Ms. Magazine & The Cleveland Courage Fund

As a proud feminist who has worshipped Gloria Steinam as long as I can remember, I am thrilled to have a piece of my writing on the Ms. Magazine website http://msmagazine.com. It’s also on the Ms. Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/msmagazine?fref=ts.

While I am thrilled for my personal writer self I am still sick to my stomach over what was done to Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. To support these women as they recover, check out The Cleveland Courage Fund at http://www.clevelandfoundation.org/about/cleveland-courage-fund/

to Cleveland Courage from Boston Strong

“The big question is why didn’t they leave earlier?” I heard Elizabeth Vargas say yesterday morning while broadcasting on ABC. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since the country learned that three women were free after a decade of captivity. I could feel the heat under my skin making my neck red and my face blotchy. “So many asking that” replied David Muir wondering, “Was there never another chance to escape” before beginning a report about kidnap victims.

What Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight endured is unimaginable. Ariel Castro is alleged to have lured each of them his car when they were fourteen, sixteen and twenty years of age. He is accused of bringing them to his home where he chained, beat and raped them repeatedly for a decade.

He deprived them of fresh air and the outdoors, normal social interaction, their friends, family and lives.

He is accused of impregnating at least one of them and causing a miscarriage by punching her pregnant belly. Another gave birth to a child raised in this environment for the first years of her life.

The question is not why they didn’t escape sooner.

I want to protect these women from these words and the subtext implied by them that these women are in any way responsible for any of their pain for failing to limit its duration.
Any survivor of abuse, violence or crime knows the answer (fear) and is offended by the questioning.

I am from Massachusetts where less than a month ago our entire state was shaken by the violence of two brothers who set off bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Two explosions on one day changed our state forever. Three people died. Hundreds were injured. Thousands were shocked by this devastating violence. Entire communities stayed in their homes and apartments. Streets, businesses and schools were closed.

People nowhere near the explosion or Greater Boston were on high alert even with countless state and federal authorities hunting the alleged criminals on our behalf and constant news coverage keeping us informed.

We didn’t ask one another, “Why are you afraid?” We asked each other, “Are you safe?” and “Has he been caught?” Not only did we worry about our own friends, co-workers or loved ones who had gone to the marathon, but we were forced to consider our general assumptions about safety. If one unthinkable act can be committed what else is possible? If people just going to a marathon can be killed or lose limbs where is it safe to go? If people are capable of setting off one bomb who knows if another explosion was is planned?

Violence is meant to intimidate. It did. When the bombings in Boston happened we wanted to know what could be done for the grieving families, those injured and what it would take for our sense of security to be restored.

Why aren’t we more concerned with the safety of children and women? Why can’t we work together to keep our sidewalks safe for everyone?

I do have questions since hearing about these three women in Cleveland but not one of them is about why they didn’t escape sooner.

I want to know how a middle-aged man can pluck a teenager or young woman from her own life and use her for his twisted pleasure or perverted pain.

I wonder if his children, those on his bus route or in his neighborhood were ever hurt.

I wonder how he had the nerve to console the mother of one his victims or go to fundraisers or vigils or pass out flyers pretending to be concerned about the disappearances. I don’t understand how he slept at night while keeping human beings captive in his home.

I want to know what neighbors felt, did and thought. Did they fear being judgmental? Were they afraid to intrude? Did they take action and were their concerns minimized?

I want to know every detail about how police did or did not respond.

I want to understand if the way he treated the mother of his children should have made him a suspect. She is said to have charged him with abuse, death threats and stealing his children. Relatives say he confined her in an apartment when they lived together and locks on some of his doors.

I have questions for myself as well. Have I always supported women who said they were afraid? Have I stepped in to check on a child wearing a shawl of sadness to make sure they are not suffering? What have I done about the fathers too creepy to let my daughter go near? So often, for fear of being intrusive or mean or thinking the worst of I have minimized potential danger to myself and others.

How many times have I looked away and hoped for the best, deciding someone else would step up or know what to do. Despite my own excruciating experience as a trauma survivor, I have not always been an advocate for myself or others. Sometimes I have let safety issues and concerns slide because speaking out or reaching out is too hard, awkward or embarrassing.

