A RESILIENT HEART

I'm sure a therapist would have a ball analyzing my poetry.  Some say the eyes are the mirrors to a person's soul, but since you can't see my eyes, I offer up my written words as testament to who I am and what I have lurking in the darkest recesses of my being.  I seem to always be very closely connected to what the heart feels and how truly resilient it is.  A person's healing capacity always amazes me...especially my own.

This week's Words for Wednesday again brought me mental images of love and struggle, but also of somehow being a better more open person because of that pain and struggle.  The words this week in which I wove a poem were: 

Utopian

plagiarism
necktie
automatic
spinster
devout

OR

navigation
tribulation
propagation
explanation
sensation
adulation


A Resilient Heart 

She had many days of Utopian love

Where her heart’s plagiarism was written proudly
With many empty, unanswered "I love you’s"
A stabbing sensation to be broadcasted loudly.

Love at first sight was the automatic explanation

For adulation on love’s battle field so gory
She was a decorated warrior, a lonely spinster
Upon whose chest she wore tribulation with such glory.

Although navigation along the sensual garden path

Without propagation she was barren and deemed quite empty
But rich without love’s flowery neckties and glittery things
This devout spinster’s heart was resilient, pure and free.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

I don't really know where to start this post. My thoughts are pretty jumbled right now. I think it's a combination of not feeling well and being emotionally drained, so please bear with me while I stumble through writing about my latest ordeal which of course involves some rather drama-filled family issues, but aren't all family issues drama-filled? It seems to be the nature of the beast!

About 8 years ago my mother had some sort of break with reality. It was as if aliens had swooped down and abducted the woman I had always known to be my mother and replaced her with a body double void of a mind. She was merely an empty pod for the better part of several years. Naturally, the specialist she had been sent to see quickly diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s and put her on meds to stabilize her condition and to slow down what he claimed would be a steady downward spiral. I never agreed with that diagnosis for many reasons and eventually I weaned her off the meds she had been prescribed for it. Several years later the same doctor admitted that he had been wrong and was amazed by her "recovery." With a lot of hard work and persistence I pulled my mother back from whatever abyss she had fallen into during her breakdown. I have to admit there were times I thought I was ready for a rubber room, but I hung in there and did what I thought was right regardless of what the doctors told me. Today, I'm glad to say my mother is thriving at the young age of 86. The moral to this part of my story is that sometimes you have to follow what your heart and instincts say and cast aside what science and logic dictates.

I try very hard to be a good daughter. Yes, I fall short of perfection on many levels, but there's one thing I can say with absolute certainty...my heart is always in the right place. Because we have friends and family who live in Maine, I try to take my mother there each year so she can spend time with them. As a person ages it becomes more important to be with all the people they love and for that reason I try to be accommodating to my mother's needs. This year our finances didn't allow for our annual trek "home." I felt bad about it, but if you don't have the money, you don't have the money! It's as simple as that!

In July while visiting my Aunt Nancy she asked me why my mother and I weren't going to Maine this year. After explaining to her why I felt we couldn't afford the trip this year, she made an incredibly generous offer by insisting that the three of us make the trip to Maine together and she'd pay all the expenses. Because I knew how important it is to my mother to go to Maine, I agreed to let my aunt do this for us. My aunt is like a second mother to me and after her husband died over 6 years ago, I stepped in and started doing things for her that her daughter and only living child was either unable or unwilling to do. As a result of our increased contact we formed a very close, loving bond and she became even dearer to me than she already was. She recently made the decision to move to Florida so she'd be closer to family so she wouldn't have to be alone any longer. Her decision to move was something my entire family and I was looking forward to and it was a decision she knew would make it easier for all concerned when her health problems started to worsen and she'd need help. Because I love her dearly, I was willing to be that go-to person for her.

