeply, profoundly. Language really does have power. As a writer, I wouldn’t really care if the person remembered my name or the title of my story -  it’s a soul touch. It is tremendously humbling to know that the kind of work I do has that potential.

In a fortune cookie, I once received the message: “Today is a Gift. That’s why it is called the Present.” Today – this moment – is a gift. You are alive. This is a gift that we all too often forget in the day-to-day experience of life. The present is a gift. It is a gift to be present. It is not easy to get to that place. It is not easy to just be when there are bills to be paid, work to do, people and pets to care for, food to cook, laundry to clean, relationships to maintain, appointments to keep, etc, etc. There is drama and tension and stress. Some people live their lives like cars rushing from red light to red light. Where are you going? You are here. Be here.

For this series, I wanted a piece that I wrote about the idea of Here. This short sketch is a little something I wrote and I just love. I did submit it as erotic flash fiction/prose poetry and it was rejected. The editor was kind to send a personal note, and said it lacked tension. And I thought … but that was exactly the point! That is why I love it and why it still speaks to me as something important. Click here to read Here.

*

reading series 8.1

Recently my older daughter turned 14. Fourteen! Last week, she entered 9th grade – her first year of high school. It’s the beginning of a new chapter of her life. There are a lot of changes and transitions ahead as she negotiates her teen years. And for me, too, as I help guide and nurture her growth during this time.

Parenting is a reflexive, evolving role. I am not the same parent I was when she was a baby. As a teenager, her needs are very different. Now, she needs my help with friendships, social relationships and situations, and understanding her self and the nature of the world. It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly, and I consciously work towards keeping our relationship close as we both grow and change.

The result is that we have an open relationship, where she feels she can talk to me about anything. We talk about everything from music to facebook to the upcoming elections to what she wants to do with her life. It’s important to me that we are so open and communicative, because everything that she processes is expanding her awareness of her self and her world.

The physical, cognitive, emotional, and social needs of children change as they grow, but they are always present at any stage of parenting.

For example, infants and babies require a focus on their immediate physical needs. They need to be attended to, cuddled and held, fed, clothed, and diapered – basic needs that can only be met by the caregiver. At 14, my daughter still has these needs, just in a different capacity.

Even a teenager needs attention and physical affection from their parent – which is something that I see a lot of parents let go of as their children get older. Now, many children tend to start to pull away from this as well. It’s a way of them asserting their independence. So my daughter doesn’t want me to hug her in public or hold her hand while crossing the street. That’s fine. But I always kiss her goodnight. I always make it a point to give her affection throughout the day, whether it be a little hug or a rub on the back or a playful tickle. I also give her my attention – I listen to her when she talks, I ask questions. What she thinks and says and feels is important, and I want her to know that.

She still needs to be fed, even though she sometimes makes her own meals or helps me in the kitchen. I teach her about food choices and health. She’s already known girls with eating disorders, and we’ve talked about that. We’ve talked about smart dieting and eating healthy. In addition, we’ve also talked a lot about female body image and how that presents itself through media, television, and advertising, and how damaging these unreal expectations can be. I’ve reinforced the idea that every person has a different body type which is specific to them, and the most important thing is to be healthy and confident in the body you have.

Clothing takes an interesting turn around the teen years. It becomes more about personal expression. I am still responsible for buying her clothing, which means I allow her to choose what she wants, but I also have the power to veto anything I think might be inappropriate. This is highly subjective. My daughter has dyed blue streaks in her hair and likes clothing with a punk-flair. I don’t mind this. She likes to experiment with style. She wants to differentiate herself from others. She wants her appearance to reflect more of who she is, or who she wants to be.

At 14, diapering and toilet training are things long of the past – thank god! Even though these were not my favorite aspects of parenting my babies, I always felt that it was a such a short time that could have important consequences. Or perhaps I read too much Freud when I was young. But while toilet training, I always kept it positive. It was never gross or dirty – just natural and something we all learn to control at some point.

Now, I feel that this attention to bodily functions has taken a different form. All children go through puberty and the surprising and confusing changes in their bodies. The sexual nature of the body is going to become much more of an issue as she moves through the teen years. Again, I feel that keeping an open communication is so important at this stage. We talk, but I’ve also given her many different books about the body, which she’s read privately. I understand her need for privacy, but I also have a responsibility to make sure that she has access to as much knowledge about the body and sexuality as possible.