Our cultural tendency to point questions, shame and blame squarely at victims and away from criminals is a dangerous habit we must break if domestic violence is to end.

We all struggle with how much to intervene in the personal lives of others, what doors and boundaries to stay outside of when it comes to neighbors, families and lovers. Clearly, with so many children and women still stalked, tortured, abused or killed we are failing.

I want the three women who survived to know they were supposed to live in a world where it is safe to walk down the street without being lured or manipulated or preyed upon. I hope they know that many ache for the ordeal they have lived through and the healing that will be necessary. Flowers around Castro’s home should have wilted. The lawn should have turned brown. The clouds above should have spelled out HELP.

The question I have for Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight is can you forgive humanity for the inhumanity you endured?

As for the rest of us – what will we do to stop horrific crimes such as this one and the secret hells being housed behind closed doors right now?

Tastes Like It Took Longer

Here’s another clip published today on the Taste for Life website.

http://www.tasteforlife.com/tastes-it-took-longer-fish-dish

Clip

In an effort to improve my cooking, mothering and writing skills all at once I am blogging for Taste for Life. Here is my latest kitchen confession. http://www.tasteforlife.com/smoothie-cheat-sheet

Beyond Reason/s

 How do you know you loved me? you asked.

 

I loved you outside my normal ways of being

I loved you beyond comfort, ease or predictability.

I wanted to feed your belly and soothe your spirit.

I loved you in crisis and amidst uncertainty.

 

I was willing to be hurt, heartbroken or wrong.

You were the constellation I was longing to see,

the poem I memorized in another life.

a song I hummed unconsciously –

a familiar mystery.

 

I was never one hundred percent certain,

did not know how the story would end,

how we would  handle disappointments

which all were to come.

 

Only that I was willing to be crushed, betrayed, abandoned and forsaken

to see you sip your coffee, to watch your eyes light up a dark sky and

admire you on a stage as your energy beamed.

 

You were  the prince kissing this common girl.

I was Snow White waking up,

Cinderella slipping in a slipper,

the fearless adventurer I was meant to be but never was.

 

Triumphant, brought back to life, there was no way to lose.

I was in love with loving you.

Even if the lights had not dimmed,

one of us would have died first.

There is no great love without loss.

It was worth the cost.

 

I gravitated towards your center

but held my own.

To be in your heart

I walked the moon

of my own distance.

Alone I am now and

still grateful.

 

The sun has my back

even as she casts

her shadows.

 

“How do you know you love me?” you asked.

I didn’t. I just did.

I loved you wordlessly,

beyond reason.

Translucent Love – 2/27

Love should be as generous as the crescent moon which s never jealous of her harvest twin. She loses herself routinely but always refills her form. I envy how she stands out in darkness. Her partner can command the sky yet will fade into the background as shooting stars and constellations share the stage.

I want my love to be as expansive as a soft magenta sunrise highlighting all that is beneath in a holy pink glow. And at dusk, I want to be a distinct as the hard black outline of bare oak limbs against a blue skyline.

I want to be as deliberate and sturdy as the porcelain tub where I have held my daughter before she was strong enough to balance the full weight of her head. Ceramic tile walls have soothed middle-aged limbs and tiny plastic basins have cleansed swollen feet and babies. I have reached into bubbly water, lathered up soap and down rose petals, have rubbed peppermint scrub to exfoliate what is dead and let coconut oil hold in the warmth and moisture.

I want a love as reliable as spearmint Double mint gum which plucks my tongue each time it makes contact. It never tries to be sweet or to blow bubbles. It knows its own flavor and texture and when gum is what I want it never disappoints.

It could be as holy as the showers, which have held me naked and asked for nothing in return. Endlessly poured on by heat that never requests a thank you.  Forty-six years later and I am giddy as I undress, anticipating the water, which I have come to count on and know even before I am wet. This is the only beating on bare back I welcome, where pressure wipes tense shoulders. As ordinary as routine and as sacred as sanctuary, my gratitude transformed to worship, by the constant renewal. That’s the sacred sort of steamy that will keep me gasping to breathe in.