Let me now fast forward to our vacation from HELL! The first of two indications that the month we were supposed to spend in Maine would be anything, but paradise was upon arrival I got sick and had to eventually seek medical attention because my own efforts to nurse myself back to health didn't result in me getting better...in fact, I got worse much worse. And the second key indicator of what would lie ahead was when my aunt informed me that my mother and I would have to start paying our own way the first day after we arrived in Maine. Yes, you read that last line correctly! Paying our own way is rather difficult to do when we have very limited resources and was the reason why I had decided against a Maine trip this year. Paying our own way wasn't what she had initially discussed when she insisted that the three of us take this trip together nor was it ever mentioned until we reached our destination. She had offered to pay for everything and it was only because of her generous offer that we had agreed to make the trip to Maine. After being completely blind-sided I took what little cash I had and bought groceries so we could eat while we were there. I never expected nor wanted to eat out every night so cooking our meals and dining in was no big deal to my mother and I because it's what we do every day anyway. My aunt on the other hand likes dining out and although she did eat the meals I prepared, she turned her nose up at the thought of having to eat leftovers and wanted me to cook a different meal each night. Because I was sick the thought of leftovers appealed to me because I simply was worn out and didn't feel like cooking every night. Obviously, she didn’t realize how sick I had gotten or else she just didn’t care.

What became glaringly apparent quickly was that my aunt is an extremely difficult person to please at times and she expects everything to be her way right down to what's watched on television and how loud the volume is. Nothing at all seemed to please her and she had no problem with hatefully telling us that she was not satisfied with anything about the trip and wished she hadn't come. Her obvious unhappiness about the trip made both my mother and I feel bad for agreeing to let her do this for us and we didn't know what to do to help remedy the situation and felt like we were treading on thin ice all the time especially at times when she either wouldn’t speak to us or when she did speak, she’d snap at us harshly.

Our first night in Maine my aunt had a major meltdown (crying, yelling, cussing, etc.) and I expected her to ask to be taken to an airport the next day so she could fly home, but the next morning she perked up and surprised me by continuing on with our journey. Each time she expressed negative feelings it was as if all the things that troubled her from years past had just happened 5 minutes ago. As one day slipped into the next, negative feelings seemed to be all she had and the dark cloud hanging over her seemed to darken even more. Each time we listened to her tales of woe from her troubled childhood, I reminded her that I too had grown up in the same environment so I understood how she felt. I encouraged her to let go of those feelings she had been harboring so she could be at peace. And each time she raved about what a miserable marriage she had for 50 years, she never once felt any relief that she now was free of that misery. It was as if her husband, my uncle was just in the other room and not dead for over 6 years. It was like he still had a strong grip on every aspect of her life. Each time she ranted I told her we'd support any decision she made and that we only wanted her to be happy. Ultimately, she needed to do whatever she thought was the right thing for her. I guess the right thing for her was to spread as much misery as she possibly could and use my mother and I as a whipping board for all the things that had been troubling her.

All the while as we visited with people we had wanted to see while we were in Maine, she refused to allow us to include her in any of our plans. Once when we had close family friends come to where we were staying, she went to her room and refused to come out briefly just to say hello and meet the people. Her actions caused an awkward situation for my mother and me because we were continually put in the position of having to explain why she didn't want to meet and spend time with anyone. Although she adamantly told me that "those people weren't her relatives and she didn't know them," at least half of them were relatives...she just obviously didn't feel the need to get to know them. She also didn't see why I had to explain anything to anyone regarding her or her actions. When I asked her to imagine the roles being reversed, she wasn’t able to see that if my mother and I had done the same thing while visiting her at her house, she'd be embarrassed and probably angry at our actions.

