You Know Before You Know

It's strange, the things that persist in your mind. 

It was a terrible day. Not that there was any reason for it to be, besides the cold wind and lowering sky. I'd gone out to look for somewhere to try my new camera, but really I'd gone out to get my mind off something, or rather to think about it somewhere else. 

The landscape seemed empty, lifeless. An expanse of blank asphalt and withered grass. No matter how much I wanted to find something hopeful in it, there was nothing there at all. 

Sometimes the end of a journey can be foretold by its beginning, or in this case, the beginning of its end.  

The wind rattled the old tin building I'd come to investigate. It had been a warehouse once, and despite signs of activity outside, it was clear it had been out of use for a long, long time. The windows were tightly boarded, forbidding even the smallest glimpse inside. 

I'd chosen this place because I'd remembered coming here as a child once with my girl scout troop, maybe after a visit to the park. We'd sat on the loading dock and chattered and sang songs and I suppose whatever else girl scouts do while we waited for our rides. I remembered those times fondly, but now looking around for any piece of my past, I saw that nothing was at all familiar and any warm feelings were gone.

Turning away, I decided to investigate the nearby bridge. I'd been over it countless times, but never underneath. I stumbled down the bleached grey hill through the bleached grey grass, down to the patch of compact dirt under the archway. It seemed as though it might have sheltered people now and again, maybe for just a little while, but there was no sign of them now. Except maybe in the feeling of the place - a particularly hopeless strain of despair.

There was a little stream, though, and still looking for answers in something I could not name, I followed it. What I found, with its archways of catclaw and bramble and straw like vines, resembled a dead fairyland. Even the movement of water hardly made it seem more alive.

I sat next to it for a while, deep in thought, all the while hoping for an answer that never came. 

Now, a year later, I can see what I didn't want to see.

I'd already had my answer then, at the beginning of the end.

A Spell For The Dissolution Of Sorrow

Let the lines dissolve your sorrow, cast it harmlessly into the void. 

The Trouble With Muses...

I want to think you'll miss my kind and lovely soul, but I already know you won't. 

Violet

On the corner of a village street, on top of the hill where the wind whirls and moans,  I feel memory twining around me like a nerve. It doesn't hurt to the touch, not really, just a little chill and a shiver, the presence of what is not-quite-forever-gone.

Taryn and me, coltish girls dancing around on the road above the canyon. Lip gloss, ruffles, Ralph Lauren plaid. The sky is violet, the full moon is cold. 

The memory is glossy and slick like hard candy. Watermelon, cherry, green apple scent. 

In my mind, we run home, laughing. From my perch, I can see Taryn through the window of her shop.  We are old now. And yet, and yet. 

Somewhere across the distant ocean, a clock chimes midnight. 

Time never really dies, does it? 

The Last of December

It's been a long and strange and difficult year, so I made art out of the things that hurt. 

Conjunction

Solstice night, 2020. Along with many other amateur astronomers, I was peering into the western sky, waiting for the planets to appear.

Like the solstice itself and many other things, the conjunction proper had happened earlier that day, out of sight, but not out of mind. In the distance, I felt the last 20 years slip away. The cycle begins again, a little lighter this time. 

I breathe easier, without the weight. I don't know what changes the future holds, only that it holds something I can feel out there ahead of me. 

In the meantime I will watch the patterns, the planets, the stars in the sky, and hope against hope for  happy alignments and the blessings of fate

(And maybe - if I'm lucky - the peace of mind to do a little more blogging next year.)

The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

Ten years ago today, I woke from an uneasy sleep. A dream-voice rang with alarming certainty through my mind: "your baby will be born dead."

I shuddered and pushed back the intrusive thought. Nonsense. I just wasn't feeling well. The baby was coming along fine, despite it being a surprise pregnancy - such a surprise, in fact, that I hadn't even realized I was expecting until I felt kicking in my tummy. Now I was about 30 weeks along, as near as the clinic could figure. The only problem was anemia, but I'd been given tablets for that. I had an appointment for my checkup in 2 days anyway. It was fine.

Intrusive thoughts begone.

