a book review: The Hermit, by Monica Friedman

I don't have many words for how deeply this story touched me, but I can tell you how it did so:

The characters are people first; they are individuals, not the named trait-collections one finds in some books. These characters have their own voices that are not dictated by the stereotypes attached to them. Men experience sadness; women experience anger; children can be calm; adults can be playful. There is no watering down of a smart character's vocabulary, no fluffing up of the simpler characters' vocabulary. There is never a time when the characters experience only one emotion. They're all too human for that.

It is also true that these characters are archetypes in the fairy tale Friedman weaves. It's a fairy tale about humanity, despite the greater number of animals than humans in the cast. I felt connected to the characters as people, no matter their species.

I could hear the author's voice in this story. It was strong, consistent, and clear. I could also hear the voices of the characters, for the reasons I've already mentioned. And, I could hear my own story in their voices. I cried when I saw my voice in a character's pain; when I saw, finally, how that pain came to be; when I saw how much of our pain is our own creation. I cried again when I was reminded that there's still hope - there will always be hope, and a choice.

This story is everything a fairy tale should be: it reflects us with almost obscene clarity at our best, and at our worst, and it shows us a path through the dark.

I will read this many times, whenever I need to hear it again.

family: I love you

From my handfasting with Archer.
We were lucky to have Zoya Greene do the photography for us.
As you can tell, she's amazing.

This summer I went to two weddings.
One of them was my own.
The other was my cousin's.
Both of them were wonderful.

Yes, my mother's husband literally ruined (for me, my husband, and my son) the family reunion-type events that were to follow the cousin's wedding, by throwing a temper tantrum about my style of hospitality. I and my small family of three were excluded from further festivities. But he's my mother's husband, her rock, so I'm focusing on what I've learned from the experience: I'm ready for my family to start acting like the people I believed they were when I was a child. And, they are not ready. And finally: I still love them. So I'll take my lessons and move on.

I'm not really, completely moved on yet, but I'm working on it.
I have to. If I don't move forward, the depression will kill me.
And my small family isn't ready for me to go yet.

This is me, moving on.
With my small family.
And yes, with my mother.
I don't know, yet, what the mechanics of ignoring her husband's existence will look like.
But I'm giving it my best shot.

Because if I were to pay attention
- especially to his power over my place in my big family -
the depression might kill me.
And I still have work to do.
A child to raise.
A child who will always find sanctuary with me, regardless of any other human being in the world.

Moving on.
Always, moving on. 

1977

"Mom, what year did the first Star Wars come out?"
"1977. The same year Uncle Craig was born."
He repeats the year slowly, and I can hear it turning over on his tongue like a molasses ball.
"Nine.Teen.Sev.En.Ty.Sev.En."
Spirit in the Sky plays in the background, pulls us each to our own thoughts.
His thoughts include getting up and dancing about the room, in jerky hops and swinging arms.
"Sit down and eat your breakfast or I'm turning the music off."
He sits, and tucks his feet between the wood chair and that bony butt, toes touching in the middle.
His fingers poke at his egg-and-muffin sandwich.
Soon there's a bite in his mouth and a wiggle in his seat.
"Is it okay if I give the dogs just one of my pistachios?"
"After you're done eating everything else."
"Okay. I'll save one  pistachio for you, and two for the dogs."
He picks up his banana and shoots it, pew-pew.
"Eat it, Bear."
"Okay."
He puts down the banana and takes another bite of the sandwich.
His knees start rising.
Now they're bongos, and his body is perched on tippy-toes, wedged between the table and the chairback.
"Bear!"
"Sorry!" He sits.
"Pew-pew-pew!" goes the banana.
"Put it down!"
"Sorry!" The banana goes down. He snaps his fingers to the music.
"Take a bite."
"Okay."
The banana pulls him up; he takes a bite of it while he sways to the music, his other hand on the chair behind him.  He wiggles and snaps his way over to my chair, leans in, and says very sweetly, "I'm finished."
That hardly seems possible, but it's true.
Don't worry, about a thing, cuz every little thing's gonna be alright, Bob Marley tells me.
Thank goodness.