As the days slipped away I felt as if my aunt viewed my mother and I as being bought and paid for thus we were supposed to keep our mouths shut and take whatever she dished out. I guess she decided dowsing herself in Opium perfume even after being asked nicely to spray it sparingly because it has such an overpowering scent was a good way to make us suffer. Try riding in a car or sitting in a room with someone who has bathed in a strong perfume and see how long it is before you feel like you need to vomit. Try having a relaxing vacation with someone who feels the need to clean obsessively or who needs the washing machine and dryer going from morning until evening. Another punishment for us was when she constantly poured chemicals like straight bleach down the drains in the kitchen and bathroom. The caustic fumes just about ran us outside and she continued to do that even after I explained how a septic system works and how it needs bacteria in order to work properly. No matter what was said about anything, she seemed to have no regard for my mother and me and was always right about everything all the time whereas most people automatically know strong perfume or bleach fumes in small confining spaces and people don't mix well and that when travelling in groups “compromise” and “flexibility” is the key factors in having a good trip. For some reason she honestly seemed hell-bent on making our time in Maine as miserable as she possibly could on every level possible and her actions had me utterly bewildered.

At first by her actions had me confused and that confusion quickly developed into disappointment and hurt. My hurt and disappointment only developed into anger at the very end after she apparently felt no need to cut me any slack because I was sick. All the while she refused to do anything with us; she continually talked about her other two nieces, Debbie and Peggy, my cousins and constantly critiqued my brothers as being assholes for not spending any quality time with their mother or helping me with her care. She ranted and raved and called them everything but human, yet when she talked to my cousins on the phone honey would drip from her mouth as she told them she loved them and invited them to come see her. Instead of telling them how she really felt she opted to go the route of being two-faced and then take her anger and resentment of them out on my mother and I. The first week we were there my cousins didn't call her and I thought I was going to go crazy from listening to her constantly bitch about them. I finally went to see Debbie and asked her to please call our aunt because she was sitting there feeling as if no one cared about her and quite frankly she was making us miserable because of it. My cousin promised to call and for a moment I thought all had been righted in the universe and the planets were back in alignment when Debbie called my aunt and they made lunch plans. She actually smiled and I saw a glimmer of sunshine amongst all her darkness and gloom.

But then something happened...all hell broke loose and it was a like a boomerang gone wild. It came swinging back with a vengeance to blindside me with what came next. She felt that my cousins should come visit her and not the other way around even though Peggy has lung cancer and I'm sure she isn't up to making house calls and lengthy visits. All I listened to constantly was how neither Debbie nor Peggy ever comes to see her and how they never call her and that the phone and road runs both ways. She carried on about how none of them even expressed their condolences when her husband died and why should she care anything about them. Listening to her talk about them got me thinking and reality finally smacked me in the face.

Not once in the last 6 years in all the times I've ran back in forth between Florida and North Carolina to check on her, to visit her and to spend time with her so she wouldn't be so lonely and so she'd know she had people who love and care about her has she ever made a trip to see me in Florida. The road runs both ways, does it? It looks to me like the road only runs the way she wants it to run! As for the telephone working both ways, she rarely called me even though I called her at least 2 or 3 times a week unless one of my many health problems was acting up and then I'd suffer in silence because it's difficult putting on a happy face when you don't feel good. I guess the road and phone doesn't run two ways after all and it’s taken me a long time to realize that. I also have rethought how inattentive, selfish, self-absorbed and unfeeling her daughter has actually been. It really makes me wonder if all the harsh, hateful things my aunt has said about her daughter, Sharon is really accurate. It makes me wonder where the truth really lies, but that's something I'll probably never know. After the meltdown about my cousins, Debbie and Peggy she sat in her room for the next 2 days with the door closed and she refused to speak to my mother or me. After two days of sulking, I guess she got tired of being confined. The sun seemed to miraculously come out and she brightened her disposition like nothing had happened. Everything in the world was sunshine and roses. That miracle came as a result of her calling the airline and finding out how expensive it would be for her to fly home. At that point she expected my mother and I to change gears along with her and go do what she wanted to do like look at fall foliage, visit lighthouses and basically do anything that didn't involve our relatives or friends. By then my mother and I had already decided that we wanted to go home. We both had enough abuse and figured there was no salvaging this vacation. Besides, my bladder infection was so bad I could hardly stand it. I had been to an urgent care, but still wasn't feeling any better. Having diabetes, always makes getting anything so much worse!