The weather was chilly and becoming chillier as I went about my work. The house was all wood inside and there was a lot of polishing to be done. I had a nagging pain in my side, which made things a bit of a struggle. My husband was an editor on the night desk then, and had to leave for work at 2. He was concerned though, and said he'd call to check up on me later. Luckily my 9 year old was staying with his friend for the weekend, and my 12 year old was no trouble at all. I said I was sure I'd be okay and I'd see him at midnight. The dog would look after me.

I only remember two other things from that afternoon  - listening to George Harrison's All Things Must Pass and taking that blurry picture of the unusually pink sunset at the top of the post. The first should have been a warning. The two times I'd miscarried I'd listened to that album, too, but my urge to hear these melancholy songs just seemed like the result of a bout of winter sadness, not a response to anything happening inside my body.

Later that evening, I settled down on the living room couch to watch television. This wasn't something I did very often, but a movie called Keeping The Faith had captured my attention. I was quite happy there, curled up by the Christmas tree and the dog, despite my physical discomfort.

About 10:30, I hear a loud crash outside. From the sound, I thought there might have been a traffic  accident at the intersection around the corner. I began to worry. Perhaps my husband had got away from work early and was on his way home? I went to the back fence to see if I could make anything out through the pickets, but no luck. It had gotten quite cold by then, so I put on Nick's heavy wool coat and walked with some difficulty around the corner to look. There seemed to be nothing to see, though. I patted my baby bump comfortingly and made my way home, breathing clouds of vapor into the air

I remember this all so well because this would be the last walk I'd take with this baby inside of me, or any baby, for that matter, the last time I'd experience that unique dream-like feeling of not being alone in my own body. I had no idea that by this time, we were both already in grave danger.

I settled back down to watch the film, Jenna Elfman was having quite the affair with Ben Stiller, and Ed Norton was pining away. The story was starting to gather speed when I noticed I was leaking. Leaking? Just a bit, maybe. Perhaps it was my imagination. I sat up and heard a pop as my water broke. How could that be? I hadn't had any contractions. I was only 6 months along. I stood up as liquid poured out of me. Then I saw it wasn't amniotic fluid, it was blood.

It was sometime between 11 and 11:30. My husband would be off work soon, but he would likely go to pick up some things from the grocery store before coming home. I called his office. His co-worker answered and said he had just left, but he might still be in the building. Someone ran to get him while I watched the blood pooling on the Turkish carpet. They caught him at the door and brought him to the phone, where he said that he would rush home right away. These details might seem unimportant, but for me they are everything, because had he continued on to run errands as he planned, neither my baby nor I would have survived.

As it was, by the time he got there minutes later, I was already out of it, crouched in the bathtub, bleeding out. Having seen the state of the house and me, he realized there we were beyond driving to the hospital and called an ambulance.

I can only remember leaning against the railing as we waited on the porch, faint and afraid. Disturbingly warm blood poured out of me with any movement. I listened to the sound approaching siren, clinging to it, urging it closer. Fear was going through me in waves, but had I known what had happened, I would have been more afraid still. The fact is that I didn't know the signs of a complete placental abruption, but I did know the result of one.

While I was taken to the hospital by ambulance, my husband followed along in the car with our older son. He later said that while he had been telling himself that it was really all right, it just looked like a lot of blood. he finally became afraid when he saw how fast we were traveling.

I don't remember anything about the surgery, not really. Only a vague memory of trying to cling onto my physical body and thinking that I couldn't bear to leave without seeing my baby's face. When I came out of the anesthesia, the nurse told me I had a boy, "the prettiest little boy, He looks just like you, with the prettiest poufiest lips,"

It would be days before I could see him, though. In the meantime, they warned me that I was rather a mess. I had suffered a circulatory collapse due to blood loss, they said, and had to receive a transfusion through the jugular vein. Not only was I in a great deal of pain, but I was bruised black and blue as well. Still, I was alive. Two more minutes, the doctor said, and it would have been too late for both of us. Had my husband tried to drive us, we would have died in the car.

What they didn't tell me, and told my husband not to tell me until some time had passed, was that our baby had been born unresponsive and they had worked on resuscitating him for 20 minutes. But they did resuscitate him, and while they couldn't promise there would be no problems, modern methods made it far more unlikely than it used to be. What's more he seemed to be rallying quickly.

