Ray Bradbury. Edits

It occurred to me tonight how much I like Ray Bradbury. Really like. I like his writing, his outlook. I've posted some of my favorite quotes here, with comments following...if I felt like it. 


I don't talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

The meaning of things is what interests me the most, about everything. I don't go looking for meanings, that puts a skew on things that removes authenticity. I wait for those feelings to come to me in their time, to show themselves. I love this quote.

“You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You're one of the few who put up with me. That's why I think it's so strange you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, somehow.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Yes. You are different. You're not like the others. You pay attention. I didn't know how to take that at first, when we began to talk. It's been almost a year...did you know? And that line, "you're one of the few who put up with me". I hope it's not all "putting up with". But I appreciate it for what it is. 

“What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?” 
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

Exactly. When? I ask this of myself as well. Here, I shout the worst things...and I allude in whispers to the rest. This quote unsettles me. I like that. I want to think and to let those feelings and meanings come to me. Even though it frightens me a little. 

“She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why.... Luckily, queer ones like her don't happen often.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Am I queer? I've wondered at times and especially each time I read this book. Is it unusual to want to know the meaning of things? The why, more than the how? The how is obvious, or more easily found. The WHY, the motive, the drive, the desire...that's what I want to see. Show me yourself. Show myself to my own self as well.

“My gosh, if you’re going away, we got a million things to talk about! All the things we would’ve talked about next month, the month after! Praying mantises, zeppelins, acrobats, sword swallowers!” 
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again...” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

My biggest sorrow, and fear. People frighten me. I have to be honest and admit that. Because, when I care about them, when I let someone in, I've carved out a space for them to have as their own. Not to control, not to own, just a space to be, inside of me. There are very few people I've done that with...4 that I can think of. Well, 5, but one is gone. 
This thought was what struck me the hardest the night my mum died. As I lay in bed, just staring at the ceiling in the dark, holding my sister as we said nothing because there was nothing that could be said, nothing that words could speak...it hit me, this thought. Mum would never fuss at me about anything anymore. Never cook for me again, pat my bum while I did the dishes in her kitchen, never call me "punkin", hold me, stroke my hand, my head, my hair. I'd never hold her close and smell her own sweet soapy tobacco smell, call her, watch her turn something dull or ordinary into something beautiful and warm, lovely, in two small swipes of her capable, amazing hands. And a part of me began to ache, so deep inside...it's never stopped. It never will. 
When someone leaves my life, I'm always struck immediately at what their leaving means. No more conversations. No more hugs. No more laughter, sharing life, thoughts, hurts, love. No more knowledge of their family, no more visits. To never see their home again, their smile, to share their dreams...it's why it's hard for me to let anyone in like that. But, these 4...they are in. I carefully considered. And I chose.

“He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who reflected your own light to you? People were more often--he searched for a simile, found one in his work--torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

It is, quite simply, what it is. 

“We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing...
It is not books you need, it's some of the things that are in books. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Books. They open our minds, our hearts, our lives. At what point does paper begin to burn? 

“From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in Future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. ” 
― Ray Bradbury

Never sit anything out. Even if we choose not to participate, we still are choosing a way through that time. Let the beautiful stuff out. Show it. Share it. 

“Every time you take a step, even when you don't want to. . . . When it hurts, when it means you rub chins with death, or even if it means dying, that's good. Anything that moves ahead, wins. No chess game was ever won by the player who sat for a lifetime thinking over his next move.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Farewell Summer

For me, right now. Facing the biggest steps of my life...no, not facing. Taking. The feet are already on the path, the choice is already made and the movement has already begun. 
Movement. It's life.  

“I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.” 
― Ray Bradbury

Why I like the mall. People that I am close, so close, to may frighten me, but overall, people fascinate me. Look at the windows...what's behind them? What do they think? What does happy smell like to them? I want to know. 

“I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it’ll make sense.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

The words of my former spouse, so generously given to me the day he left the papers hidden on the counter...Who knows? he said. Maybe some day you'll even find someone who can get along with you, make sense out of you. 
Maybe. Maybe some day, as I pour things out in this blog, maybe i'll begin to make sense to myself. Or anyone. 


The father hesitated only a moment. He felt the vague pain in his chest. If I run, he thought, what will happen? Is Death important? No. Everything that happens before Death is what counts. And we've done fine tonight. Even Death can't spoil it.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Everything that happens before Death is what counts.


“My stories run up and bite me on the leg—I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish the idea lets go and runs off.” 
― Ray Bradbury

Oh, God. Yes. Yes yes yes.  

“Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed.” 
― Ray Bradbury

If you want to write, write. Write everything. Write all the time. Do it. The more you do it, the more it's done. 


“If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.” 
― Ray Bradbury

Life is incredibly amazing. Beautiful. Wonderful. Painful. Funny. Horrible. 

“A lot will be lost that way, of course.
But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Word. 