Most people can expect to be reprimanded for being rude, but what do you do when just the opposite happens? Okay, I never claimed to be perfect and my manners probably could use some polishing, but I have to admit I was utterly astonished for being harshly reprimanded for saying "thank-you" to my aunt at appropriate times when most people would say thank you. She declared “thank you” as a forbidden response to use ever again to her and made us feel awful for being polite. All I know is that I'm just not cut out to be a whipping board especially when I'm sick. I know I should have just left it alone when she kept at me. I shouldn’t have let being sick weaken my resolve. I know I was rude and disrespectful by finally blowing up and telling her "I AM DONE!" I was wrong to tell her that she ruined our vacation and it was unnecessary to tell her that she's a miserable bitch who isn't satisfied with anything. I can admit when I'm wrong when I am wrong, but I feel justified in standing up for my mother and me after being subjected to two weeks of non-stop agony. Maybe I could have approached it in a better way and saved the relationship, but I honestly felt at that point my aunt no longer cared about me.

I believe my aunt owes my mother and me a HUGE apology, but I can safely say that apology isn't something we'll ever get and that's okay. I know how stubborn my aunt is and I truly am okay with how things ended. I gave it my all, but my all wasn't good enough for her. I can accept that. Just like I can accept that in the long run it's entirely her loss and not ours. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and walk away from people you love because they’re toxic and will do nothing but bring you misery. Sure, it hurts, but time will heal the wound. Unfortunately, she decided against taking a plane home and we had n extremely unpleasant road trip back to North Carolina to drop her off. As I drove away from her house headed towards Florida it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders and it didn't matter that I still had 500 more miles to drive until I was home again and in my own bed so I could be sick in peace. And by the way...it took 3 more months of antibiotics and recuperation until my bladder infection was completely gone. Diabetes is a true bitch!

 

SEASONAL DUES

This week's Words For Wednesday are: boreal, rocky, tempest, lake, rising, breathe or  the phrase, "the summer rain washed her face with bitter tears".


A crisp, tempest wind rustles through the color splattered trees
And on each lake a lonesome loon awaits a warmer summer breeze
The salty, boreal air tiptoes across the once warm, sunlit rocky shores
While the equinox signals summer’s end and opens autumn’s doors. 

Reds and yellows replace the once lush foliage greens
And once again we start our plans for a season that redeems
With each rising sun cooler days have silently begun to emerge
Now the summer’s passing and a frigid transformation will converge.

The seasons come and they will go, each has beauty of its own
The artist who creates it all is more than just well known.
But autumn captures nature’s best with painted landscape hues
Like growing trees that bend and breathe we, too pay our seasonal dues.



Painted by yours truly!

WAS IT JUST A DREAM?

This week's Words For Wednesday beckoned me to write a story about a place where the line is a very fine one between what's real and what lags into the realm of mental illness. It's a shame in this day and age that mental illness still carries with it such a social stigma and that so many people feel the need to hide being "different" from everyone especially those closest to them for fear of being chemically restrained. 

This week's prompts are: fragmented, gravel, blistering, mundane, clairvoyant, grasshopper or the phrase, "incidentally yours". From those prompts I wrote the beginning of a fantasy filled story: Each night I awoke at precisely the same time. It had been happening for months and tonight was no exception. As I quickly opened my eyes wanting to catch what seemed just out of reach, I looked at the ornately carved antique clock on my nightstand. It told me what I already knew. Like each night before, it was precisely 3:15 am. 3:15? Did that mean something? Could it mean 3/15, the Ides of March? Could it be that simple? Would something happen on March 15th?