Resolutions-smesholutions.

I don't really have a strong connection to the New Year's Eve holiday. It's secular, to me. On second thought, I guess it's secular by definition, but it seems to be pursued almost religiously by most of the adults in the country. Well, it's not that big a deal to me. What's really the point in celebrating the random day the calendar ran out? The year turns on Yule, as far as I'm concerned - that is when the switch from getting-darker to getting-lighter happened. Any other day they chose to end the calendar with is just that - a day someone chose. I mean, the New Year's Eve party itself is fun, if I'm with the right people, but any party with the right people is fun.

Maybe it's just the resolutions tradition I don't feel a strong connection with. I'm one of those who makes changes as the necessary changes make themselves known. That could happen on New Year's Eve - it is a day, and things do happen on days - but there's 364 or 5 other days in the year on which things happen, too. So there's a 1/365 or 6 chance. It doesn't even go up all that much if I count the whole New Year's week.

Anyway, I don't feel the need to change something on New Year's Day just for the sake a making a change. If it ain't broke, I don't fix it.

There are things I'm doing, and changes I'm in the middle of making. Can I just count those? The New Year's Resolution Fairy won't mind, right?

I'm going to finish my Bisbee Deportation project, and I'll be shocked if it takes me more than a month or two.

I'm slowly shifting my diet over to something that's not gluten-free or vegetarian, but maybe gluten-lite, and meat-lite. That wasn't a decision, really. It's just what my body is craving these days. Or rather, what my body really doesn't want these days are heavy breads and a lot of meat. It's a bit odd, since I've practically lived on those two staples most of my life. They just don't appeal to me now. Meh. Maybe I'm reading too much, and my appetite is taking notice. Either way, I'm feeling better - less depression, more energy, more focus - since the shift began. That can't be bad.

I'm doing two activities with weekly regularity, and really working to improve myself in both: tai chi and horseback riding. A new love, and a lifelong love. It's good.