“I want to wake people up and make them care about being alive in this universe.” 
― Ray Bradbury

I want to see it happen. I want to watch it happen, see their face, the look in their eyes, see their body change, hear the hiss of breath as they realize and take one as if it were the first ever. And I want to write about it. 

“If I’d found out that Norman Mailer liked me, I’d have killed myself. I think he was too hung up. I’m glad Kurt Vonnegut didn’t like me either. He had problems, terrible problems. He couldn’t see the world the way I see it. I suppose I’m too much Pollyanna, he was too much Cassandra. Actually I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna and half Cassandra, warning of the future and perhaps living too much in the past—a combination of both. But I don’t think I’m too over optimistic.” 
― Ray Bradbury

Why I like Ray Bradbury.


“Life is trying things to see if they work.” 
― Ray Bradbury

Nothing to say. It's true. 

“It shouldn't work. It shouldn't be magic. You shouldn't weep happy and then sad and then happy again.
But you do. And I do. And we all do.” 
― Ray Bradbury

I do. I have today, a few times. I'm struggling with daughter, worried about other daughter, feeling things that I have never felt before, doing things I've never done. I laugh, then cry, shake and jump in excitement. And now, I'm going to go to bed.

fast week in review...because it's been one. no edits. that may change. on the run out the door.

Oh Lord, has it been. The week started off wonderfully. Really. And the poem that is still drafted is from that.

Got home. Doing okay. Doing stuff. Cleaning, getting ready for the week, recalibrating to being in this area that is no longer home and that feels so incredibly foreign...
My foot hit a step at the top of the lower flight of stairs and down I went.
WTH.
At my age, I fricken fell down the stairs. Slid more, really. Landed faster than I could think of what happened, and just sat there.
I mention it because it really tossed me for a loop. I don't know if I had a concussion, i know I hit my neck but I'm not aware of a head hit, or what, but for the next 2 days I was in fuzz land. Thinking was HARD. My focus was not right, in any respect, not just visually. I was in a fog and couldn't seem to remember how to find the door to open and leave. At work, they sent me home early, my eyes didn't look right, they said. Then I told them about the damn fall. Then they saw the bruise on my hand and made me show them my back.
So, home I went. Couldn't sleep.
Because the child, the younger, sends me a message while I'm at work that she wants to quit the program. Which I mentioned.
16 yr old delusional stuff. It's so romantic to get a job, to work, to make your living, to be a "real" human. I've been there. I've had a kid there before. And I don't need to go into how dumb this is. It's almost a rite of passage.
This isn't flowery prose. I'm in a hurry, but there's something that I have to get out before I go. Today, today is a ritual and a step.
I talk to her a bit, careful to navigate the mine field. She is glued to a friend right now, her crutch and security blanket. It's her way. And there's suddenly a new boy in the picture, but after the fact.
I talk to her sister.
I start talking to her father.
I talk with her advisor. Or try, rather. This program is designed to be student run. Period. No parental anything other than a ride there if needed. But he agrees to give her a few more days, if she calls him.
Persuade daughter to call. They have an appt tomorrow.
Try to put together a plan to help her accomplish her goal without adding another quit to her list.
Finally, yesterday, father and I come to an agreement. Well, to be honest, I persuade him to my point of view on the subject. He says we can't force her but we have to make her. I ask what his plan is for that. Not smarmy. I'm open, if he's got a plan worked out. Because I had a detailed plan to offer her. He didn't have one. I understand the dilemma. That's parenting. Persuasion with love through the dilemmas. God. I love them so much. They add a depth to life that nothing else can. What a pain in the ass.
Meanwhile, the move. The job. All on hold and I found myself in this past month, frozen with fear. Unable to move forward, and not knowing why. WHY??? I know it's the right thing. I KNOW it is. KNOW. More than I know how to breathe, because I am consciously aware of the RIGHTNESS of this. But frozen, nonetheless.
And my anxiety over that, over daughters, with the fall and that disruption included, it spilled out into other areas of my life. I tried so so so hard to keep it reined in, to not let it show much. I know it did. My struggling was intensely overwhelming and if it wasn't noticeable, then I am fricken amazing and mail me my damn Oscar/Emmy. Address will follow. I'm serious.
Oh. Add severely cash strapped to the above. No pay day in almost 2 months, savings scraping bottom, credit living to a small extent. Not just the stress of that...but hunger. No pity party. I've been hungry. Period.
So, a hell of a week.
And a realization. A true, not hiding it from myself realization early on in the week.
So, yesterday, at work, dealing with former spouse, texting daughters, working somehow at an incredibly efficient level of ability and even more hours offered(would have loved to, but that'd put me over 40 and they can't do that. I'm solid at 36, which allows for 4 sub hours a week at the main franchise branch when necessary. I hate to say it, I'm a damn good secretary/office manager), while I'm texting another friend in a panic over the frozen move and that other issue...swallowing tears. I tell her, I want to find the seed of this in my psyche and dig the poison out of me. Forever.
She says, Good Luck, honey. I love you. She tells me to throw love at it. And I do.
She's right.
And a phone call that I couldn't take. But that lit up my day to see had happened.
But later, at home, alone, I'm still fighting this thing. We have a plan in place to help daughter. She may not accept it, but that's her choice. Their dad and I are on the same page, not a small undertaking and it always exhausts me.
I contact another friend. Someone who knows me well, who reads my emotions. Who hears what I'm not saying.
Help me. I didn't ask.
Tell me what to do.
Tell me why I do this thing that I am doing.
Everything I want is ready. Everything I want, everything that is what I've dreamed of, well...close...is on the other side of this chasm. It's there. Waiting for me to step through and take it into my hands, to own it. To live it.
Quiet for awhile, then very softly...turn the mirror back to yourself. You know the answer. Speak it.
Oh my God.
That was powerful enough to hit me solid and hard in my chest, knock the air out of me...bring tears pouring from my soul. 
Yes. I do know that answer.
Fear.
It's all that I've wanted. Life is waiting to hand it to me.
My terror lies in the accepting of it...and the potential to lose it, after tasting it and knowing the happiness that has eluded me all of my life, that has called to me from deep inside, pulling and driving me to find it.
So.
Today. I choose. I choose to step through. To step on. To do it.
Whatever comes, comes. 
I'm a survivor. This I know.
I will not borrow trouble, as a most favorite person, a someone, tells me that I do. And he is right. 
Transparency. I am going to step out of these shadows in myself and expose to my soul what it is that I want, to focus and to open myself to it. Fully.
Today, I have a ritual to attend to. 
And after that, a job to apply for. 
One that was sent to me 2 days ago. 
My daughter...she will protest. But I see, at this moment, a clear vision that she is waiting for me to stand up and make this happen. To allow this to happen. 
This I had to put down here. 
And damn it, the tears won't stop. It's an open, flowing thing. It's okay. I can act through tears. Through fear. 
As for my heart.
It's not as tough. It's very soft. Tender. Involved. I try to hide that. I try to hide the deeply romantic person that I am from places like fb and friends, work. Here, it's all open. Not just romantic in the sense of human love, but romantic in the sense of wonder of life and it's beauty and joys and fullness. 
But. My heart. God help me. I accept full responsibility for it and it's own silly self. 
But that...that is another post. For another day.