My attention drifted from the clock back to the fragmented dream from which I awoke each night. Once again I saw a small girl digging in the gravel that had been used as a pathway throughout a beautifully landscaped English flower garden. Above her the birds were happily chattering away in the giant oak trees that outlined the space used for the garden. The girl kept busily digging and sifting through the gravel as if she was looking for one special stone. She stopped digging when a colorful dragonfly landed on the wicker basket she was filling with carefully selected pebbles.

She curiously gazed at the motionless dragonfly and reached out to touch it to see if it was real. When it spoke, it startled her and she dropped her hand tool. It told her to listen to the grasshopper because he was the wisest of all the garden creatures. She smiled and thanked the dragonfly as he flew away. What she had to do finally became crystal clear.

What her grandmother told her was true. She was different! She not only heard voices, but she saw things as well. Her grandmother had called her a clairvoyant and although she didn’t know what that word meant, she knew it distinguished her from everyone else. Her grandmother was certain she was marked for greatness and would help many people throughout her life. Her grandmother claimed the gift the little girl possessed would lift her above the mundane and the ordinary. It would allow her to not only hear the grasshopper, but to understand his message as well.

Before she could hunt for the elusive grasshopper, her mother came rushing out into the garden hollering at her for not wearing her hat. It was hot and she always removed her hat because she like how the sun felt on her face. But her mother was sure the sun would have a blistering effect on her fair skin without it. She scooped her up and scolded her all the way back into the house. The girl had reached out for her basket, but her mother kicked it aside scattering all the carefully selected pebbles back to where they had originally laid. Her important project would have to wait until tomorrow and hopefully the grasshopper would come find her to give her the message she was supposed to hear.

As they quickly walked past the large mirror in the front hallway on the way to get cleaned up from playing outside, the little girl was startled by what she saw. The reflection in the mirror was of a face she knew very well. It was that refection that had jarred me awake at precisely 3:15 each night. The face of the little girl was my face. I was the clairvoyant and yes, I was awaiting a message from the grasshopper. His was a voice I needed to hear even though my mother didn’t believe in such malarkey and poppycock. She said hearing voices was a sign of mental illness and had threatened to have the family doctor put me on some medication that would make the voices stop.

SKY HIGH!

Daniel, the older of my two sons loved his little red wagon and found so many creative uses for it. One of its riskier uses was discovered by my friend Carol when she came to visit me one day. She had gone out into the backyard to see the boys while my daughter, Christina was at school, but only found Matthew quietly playing with his trucks on the ground. Daniel's empty red wagon was next to the back fence under some trees. As she walked out into the back yard to look for Daniel, she heard him yelling, "Sky high!" What she discovered took her breath away. Daniel had positioned his red wagon under the lowest tree limb in the back yard and used that limb to hoist himself up into the tree where he had climbed to the very top. Carol wasn't really worried about him actually jumping out of the tree like he kept threatening to do. What worried her more than his threats was that he might lose his footing and fall out of the tree accidentally. After trying to coax him down from the tree and realizing she was getting nowhere, she came inside to get me so I could handle it. 

After getting him safely down and scolding him for climbing the tree, I got the saw from the shed and sawed off the limb flush with the trunk of the tree. I knew how little boys are and how they rarely followed directions the first time, so instead of having a repeat performance I decided it would save me some of my sanity by just cutting the limb from the tree. I know my boys always hated having a mother who could out think them and stay a few steps ahead of the game. Maybe being the youngest and only girl growing up gave me the head's up on what little boys were all about.