There is a lot to parenting.

It’s not easy work. There’s no instruction manual. Nevertheless, from the time I was pregnant, I have devoured books on parenting from many different sources. I have reflected on my own experiences as a child, and my own relationships with my parents to guide me. Money, awards, and accolades are not involved. There’s no one telling me, “good job!” My reward is in the person I see before me, at each stage of her life, and the relationship we share, bonded as a parent and child.

For this reading series, I want to share some poems I wrote about my first experiences becoming a mother. I wanted to share my birth stories, but perhaps I will do that when my younger daughter turns 12 – Twelve! – in just another couple of months. Click here to read some poems on young motherhood.

Here is a short list of books from my shelf that I have found very helpful in developing as a parent:

Between Parent and Child by Dr. Haim Ginott

The Discipline Book by William Sears and Martha Sears

The Toddler’s Busy Book by Trish Kuffner

The Preschooler’s Busy Book by Trish Kuffner

Master Players: Learning From Children at Play by Gretchen Reynolds and Elizabeth Jones

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Liberated Parents, Liberated Children by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

The “What to Expect” series – In Pregnancy, In the First Year, In the Toddler Years

Developmental Profiles (Pre-Birth through Eight) by K. Eileen Allen and Lynn R. Marotz

Introduction to Child Development by John P. Dworetzky

Infants, Children, and Adolescents by Laura E. Berk

Mother-Daughter Wisdom (Creating a Legacy of Physical and Emotional Health) by Christiane Northrup

Reviving Ophelia (Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls) by Mary Pipher

Ophelia Speaks by Sara Shandler (editor)

Girl in the Mirror (Mothers and Daughters in the Years of Adolescence) by Nancy L. Snyderman and Peg Streep

reading series 6.2

By Heidi Darras, Mystic Dreamer Tarot

I was feeling kind of down when I posted in this reading series a couple of days ago, so I wanted to write again and balance things out a bit by sharing more perspective.

My feelings about my new job have been very complex. Yet, I am grateful for having a job. And when I think about it further, working in retail may not be ideal, but it is not a bad job. In fact, it’s a relatively easy job. Many people in the world work at far harder jobs for less money, and I am very well aware of the privileged position I am in.

Having been unemployed in these recent times, having been one of the many Americans who were laid off in this shaky economy, and then faced with a severely limited job market, I feel grateful to have work. For a long time, I wasn’t able to find ANY job.

And I know many people are still jobless, still searching. I know that there are many people who thought that higher education would lead to better career options, and have found themselves with interest laden student loans, no available work, and no way out. So many people in the world are struggling in terms of economics and money.

One of the best things about where I work is that it seems to be a microcosm of society. Because it is such a large retail store, vastly different people – young and old, rich and poor, black and white, all in between – walk through the door. My co-workers are very diverse, and come from a wide range of different ages, races, and experiences. We’re all in it together.

I find it very interesting that this grouping seems to avoid the hierarchy and clique mentality that accompanies so many communities. While there are power differentials, there is also a high degree of respect. The eighteen year old cashier has the same value as than the sixty year old cashier, without any regard to gender or race or class.

Some supervisors are in their early 20s, others are in their 50s – they have the same responsibilities, the same pay rate, and are promoted solely by their work performance. In a way, it is kind of refreshing. It gives me hope to how we engage with each other in society when all these other things are broken down and we are truly equalized.

I’ve given a lot of thought recently to cliques and some of the things that I mentioned in my last post – how some communities of people band together into an inclusive group and hold their esteem of each other high by simultaneously putting down other people and exerting power and control by manipulation, gossip, and exclusion.

What I don’t understand is why other people do not seem to care, and instead of feeling disgust – they actually are fueled by a desire to join the group. They are desperate to be IN instead of OUT, without even questioning what they are so desperate to get into.

When people attach to a group because of their need for acceptance and validation, the group becomes a representation – a warped ideal that has no basis in reality. Often, this kind of group is divisive and feeds upon conflict and drama. The entire group is built upon projection, presentation, and fantasy. Peel back the layers, and one is left looking at people who are hollow, shallow, and desperately insecure.