...

I took it easy this morning, feeling a little fuzzy still, stiff and sore from a fall. Got many things done, go figure.
Younger daughter finally came clean about her school program. Yes, she's bailing. I wish I could say that I'm surprised, but the sad truth is, I'm not. I AM disappointed. Concerned.
Tired.
God, I wish I knew what the hell to do to help her.
I wish I was someone that she had any respect for. She's so firmly convinced that I just don't know anything.
Anyway.
Hoping for a payday this Friday, I'll get the painting finished, get this place listed and get things done.
And...
There's that.

Well. Edits. Clarifications. Greater ambiguity. Drafted it, more edits, put it back out now.

Finally.

Now sleep can come.

I've had a head full of thoughts
And a body full of...everything, and I couldn't sleep for it all.

I pulled my notebook and just like the old days, words poured out.

A poem, of sorts. It follows no set course of flow or pattern. As with most of what I do, I have to let it live in the shape it has chosen for itself. I'm not worried that others won't like it. It is my delivery of experiences happening, and that it will likely mean little, if anything, to anyone else, matters not a whit to me.

I used to write poems, and songs, constantly. They came faster than I could write, at times, and covered everything happening in my life. All that I saw, thought, felt, learned, let go...

Oddly enough, in my memory, I can't recall a poem of love, not for one that was real, at any rate. Not for anything other than the mtn, life, my horse. Not all that surprising when I hadn't ever tasted what that could be like at that point. Not the sweet, clean true taste of love.

This one has been slowly working to the surface, growing and discovering itself on the pathway up to out.

And I understand more now about myself, for the writing of it. Frightening in ways. Exhilarating in others.
Reaffirming to myself what I had already begun to suspect. What I have refused to run away from, for the first time in my life. 
No labels. 
I have to add...perhaps no labels because of that fear that has always sent me running. But I don't want to run this time. Not at all.
Just grateful acceptance and wide-eyed wonder at the unnamed thing.
The journey journeys on.

In a short space of time it came
Ready to be born
To live
To be known.

There may be definite benefits to fatigue, extreme caffeine and ibuprofen doses and pain.
(I fell down the stairs, pulled out the big guns to fight off the brain fog and fibromyalgia I can feel brewing in response to trauma spots)

It's in draft.
I'm not ready to share it.

But it makes me smile.
It's full of good things.

Maybe someday it will see light.

And now...
I can sleep.

Have I posted this yet?

Resting my head for work tonight, and clearing out my phone...I'll check for duplicates later.

Well, blog. edits and good morning.