Not long after the SKY HIGH! incident, we moved into a larger house. One day while all the kids were outside playing in the backyard I was sitting inside enjoying a few minutes of solitude. All of a sudden I heard "thump, thump, thump" across the roof. It sounded like a giant squirrel had just run across the roof chasing a buffalo. As I looked up trying to figure out what the noise was, it happened again...thump, thump, thump. That time I got up and went outside to see where the noise was coming from and what was causing it. What I discovered on the roof wasn't a giant squirrel after all. It was a four year old who was in BIG trouble! Daniel had used the tree growing next to the house as a ladder to get up on the roof. In no uncertain terms, I told him to come down NOW! He knew he was in trouble and gave me his best "Oh Mom, I'm sorry" look. That look may have saved him from getting a spanking, but he did get punished and sent to his room so he could think about it. Over the next few weeks he pulled that same stunt a few more times which ended each time by getting a stern lecture about the dangers of falling and hurting himself.

The fourth time I caught him doing it, I was pissed! I snapped off a switch from the bush next to the back door as I steamed outside to get him down from that damn tree. When he saw me he knew he had pushed me too far that time and that his "Oh Mom, I'm sorry" look wasn't going to work. With a couple well placed whacks with the switch, I'm proud to say Daniel finally learned his lesson and never climbed that tree or any tree again. The only problem was that his replacement for tree climbing was even worse. For some reason, he decided to take up chasing snakes! I give up! Raising 2 boys is like raising 50 children! And now I have a legitimate reason for being crazy! Did I say I stayed a few steps ahead of them? Well, folks I lied!

THE PTA AND THE INCREDIBLE HULK

When my children were in elementary school they attended school in Port St. Joe, a small village along the Redneck Riviera.  I have mixed feelings about my years there largely due to the way in which a single mother was too often viewed and treated.  If I hadn't been a strong woman I believe on many occasions I would have either been destroyed or defined by a particular event, yet I somehow always let those times strengthen me and broaden my horizons.  My children seemed to follow suit and learned at a young age how to use their heads.  I have to admit they always seemed to amaze me every step of the way and never disappointed me in how they always managed to shine even when shining wasn't what they should have done.

My youngest child, Matthew was a quite precocious.  He was always up for a good challenge so when he announced to me one day that he wanted to be in a PTA sponsored talent contest, it didn't surprise me.  My only question was what he was going to do for talent.  You see, although I have always thought my children were the brightest amongst all the stars, the Jackson 5 they were not.  Matthew simply told me he was going to be a comedian and that was the last I heard about it for several weeks.

Then one day Christina, his only sister and the oldest of my three children came rushing into the house as soon as she got off the school bus.  There in the doorway she stopped with her hands firmly planted on her hips.  She looked at me and said, "You aren't going to believe what your son did today!"  Uh oh!  There wasn't any "my brother" or "Matthew" about it...at that moment he was my son and only my son so I knew he had done something pretty outstanding and probably something memorable.  She started telling me about the semi-finals for the talent contest that had been held earlier that afternoon in the school auditorium.  A panel of four teachers were appointed to select the best of the best who would compete in front of the families later that night.  All the fifth graders thought it was great because they were excused from class so they could watch the selection process.

When it came Matthew's turn, he sheepishly meandered up on stage.  Christina's friends all pointed out, "Hey, there's your little brother!"  Matthew took center stage and began his stand up comedy routine with the following joke:  What has a hundred teeth and guards the incredible hulk?  His punch line was "my zipper".  Immediately, the auditorium filled with laughter!  Now, it wasn't that he had told an inappropriate joke that embarrassed his sister.  It was the fact that all four of the teachers laughed at his joke.  With her hands still firmly planted on her hips she said with utter disgust, "And they laughed!"  Needless to say Matthew was not selected to perform in front of the families although I have to admit the night would have been more memorable if he had performed.

About that time Matthew came in the house.  Please tell me how does a mother explain to a 5 year old white version of Eddie Murphy what's appropriate and what's inappropriate?  How does one rip away the joy he must have felt from accomplishing what all comedians live to do?  After all he had accomplished his goal.  He got the audience to laugh!  All I asked him as he came in the house was if he had anything he wanted to tell me.  He stopped momentarily and thought for a second before getting a quizzical look on his face and simply told me,"No."  I left it at that and figured I'd address his choice and source of jokes another time.