Demons and Buffalo

Dear Hearts,

On my desk there is this cheap plastic pyramid that is sort of like a snow globe, only it’s filled with golden sparkles. The pyramid itself is architecturally correct and then inside, with the golden flecks is a smaller pyramid, a sphinx, an Egyptian Pharaoh’s head. Ultimately there is a cylindrical hole to hold a pen or pencil.

I love it. It been on my desk since maybe 2002 or 2003. Arthur got it for me as a Christmas gift. He knew I loved funky, kitschy collectibles like that.

The golden Egypt, recently, has been making me sad. It reminds of…

So I put it under my desk.

Running yesterday and talking to God—

I am starting to shake

I had a revelation.

There were good times with Arthur. He did love me. I did love him. He was deep down a good man. He is just seriously mentally ill. I was loved and did return that love. I am going to keep the pyramid on my desk.

T---I don’t think he ever loved me because he is not capable of love. If you need that much alcohol .3+ in your bloodstream just to function, you mentally damaged. I don’t know what lies he told himself or how he convinced himself he was in love with this broken woman. After my OD, he kept me alive. Right or wrong, snake oil or not, what he sold me and what I bought, kept me alive.

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

I did. I was in the NY House. It was mostly packed up, but there were still things that I cherished inside. The house looked different. Bigger.

I can hear Angel snoring from under the bed.

I was leaving it, and looking back, feeling loss and mourning. There were good times in that house. Much like Manderley, it is haunted through the tragedy of its occupants. I saw something not of this world in the living room. Long story. Kinda funny. But, I am not going to tell that now.

Part of the reason I haven’t blogged is that I keep feeling like I have too much to catch up on so I put writing off another day. Also, I can’t write at work anymore. Maybe I needed a break too.

Demons. I know what I saw. An animal with preternaturally long legs holding something in its mouth. I saw a smaller animal speed down the stairs and off to the side. A mouse on the molding. Two orbs of light. And the whole upstairs entrance flashed bright light in total darkness. It was October 31^st. The night where the veil is thinnest between our world and the other we don’t normally see. I know what I fucking saw. Dad believes me. Something tripped the motion sensor alarm. And that mouse—not even close to being at the height of the motion sensor.

With no one and nothing left in the house to ward off Evil—Evil has come into the house skip, frolic, and play.

As of December 9^th, 2017 that house is no longer my problem. The bank is taking it back. All of my beloved things are safe with Mom and Dad or here.

I have changed my name with Social Security, so the deed of that house is the last thing that has my married name on it.

Oh, Great Auntie who called the day and has made it her life’s work to make other people miserable and knows exactly how to go for the jugular with my grandfather—it’s none of your fucking business why I, at 40, living with your brother whom you’ve disavowed so many times, Gram didn’t even like you. And Gram liked everyone. I read your letters. You are fucking cold-blooded-cunt.

All the former things of my life in NY have passed away. No, that’s not true. I still carry them. I will always carry them with me. They are part of me.

But, this life that I am making here, nary resembles the other.

Last night I ran by moonlight. You can actually do that in a town because of streetlights! In the country, once the sun goes down, it be black as pitch.

The half moon awed me. The purple, blue, pink, white clouds of the setting sun were magnificent. Even in the darkest of darkness…there is light.

In my running routine, I walk across part of this park. I look at the landscape. I don’t belong here. I abso-fucking-lutely belong here for now. But, this is not my home. I am and will never be a Mid-Westerner. For now…yes…I am. “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

I am running again and talking to God! Talking, like I used to. Wakan Tankan, the Moon Goddess, Buddha—they are all part of God, it’s just the path you choose to get there. 

My job at Burning Bed has deeply disappointed me. The women who work there are mean, catty, gossipy saboteurs of each other. My heart broke when I realized that I cannot be friends with the people at Burning Bed. I can’t trust them. The petty politics and backstabbing that goes on to beat by a landslide the school’s politics I taught in.

Stay below the radar, I’m told. Don’t make a mistake. Be careful to whom you speak. I am just there to interact with the clients, talk to people on the phone who are going through a special kind of Hell only those survivors of domestic abuse can understand, and transfer phone calls. I like secretarial work. But, if this job makes me physically ill—if I have to work harder at politics than my actual job, then I am out.

Tonya, I am done seeking validation and approval from you. Fuck you, bitch.

My grandfather’s preacher said something in a sermon a few week ago (I hear the sermon replayed on the radio at full tilt when G-Pa listens to it on Sundays).

I paraphrase.

“What is it to love God with your whole being? Stop trying to please bosses, friends, parents—just please God.”

The preacher was not saying don’t stop and get a McDonald’s apple pie for your grandfather. The preacher was saying that if you live a life of love devoted to God, then everything else falls into place.

I don’t believe God tests you, but I think you have opportunities that can be a crucible through which you do or do not come. I am not going to bend to these people and apologize for who I am.

I was actually told that if I make a mistake, hide it, otherwise, everyone will talk about that mistake for like a week. Wow. Fuck. At a domestic abuse shelter? And the Sexual Assault Department is in competition with the Domestic Abuse Department. The front office staff resents the management and college degrees in the back. No words.