Wednesday. Full moon? Not sure...but it feels like one.

It's dump night. Not a bad dump night, just very full. No analysis...maybe a few questions.

I'm on my bed, because sleeping in it...I don't know.
Headphones in, music on. Candles burning.

My legs are burning as well tonight from a hard workout earlier. Feels awful. And awesome.

Daughter. Oh. Well. Always a bit of breathe holding. School is, I hope, good. This program is run for, by and through them, but me. She wants to meet someone. When/if someone is ready, that will be interesting. She can either be her delightful self or her bitchy self. Or both. Rapidly.

Work. Going well. Franchise owner came into our office tonight. He's an odd sort to begin with, and was in an odd spot tonight. We don't usually see him much, his office is in another location. Odd spot, definitely. If I know when he's dropping by again, I won't wear the skirt that I had on today. He liked it, and I didn't like that.

Friends, two doing well, a few falling completely apart. 1 is getting married in a few weeks and has decided to choose to make it work. Another doing well, married and becoming happily so again. A third, married, desperately wants to be happy but her spouse does not. The last, married, having an affair. Husband was going to leave her but has now changed his mind. So has she, hence the affair. And all in places of needing me and my "wisdom" as they call it, tonight.
Poor things.
There is no wisdom. Just a complete refusal to play games, to call something blue that's red.
That's all I am.
I've never sought to be complicated, and I'm not. That throws some people and they look for the lies, the falseness.
There aren't any.
Don't weary me with your doubt over my motives.
Don't try to trick or trap me into revealing what's really going on.
There's no hidden agenda with me.

If you want to know anything, just ask.

I was feeling a bit low after all of that this evening. Hunger but not hungry. Tired but wanting to exercise. Comfortable but vaguely discontented. All of a sudden. I know why. I knew why. I hadn't eaten and needed to...I sent a msg in to another friend, asking then to not fuss at me over it but to please tell me to eat. They did, after a small laugh over the remark that they'd never dare fuss...the msg ended with the comment "eat to give yourself strength, to keep your eyes lit with that glowing light that we all seek to warm our cold souls by."
Drop phone.
Eat dinner.
Cry.
And why cry?
Confusion.
Frustration.
I don't like being noticed like that.
How can anyone seek to warm their cold soul by my eyes? Those words coming to me at a moment when I felt so small, so incapable...
so disappointed at missing a phone call earlier.

Silly woman. That's me.

Anyway.

So here. On my bed.
Music.
Candles.
Blanket.

Tear tired body.

And happy, so happy for a very dear someone who is receiving the good he should have always had. I won't say that to him, sometimes these words "mess with his head". But I feel them. And I'm so incredibly happy. He is...quite something, to me.
I'm still...so surprised. Only not.

Not surprised that he's something. He always has been, even back in the day, the unsure leader, wary but courageous, a smile on his face, doubt in his eyes. A softness protected by razor edges. A bit expectantly unpredictable, blunt honesty tempered with insecure sincerity.

What surprises me?

Everything.

No analysis.

Goodnight.

10 things

A much adored niece of mine, in a recent blog post, shared a list of 10 things that she loves, that fill her with peace, joy, passion...key word, FILL. We give and give and give always, it is crucial to our health, in all respects, to be certain to fill ourselves with what brings life alive for us.
She broke her own rules by listing all that came to mind, and I am going to follow suit and simply list, in no particular order, what brings me joy, the kind that feeds my soul, spirit, body, mind. Some may seem vague, but they aren't. They are all encompassing.

Music
Singing
Love...and the act of Loving.
Dance
Writing
Nature
Conversation
Learning
Animals
Hiking
Reading
Healthy sex with someone I care about(gloves off, being honest)
Watching...seeing...observing.
Cooking
Exercise...it's a true coping tool
Creating
Working
Conquering a fear

Experiencing all of the above.

What fills you?

It happens

It does.
Writers, we don't always get to choose what to write about. We read, and we know what is in us. The stories that are ready to be told, in whatever form, work their way to the front of the line. We may sit down to share one thing, but what comes out is what is ready.
The important thing is to write at least a little each day.
It may be absolutely nothing of importance, etc. It may simply be the dumping of the day's thoughts, feelings, struggles. That is OK.
It has to happen.
The gutters and drains have to be kept clear and open.
You must continue to allow your voice to practice.
And every now and again, you are given the opportunity to bring something beautiful, or terrible in it's impact, into life.
That is what a writer is.

It's different from being an author. One can be an author without being a writer...they can be someone who writes.

You know the difference.

Many observers do not. There's no malice here. Every writer is an author. But there's an immense difference between Steinbeck, for example, and Dick Francis. Danielle Steele and Madeleine L'Engle. Stephanie Meyer and Jane Austen. Look at those and tell me what the differences are. Look at those and tell me who saw greater income? Who was motivated by what? I'm not discounting anything, or anyone's talent and ability.