Love could be as fresh as my coffee, which never gets tired or old or boring. I have yet to outgrow the flavor or practice of preparing. I am rewarded with a tireless craving which keeps me committed and returning my same mouth to edge of cups where my longing is savored.

I want to float in a bubble, not protected  or removed, but translucent and roomy. In it, from this perspective, we can be hand-holding adults, held in utero, by a pregnant world offering her gifts wrapped in a rainbow glistening shimmer.

Inheritance

 

In college, a boy with curly hair said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” I said as I slurped my breakfast yogurt. He was doing a study on paternal occupation and offspring height.

“What does your father do for a living?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“No really,” he said.

“No really,” I said. “He’s a homeless alcoholic veteran.”

“Oh,” he said and stared at me. Neither one of us could find a word. This was not the information he was seeking.

“I’m taller than he was if that helps your study,” I said almost whispering to his back.

My father was a ghost of childhood, like God or Santa Claus. He was a being I knew of but didn’t know – a main character in my life story but not my daily life.

He was the name printed in the “W” section of the obituaries which I used to search for, running my index finger over letters where I might find him but never did. He was an overcast day, a headache stirring in the temples, the nameless throb of a rarely used muscle.

He was the slope of my nose, angled and long, the steady bones of my cheeky face. He was the answer that never came. He was the itch too far down the back to scratch. He is the insect swallowed, wings flapping at the throat, intact and struggling for breath. He was the question I never got to ask.

Once you were a teenager, dog tagged and in uniform. Christ, you were a soldier. You were even brave. You were fresh and clean when writing letters from Vietnam where you lived, folded, scared and interesting. That was the only time you knew how to reach us. When you were serving we got to be on your receiving end. You asked about us in your letters to my Nana which I still have. Your ink, on that paper, is the only proof I have that you ever knew who I was to you.

How far did that letter travel more than four decades ago?

I used to dream him sober.

He was a deadbeat Dad with a tab he never settled with my mother. Some debts are never paid or forgiven.

“Oh Honey,” my Nana said, “He doesn’t have two dimes to rub together,” when I was college age and complaining about filling out financial aid forms. I was irritated that there was no room on one-inch lines to explain his contribution to my college education.

His absence is my inheritance. There is no way to soothe the phantom limb of grief. We have no relationship outside the science of biology that makes me a daughter belonging to a Daddy. He is the spray of my genetic graffiti.

I envisioned him at funerals where I would kneel beside his casket and keep him company. Even in my imagination silence is what we shared.

I was a girl on a dock once who didn’t know how to swim. I was shivering as it got dark. I peered into dark waters and had to decide if it was riskier to dive into the water or wait for rescue.

Now I am a woman of middle age. I’ve dreamed he is dead. If living, he is shredded, drifting, dirty newspaper humping curbs and corners of empty streets.

Dead or alive, he is grieved.  Dead or alive is little matter to me. Either way, I pray the wind is kind and he is lifted, lifted.

I hope he had days when he was soothed, warm and fed.

I did. I do. I swim.

*This is a revised piece of poetry started years ago and turned to prose.

This Present?

I was worn down by the minutia of mothering. The days were consumed with relentless chores that keep the machine of a home life humming: changing the kitty litter, filling the gas tank, sweeping the floors, folding the towels and vacuuming the same carpet over and over. No amount of effort seemed to brighten the dullness of endless routine.

Meals were adequate but not nutritious. The produce was wilting; the fruit bowl empty and finances lean. Time with my daughter was squeezed between rides and homework and play-dates. There were too few giggles and crafts and afternoons on the couch. My mother love seemed an anemic pink rather than a pulsing purplish red.

I dreamed of ease and rescue. I wanted someone to help clean my house, go to the dentist, get my daughter her poster board and pay the bills. I wished I had a father who could snake the kitchen pumps and a retired and well-to-do mother who lived close by and had endless time to spend with her granddaughter. I never planned on parenting alone.

