Monday, November 30, 2009

What I learned about love

Love ain't got nothin' to do with money. Is that why you give me money? To insure that I'll stay engaged? To buy my compliance with your bad behavior? To make sure I'll call? Is it payment for my services as a therapist as you trash the rest of the family? (Then it ain't enough. I'll send you an invoice). Is it a stipend for enduring your cruelty, viciousness, passive-aggressiveness, your terrible insistence that I don't love you, that nobody does? Are you paying me to be your punching bag? (If so, I need a raise).
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Poor, poor bastard.

I am blessed with help from many people and their help comes with no strings. Just sayin'.

It took me a while to realize it but I love you. It doesn't matter what you do or say, money or no, cruelty or not, silly, silly bullshit or no, I love you. I can see through all of that crusty old crap. I understand that you hate yourself, that you can't feel the love that flows toward you from many friends and your children. I'm afraid and pretty certain that you will be this way until you die which will be relatively soon and I am and will be very, very sad about that but I won't be guilty. Because I am and will always be the loving daughter I know I should be. And there really isn't any "should" about it. I love you. I admire your achievements, I adore your sense of humor (which I see less and less of, but no matter) and I hate your behavior. And I love and understand the caring impulse underneath all of that fear and horror that sends the check every month that helps me stay as independent as possible despite ill health. You love me, too.

And thanks to several brilliant therapists, family and a loving, wonderful family of friends, I will not be anything like you. Thank the Goddess that none of this stuff is inherited and can be unlearned.

Lawd, growing up is hard and I wish you could do it, even at this late date. Wishin' won't make it so, but isn't it ironic how hard work, and determination, brings me back to that moment that you held me in one hand a few days after you adopted me? What an enormous act of love.

And I'll always remember that that man who held a baby in his hand who wasn't his by blood, who pledged to take care of that baby out of sheer love, is still there, in there, somewhere, and he hasn't forgotten, either.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Precious

Whoooooooaaaaaaa lawd.

I had to see "Precious." Tyler Perry, one of the executive producers, wrote a moving blog about how seeing the movie led him to face his childhood of abuse, but that's not why I knew I had to see it. I had to see it because everyone needs to see it, especially those who don't understand institutionalize racism, who say things like "let those people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps", people who don't get that so many of us are walking around with trauma histories, our bodies and our self-esteem in recovery, and that those of us who have "healed" and "moved on" cannot forget those who still suffer--we must remember to remain human.

"Precious" may not be the movie to see for someone with a trauma history. It might make those who are depressed even more so. But what is special about this movie is that it doesn't offer any easy solutions, or have some great white savior come out of the mists to save everyone or even a Black one. Despite what the extraordinarily resilient Precious has been through, she, in fits and starts, begins to save herself-but you don't even know, even at the end of the film, if she is out of trouble. And what really touched me was that she is ensconced in so much fat that it's hard for you to understand her facial expressions, much less what she is saying. Fat is a great defense against the world--I've used it to remain removed from the world, my feelings, touch, etc. Precious' first words are "I want a light skinned boyfriend with good hair." There are many such references to the aparthied that continues in this country--what we consider beautiful and valuable and how we fool ourselves into thinking otherwise at PC moments. How we judge by very narrow standards, outward appearances, silliness, greed.

Gracious...Monique as Precious' mother Mary. "Mother" isn't the word for this person. I wondered briefly what happened to her but her brutality is so horrific that you lose any compassion you might have. At least I did. A masterful performance.

There are also great performances by a makeup less Mariah Carey and Paula Patton as Precious' teacher but what is so moving and heartbreaking and reviving is Precious herself--I don't think the actress who plays her has more than 50 words of dialogue--but she manages to show us a seismic shift with baby steps through a system that is still solidly weighted against any forward movement.

And that's why we have to see Precious. To remind ourselves that the stuff still ain't working. To remember all that we are fighting for. And to remember how lucky we are.

Sometimes I feel discouraged
And think my work's in vain
But then the holy spirit
revives my soul again...

From "A Balm in Gilead"

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Rockettes

Would you agree that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is getting more canned by the year? I can see Meredith Viera's teeth rotting from reading all that treacle. I did enjoy seeing fellow Mystic Trish Schilling's daughter, Taylor, who's the star of the best show you ain't watching called "Mercy", Wednesdays at 8p on NBC. Shameless plug.

And the Rockettes--what a complete waste of time and money except for leg fetishists. Yes, there is something to be said for tradition, but what is the real entertainment value?

I do love the Sesame Street Float, especially seeing my favorite cynic, Oscar, in his trashcan. And there was a Chinese dance troupe from Delaware--pretty cool. More multiculturalism, Macys!

It's that strange juxtaposition--our tendency to homogenize to make things more "palatable", which makes them inherently less interesting, at least to me.

I do love how thrilled the high school marching bands from places like Adair, Kentucky and Missoula, Montana must be to be participating, having raised the money to come themselves.

Seeing the little kids on the parade route out of their minds with excitement (instead of sugar) is quite nice, too.

And so on this gray, New Englandy Thanksgiving, I'm feeling very blessed to be relaxing on my sofa with a warm roof over my head, delicious food to eat, family and friends to love, and a computer on which to write parade critiques.

(Alan Cumming lip synching "That's Life" on an M&M float ?? Cyndy Lauper on some kind of Disney princess float singing "Girls Just want To Have Fun"?? Bee-zar.)

Have a happy and thank goodness for you.

Monday, November 16, 2009

leaks

I have a leaky heart. When I was born it had a hole in it. The hole eventually closed by the time I was nine, but now a damaged valve allows blood to leak back into the chamber from whence it came.

It's a broken heart. I ain't trying to be a martyr or nothin', but some of us were born sensitive. I care what other people think. I care what happens in the world. Cruelties hurt. Discord and disunion and people treating each other, themselves, and animals like shit bruise and stain. And I learned cruelty from a master, and can wield it with precision and have stabbed at that sensitive red muscle many times, slashing, poking. Y'all that share this sensitivity, like me, have been told, "You're too sensitive," or "you're too thin skinned." But it's not a choice.

I've tried to grow scabs, to heal them, to wear masks, to be someone else, haven't you? But it all comes back, like backed up sewage, the more I try to stuff it down. And now it's busted a leak.

Don't think that the psychic illnesses don't manifest themselves in the physical. I actually consider myself lucky to have had them manifest so physically in mid-life so that I could know I have to work on them, have time to work on them, or at least admit them to the air where they will hopefully shrivel and die instead of killing me before my time, killing what is real for me and in me.

We have to live our truths, even if we don't yet know what they are. It's so funny to me that an enlarged heart is a sign of illness, that my heart is having to work harder because of some condition or another because it needs to be big to hold all of you and all of everything I care about. Which is just about every freakin' thing.

I'm never, ever going to give up. Ever. I might take a rest now and then, but even a minute of truth is worth all the struggle.

So tomorrow morning, at the butt crack of dawn, I'm gonna find out how leaky the old pump is and what, if anything, should be done about it. Then one of you dear one's is going to bring me home and then I'm going to take a nap with Dolce cat and then one of you dear one's is going to fetch me so we can go sing to our own beat--bump-da-bump swishy swishy.

xo