I'm defining. Marking the difference.
Do writer's have disdain for money, fur advances? Are they about the "suffering for my art?"
No. Writer's need to eat, and they'd love to live doing what they are.
That's not the difference.
Look again. Focus. Think.
Be honest.
So.
Write.
Write the fluff, the bs, the empty. We all need to do it, to read it even.
Then write the truth.
The history.
The humor.
The beauty.
Wreck us with your words, the pictures, the emotions...and let us find our truths, our history, our beauty...ourselves...in them.
But above all else,
Write.

Muse. Endlessly.

I like Muse. I like enough of their stuff to probably be considered a fan, although not obsessed by any means. 
I often find Matt Bellamy's voice to be strained and difficult to listen to, so the songs that I do enjoy are not generally those. Generally, I say, because a few are of that vein, but the music more than makes up for it. 
This is one of the better ones for him. A softly beautiful song, and one that I had forgotten about. I did a bit of traveling northward today, following water and such, and popped the Absolution cd in. 

Enjoy ~

Muse

Endlessly

what i mean when i say...the mountain saved my life. In detail.

Recently (read, yesterday) someone said to me that they didn't understand what I mean when I say that "the mountain saved my life". 

I get that.

It seems like a minimal thing to "save a life", in most respects. Especially if one is coming from a place of maturity, of family, of responsibility. What saves a life when someone is older? Often the thought of children, of aging parents that need cared for, etc. The thought of my daughters is what kept me from losing myself to depression during the divorce, I had to be "there" for them. I do understand that.

I also understand the misunderstanding.

I am here to clarify. 
No real preamble, I've written bits and snippets from time to time about the other things. This is jumping right into the point. 

October, 1976, we left California, San Joaquin valley, and came north.

At the time that we arrived within the shadow of Mt Rainier, I was young, 6th grade. My responsibility was limited to existence. 

Which I could not justify in myself.

Things that had happened, that I was internalizing, left me feeling that there was little purpose in that existence. 

Existing hurt.

Existing while in pain was a tunnel of dim light with no sign of end or exit.

One foot. Another foot. On and on and on and on and on and on, no change, no understanding, no abating of fear, or soul screaming, feeling fractured and shattered from so far back in my memory, I had no reason to expect anything better.

That, there, is where I was. Trapped in a cycle of blackness, shame, anger, pain.

I could visually see the beauty in things, I could sense that there was more to the animals, to music, to the world, but I could not feel it. It was a mirage, in many ways, to me. A cruel vision experienced by others...I couldn't break through the glass wall and walk into the light they had.

Until I took a walk back into those woods. Through trees, ferns, a fallen log across a creek, a meadow of grasses taller than myself flattened by...something(i met my first elk later that year in the meadow and learned why the grass was flattened)...

I sat in the grass, under the grey sky of early November, cold. I remember looking at everything around me, the way it smelled, the dampness seeping into me through wet jeans and shoes and something began to move inside me. I won't lie, that scared me. I felt that something was watching me, or...I don't know. I jumped up and ran back across the log, almost falling in the creek, through the woods, across the backyard, up the back stairs and crashing through the back door into the kitchen as if Satan himself were hot on me. 

Dark corners, stairs, the large attic upstairs, all of these things held terror for me during this time. I lived in the cold, cruel grip of fear, knowing with all certainty that night brought agony that only I could sense. I didn't sleep, I stayed awake with my dogs on my bed with me, hand on each, frozen and watchful.

Slowly, as each day took me back into the woods again, the dampness, the sharpness of scent, the quality of sound, the colors of the grass, the water, the rocks, the sky, it all began to break through the crack made that first day. I would sit quietly and watch everything, seeing what could only be heard, staying out later and later, missing school some days to hide in this haven of...something. 

It took time. 

The summer, 1977, was very hot, very dry. The sun, in those woods, that meadow, walking the roads in the town...something began to truly live inside of me. Hope, for one thing. Excitement and anticipation, what would I find the next time out? What was that animal? That sound? It pulled me out of myself through that crack, into the world, shining light into my dark corners...and out there, in those woods, up on the hills, sitting on huge boulders looking out over a view that seemed to go forever, I took my shame out and looked it over, on all sides. I forgave myself, in large part, although that journey wouldn't be completed for a few years. It began here. I screamed to the sky, gut primal screams that ripped the black oil of hate and death out of me. There were times when I could almost feel the physical tearing of something deep in my body, an abscess of putrid emotion begging to be lanced and drained. No pretty words, I cut myself open, begging the sharpness of that self-inflicted pain to take the place of the other,deeply indescribable emotion that was boiling. What I learned, through hindsight, was that in opening myself to the feelings of hope and peace, the senses of living, the door was also opened to the emotions suppressed and buried. They had to be felt. They had to be freed. It had to happen. 

There were times when I wasn't certain I'd come down off those hills. 

I wasn't sure I'd bother to go home.

But I did.