It was like shoveling the snow in the tenth storm of a dreary season where there is no place to empty the shovel when the white snow stops looking breathtaking and promise iced-over windshields, delayed school openings and long rides to work. I was muscling through, managing and doing the minimum and feeling stretched and inadequate in my delivery and approach.

Then, like last week’s ripping at the base of the house threatening to tear the roof off or uproot a tree, it shifted and the heaviness evaporated. It wasn’t an insight that freed the mind, a cyclical release of hormones that elevated mood, a sweaty run or an unexpected windfall. It was my daughter, at the foot of the stairs asking, “Do you need anything?”

The words climbed up as I was getting dressed and I realized she was talking to me. She is ten and has never asked this. “You can have the other half of my bagel,” she said, “But I’ll make yours with peanut butter.”

It reminded me of the shock I felt when she was an infant crying in the middle of the night and I went to her exhausted and sleepy. The need to tend, to ease my baby’s discomfort came so naturally and often. It satiated a longing I had not known I had. How come no one warns of this rapture? I asked. Why aren’t there songs and poems about this primal devotion that seems to come from the core of the universe? Now my daughter is ten and is a fresh to the world person made anew each day in a form I have never experienced.

Wasn’t it a minute ago that she couldn’t reach the bowls she now pulls down for herself? Wasn’t she too young to get her hair brushed before school and her shoes on without instruction? Didn’t she accidentally drop a hand-held weight on my head at three and not realize it caused hurt?

This once infant is in the kitchen and considering my needs for a moment. Our dance steps have shifted and she sometimes leads. She plays song for me from her favorite band, dances moves she makes up and asks me to watch.

It is Kai who taught me how to knit, who had beginner wooden needles and three choices of yarn for me to choose from. It is my daughter who said, “See, you are doing it” when I completed my first row. I could see the teacher-to-be as she guided and instructed. I am not only a provider, guider, feeder and driver, hugger, laundress and the one she cries to.

Let me not dwell on the toddler years, the big head that filled frame after frame, when my heart focused on height, weight and development. Let me remember but not long for the wobbly first steps. Help me stop telling myself stories of the angry teenager who is not here.

As I write, Olivia Rose has arrived in the world. She is the newest member of our extended family and is held in arms long anticipating her arrival. At only days old she is exquisite, precious and already perfect. She need not do, prove or accomplish for this to be true. Enthusiasm is the water and the joy is the sun that flowers the seeds of unconditional love.

On days when I am tired or lazy, cavalier or distracted, I have to remember the moments I have with my child are not endless. The times when she seeks my company are limited. It is a privilege to help ease her burdens because I will not always be able to meet her needs.

Each day, she is a brand new version of herself in the act of becoming. Aren’t you? Aren’t I? I want to make this awareness an unshakable knowing so I greet Kai and each new day with an open heart and mind.

No Complaints

I am lucky, blessed and overflowing. My biggest actual problem is that my daughter stuck a purple crayon in her glue gun and cried because all of her glue is now purple. There are times we are told by talk show hosts to make gratitude lists. Maybe we remind ourselves we are fed and clothed but don’t necessarily feel abundant though intellectually aware of the plenty.

Today is not one of those days. Today I am aware of my good fortune right through to my core. I am grateful for my cottage home and the smell of salt-water air. I notice my car has gas and is reliable. The phone rings. I have passions, dreams and endless beginnings. My daughter is healthy. We have community. Our pets are sweet. I am employed. I notice the cycles of the moon. I have insurance.

I dip into the feelings. One brush holds a little yellow where I carry tender memories. Another one is wet and orange and I notice it colors the shape of my clinging. There are red strokes where restlessness was stroked. The purple color is too wet and heavy. I wanted to spread a little bit of something sacred and made a mess. Now my canvas seems ruined and I have nothing to show for all of my effort. So what? So what? These are luxurious problems and indulgent dilemmas.