But, I am doing good there. And when I am not being yelled at, I like being there. Next time, bitches—I won’t be so ingratiating.

I have no friends. I feel lonely. It’s hard living with G-Pa sometimes. Really hard. But, I have my room. And Angel. And my cross stitching. And my drawing. And I don’t dread work every time I go in. (Yet.) I miss the East Coast and my family.

But, for right now, and maybe for quite a while, this is where I belong.

A year ago today Dad and I had the Buffalo Hunt. I touched the Face of God. That experience changed me forever.

I have a Wolf Heart now. She still cries now and then and then again—but she also growls and howls. Sometimes, her howls are as mournful a voice in the desert. But, still howls.

A year from now…I can’t see through the mists…I Hope and Pray God can…

 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 Ailbhe; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.

Grateful For:

Sweet treats

Faith

Naps

Cream cheese and a bagel

Angel

Family

Health

And, "she got a gun she call The Lucky One."

Ashtrays, Feet, and Tempers

Dear Hearts,

“Life is much more successfully looked at through a single window, after all.” The Great Gatsby

Life is made up of a series of moments. Of episodes. Either some literary giant or my college professor talked about life being made up of a series of episodes. I can’t remember or find out which. PT, you’re being confused with the Greats.

You have to look at life as a whole. Each moment—like this morning when I jumped out of to bed to grab two of Mom’s just out of the oven chocolate chip cookies—ought to be appreciated. Even those moments of disemboweling pain—you’re grandmother died—have to be appreciated. Even if it is way, way after the fact.

Looking back to my freshman year of high school (in which the preceding summer I wanted to die-really, really die) which shoes I picked out with the most popular girl in school [and inexplicably] my best time for most of my short life didn’t really matter. At the time, the right shoes and jeans meant everything. They meant fitting in or being spit on. No one spits on me literally again like TG had in eighth grade, but a lot of people spit on me metaphorically. And, I let them. I am also culpable.

Looking back at that moment—those shoes, which I can still picture and did come back into style for a time—did not matter. What matter was my desperation to get away from the abuse and fear at school. And, at home, although I would not have described my home as abusive or fearful for a long, long time to come. The single window was my “Get thee behind me, Satan” attempt to fit in. To not hate myself. To not be a failure.

So I move out to the Holy City for Act II.

And down same Goddamn-mother-of-sweet-fuck rabbit whole do I go.

Moments:

October 25, Wednesday

*I am having my Sacred Coffee Hour and have smoked at least one cigarette and finished half of my coffee.

*Aunt Faerie (Aunt) calls me to say that Papa has twisted his ankle before he left for her house and is on his way home. He may need some help getting in from the car.

*Kate goes into Crisis Mode: He didn’t twist it. He fell I know it. I just knew it. And, I was right. He had fallen and had trouble getting up, but did not bother to call out to me, even though I was my the bedroom.

*G-Pa comes home from the ER with some kind of guaze-ace bandage cast that some ER Sawbones put on his foot and said that the break will be fine that way until he sees an Ortho Monday of Tuesday. It’s fucking Wednesday.

*Aunt is up against the Iron Curtain of deadlines with this stupid book about how masculinity is portrayed in art in Post-WWII Soviet Union between 1945 and 1965. She says it’s interesting. Really? Aunt, would your life been changed one iota without knowing this silly woman’s theories?

*G-Pa can bear no weight on his foot. But he tries, and it takes Aunt and I to lift him

*I take Thursday off and stay on G-Pa duty while Aunt rents his wheelchair, commode, and buys a cane.

October 26, Thursday

*G-Pa asked me to sleep with him that night. He was scared. He was in pain. I love G-Pa, but I don’t know him the same way I knew Pop. My fraternal grandfather was in my life every day. We lived together. So I just sleep on the edge of the bed and wake up every few hours. Weird. Sleeping with your grandfather who is embarrassed by your cleavage---it’s just fucking weird, okay?

*Kate gets Papa into the Ortho by saying the doctor said he had to be seen today (lie) and making the situation sound, well, as dire as it is.

*Kate and Mom have been looking into home-health aides and even rehab facilities based on what the Sawbones and some agencies said about his abilities with a broken foot.

*Kate sees on image AGAIN AND AGAIN: G-Pa falling on his broken foot and breaking a hip, something from which he will never come back.

*Aunt and Kate have full-on foot-stomping, screaming match about calling 9-1-1 to take G-Pa to the hospital. Kate wins because she has the phone and can yell louder. (When the dispatcher asked what all the yelling was about and if the police were needed, I reassured her by saying that I was Burning Bed Employee.)

*Aunt is PISSED that Kate called the ambulance to pick up G-Pa---unnecessary drama. Kate ends up inside her car just sobbing and wailing with her head on the steering wheel before leaving the hospital.

*G-Pa comes home with a walking cast. How much weight he can bear on it is not clear.

*G-Pa sleeps alone because Kate hooks up the wireless doorbell he bought. He presses the button and it rings in her room. Loudly. Now, the button is tied to the bedpost and in a plastic baggie. Thursday night, I just gave to him. It ended up under his fucking pillow.