I had learned to believe that I could be like the people I saw...I began to see what hope was. I'd had just enough of a taste of something else to know that I wanted more, that I COULD feel it, taste it. I could have it. 

By the time I hit high school, I was living mostly in real time. My friends were getting high, trying to get out of their heads, trying to experience everything.
I had struggled so desperately to find my way into myself that I had no interest in fucking with any of that. I still don't. I did drink, it didn't do anything but numb my body, which would still hit a shock point at times, shaking, cold, weak. I was tested for many things, diabetes, hypoglycemia, etc... but it was all part of the process. I know it. 

In my Jr year things began to finally be truly real for me. I had started to honestly feel beauty in all forms, something that is so natural now, I lose myself in it before I consciously recognize it. I still couldn't talk anyone into letting me tag along to the parties, I was the "good kid". I couldn't explain to them, I couldn't explain to myself, how very important it was for me to enter that world, not for the drugs, but to check my path, my footsteps. I knew it was more than simply wanting to go. In my wanderings I had come across the remains of enough keggers to know what it was about. I wasn't afraid, I knew what it was all about. I had a deep need to test everything. But my one closest resource refused categorically to allow me to go. He was going to "keep me a good kid". Each time he said that, I'd just stand there, debating...If only he'd known. Finally, after I pulled a total bitch fit on him, and he wrote me a letter explaining his position and his absolute intent to preserve my virtue and innocence, even if it meant that we were no longer friends, I quit asking. I simply went other places. Where I had few friends, and where it was a bigger risk. Not wise, but being young and driven to pursue a path, that's how it went down. Not well, in all cases, but live and learn. Whatever. Spilt milk. Another time to approach that nonsense, maybe.
But,
I had to know that I could do things and not be haunted. 

I had to know that I could do things and remain in control. I had learned to control myself and I vowed to not let go of that, only ever with people I knew in my soul I would be safe with. 
That, for the record, has only happened once. And that person has no idea that they are in that position. Well, that's an arrogant assumption to make, they are quite perceptive, much more than almost anyone else I have ever known. Another conversation completely, just as an added aside.

How does this play in to how the mountain saved my life?

At the end of my Jr year, we moved. Out of the town, away from these people, the trees I knew, the hills, the sounds, the smell. Away from the mountain.

Away from everything that had given me a reason to leave hell and choose something else.

I started my Sr year as an out-of-district student, driving myself back to school each day. Then, for some reason, the approval for my status was rejected. I think they gave a reason, but i honestly can't remember what it was. 

And, as I've written before, I fell to pieces. 

It wasn't the move. Good Lord, we'd moved my whole life. Even up in that area we lived in so many places in the process of moving to this house or another, it was second nature to me. 

Again, in hindsight, much as the process of weaning off a medication for something is often part of healing and moving on, this was that. I saw it later. The clay had been shaped, it was time for a firing. And significant cracks appeared, but again...it was part of the process of becoming whole, healthy, independent of person/place/etc.

In the cracks, what was real really in my life and what was not were sifted.

What I had learned, what I had been given, shown, what I had taken from life for myself, and what I had left behind, up on that mountain, in those woods, those hills...that's what I had. 

That was what got me through that period of time. That belief in hope for more of the good things i had experienced is what determined, along with not wanting to put my mother in the position of finding my body, whether I was going to continue to live and move through the process or take myself out and be done with it. 

As I've written before, I chose to live. I made that choice not just for that specific time, but for my life. I rejected the option of suicide. And I did it, a few times over. I was very clear on how I was going to do it, if I was. Knife. Artery. Sharp, slow, deep slice, clean through every one that I could reach and had strength to open. I have never shared that with anyone, or anything before, but I suppose right now, right here, it's time to let it go. My intent was that I would bleed myself out, empty my body of the symbolic pain, free it in all completeness, all finality. I had the knife chosen. I was that far in. 

But my mum. 
I couldn't do it to her. I was never so far wrapped up just in myself that I didn't know that there was so much more to whatever this thing called life is, separate from me. I knew that not everyone was having the experience that I was. I can't remember ever not knowing that on a very conscious level. 
Mom...She would never have recovered, and I couldn't put that kind of pain on anyone. My only goal would be to end pain, and all that would do was to end mine at the expense of the one person who didn't understand me often, didn't know the depth of any of this, but still never gave up on me. 

I had chosen life, up in those hills. 
Or rather, life had chosen me. 

So, I put the knife away and began to focus my energies, limited and fragile as they were, on the process of learning how to live this life, regardless of what was to happen or where I was to be. I began to see a psychiatrist, who didn't make me rehash the past, but took me from where I was and propelled me forward.

It hasn't always been easy, but that's okay. Who's life is? It hasn't always been certain, but again...life just isn't. 
IF I never saw the mountain again, I would be okay. The lessons are what matters. 
It's not bs. 
It's real.
And that is what I mean when I say, the mountain saved my life. 

What cannot be said

So tired
In body and spirit.