There I go, leaving the world behind.
(My friend took this picture of me.)

~~~~~~
I totally forgot to add that this post was inspired by The Pagan Experience, a new pagan blogging thingy (I'm tired, please forgive my utter lack of vocabulary). You should check out all the other entries, too. 

...in the mean time...

I'm going to be working on my major non-fiction project for the next few weeks, probably. That time line is a really rough estimate.

Feel free to pop over to my academic blog (it's on a side bar here somewhere - check on the left side, I think that's where I saw it last) if you're into that sort of thing.

I just finished up a book review of Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, by Paul Bloom, to kinda get my non-fiction writing muscles warmed up. Now I'm back on track working on that Bisbee Deportation paper I've had on a back burner for, oh, longer than I care to calculate right now. I'll be back here when I've either finished the Deportation paper, or I just need (yet another) break from it.

Cheers!

I'm so very tired of this.

I am completely at my wit's end.

This morning, every word out of my child's mouth was defiant. It took him two hours to take a shower and put clothes on. I had to miss my morning job.

This afternoon, I left him home for four hours so I could go to work. He was supposed to use that time to work on school. When I got home, he had answered 10 questions in one assignment. He had used the rest of the time to watch Transformers on Netflix, which he attempted to conceal by closing out the browser window. His school is online, so having no browser window open when he's "working on homework" was suspicious. Of course I checked the recent browsing history. We had planned to watch a movie together tonight. Instead, we did his school work right up until his early bedtime.

While getting ready to tuck him in, and adjusted the pillow on his bed. When I picked up the pillow, I saw a shiny new cell phone. Not his. I asked whose it was. He said he didn't know. Actually, he shrugged while giving me that deer-in-headlights look. I asked where he got it from. He didn't remember. No really, I said. Where. He mumbled something about my desk. Then I remembered I had a brand new, in-the-box Motorola Droid on a shelf in my desk. Looked at the phone. Yep, it was a Droid.

This... child... had stolen the phone out of the packaging, reassembled and returned the packaging so that I couldn't tell it had been touched, and then - did what? I don't know. There's no SIM card in the phone. If you turn it on, it tells you to either make an emergency call or shut it back off. But he did something. The camera lens on the phone is shattered. Completely. As though someone took and ice pick and a hammer to it. He says he can't remember. I don't believe that at all, but I couldn't see anything useful coming out of my mouth at that point, so I walked out of his room, shutting the light off and closing the door behind me.

That's $500 I don't have, gone in a child's lie. I didn't need the phone, but I had planned on selling it so I could afford to get him some decent Christmas presents this year.

I wanted to scream.
I wanted to hit something.
Mostly I wanted to cry.

This is becoming a pattern. Today wasn't unusual. The phone bit is unusual, but the deception isn't. The more I work away from home, the worse he gets. I can't afford to pay someone to come hang out with him unless I work a lot more. If I work less, we don't get to keep our comfy house.

I'm all out of ideas.

building happiness

I have Major Depressive Disorder.
Some of you already knew that. It's not a secret.

When my medication works: It's as though that gray cloud that's hanging over me, is just hanging there. It does not shrink or lift, but it does not rain, either. The medication removes the immediacy, the weight, of Depression, but does nothing to fill that void with happiness, or with anything at all. The happiness I must work for.

That work involves building my home into a sanctuary, a place a feel a strong, healing connection with. I am an animist, and I feel strongly the flows of energy around me. All things have a spirit, an energy; this is the basis for my connection with my home, once it is built. This is also the way I heal best. Without my sanctuary - without a place I can go that is a safehaven, a shelter from all the hurt out there in the world - I am ungrounded. Being ungrounded unnerves me, and makes me unhappy. I learned this very recently.

When I moved into a new house at the end of August, I knew it would be tough. I did not know the move would send me into one of the most difficult depressive episodes I have experienced in recent memory. I figured out fairly soon (mid-move) that the episode was connected to the move. I thought it was just the change. The stress. The challenges. A normal reaction to a difficult time for anyone, but especially for someone with MDD (or other mental illnesses, I'm sure).