The nurses brought polaroids of him so I could see what he looked like, and his dad and brother had been spending time with him and reported back. Our younger son had been brought back from his friend's house and already met his new brother, too. I was glad for this. Still, I felt sad and alone. This was nothing like the other boys' births, which had held so much joy.

Finally, after some days, I was well enough to go to the NICU. to see him.  It's a very strange feeling, to be the last person in your family to meet your own baby, but there we are. He was no bigger than a plucked chicken, but remarkably healthy despite being 10 weeks premature. Finally I was able to hold and feed him, and my sorrow began to lift. 

He had come along before I'd been able to have a sonogram, so his gender had been a mystery. We'd settled on the name Alenka for a girl, but hadn't chosen a boys name yet. My husband bought a book of baby names and we sat looking at him while running down the list. Luckily we didn't have to go too far before finding something suitable. We decided he looked like an Andrew, and that's what he became. 

Within days we were able to come home, to carry on with our lives, Andrew with his new one and me with the rest of mine. Miraculously, outside of a stern warning from my obstetrician not to have any more babies or risk a repeat, we were free from any ill effects. 10 years later, Andrew is a sturdy, bright, healthy child (knock on wood) and his dramatic beginnings seem as alien to him as any old story from my past. 

Me, though, I remember. How I'd pushed aside the warning from my dream. How I'd ignored my symptoms, How little I knew about the symptoms in the first place. I think about what would have happened if my husband's co-worker hadn't caught him on the way out the door. If Dr. Suarez hadn't been on duty that night. If they hadn't been able to perform the transfusion. So many what if's, such a slender thread of possibility that had allowed us our lives. It's not something I'm willing to forget.

Information about placental abruption:

Placental abruption - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic

Worth knowing because the US maternal mortality rate is not good.

The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth — ProPublica

The Witch Of November

Stormy weather of the heart. Admittedly, maybe not as fierce as the winds that blow across the Great Lakes, but fierce enough, making me wistful for the stillness of heartaches past.

 

I'm only fooling myself, of course. It only seems still because it's long ago. Safe. That sharp blade of longing now dull. 

Still, I remember. There are certain nights when the intensity of hidden emotion etches a map onto your bones. I slide into the groove of discomforting comfort. It's all that I have left of those old feelings now. Parking lots. Stairwells. Memories of a scent caught unexpectedly around a corner.

Soon, my bones will carry a new map. Even as I lurch toward old age, the graver of desire is still fiercely sharp.  Maps of dreams and unforgotten hopes, maps of places you will never know.

The Edge Of The Mirror

A solitary figure waits at the edge of the mirror, unaware that she is on the verge of vanishing. 

*It's just me awaiting my flu shot, but there was something so forlorn about the image.

Sorrow, Part 2; or, The Map Of Lost Time

You don't have to cry, you tell yourself. It's nothing you haven't suspected for years. There was always a nagging feeling that those interminable nights spent heartsick, defensive, arguing about your own motivations were a waste. But suspecting something is different from having it confirmed. Knowing finally that no amount of your best behavior could have saved you the pain.

All that time spent as your confidence drained away. You'll never get it back. Not the confidence. Not the time. That's why you're crying.

So many years. Being sweet. Being helpful. Supportive through thick and thin (and thinner, as your mother-in-law quipped.) Being an accompaniment. Being less. 

It's a hard thing to swallow, this new reality. So what do you do but retrace your steps, remembering the times when you were only you, not belonging to anyone. Wandering, but not entirely lost.

Perhaps you left something yourself among those bleak and broken streets. Perhaps if you look long enough, you might find it again. 

Sorrow, Part 1

It's one of those days when there is no escape from the piercing anguish of not being enough. 

My instinct is to list all the ways I fall short (not smart enough, not pretty enough, not interesting, not talented, not skillful...) as if there would be some benefit to enumerating them, like some to-do list of self-improvement. But I am no longer young or naïve enough to believe this. I've been making this list as long as I can remember. All these years of effort come to naught

The question could be raised  -  not enough for whom? Because it has to be a whom, doesn't it, it's only people who judge these things. No matter how how much art (for example) there is in the world, it still doesn't have the power to decide who is good enough for it. 