A very busy day,
Daughters, friends in difficulties,
Preparing for the return to the office tomorrow

A brief light in the morning
A smile

House cleaned, things packed
Things made, recipes found

On the road, in the stores,
Rain
Wind
Cold
Warmth of one daughter's affection
Chill of another's derision

Texts from friends facing large beasts
Of their own making,
With courage.
Checking in, to be sure I am still standing watch with them.

Back to the house
Dogs out
Upstairs, the bed.

Blanket. Soft, welcoming.
Pillow, cool, white...
Clothes off, slide between blanket
So nice on my skin.
Warm.
Soft.
Wrapped around, I sink into sweet, deep sleep.

A dream
Body, long and olive
Warm, smooth
Alive under my hands
Feeling through my fingers into my own.

I shift, drift to surface of memory
Sigh
Sink again
Into scent
Taste
Touch

Legs entwined
Lips brush chest
Arm
Hand

Sound
Motion

Wave breaks
Body shakes

Awake

Filled with longing
To touch
Taste
Hear
Tease
Feel

Feelings to thoughts
Thoughts to words
Words to lips
Lips open to release to the universe

Not
Yet

And so
I wait

Lola. Photo. edit.

A photo of sweet Lola.

She wasn't the most clever pup I've shared life with, 

but her spirit, love of living,

happiness simply to be near me,

and ability to inspire courage to my broken everything

earned her a place in my heart and memory that will never be taken away.

I had to rehome her during the separation prior to the divorce...

a piece of my heart went with her. 

I still miss her.

Kathy Mattea. Addition.

Where have you been

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHzMGM9qyZw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Anatomy of a breakdown...still in process, additions made at the break.

I've been working on this one for a long time. I always say that if something has to be forced then it's probably not the right time to share it. Well, I've added to and taken from and manipulated the words and phrases, but none of it was right.
Maybe tonight is the right time.
The last breakdown.
To begin with, I'm one of those, not unusual by any means, folks who holds it together beautifully during a crises, a situation. I'm one of those that keeps their head, breaks down what's really happening, what needs taken care of, what's just fluff, how to manage what is right in front of the face, even if it feels like it's off over down the barrel of a gun pointing out into the woods, or something. My job is to define, to delineate, to defuse if necessary and create a working plan of attack and conquer.
When my older girl turned 18, she took off.
I've written about those details before so I'm not going into them here. I went into my crisis management mode, negotiated a treaty and working plan of communication, and began the business of putting our home life back together. That was tough. It hurt, so terribly. I didn't understand what had happened, why it had happened or how it was going to turn out. Late at night, exhausted by the emotional fog that was enveloping me, I would ask the powers that be to lift the fog, to let me breathe.
Stupid.
The fog would begin to lift, but the pain was so intense and sharp, I couldn't think straight, much less breathe. So I would beg the universe to please return the fog.
That went on for months, for me. The entire summer, I could feel the weight of pretending that all was well work on me. I focused on our family, on the farm, on every and anything except what was happening.
Long story short, I know...I ended up on meds, after a few hospital visits, not altogether successfully.  I was already working my way though a very good book, but the panic disorder had reared it's head, probably because I absolutely could NOT sleep.
On meds for panic, functioning more or less...
then a doctor decides to plop a different drug on me.
Buspar.
A spit in the ocean, they said. Very mild.
By the 2nd day, I began to feel the slide of depression. Alarmed, I called. No answer. No answer. No answer.
No answering service, either.
Day 3, I'm crashing. I've been here before, I know what it is. I call again. Get a person, but everyone from my doctor's office is out until Monday. What do I do, I ask? Well, don't stop taking it. They'll be back in 3 days.
Day 4. Worse. I'm vomiting. In serious trouble.
I stop taking it.
Too late.
That night, I have a psychotic break. I am certain that's what it was. I've never before, nor since, experienced such a thing as this was.
I was busy fixing dinner, a late dinner.
Suddenly I was doing something else, something terrible. I've only been able to talk of it once, it was so horrific, and it was happening. I was certain of it.
But I wasn't. It wasn't. I was still at the counter, chopping greens.
I gasped, dropped what I was holding, and quickly walked down the hallway to a spare room. To be honest, it had been daughter's room, redone and had become a hiding place for me. I would read, or knit, or whatever. Well, I went into the room, locked the door, and called a crisis line.
Shaking. Heaving. I hadn't been able to eat for days, which I'm sure added to it as much as the insomnia did.
In that moment of time, I lost everything that I had thought was keeping me grounded to the world that I lived in.
I believed in nothing. Not in my own physical body, not in the floor I was curled on.
I trusted nothing. How could I trust what I couldn't believe was real?
And what WAS real, anyway?
Anything?
Nothing?
I already wrote a small bit of that night in the post "children"...
After I left the room, I went outside to think.
I looked up at the stars, my friends...and felt a cold grip of death and fear.
*****************************************************************************
The stars had always given me comfort. I would often go outside, wherever I might be, and look up at the stars in the night, the moon, watch the clouds drift if there were any, listen to the wind through the trees and imagine that they were talking to each other. Removing the spin of the mind, if you listened closely, with more than just your ears, but with your whole body, you could hear the slight movements of night creatures, their calls that were barely perceptible, the shift of the breeze by the change in the sound of it through the leaves...this always cleared my mind of any worries, helped me center and refocus, feel the connection between myself and all around me. It made me less significant, which did bring me comfort. It made me a part of something instead of the all of something.