When we think about society, about how change can happen – it is important to recognize how we engage with others in our personal relationships. As a teacher, especially one with an early childhood concentration, I have a very strong interest and intimate knowledge about how we learn as a society. We teach our children how to learn, how to behave and how to interact in their individual lives as well as in society.

It always concerns me that what we are teaching our children in schools is not necessarily what we are teaching our children in home and in social groups. In school, children are taught that everyone is equal, that everyone has worth and value. Yet, we do not behave that way. Our very system of government is built upon a group hierarchy and the discrepancy between the “haves” and the “have-nots”.

In school, children are proactively taught that bullying is bad. Yet, children develop cliques – often implicitly encouraged by adults who model this behavior. It is unfortunate how many sports teams, dance classes, and scout troops have become a breeding ground for clique mentality under the guidance of adults who want their children to be “popular”.

I think the reason why these types of groups bother me so much is because I just feel that it isn’t necessary. It is harmful. It’s a model we have used from childhood. It’s a model that is reflected in our overall engagement with each other as human beings in so many different ways.  We can do better.

There are people who do band together and create groups who accept everybody, who value and respect each other, and who do not rely on the immaturity of a “popular crowd” to sustain the dynamic of the group.

People in these communities generally also have a high degree of self-worth. They are not seeking validation or acceptance, per se – they are seeking genuine relationships. They want to expand and grow and discover. One of the best ways to do that is through positive social interaction and communication with others. In this model, the community is a positive force and can be a powerful tool for individual and collective change.

Today, I want to share three more poems – poems that focus on the light, what  balances us by lighting the darkness in our lives.

Click here to read a few poems which speak to the light.

reading series 6.1

Five of Pentacles by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

 

I’m happy to have a little bit of time to set aside and post in this reading series! Since I first began this series, I haven’t able to post in it as much as I would have liked – but that’s okay. Now, my aim is to post at least once a month. I can do once a month!

In truth, the last few months have been very difficult. The reasons for this are mostly economic, but thankfully I did get a job very soon after my unemployment ended. Since I was laid off, I applied for jobs that could either directly or tangentially relate to  my degree in Elementary Education or my degree in Creative Writing.  Nothing came back to me.

I wanted to get something in my field. I applied for teaching jobs across the board – early childhood, elementary, adjunct. I applied for childcare. I applied to be a nanny. I applied for entry level company jobs. Editing. Publishing. Writing in technical, medical, or scientific capacities. Nothing worked.

Then I applied for other things. Coffee shops, retail, restaurants, packing and supply stores. Every door I knocked on remained closed. My unemployment ended. And at the 11th hour, I got a job at a large retail store. I make slightly more than minimum wage. I am making less than half of what I received from unemployment. And on unemployment, I was already in the poverty range.

A few days ago, I had to buy a dress for my daughter for her graduation. I had twenty dollars to spend, and we were able to find a beautiful dress. But buying it left me with nothing. Today, I received my first paycheck. And I have to keep reminding myself that the amount I received is better than receiving nothing, which is where I would be without this job. I tried hard to get a job in my field. I am highly educated. I have experience. It didn’t matter.

I am grateful for this job. It was the only door that opened for me. But working in retail after so many years is difficult for me. My feet hurt at the end of my shift. My body aches from the constant repetitive movements the job requires. My brain is raging from this mind-numbing work, searching the positive and coming up short. I feel tired. I feel old. I feel out of place.

Nevertheless, I am a good worker. I always have been. I started working when I was 11 years old, wrapping “big cookies” in a neighbors garage on Saturdays, which she sold at a field market. The job was “off-the-books” and I liked it. I was the youngest of the workers, who were mostly teenage girls. I was a little left out. I was quiet. I listened to their gossip and stories and idle talk. I listened to the radio.  Sometimes the cookies were broken, and at the end of the shift, we were allowed to take the broken cookies home.

After that, I continued to work steadily. I have always had a job, sometimes two or three at a time. I decided to get a masters degree in teaching because I wanted a career – I wanted to do something that I love. Both of my parents worked at jobs they hated, and I was always aware of that. My father worked in a warehouse and my mother was a secretary. They encouraged my education, encouraged me to take out loans, encouraged me to make something of my life – to make money, to do better than they did. Instead I am left with student loans in a broken economy, in a field that lays off more teachers than are hired.