Perhaps a week ago, I had a particularly bad night. In the worst depths, I began writing down my thoughts. Understand that my thoughts when I'm in the grip of Depression are not reliable in the details, but they often reveal the underlying trigger(s) for that particular event. In this case, the thought that came out was clear: I miss my home, I wrote. I miss the safety, the sanctuary of my little house.

Just a few mornings ago, a conversation with Archer - my soulfriend - clarified my feelings for us both. I needed to feel the connection I'd had with my old house; I needed to build that connection with my new house. Without it, I feel like a stranger usurping the space within this building, intruding in the house's domain. So I will build a relationship with my new house.

This is the work of happiness.

It includes a list of things to do: hanging the rest of the pictures and art, organizing the bathroom drawers, sweep up the already-accumulating dog hair, et cetera.

It includes organizing my container garden in its new home.
A gift came from an unexpected new friend, just after our unexpected move. It was a wormwood plant, an herb sacred to Hel. It's thriving in the sunlit porch of this house. 

It also includes a ritual of bonding, in which I will introduce myself to the house-spirit, and entrust it with the protection of my self and my family. Together, the house-spirit and I will ward this space, while I weave my roots to its anchored beams. I will ground myself in this home, and create a sanctuary of it. Then, I will welcome my gods to join this bond: Sretya, who holds the luck of homes; Hel, who keeps truth and order in life and death; Bast, who brings joy to those who wait; and Odin, who guides the steps of wisdom-seekers. My altar will be built, and my guardians will be placed.

I will come home.

coming home to Hel

During the lunar eclipse last spring, I dedicated my home to the service of Hel. Then I decided to move. The two events were not causally related. 

In the weeks before moving, dead things began appearing on my doorstep. I mean that literally, and no, I do not have a cat. A hummingbird, perfectly preserved in flight-like posture, was laid in the center of my back step one morning. A bumblebee curled hollow on my windowsill, outside after a rainy night. Et cetera. 

I thought it an odd coincidence.

I - we, the denizens of my new home - have not yet done any sort of ritual blessings or dedications for this new house. 

Lately it seems that "death's door is flung wide open" - a quote I'm stealing from a friend of mine. And probably these many deaths - in my presence, in my community; our small town has lost so many over the past few months - are nothing to do with my springtime dedication to Hel. 

Regardless. 

I feel myself called back to Hel. 

Not that I had ever left, but I have been focused on other things beside my spirituality - moving, for instance. The pull of my spiritual path has been strengthened by a tie recently cut, that held me - somewhat - away from pursuing my faith in the manner I would chose for myself. That is, I've cut ties with the coven I was a member of. 

Technically speaking, they cut the ties. They sent me an email, addressed to the entire coven, that detailed a list of complaints about my lack of attendance. I hadn't made it to all the meetings during my move. ...Before I allow this to devolve into sarcasm, I'll just say that it's for the best. The coven's spiritual path had never truly been my path. 

Mostly because I'm not Wiccan, and they were (they don't call themselves that, but they use all Wiccan books and rituals and believe that all gods are essentially the Consort and all goddesses are essentially the Lady. As a result, they don't bother getting to know the gods they call on, beyond a cursory internet search for relevant myths. So, yeah. Duo-theism. Is that a word?). Anyway, I'm a polytheist. My gods are separate entities. I anthropomorphize them like crazy, because it makes it easier to think about them, but really - if I really get down to it - I think of each as a separate energy with its own traits. So anyway, tangents aside, my reverence of Hel, or any other of the individual gods I work with, doesn't mesh well with their 'all goddesses are one goddess, who is the source of life' thing. 

So anyway.

I'm not in a coven anymore. 

This gives me more time to pursue my personal spiritual path. And ironically, will leave me more time to mentor my mentee from the coven. But that's another post. Is 'mentee' a word? I'm out of writing practice... 

And now I've circled back around to Hel. 

I'm not quite prepared to establish an altar in the new house, mostly because I don't know where to put it. So my house does not yet have a sacred space. My old house had become a sacred space in its entirety; I'm still searching out even one altar surface in this house. 

Patience. 

The house is still coming together as a living space. I have to be patient.  

For the moment, it's enough to know where I'm heading: home to Hel. 

on living with another adult

I had never really lived alone - without another adult - for more than a month or two until my second husband left, about three years ago. [Ew, saying "my second husband" makes me feel gross.] I have always hated living alone. I hated the loneliness.