My mind scrolls back across the years, seeing myself through the eyes of parents, teachers, bosses, would-be lovers and friends -  and seeing the dull disappointment there - "not enough." 

You'd think I'd be used to it by now, that it would have strengthened my tissue paper heart, but no. It's still a raw wound every time, the same raw wound. 

Maybe I'm just moody. It's been known to happen. Maybe it's the times, the constant upheaval, the cracked foundations. Maybe  the specter of death that hangs over us all. It could be all these things and more. All I know is that I'm outclassed, overwhelmed, spent. 

I'm so tired. A dried leaf, curled up, crumbling, longing to sleep. 

Out Of Place

In the midst of an upwelling of synchronicities (an upwelling? An unveiling? A swirl? A surge? By what mechanism do synchronicities reveal themselves? ) I came across these snippets of video I'd taken in December 2018, to prove to myself that the event described in this post really happened, so much was my disbelief at the time.

2018 seems like another world now, every day seems like another world, honestly, but as we again creep toward that secretive place that is autumn, the song is still appropriate, will probably always be appropriate, as long as I'm fated to look for the things I can't see. 

Crossroads

 September, 2020.

A crossroad, according to folklore, is a place between places, neither here nor there. It's no surprise then that I seek them, dream about them, a place that's nowhere; free from the world and the ties that bind, my disintegrating marriage and the pressures of responsibility. If I were nowhere, maybe I could be my own true self, or even just exist, without being ground down under this relentless weight.Turning into dust.

Last year, I likened myself to a moth in a lampshade, and I suppose it's still true, but the transformations of this summer have set me completely on fire. 

I'm not interested in becoming moth-ash, or dust, or any of the sad remains that litter so many glass globe lights. Instead, I dream of flying to the crossroads on my flaming wings, heat streaming upward, into nothing, nowhere, freedom. 

Spirits In The Material World*

Things I learned this week: Shining a light on a ghost does not clarify, only further obscures. 

*Breaking from my recent unintentional habit of titles that sound like Joy Division songs, I now diverge into the more Top 40 area of 80s post-punk new wave. What this signifies, I don't know, except perhaps being creatively dead .  

Analog

Lately it seems - for good or ill - I'm compelled to experiment with my own image. Questioning what it means to have this form. Who or what is this person who appears this way in the camera's eye? Must one be attractive to look at, as I was always told, or is it okay to be ugly, distorted, deformed? 

Most of all, what if a person's inside doesn't match their outside? Can an image capture the nature of person's soul?

It was with this kind of  thing in mind that I was playing around with various photo filters. (Also, not gonna lie, just because they looked kinda cool.) I went through lots of them before I tried the "bad TV" filter as a lark. Bad TV. How cute! How nostalgic! Except I threw it on, and there "I" was. My true nature. It didn't work on everyone...just me.

Intrigued, I tried it on scads of photos. baby pictures, teenage Halloween parties, the grab shot of me on the night of the dreaded stocking incident downtown. The pictures were not more attractive, but they were more true. 

No matter what time of life the photos were taken, the distorted photos seemed more real than the unaltered ones. There is my answer, I suppose. Strange to think that all this time, my soul has really been an analog TV on the blink 

Go And Catch A Falling Star

The summer, which began mere moments and also a million years ago, is beginning to dwindle. It's been full of far too much and nothing at all. Among those moments  -  during that hazy period we called July  - was the appearance of comet NEOWISE. While it was faintly visible from the end of our street, it wasn't quite visible enough to be sure you weren't imagining a milky streak in the sky. With this in mind, we headed into the hills above town to have a look.

We traipsed up and down the roads around the lake while bats flitted and wheeled above us. I broke away from the squabbling others (the hills were too steep, the walk was too long) and followed my instinct up a trail that led above the tree line. After a space of that particular summer quiet while my eyes adjusted to the dark, I suddenly saw. As otherworldly as any star but seeming all the more so for its novelty, the comet appeared, faint, but most definitely there, and before the others arrived - just for a moment -  my own secret. 

image source NASA 

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/comet-neowise-over-washington-dc-0

The Word On The Astral

Since last February, I've spent many nights beside my altar rock with my eyes on the sky. Not that this was at all unusual previous to that, but as it was more and more clear that the grasp on consensus reality was becoming wobbly, my inclination for observation and note-keeping took hold. 