So, recently I have felt even more displaced than usual. I’ve been very sensitive. After I leave work, I find myself in tears. I feel tested. Even the artistic communities that I am involved with … I am in the margins. I am different. When I was in my 20′s, I was raising children. I was already a single parent, struggling. Now, I don’t have the time or the patience for the clique mentality and group hierarchy that seems to accompany so many communities. Again, I am set apart. I don’t play “the game” – I never did.

I went to a K-8 catholic elementary school, and was with the same community of children for years. The group of friends I had since kindergarten decided somewhere around 5th grade that they were the “popular” group. They started making fun of others, being mean to others, excluding others. They started setting themselves above others by clinging together and creating an inclusive group. They were the prettiest, the most talented, the funniest, the coolest. They had inside jokes. They had a ticket to the golden road. They had power.

(I can actually apply this very analogy to certain groups I know at my advanced age, which I find desperately sad)

When this started to happen, I spoke out. I said it wasn’t right to be mean or make fun of or exclude other people. There was no reason for it, except to raise themselves above them. Even though these were my close friends, I was friends with everyone. But I couldn’t stop them. So I left the group. It was a conscious decision and there was a backlash. I didn’t care.

I’ve wondered about that decision at different times in my life. How strange that, as a child, I would choose to be a loner. All I had to do was play “the game”, play along. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. In some ways, I think my very nature is predisposed to displacement. Most times, it doesn’t bother me. But sometimes it does. I know that my nature and temperament speaks to the fact that I am a writer. I am myself in every social situation. I am who I am. I am incapable of being fake or manipulative. I am generally a kind and giving person. But sometimes I feel rejected by the world.

It’s been many years since I have been on this path consciously … the path of my life. I am usually a very positive person, which I always find funny because my realities are hard, really hard. Harder than I sometimes think I can deal with. But nevertheless, I keep going. I keep trying. I get up again and again, hoping all the while that the next time I will fail better.

Today, I want to share three old poems, all of which are a little sad. But I guess that is just the mood I am in. Sometimes I need to remember – I have been here before, been in places where hope seemed as dark as the blackness between the stars. And then, things change. The sun comes up again on a new day. Each day is an opportunity to create the world anew…

Click here to read these poems that speak to the darkness before the dawn.

reading series 5.1

Mother and Child (detail from The Three Ages of Woman) by Klimt, 1905

 

Last weekend was Mother’s Day. A friend of mine said recently that his mom is one of the strongest women he knows – she’s had 9 children, and has worked with children all her life. She ran a daycare for many years, and now that she is retired, she enjoys spending time with her numerous grandchildren. He said, “I have the best mom … and she thinks that Mother’s Day is a hallmark sham.”

I always find it sad that the more commercial a holiday is, the less meaning we find in it. Mother’s Day was created in America in the early 1900′s, to celebrate and honor the specific role of mothers in our lives.  Interestingly, the woman responsible for promoting the holiday rejected it later in life, feeling that it had been bastardized from its original intent and turned into a tool of corporate manipulation.

In ancient times, mothers were celebrated and revered through certain fertility based cults, but these traditions have no tie to the Mother’s Day holiday. In our contemporary world, I feel that motherhood is not truly respected or valued.

Firstly, our work is unpaid, and in a capitalist society, there is a strong parallel between how we value something and how much money we attribute to the pursuit. In the United States, celebrities and sports stars are highly valued – and they are paid ridiculous sums of money. Women who become pregnant are usually eligible for 12 weeks of maternity leave, and are paid by their workplace via disability benefits that seldom cover the entire 12 week period. Afterwards, women are expected to return to work.

When a woman has a baby, she has limited options. Either she returns to work, and leaves her child in the care of others part of the time, or she does not return to work and cares for the child herself. The stay-at-home mother is a rapidly declining position for many women; it is not economically viable. For women who return to work, they face the substantial cost of childcare and a “second shift” outside of the home; mothering is life-work, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Secondly, the role of mother is a very complex one. There have been schools of psychology devoted to the idea that “mother” is to blame for our neuroses, our issues, and our problems. And while people such as Winnicott have inculcated the idea of the “good enough” mother, alleviating some of the pressure placed on women, the affect of a mother on her children is still a reality.

