Quiet Courage

Dear Hearts,

I’m tired. So tired. To the bone. I just want to sleep.

Mom and Dad are with Gaia on a plant walk she is leading in town. I am on Maddie duty, although all she has done is sleep.

I’ve been forty for a week and it’s not as bad as I thought it might be.

Last Tuesday, when Mom and I went back to The NY House…

I gave away eight bags of clothes, shoes, and hats. I HAVE NEVER given any clothes away ever. I also threw out a lot of stuff. Like the little notes I have written to myself over the years on stickies or bits of papers—thoughts, ideas, quotes…I am never going to sit down and go read through bits of scrap paper. I threw away A LOT of magazines.

After we went to the thrift store in town and handed over my bags of clothes we went back to the house and I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes, and listened to Mother Angelica recite the rosary.

The second night at The House is when the nightmares of Arthur came.

I can’t hold onto all of this stuff in my past. I have to let it go if I am going to move forward. Can I move forward and sleep at the same time? I’m not sure what I am moving onto. Kate lived in the NY House. Kate is still in the nut house after her failed OD. Bridgette is trying to lay Kate to rest and take up the mantle.

Mom told me I have a “quiet courage.” Those words from her meant so much to me. I don’t think of myself as courageous. But, she said I have worked hard to get better, to get out of bad situations, even if my poor choices, created those bad situations.

A quiet courage.

On Friday Mom and I went to my tattoo artist.

That’s not a sentence one says every day.

It was totally spontaneous. When I called Tatts at the studio, the artist who had done two of my three tattoos was not available until September. But, Tatts was trained by him—so I trust that. He said he was working on a tattoo, but I should come in with my ideas. I came with my ideas indeed.

I wanted him to see how I see a wolf.

There is something enigmatic about them. They are predators. They have no natural predators. Looking into their eyes is like looking into the eyes of the origin of life. Something pure. Something harmonious with Nature and God. Looking into a wolf’s eyes is like seeing a mirror image of your own true soul. Like the rancher’s 55,000 acre ranch—you were looking at land that was the same as it was 20,000 years ago. Primal. Wolves reflect something primal in ourselves that we’ve lost in modern day society.

Wolves have always meant something to me. As Mom and I go through The House and stuff that dates back to junior high or earlier—I find wolf pictures or images. The first time I went for a run at the New York House in March 2011—a wolf (disguised as a husky) ran with me.

Wolves fight to the death and do not surrender. They protect and they love. They mate for life. Wolves live on the fringes of nightmares because we don’t fully understand, but subconsciously desire, their wildness. Wolves have courage.

A wolf will tend to the pack and lay down next to you as your most loyal ally—but a wolf will also be willing to take down any motherfucker that fucks with you.

There is a reason why the Indians revered them. They are our close spiritual kin.

"Tlingit’s gone quiet, staring at it too, breathing, nodding, maybe he’s embarrassed of the whooping, and his village past is shaming him. You dance for a dead seal, but never a wolf, whatever it did to you. When you kill a wolf you carry him on your shoulders, you lay a feast for him, you say you’re sorry, wrap him up in sacred things, give him a burial. You don’t dance, unless you’re dancing your regret. If your brother’s trying to kill you, and you kill him, are you rejoicing?” The Grey E-Book.

Dogs are direct descendants of grey wolves. “Dog is man’s best friend.” Not for me so much. I prefer pussies—I don’t have to walk Angel. But a dog—there is a different kind of love there. Not better than cats, just different.

Hey, I am all about civilization—indoor plumbing, hygiene, germ awareness---the whole bit but…

Henry Drummond: Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it.

Henry Drummond: Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance.

Henry Drummond: Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat.

Henry Drummond: Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline." Inherit the Wind

Wolves bring us back to that place before progress.

I want a wolf tattoo over my heart. I have clawed, scratched, bled, and howled my way out of the very pit of the well.

The Heart of a Wolf. That’s what that kind of courage is called.

I want a wolf tattoo above my heart and under my collarbone. Like a comet’s tail, 12 floating feathers.

First, 12 has always been a good number for me. Then there are the 12 apostles. 12 months. 12 is one of those natural numbers.

Isaiah 40:31 - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint.

The tattoo is going to be bigger than I originally thought—because of the detail. But, go big or go home, right?

I want this tattoo. I need this tattoo.

I am alive. I am, for better or worse, going to keep living this life.

I have blogged about this before—when Dad and I went Buffalo Hunting and I touched the Face of God—on the local radio station in the rancher’s truck that day in the field was this little story on the air:

“An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

That story meant something to me. I have heard various versions of it since. But I remember the version so well.

Being a part of the life and death of that Buffalo—my wolf tattoo in is in honor of that Buffalo too.

I have to make a decision which wolf to feed. Which wolf to allow God or Lucifer to feed.

So the tattoo will be visible and a statement—for MYSELF, how others interpret it…as a vanity, so be it. If  I needed/wanted to cover the tattoo, I could. But I want to see it. I need, like I did with St. Jude’s Flame on my wrist, to make a statement to myself that I will fight. Fight. Fight. “Rage against the dying of the light.”

But I am scared too.

It’s so...daring, but as Gaia pointed out I am kinda beyond daring as I did OD on 150 pills of Klonopin and Lithium.

What will people think? What will a future employer think? A future beau? G-Pa? Will he reject me? Ask me to leave?

My whole fucking life I was the good girl. I did what I was supposed to do. I followed the rules. You’ve heard this before. I cared about what people thought. I sought approval. I worried about how “it” would look.

Where the sweet mother of fuck did that get me?

In a nut house. In an abusive relationship.

(T. I shoulda popped you in the mouth the first time you called me a “nigger fucker.” What as opposed a “drunk fucker?” For the record I have only been with four men, my high school boyfriend, my college boyfriend, Arthur, and T. You said that with such disdain—“nigger fucker”—when it wasn’t even true. I object not to the “nigger” part but to the fucking part. You drink fucking Listerine and every word out of your mouth was a lie or drunken delusion. I digress.)

All of that doing the right thing—it got me no fucking where good. It got me sick, hopeless, and desperate.

So fuck Burning Bed or G-Pa or any fucking-body-else! This is what I want to do! This is what I need to do!

I will worry about what it looks like when I am eighty---when I am eighty, if I live that long.

I need to do something bold for Bridgette. For me. For my life.

This is who I am.

So, I am scared and nervous because of all that bourgeois running through my blood—but no one has fucking lived inside my head.

If a wolf tattoo and a flame tattoo remind me not to kill myself—then they are worth it, aren’t they? Kate was cracked. Bridgette is trying to put together a new life.

I also suspect Mom and Dad don’t really approve and that bothers me.

I need this. I want this.

Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless

In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.

PS: I go back The NY House tomorrow. I don't wanna.

Grateful For:

Family

Coffee

Good books

Sleep

Angel

Health

Cigarettes

Howling

Act II