After all, what is the sky but (to paraphrase Yoko Ono) an old friend who is always there for you? If nothing else, you can depend on the positions of the stars. 

 

When you spend so many hours in silent vigil, you notice things. Changes in air temperature. Small errant breezes. The patterns of clouds as they gather and disperse. These are things detectable with the 5 senses. Next come the things that are disputable by those means. That whisper - was it a faint voice or the sound of leaves? Those flitting shadows, the mysterious shapes in the smoke from your fire? Do these things have significance in themselves or only in our interpretation? Here we emerge into the territory of the witch and the mystic, and as strange as it is, I am comfortable here. 

Then there is the third level, where the realm of the astral merges with the conscious mind. While just about everything that occurs here is up for debate to the rationalist, the mystic must trust that her experience is true. 

So what comes of these nights spent with the stars and my maps and conversations with ghosts? 

The word on the astral is that things will never be the same.

You may not notice, though. They've always already been forever changed. 

How Soon Is Now?

A cool night on the slide toward summer. Just unseasonable enough to be mistaken for fall. In brief moments like these, when the two seasons reveal themselves as the mirror twins they are, I always feel a bit uneasy, as if I'd mistaken dusk and dawn.

Which is how I'd come to be sitting in the dark, staring at the silent heavens and thinking about time. The air like chilly fingers creeping up my spine. 

An old memory comes drifting in from some far-off place - the first time I'd heard that song by the Smiths, and how it sounded not only like loneliness, but loss. 

It occurs to me now that the question in the title was never answered. 

All Is Void

Another year on the planet. Time scrolls out behind me in a seamless flow. Just moments ago, it seems, I was a child, a wild creature; beyond good and evil, beyond gender, even. Just pure existence in the fresh morning air. 

In many ways I feel no different than I did then, only that the world forces me into this shape or that shape and so little of it has to do with my true shape at all. 

Now we are here, watching the last flare up before the flame out of the old order, the one that refused to step aside to let the new take its place. The seamless flow halts for a moment, and I wonder what the shape of the new world will be. The future is a void, the story yet unwritten, but I'm old enough at last not to be afraid. 

High Mysterious Union

It's May, and the owls and whippoorwills call in the night. Soon the cicadas will begin their summer song.

Here on my rock, I watch and listen. I think about signals and transmission lines.The electrical hum along the wires. Waves bouncing off the blue sky.

Mathematical formulas become sigils if you think about them long enough. Arcane frequencies resonate in time.

Somewhere, beyond the range of ordinary perception, the invisible conversation goes on and on.

Silence

Last night I dreamed about our house in Victoria. As often in my dreams, it was in a state of disrepair, dusty and abandoned, only resembling the real place in basic structure. It was an uneasy dream. My children were there, along with my step-son, but they were insubstantial, as if they'd been drained of their vital force. All their ages seemed wrong. In fact, everything about the house seemed wrong. 

From the hallway appeared my (now grown) son, but as the 8 year old he once was, an angelic, curly-haired boy. In his hands he held a gift tied with red ribbon. 

"On my birthday, I was silent" he said, unnervingly, before I woke.

Today the weather was the perfect sort we hope for all year: warm, but not too warm, dry, but not parched. Bright sun, soft breeze. I enjoyed it, despite the sickly dream haze lingering in the back of my mind. Why think of these things when the vanilla scent of the whitebrush is rising and the air is alive with bees? But sometimes a dream won't let go

It's not that I hadn't noticed the date. I had. The 4th of May. I'd seen it at midnight, even. Yet for some reason, it hadn't registered. 

"On my birthday, I was silent" says my eerie, angelic child. 