Beginning with inception, a woman is not only emotionally but physically tied to her child. And beyond the physical changes of pregnancy and labor, a woman must change her habits. There has been enough research and evidence for us to know that alcohol, smoking, and drugs consumed during pregnancy will negatively affect the development of a child’s brain in the womb. Many women give up these habits quickly and easily upon discovering that they are pregnant, but there is still a hard reality that lingers in our mindset – from the outset, before the child is even born, a woman can harm her child for the rest of his or her life.

After birth, women are then faced with the choice whether to breastfeed or bottle feed. This is a contentious issue, as divisive as some people’s feelings on a mother working vs a mother staying home with her child. Some people believe that if you do not breastfeed your child, then you are scarring your child psychologically and possibly physically for life. There is research that supports that breastfeeding has excellent health and emotional benefits, but that does not mean that a bottle-fed baby is doomed to poor health and neglect. Paradoxically, society is fine seeing a baby with a bottle, but many people still find a woman breastfeeding in public inappropriate, bordering on scandalous.

When a woman becomes pregnant, her life is forever changed. As a mother, a woman will constantly strive for balance between her role as mother and her role as a woman. Economics play an integral part in how we live and how we raise our children. Raising a child in today’s world is expensive, and the financial strain can be felt very acutely. If a mother has to go back to work for monetary reasons after her maternity leave, often she feels a tremendous amount of guilt.

I became a single mother when my younger child was not even a year old. I was lucky to live close enough to my own mother, and she helped care for my children while I worked evenings and weekends. During the day, I was a stay-at-home mom. I suffered financially, but the trade off was worth it for me. I enjoyed being with my children and nurturing their growth. During the times I didn’t have enough money to buy diapers, I used cloth ones. I made all of my own baby food. I made play doh with flour and salt and food coloring, and engaged my children in activities and projects instead of store bought games.

That worked for me. But that is not to say that would work for another. There are some women that feel that staying at home with their children would drive them crazy. And I do recognize that there is a lack of support for mothers; there can be a sense of isolation from the rest of the adult world. But I think that this lack of support and sense of isolation speaks more to how we value the task of mothering, how we view our sense of worth as mothers, and the perceptions placed upon us by society when we are challenged with the role.

I’ve always felt that being a mother is among the most important work I will ever do in my lifetime. But, I have also felt that being a full person is integral to the kind of mother I am. Being a mother is part of who I am, but it does not define who I am. And while I am aware that I am helping nurture the growth of two beautiful children, I also recognize them as independent from me.

I am the example, the guide. I am not perfect, but I am “good enough”. I have read many books on parenting and psychology, because I feel it is important to have as much knowledge and education as I can about this role, but ultimately I parent in a way that is organic and feels natural to me. I love my children, and I respect who they are. We teach each other; we learn from each other.

On Mother’s Day, I did not encourage my children to buy me gifts. They are the gift. My younger daughter gave me a card she made in art class, waking me in the morning to hug and kiss me. My older daughter wrote me a little note, saying I love you. Later, I asked them to help me work in the garden, and we spent the afternoon digging in the dirt, turning over the garden with compost, and planting seeds.

Though we are not all mothers, we are all derived from a woman’s experience with pregnancy and birth. Women hold the font of all human life, and it is sad to me that the role of mother and the experience of motherhood is so often disregarded and marginalized. On Mother’s Day, we collectively experience a wide range of emotions – sadness and loss, anger and disappointment, love and gratitude – towards the women who brought us into this world and did the best they could.

Today I wanted to share a short story written by Tillie Olsen in honor of Mother’s Day.  The story is called “I stand here ironing.” Click here to read this thoughtful, heartbreaking, and powerful story.

reading series 4.1

Picasso, 1959

April certainly began with a start – an influx of warm, sunny weather, the publication of one of my most beloved poems, the acceptance of one of my stories to be included in an anthology, a day trip with my lover, the Easter holiday, my mother’s birthday, a gathering with family, spring break for my children …

Whew! It’s been a bit hectic, which explains why I’m beginning the first series for April so late! Things have been really good, just busy. I still feel the change of season within me, a restless stirring that is telling me to spring clean and shake off the dormancy of winter. Most recently, I’ve been feeling the need to attend to myself and my body.

