A Beast in Ripped Pants

Another treatment. Extreme exhaustion.

Pain remaining, even now, in my hands. As though the needles remain, pricking my flesh as I move my fingers over the keys.

Emotions rise. Emotions fall.

Arm in sling, I plopped into the car and promptly split both pants and underwear.

sigh.

Work suffers under the weight of clouds full of stress, depression and anxiety, releasing their acid emotional rain in unexpected and burning bursts.

Adding, of course, to the beast.

I really am trying. Really. Perhaps, however, I am beyond redemption. Attempts at positivity are my attempt at moving forward.

A nice evening spent, however, listening to Sarah Waters in a university lecture hall and then in the student pub with writing folk from the writing group. This weekend brings work, brings time with the in-laws, and quite likely a bit of laughter with a side of hugs.

Good.

Another treatment next week, followed by strong brain massage.

Yay.

Now I just have to sew up my pants.

Obelisk (or, rather, oubliette)

Words.
They smash me apart like hammer and anvil on glass.
A million pieces shatter into crystalline tears. Some may be put back together. Some are too fine, scattered by the wind.
I wait in the oubliette, knees to chest, waiting for the walls to fall and allow in the light.
It is the only way out.

Spirals and Spirals and Spirals

 

There are lots of spirals in Britain, carved into ancient rock.

The prevailing idea behind their meaning is that they show the path of life–a continual line, sometimes moving in toward the center, sometimes moving out, away and further from the center, but always able to slide back down toward the center again.

Lessons are learned along every inch of the spiral. Whether we move toward the center (knowing) or away from it (learning), the learning never stops.

I slide in, toward me. I slide out, away from. In and down, out and wide. The spiral, like a slinky, can go up, it can go down. It can flop down the stairs or move along the floor.

When there’s a good day, I hope. And wait. And then slide through the spiral, never reaching the end, just a new spot on the curving line.

A heavy sense of dread lies deep within, but I battle it daily. I try to stay positive. I try to stay open. I try to learn from the mistakes I continue to make each and every day that cause my spiral to spin that much faster, in danger of throwing me off completely.

I try to remember and hang on to the effervescent threads of hope that glimmer in the occasional flickering light at the end of the tunnel.

Some days the threads feel awfully thin. Some days they start out like boat rope and slowly dwindle to sewing thread with the setting of the sun.

It is going fully dark by four thirty now. As the days get darker, I can only wait for the spiral to bring back the light.

But on the plus side, the new sessions have begun. Less side effects, this time: less nausea, less exhaustion, less pain. In this instance, at least, less is more. And the edits for the pirate story are done and sent, and the uniform story is done and sent. Work edits progress, although slowly due to a broken elbow that irks me to no end.

Thank you for reading, all. It’s always nice to know someone is out there listening, even if the ramble that comes out of me is difficult to respond to.

An apology

I’m sorry.

For everything.

For all the pain, for all the hurt.

For every single thing I would take back if I could.

I’m sorry.

Like blood from a rock.

Up. Down.

Pain followed by the uplift of hope followed by despair and anger.

The London reading was a success, even with minor tongue difficulties. Odd, though. Reading to a group of women you don’t know surrounded by instruments of the most intimate variety.

After a soak in a hot tub it was off to Glastonbury for Samhain. A wonderful ceremony at the goddess temple with many tears and renewed hope in the darkness.

Home. Quiet.

Monday morning brings a fall down the stairs and a trip to the ER. In the midst of a broken elbow and concussion comes another wave.

Anger. Sadness. Despair. Utter loneliness. Pain.

The light at the end of the tunnel has a short. It flickers so I can occasionally catch glimpses, and then goes out, leaving darkness and tears.

Like squeezing blood from a rock, I keep holding on. Not giving in.

A new round of sessions begins Friday. I pray they make things better.

I don’t know what to say anymore. Don’t know what to do. One foot lands in front of the other, although I don’t know how.

Poised at the axis

Click, clack. Click clack.

It goes up. and Up.

and then it teeters at the top. It waits.

and it falls.

sometimes quite far down. sometimes only a bit down before it rises again.

I dont want to go so high up because the fall is too great. The shorter the climb, the shorter the fall.

but then, eventually, you dont move. You dont go up. Or down. You just…stay.

There is a light at the end of the tunnell. But what it signfies is on the track below the light, I dont know.

I feel so very low. I wish the wound would heal. I wish it would at least begin to scab. But it still weeps. It still oozes and bleeds.

And with every fresh drop, a bit more of me falls with it.

The future is shrouded in grey. In a fog that billows from the ground to the sky, so thick I can barely see myself anymore.

Moving forward is a concept far more difficult to implement than one would think. Looking back means not looking forward. But not looking back might mean not learning from mistakes. How does one make it?

drowning

Long shadowy fingers climb me.

they start at my feet, pulling me down, carressing, teasing, clawing, pinching.

the occasional spark flies from a fingertip and lights the dark with a small laugh, a simple word.

and then the shadows cover once again, up to my waist, gripping my stomach, tearing it in two, twisting my insides around thier skeletal fingers, forcing tears from my eyes.

they play around my neck, stroke my jaw, push their way into my mouth until I’m gagging and drowning in their putrid darkness.

drowning in sorrow, in anger, in fear, in loathing, in desperation and aloneness. drowning in my inability to escape the past and my inability to see past the shadows, to a time when they are gone and I can breath again. drowning in anothers anger, fear, hurt and sadness. drowning in a place of no answers but to give in to the darkness and let it all…

stop.