Over the past couple years, I realized that 1, my primary relationship was with a person who had an aversion to co-habitation, and 2, I wanted that relationship more than I wanted a roommate. It took some internal work to come to terms with what that all meant for me. I considered whether or not I would always need another person living with me to be happy. Now I'm facing moving in with Archer, and I'm concerned about whether we'll each be able to adjust to living with someone. He has long been clear on his difficulties with cohabitation; I'm just becoming aware that I will have these difficulties. I've become used to living without someone else. I've started enjoying it, even.

This isn't a question of whether or not I want Archer to live with me. Always, I'm happier when Archer is near. This is a question of adjustment. I'm not sure exactly how it will happen. We'll get creative, I'm sure.

growing the little house of Bones

I live in a little house.
It might  be 900 square feet. It has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, and a dining room.
There are no hallways.
I use the front porch and yard as my art studio.
My 'laundry room' is an attached shed; I have to go outside to reach it. I share that space with house spiders, because they keep the flies down.
This house is full to bursting with me, my son, and our dogs. This house has a friendly, warm feeling to it that I cherish. It's a happy house, and it makes me happy.
There isn't room in it for one more living thing. Or any more dead things, for that matter. In fact, I recently had to get rid of some books because I realized I could not possibly fit another bookcase in this house, and stacking them in front of the bookcases is hoarder-esque.

I didn't really understand exactly how full my house was until I considered how I might go about making a third person comfortable here. That third person, of course, is Archer. He will be moving in with me in the near future. So as I thought things like, "I could move this over there, and..." it dawned on me that no amount of shuffling furniture would make this house big enough for all of us.

So I'm gearing up to move out of this little house that has sheltered my son and I for the past almost-three years. This is the house that taught me there is no such thing as "hoarder-chique." It taught me that I can garden, and things will actually grow. It taught me the value of leaving a string of lights up on the front porch - my house always looks inviting. It taught me to love front porches - now a requirement for future homes of mine.

I'll miss this house. It will be awkward, for all of us, learning to live in a new space with a new person. And when I go to see a potential house, I'm looking for something I cannot see. I'm looking for happiness in the walls, peace in the floors, and comfort in the ceilings. 

I'm making it: cleaning houses and finding balance

I finished my bachelor's degree last spring, majored in psychology and anthropology, minored in history, so now I can clean houses full time and work more hours at the cafe.

I can't, at this point, go back to working an office job. A "real job" as my mother called it. She apologized for saying that, acknowledging that cleaning houses was, in fact, a real job that results in real money. But she'd like to see me in a career. Something that pays the bills a lot more easily. It just can't happen yet.

Mostly I say this is because my son isn't ready to go back to public school, and working close to home and on a relatively flexible schedule allows me to continue homeschooling him. My goal is to have him ready for public school by the 2015 school year. He's seeing a therapist, who is working with me to help him with his social anxiety. All this is true. Even if I wanted a 'regular' job, he wouldn't be ready for me to be gone that much.

I don't want a regular job. Well, part of me does, but not the rational part. I'd love to have a steady, and larger, income with benefits and all that fun stuff. I'd love to know what work I was going to be doing that month, and the next. I'd be an awesome park ranger, or historian, or researcher.

The rational part of me knows that I have not won the battle with my depression, and in any job that is only a job, not a passion, I will crumble and give way. I will start the work with excitement, just happy to have a job. But depression will creep in eventually, and I'll do something - show up late, not finish assignments, whatever - and get fired, or laid off.

For now I'll keep working at the cafe and cleaning houses, which keep me physically moving and don't allow me to wallow. The happiness of my customers in both jobs is rewarding enough to make me come back, on time, every day. And soon I'll apply for graduate school. With a Master's degree, I can teach. That has always been my favorite work, and I could do that joyfully, in spite of my depression.

I'm having good days - when I end the day with smiles from the homeowners and cash in my pocket - and bad days - when the bank tells me I can't spend all that cash - but here's to hoping the balance will find more good days than bad. I have a few years left before I qualify for the 'real' job I can handle.