Last week, I got my hair done! Which probably does not sound very exciting! But I hadn’t actually had a professional haircut in many years. It’s an expense, definitely not something I would usually spend money on. To me, a professional salon haircut equates to money for food, clothes, shoes. How I spend money is almost always a question of need over want.

But I have a little extra money right now, and I wanted to use it in ways to make myself feel good. Sometimes, I think, our wants tell us what we truly need. And taking care of ourselves, even in simple ways, renews and replenishes who we are. I feel it is so important, to not only give what we can to others, but to give to ourselves as well.

Besides getting a haircut, I have also been getting back into doing yoga regularly. I just don’t feel as healthy as I want to be. For years, I did yoga on a regular basis and it had a wonderful affect on my mind and body. It is truly amazing how something as simple as taking a half-hour each day to stretch and pay attention to breath can have such far reaching effects. But it does.

I used to work at a university writing center, and I had a couple of sessions with a girl who was working on a cornerstone thesis paper about the mental, emotional, and physical effects of yoga. She had to use many “alternative” citations, but the overall findings were strong and overwhelmingly positive.

At the time, I was overweight, still carrying the residual weight from my two pregnancies. And I was also carrying years of depression, struggling with money, struggling with loss, struggling as a single parent, struggling as a writer. I was making changes in my life, and when I discovered yoga during this time, it had a transformational effect on me. For the first time in my adult life, I felt good about my body. I felt balanced, body and mind.

Our relationships to our bodies are complex. We grow older, we change. As a young girl entering puberty, I was upset and angry – I did not want to change. I was embarrassed by my body. I hated the way older boys and men were beginning to look at me. I hated the way the world’s perception of me was changing.

Now, I care very little about other people’s perceptions. I am who I am. I don’t hide my body. I don’t show it off either. I enjoy my femaleness. I’m comfortable in my own skin.

As a child, I had little body awareness. My first scar was caused by the sharp edge of a coffee table when I was about 10 months old. (I was a very early walker) Throughout my childhood, my body was a map of scars. I also had a few serious accidents.

The most serious accident happened when I was around 9 years old, riding on the back of a friend’s bicycle. My foot got caught in the spokes of the back wheel. The spokes ripped through the back of my heel and I received a little more than 100 stitches; I was out of school for months on complete bed rest. The doctors were not sure I would be able to walk again.

Throughout my teen years and into my early twenties, I remained distant from my body. I had developed the idea that the body was a cage for the soul. I longed to leave my body, and spent a lot of time focused on cultivating my mind. During these years, my mother would often comment that I tried to make myself as “un-pretty” as possible.

My mother would look at me with my boy-short, sometimes shaved, dyed black hair, and shake her head in disapproval. I wore combat boots and utilitarian clothing. I scarred my body further with piercings and tattoos. I don’t think I wanted to be “un-pretty”; I think I was in some way rejecting the female ideal. I think I wanted people to see *me*, who I was inside, beyond the external image of gender and beauty.

When I became pregnant in my early 20s, all of my previous ideas about the body fell aside. Suddenly, I was in awe of my body. In absolute awe. Seeing the body change in response to pregnancy is humbling. The body simply takes over, speaking the language of all of creation.

The body does not know image or beauty; it just is. When the body unfolds, it reveals knowledge our brains can’t even begin to comprehend. This knowledge is also revealed through sex, through dance, through yoga – whenever we are completely engaged with the body.

Despite all of my body issues, I always felt comfortable being naked with another person. Even knowing that I was flawed, and that sex is the ultimate body reveal, I was willing to reveal myself because I was so curious and interested in the shared intimacy of sex.

In some of my poems, I repeat lines I’ve written. Sometimes a line from one poem will show up in another poem. I’ve often come back to a particular line I’ve written – “searching the surface of skin for the key to the soul” – In many ways, I feel that this speaks a deep truth about what happens when we truly engage with the body.

Today I want to share a few poems I’ve written about the body at different points in my life. Click here to read three poems I’ve written about the body.