Onward, upward, in the air, on the ground

It’s been a while…

There have been ups, and downs. Some sideways movement, much like the scuttling of a crab across wet sand.

A week spent in Ptown. Friends, connections, laughter. Tears, despair, loss.

Much up. Much down.

Mixed in like cool whip is the knowledge of belonging; being able to talk to people who love the power of words like I do, being able to laugh with people with often similar sense of humors, being able to learn about people who are so different and yet so often alike.

Learning about myself. Learning about Sam.

The ever present adventure of learning, even when it hurts, even when it is crushing and destroying. Growth from chaos.

The reading of Where the Girls are went well. So well, in fact, that some women stopped me on the street later to tell me how much they enjoyed it.

Very cool.

The editorial schedule is up and running, running, running. Busy is good. Forward motion is good.

Always forward. Never back.

On another note:

Traveling has become quite intimate. There is great intimacy with strangers.

You undress. They undress. You redress next to them as they redress next to you. Later, thirty six thousand feet in the air, you sleep together. Two hundred people, sleeping, dreaming, lying, snoring, coughing, together. Then you wake, yawn, share shy smiles or keep from speaking to one another, avoiding morning breath shareage.

And not only intimate, but also rather small worldish. You meet people from the same town, maybe even with the same last name. I met someone with the same last name, and whose father has the same name as my father in law.

At an airport on a tiny pennisula in Iceland, I listened to Chinese, German, English, Icelandic. Sam drank Viking beer for the courage to get back on the aircraft for the next jump.

Returning there were Americans, Nordic folk, Eastern Europeans.

Coming off the Cape we were rearended while in traffic. An hour spent on the side of the road led to minor apologies, sore backs and necks, and writsts that remain stiff today.

Jetlag assails me, migraines assault me, my fingers scream at me.

But home is good. Long hot baths, blankets on the couch, cooking in our own kitchen.

Always forward. Never back.

Yolkless Travels

Good news euphoria tempered with endless self recriminations makes for a roller coaster stuck on go.

Where do you put your feelings when you’re the one in the wrong? Is there a storage cupboard? A place to file them for later perusal and analysis?

Simply releasing them to the ether doesnt seem to work, as they eventually boomerang back to the owner.

Eggshells abound. Underfoot, under mattress and pillow. Even online. Eggs and eggs and eggs. All without yolks.

And yet…

Professionally, the world is booming. I have had the honor of having another story accepted for an anthology–Skulls and Crossbones, due out in Jan 2010. I have been invited to judge, to edit, to indulge in imagination for further publications.

The last treatment proved that there will be no shennanigans of any sort after. It will be a day of rest, nausea and exhaustion.

Not looking forward to the treatment tomorrow. But, so be it, yes?

Moving forward is painful. Self doubt, recriminations, apologies, and an inability to explain any further make the steps often small, somewhat like walking with a pebble in the shoe of life…the lesbian princess and the pea…maybe not.

Staying organized, staying motivated, staying focused become ever more difficult as feelings of self worth further diminish. The balloon slowly inflates, and then quickly deflates, but never pops.

Off to work through deadlines and bring myself off my knees and onto my feet. Wish me luck.

Returning to the real world

There is a certain feeling that attends the end of a vacation.

It seems to be a mixture of short term nostalgia, a desire to win the lottery so as not to go back to work in the real world, and a desperation for the idle of paradise to continue unabated.

But, alas.

The final days on the Spanish Med were spent exploring rock pools and semi-hidden coves, eating foods that will be no where near my mouth when this vacation officially ends,  drinking Spanish coffee by the ocean and playing with kids by the pool.

And, of course, lots of quiet talks, discussions of why, how, when and why, why, why…

Every scab gets picked sometimes, gets a healing edge caught on an emotional splinter and begins, once again, to develop a bit of seepage…

But then it scabs once again.

Hopefully, one day, there will nothing but a tiny pink scar, most often forgotten about until a quick glimpse reminds one of it’s previous existence.

Until then, one foot in front of another, hearts laid open and bare, pain allowed to force its way up and out of its long time cage.

Decending into the UK through layer upon layer of cloud and damp, arriving to wet, damp, green earth and the smell of autumn. Colors are bright, mixed, bursting through forests.

We remain with the family as the football is on today. One child despises me much less as we slowly chase the cat around the house.

And although I seem to have developed yet another chest infection that is keeping me awake in fits and starts of spasmodic coughing and sneezing (and, by proximity, Sam), I am glad to be back in this beautiful country, planning further ventures afield.

For the next three weeks it will be work, catch up on work, laundry, cleaning, scab tending, and then off to Ptown for Women’s Week.

Busy is good. Healing is good. Love is good.

One foot in front of the other….