So what that my right hip sometime aches, that there’s a gap growing between my two front teeth and I have yet to get our kitten spayed. So what that I don’t have all the patience or time I want, that every thirst isn’t immediately quenched. So what that everything didn’t go according to my plan, that I am sometimes lonely and noticing new wrinkles.  I am bathed in gifts.

I will eat Italian food with my daughter and our neighbors. I will tuck my daughter in. Her father and I though no longer a couple are a well-oiled co-parenting team. The cats will sleep on the foot of the bed. The house is warm. I have experienced unconditional love. We’ll sing Happy Birthday to friends and get birthday gifts wrapped for my aunt and mom. I know how to take care of myself. I have extra blankets.

There were times I didn’t believe days like this existed. There were seasons I would have given anything for this steady peace, like when my grandmother battled ovarian cancer, when my home flooded, when I put grocery bills on credit cards, when I was a child. There were times you would not have been able to convince me I would feel such grace and ease, would know the difference between pain and suffering, would even know what the word faith means.

Life has more than occurred to me. I have finally seated myself at the banquet. Who cares if I arrived a little late, lost the directions, was not as early as others and didn’t have a new outfit for the occasion? I am here. Here I am. I have no complaints.

I will get on my knees before bed, send love and prayers to a family I know in true crisis and count, really count, my blessings.

Shedding Old Skins

I sat at the center of a pile of every piece of clothing in my closet. I had pulled out every t-shirt, sweater and blouse, every skirt, Capri and pair of jeans. I sat, like the center of a flower with the petals of fabric surrounding me and then I plucked them one at a time. 

I did not want to buy a new outfit for New Year’s Eve, did not want to go dancing or on a date. I did not want to walk the streets of Boston to see ice sculptures. No, this year I sat on my bedroom floor in a tank top sifting and sorting.

There was my favorite cobalt blue jacket, a gift, which looked stunning on the hanger but never on me. There were my two favorite tie-dye shirts which matched my favorite necklaces and earrings but which no longer matched me. There were beautiful gifts, sweaters in all colors, which promised warmth but always made me itchy or bunched up around the shoulders. There were the lace cami’s, which promised comfort, a layer of warmth and a hint of sexy but were too tight.

I shed layers on New Year’s Eve and put to rest who I wished I were, who I once was, who others saw me to be. I let go of sizes and colors and styles. I replaced them with nothing – glorious nothing and the absence of clutter and stains and sentimentality.

My frame is twenty pounds lighter. My soul is 100 years lighter. My core is solid. I am done acquiring, masking, holding on to what no longer suits or fits. I burn with the purpose of naked knowing. Space. Space is all I need.

The gift of a new year is no longer about trying to make myself someone I think I should be but uncovering who I already am. Simplicity is what I’m after so dreams can be apples in a tree in my own yard, which need only to be tended, left to ripen and plucked down at the right moment.

Clothes damaged, soiled, ripped or frayed go to the trash. Sturdy fabrics, adorable outfits, functional workout clothes go to the hand-me-down or goodwill pile. Three trash bags leave my room.

The only item I anguish over is the black turtleneck sweater I have loved for years. It still fits, but is ripped, under the armpit. It holds my neck and breasts and waist. It holds memories. I toss it to the trash. Clearly I am no seamstress. I have sewn the holes three or four times. The seam is weak and keeps re-tearing. I pull it back. Maybe I can just wear it under jackets. But who wants to remember not to disrobe? Tug of war it goes back and forth.

I set it to the end of my bed. I will sew it up once or twice more. I pull it off remembering the new black turtleneck my neighbor just gave me. Finally, I leave it alone, make peace with my indecision.  I let it sit, like a grief, not repressed or purged. I let it sit, like a statue, not dead or animated. I stick my nose in the fabric, smell the perfume of myself, remember the dozens if not hundreds of time it housed me. It alone will be salvaged. This too is who I am.

Everything else is divided, by size and purpose. Everything else is in piles. I am not ready to throw it out or put it on.  But I do not let it stop me either.

Everything else is returned to proper place. I breathe easier with all of the space I have created. I enter my own closet and this year as the snake, having shed old skins. I am new and tender. I am eager.