Suddenly, I remembered. It was the anniversary of the night we'd left Victoria, arriving here on the edge of a storm. And it's ironic that I'd forgotten, really, considering I'd titled the post about it "The Persistence Of Memory"

This bright day was nothing like the dismal drizzle of 8 years ago, though the feeling of uncertainty is the same. It has not escaped me that this time, the uncertainty belongs to everyone. For 8 years, I've been perched on the edge of this rock watching the world change, and now it finally seems to have caught up with me. 

It has also not escaped me that in the dream, my son was holding a gift. 

Not long ago, a friend who'd experienced a similar life upheaval around the same time said, "I feel like everything since then has been leading to this. Like I was made for this." 

I understood what she meant. This journey has been agonizing at times, yet here I am on the edge of this rock still, riding out these crises - national and international - in relative safety. To be doing so in Victoria doesn't even bear thinking about. For once, this unforgiving landscape holds me like a cradle while I wait to learn what needs to be done. 

In this post, I wrote about keeping the old key to the storage unit I'd rented back then as a sort of talisman. What I didn't mention was that the key is tied with a red ribbon. When I realized what the dream meant, the symbolism of the red ribbon on the gift box was immediately clear. 

Now that mourning the past is over, It's time to reclaim my autonomy.

Isolation

Me. Day 46.

Height: 5' 6"
Weight: 105 lbs.
chest:: 34"
waist: 24"
hips: 34"
Wrist: 5"
Shoe size: 6 (US)
Hair: 24"
Age: indeterminate, possibly ancient

From here on my patch of ground, I measure things. The length of the grass. My body. Time. It all changes gradually, like cloud shapes on a still afternoon. It's not that I mind the isolation, I don't. It's an opportunity for quiet reflection. Sometimes, however, there's a risk of equating this with helplessness, and so I measure things, assuring myself of some gradual progress, like the sun across the sky.

I try not to think about stilted dreams and unfulfilled longings. No, that's a lie. I think about them all the time. I think them quietly to myself, where I don't have to defang them with humor, or make them pretty for public consumption.

 I think about jealousy, and envy, and how I sometimes suffer them myself even while trying to deflect them from others, even though I know all this competition is a social construct that's been ingrained in us, and lacks much inherent value of its own.

I think about philosophy, and psychology, and the strictures that come with studying the mind when it doesn't account for the soul. I think about the soul, too (do they think and feel, can they be quantumly entangled like diamonds?) all the while knowing that all of our best answers are guesses.

And then there is reality itself, and the perception of such, and whether reality changes or only our perception does. ("Reality" according to Nabokov, being one of those words that mean nothing without quotation marks.)

I think about these things during chores and in between lessons, and while I'm conditioning my hair and polishing my skin (because expectations of beauty are still high even in a quarantine) and hoping that I will understand more by the time this is over, but knowing that I may not ever understand anything at all.

At the very least I will keep on with my measuring.

The Ace Of Crowns

It's the last day of March. Spring has sprung. The earth has revived in vivid color, and here I am without having written a word. A global pandemic will do that to you.

It's not as if there's been no inspiration. It's not as if magic and mystery have come to end. On the contrary, things are more phantasmagorical than ever. It's the way of things in a crisis, I suppose, what with our consensus reality straining at the seams.

No, I'm just tired, really, tired and inclined to be quiet right now. There is too much to say, and a lot that shouldn't be said, and it's beyond me to sort out which is which.

Between the psychic jolts and the glitches and the breaking apart of things that must be put together again, it's a lot to handle. That's not even accounting for the very real fear and grief we feel amid the onslaught of change.

That said, if cracks have appeared in our world, there is no reason not to find the joy that's hidden in them. I daresay there is every reason we should.

"The death card means change" says the fortuneteller to the nervous querent in every cliched movie scene, but if you ever wanted a real-life example, this is it.

If our foundations have cracked, our own integrity has never mattered more. If you have to choose between helping yourself or others, which will it be?

The card has been laid. The change is at hand. The only thing left to do is decide what it means to you.

Good luck and Godspeed.

Gazing Toward The Unseen

7 AM on an overwhelmingly ordinary morning. Everything as it's expected to be. Suddenly, there is a brief, flickering moment when the uncanny crosses your path, or you've crossed it. The faintest breath of another world existing beside you.

It is always there, hidden in plain sight.

Soularoids

Sending bits of this world to live in other worlds.