*2.45 a.m. Kate is up at doing Olympic worthy hurdles over the wheelchair in the hall to get to G-Pa who just rolled over. This same occurrence is repeated around four, and six a.m.

*When Aunt wakes him at seven, we change his underwear. Without looking.

*Friday, I actually fall asleep at work with my head in my hands—and start to dream.

*Kate pulls a slippery, mortified, embarrassed, and frustrated naked G-Pa out of the tub.

*Kate officially begins losing it. Or perhaps, it’s been lost.

October 27, Friday

*Kate bungles through the workday and comes home to a house that is absent of shoes, coats, sweatshirts, or any other possible signs of a real life. A junior high student was going to interview G-Pa for a school project and forgot to communicate with Aunt that she had cancelled the interview for that day. But, Dr. Swede has decided to join G-Pa in his time of need.

*Kate comes home apologizing. “For what asks,” Dr. Swede. “Not being good enough. Just being alive.”

*Kate wonders who the cleaning culprit was—because she had made it conditional with G-Pa that if the girl came over to talk to him, she was NOT moving any shoes or sweatshirts. Aunt, follow Nancy Reagan’s example and just say “NO!”

October 28, Saturday

*Kate does have time to run to her tattoo artist and get a touch up that took all of literally 60 to 90 seconds. But, Paha Sapa finally looks whole and without cataracts.

*Aunt brings over enough meatloaf for two meals for each of us for two days. THANK YOU GOD AND AUNT!

*Then Aunt disappears into Editing Vortex not to re-emerge until Thursday.

October 29, Sunday

*Honestly, I don’t remember. There was ice on G-Pa’s foot and some eating and feeding him.

October 30 and 31, Monday and Tuesday

*Kate works at BB and fucks up. She gets a serious lecture about how she is fucking up. Kate is angry but also wants to punch this girl, who is five years her junior and less educated, in the fucking face. Kate is convinced that she is a fuck-up and will not be able to do the job. In Kate’s defense, Tonya gives her a very manipulative lecture about how if Kate makes mistakes in the Domestic Violence Department, Tonya can cover Kate. But, if Kate fucks up in the Sexual Assault Department, Tonya can’t protect her and the SV Director has probably all ready complained to the Executive Director about me. And then the directors will come to me and scream, “What the fuck is wrong with you!?”

Tonya, standing over me while I take a call does not help. Playing the whole “love me more” card—I recognize it. You don’t supervise that way by putting your colleagues and making yourself the “good parent.” You hired me because you approved of the way I did the job. If any director came to me and said, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”, there would be no discussion. I would walk and say call me when you can talk to me without swearing. Asshole.

This whole almost all female staff, political power trip stuff is---I am so not into it. Why do women always try to “get” eachother.

*Kate’s ship capsizes. It just goes Titanic.

Novemeber 1, Wednesday

*Kate goes alone to the airport to pick up Mom. First, she stops to get her new glasses. Then, on backing out of the parking---oh here, it where is gets good…

Looking at all of this through a single window, Kate can see the cause and effect and the culmination of stress build up that breaks Deep Water Horizon style. At the time, not so much…

*Kate backs up from her more than once parked in space at the eye doctor and BANG-BAM-SCREECH. When Kate emerges from her car, she sees that she was back up clear over an unmarked concrete ledge. Half her car, rear wheels in the air, is over this two-foot ledge and the other half of her car is perfectly balanced on the parking lot side.

This is what goes through Kate’s head: Mother fucker. All I want is a cigarette and fucking coffee. If I call a tow truck I will really late to pick up Mom at the airport. Mmm. I wonder if I can go forward? Nope. I wonder what would happen if I back up? Kate ends up with all four tires on the same level but now her front bumper is not fully attached.

Tearfully and hysterically, Kate goes to Ray’s Auto for help. They assure her that there is no damage to the undercarriage or the engine, which Kate felt scrape the ledge with a sickening metal of concrete scream, and they can tape the bumper on enough for her to go to the airport. GOD BLESS YOU RAY FOR NOT CHARGING ME A PENNY.

Three Xanax and a blubbering, snotting call to her father has Ray’s wife patting Kat on the shoulder telling her that is will be okay. She has that same—please don’t go nuts and start shooting up this place that the eye doctor had.

*Kate gets Mom from the airport and then Kate quits.

Novemeber 2, 3, 4, 5,

I am short-tempered and depressed. I am anxious. I want to disappear. I don’t know how you can fix it, Mom. I don’t even know how to fix this. Mom has taken on G-Pa and basically family duties. I am spending time with her, but I am just withdrawn from the family. I can’t. I can’t…Yes, I am deeply depressed and unhappy…

I made a covenant with God…

I have a Wolf Heart.

J.S., I hope you are okay. You deserve family to take care of you.

Ashtrays, feet, and tempers break and no pie, coffee, cigarette, all the king’s men, or Mom can put all the pieces back together again.

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 Ailbhe; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.

Grateful For:

Jacket from Mom

Sleep

Family

Health

Café Pie

Faith

Cigarettes

Ray

The bumper costing me only $500...

The single window is obscured...even if I do have new glasses.