in an alley in Bisbee, Arizona

This was written on 14 June 2013.

In an alley in Bisbee, there’s a coffee stand, a woman who sells hand-painted silk scarves, and a metalsmith who sells the most amazing jewelry of precious metals and stones. This is Peddler’s Alley. Seth runs the coffee stand, giving out free espressos and selling bags of coffee beans. June sells her scarves. Autumn is the metalsmith. Trez, the hotel manager from across the street, likes to hang out and drink coffee in the alley. When the guests are all settled in for the night, she joins us for a beer or some of Seth’s whiskey. Sometimes Belle and Patty come over from the cafe next to the hotel. The Honey Man, Reed – he makes our local honey – comes to get some free espresso from Seth and chat with the rest of the alley. I’m there, too, but I’m not usually a productive member of our little alley-family. Sometimes I do oracle readings, which are like tarot readings but less complicated, for whoever wants one. That’s my contribution.

Today, we had dinner together. The cafe was getting ready to close for the day. It had been a slow day, so they had an entire quiche left over. Seth bought the quiche and a pitcher of ice tea. Belle, Seth, and I handed out the ice teas in the alley. Patty heated up the quiche and brought it across the street to the alley. I cut and served the quiche, while Patty and Belle went back to clean up the cafe.

The conversation went like this –

June: Cut small pieces, Katy. We just ate a bunch of this (gesturing to a lidded pot).

Katy: Sure thing.

Seth: Oh you need – (reaches for a roll of paper towels) – something to put that on.

Katy: Nope, Patty brought us wax paper.

Seth (not hearing, handing over a paper towel): Here –

Katy: No need hon, I got this covered. (Winks.)

June: Yeah Seth, she’s got this covered.

Katy (to Seth): Thank you sweetheart. You’re awesome. (Takes the offered paper towel; passes the first piece of quiche to June.)

June: No, give that to her. (Pointing to a tourist who was looking forlornly at the nearby, but closed, restaurant.)

Katy (to the tourist): Would you like some quiche?

Tourist: Oh, no thanks, we have to eat dinner in an hour, so...

Katy: (Shrugs.) Ok, your loss. Here Trez, this is for you. (Handing quiche slice to Trez.)

Random local person who happened to stop by right then: Haha!

Trez: Thanks!

Reed: Hey, lemme try some of that quiche. That looks good... Oh man, that’s rich. Who made that?

Katy: Patty.

Reed: That’s delicious. I have to take home some of that for the old lady. Can I take some home?

Seth: Sure – that’s what it’s there for.

Customers came and went; some joined our conversations, some shrugged us off. Most of them got espresso from Seth.

Trez: Maybe that’s my guests – (runs across the street, just ahead of a couple tourists carrying luggage; she disappears into the hotel).

(June nods sagely.)

Seth: I’m thinking about going to upstate New York.

Katy: Really? What part?

Seth: Upstate.

Katy: Where in upstate? I’m from there.

Seth: Finger Lakes.

Katy: I’m from the Finger Lakes! Where are you going?

Seth: Lake Chitaqua. My dad turned me on to it. There’s this place he goes in the summer, and he lives for it.

Katy: Cool! It’s so beautiful there, especially in the summer.

Seth: I might do an event there.

Katy: Need a helper?

Seth: Maybe –

Katy: Ooo, pick me!

Seth: Yeah!

Katy: So when are we going?

Seth: This summer. I don’t know.

Katy: Well, I have til the end of July.

Seth: Sweet, that’s my time frame.

Katy: So what’s going on at Lake Chitaqua?

Seth told me the story, then, of how he and his father came to terms with each other, just a few years ago. He didn’t like his dad much, growing up, he said, and he moved out quite young. After he moved out, he’d call his dad once in a while, but hated doing so because the conversations were never pleasant. They didn’t argue, or anything like that, but his dad was something of a hypochondriac and would tell Seth that, someday, Seth would have the same health complications he believed himself to be plagued by. Seth felt his dad was trying to bequeath those illnesses to him, and he found himself reluctant to call his dad. He’s say, “Hi Dad, how are you?” Then he’d kick himself for asking, because he dad would respond with a listing of medical misfortunes.

Seth: And I never wanted to go home unless I could do it on my own terms. I pay for everything. If I want to go somewhere with him – last year, I wanted to go to Santa Fe. I called my dad and said, “hey, let’s go to Santa Fe. I’ll send you a plane ticket, you just get on the plane and meet me there. I’ll rent a car at the airport.” And I did. I flew us both in to Albuquerque, rented a car there, and drove us to Santa Fe. And it was great. But I never wanted to make him provide the vacation. I provide the vacation. He just comes along. I like it that way.