That night...those stars brought terror. When I say that I lost everything, I mean that. I no longer believed that they were real. I needed to focus solely on what I knew to be true, and what I knew at that moment was that I knew nothing.

I'd been through a few breakdowns before. Puddles. The times when you become a puddle, and build yourself back up, hopefully shedding the garbage that had been weighing you down and keeping the truths that you had found for yourself.

This was nothing like those 2 other times.

If I did know anything, at that moment, I knew that I was in serious trouble and that I had no way of getting myself out of it. I didn't know what "it" was. Panic? I was so far beyond panic. I was afraid of sleep, afraid to think. In my mind I was screaming for help, but my voice, when I heard it, was calm. Shaky, but calm. Yes, that was me, my lips were moving. "I'm not okay", I told my former spouse. "What do you need?" he asked. "I don't know", I answered. And that frightened him in that moment. I always knew. He's the one who walked me out into the yard, to look at the stars...I glanced and then looked quickly away. I looked at the ground, I looked at my feet, I started to cry and to shake. I wanted to be held but I was afraid to be. To his credit, he told me to stay put, went back inside and quickly returned with our small dog, Lola.

Lola. She saved me.

A puppy mill Pomeranian, but not the icky kind. She was larger, and beautiful. She had the sweetest face, the sweetest spirit. Funny, smart, loving...she adored me, and the feeling was mutual. She had been rescued by my older girl, who couldn't keep her. We took her, and Lola and I instantly bonded. This is not a breed that I like. But this was a dog that I loved.

He brought me Lola and handed me her leash. Lola would run around and around like a horse on a lunge line, we couldn't let her loose, she'd be gone. But that night, when Lola came out, bouncing down the steps of the deck and racing around, the moment my hand touched the leash she stopped. She stopped, and she stared, head tipped...then slowly walked to me, looked up as I started to cry again and sat on my foot, just staring up at me. I was so afraid that she would sense something terrible inside of me, but this small creature just sat there, watching me, then leaned against my leg and pushed. I reached down to touch her and she jumped up into my arms and put her head against my shoulder, by my heart and completely relaxed.

The tears are running hard now as I remember this...she told me that I was okay, inside. Terrified, but not a demon. Not a danger. She told me that she trusted me, and that gave me a tiny bit of trust in myself. She told me because an animal will not react that way if there is something terribly wrong...evil. Which was my fear that that moment.

 I've always said that animals are emotional livers. There has never been a time when I've been hurting, frightened, sad, when they haven't come to me and pushed their bodies against mine. Even the horses would. I'd go into the field to find peace and just sit. Before I knew it, my mare and the others would be around me, heads down, breathing softly. Usually Abi would but her face into mine, and we would share breath before she would rest her head against my own. When I could, I'd stand and walk into her shoulder, her neck down over my shoulder, her head pulling me into her closer. I could feel her heart, smell her own particular pony scent, bury my face into her mane and neck and just be held, with the others standing closely by. I honestly could feel the pain, the sadness, the confusion, the fear leave my body as if drained by some force, extracted...and then, I could feel warmth and peace flood back into me. Strength, quiet, calm. My emotions taken, filtered, returned. It was incredible and it happened over and over.

The cats and dogs do the same now, they press close and they hold, they ask nothing of me and give me everything good.

Lola, that night, took me as her own. Not as the adored "grammy", but as her own. We were no longer owner and pet. For the next few months, I belonged to Lola. She never let me out of her sight, and we were touching constantly. I never had to reach for her. She took care of my younger girl, watching over her as well. It went so far as that she wouldn't eat until after I had, so my eating began again to keep her fed.

In that moment of utter loss, many parts of me shut down completely. I found myself lost in a cloud of terrible memory, of ocd, of fog. My body was weak, I could lift little, I could barely focus, walking was an ordeal...eating...it wasn't happening. I choked on juice, I couldn't swallow anything at all. I was terrified to sleep and what was worse was knowing that when I woke up I would wake up to another day of hell.

It was a horrific place to be.

And I had 2 more days to go before i could get in to see my psychologist.
Days became eternal minutes.

and now, i must sleep.

IF...Rudyard Kipling. Recitation by Dennis Hopper

I have a few poems that have been constants in my life.

This is one such one.

If

by Rudyard Kipling

recited by Dennis Hopper on the Johnny Cash show

1970

IF you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!