A few years ago, his dad called him. While they spoke, Seth realized that the neediness usually so present in his dad’s voice was – gone. His dad told him about going to this retreat at Lake Chitaqua, and how it was a life-changing event. Seth’s dad learned, at the retreat, that in all his life, he had never learned to say “I love you.” Further, he learned that all his life, he had been going to doctors when he needed to feel cared for. Seth’s dad said, “my biggest regret, is that I didn’t do this sooner in my life,” and he wanted very much to share the experience with Seth. After some resistance, Seth agreed to go spend a week with his dad at the retreat at Lake Chitaqua. He stayed an extra week; when it was time to leave, he let his dad go and booked the extra week for himself. This year, he wants to go back.

Seth described the retreat location: hundreds of acres of gated land where no cars were allowed. People would drop off their luggage, then park their cars by the entrance for the week – or weeks – they were staying. They’d walk everywhere – around the lake, to the opera, the theater, the symphony, the lectures. Speakers come from all over the world for the once-in-a-lifetime chance to speak at Lake Chitaqua, and there is a different theme every week. The second week Seth stayed there, the theme was National Geographic: Oceans. They would talk about science all morning, and theology all afternoon, then go to the opera in the evening.

I wondered what the theme was the week Seth’s dad discovered how to say “I love you,” but I didn’t ask. He was telling his story and we were sipping Irish whiskey from his flask. It wasn’t a good time to get interrogative.

At the end of the evening, Autumn has packed up and gone to dinner with her husband, Logan, who came to visit toward the end of the day. June has gone, too, with her rainbow of scarves, and Nicole and Kirsten have parted ways. I tell Seth about the paper I have to write, and how I’m not sure that I’ll be able to, since I’m not around many families at the moment.

Then Kirsten stopped by to see Seth; she and I introduced ourselves to each other. The three of us talked about road trips and motorcycles and cars. Seth pondered how he would drive to New York. Not a direct trip, he said – he wanted to be in each place. He wanted to enjoy every stop on the journey, to have lunch with people who knew his coffee. He has at least 200 customers in every state. Every place he goes, if he gives enough warning, he can meet someone who drinks his coffee and have lunch with them. He wants to meet as many people as he can. He loves people, he says with a smile, and people love coffee. I think he’s right.

Nicole stops by next. I’ve never met her before, either, but she’s familiar, like we’ve seen each other somewhere, somehow. It’s a small town; that’s not surprising. Nicole is full of life, a flower about to burst in a pink velvet dress and brown boots. Nicole and Kirsten talk animatedly about Santa Cruz and Nicole’s latest gig, managing the creation of an art installation at the MOCA, the Museumof Contemporary Art, in Tucson. Her friend Chico had asked her to be part of the team. The piece her team created is called “Chrysalis,” and she talked about all the changes in her life and how the project was so appropriate for this period of her life. She talked about being the only woman, in charge of a group of men, and how that made her want to “do fist pumps every day.” She felt like the butterfly emergent and powerful.

On a whim, I decided to do an oracle reading for Seth. While he entertained customers and Nicole and Kirsten caught up with each other, I shuffled and drew my oracle cards. When the customers departed, I nodded Seth over to my cards and explained the reading to him. The reading helped him make a decision: he’s going on a road trip this summer, north to Colorado, then east to New York. He’s going to sell his coffee at Lake Chitaqua. I’m so proud of him.

Then I notice, for the first time, the beautiful stained glass windows on the second floor of the building across the street. I mention it to Seth. He agrees. We stare at the glass for a moment, slightly inebriated and almost out of whiskey.

"I feel like I'm going to cry," he says.

I ask, "Good cry or bad cry?"

"Good cry."

"Oh, good then."

"I can just feel it. You know, life is so beautiful. It's like how old people's eyes always have that sheen of wetness. Their eyes have seen so much, and it's all there, all that beauty, and there's so much that they're about to burst. They've seen so much beauty. The tears are always just about to fall because life is so beautiful. It's like that."

"That's going in my paper," I say.

"That's cool. It should," he replies.

Normanstops by, seeing Seth and I still there. Norm is one of Seth’s employees. We chat. A kid stops by with a young sparrow on his finger. It can’t fly because some of its flight feathers have been damaged. A cat, maybe, from the looks of the sparrow’s matted downy and torn tail. The kid thinks the bird is “part finch and part sparrow” but the rest of us doubt that very much. He’s looking for food for the little bird, and I recall that I have chia seeds in my kitchen. So I say good night and leave the alley, kid and bird in tow, hoping to write a paper after I feed the bird.

Aaaaaaand I'm done!

So you may have noticed my absence; I've been gone for about a semester (timing not a coincidence).

This last semester almost killed me, but I'm graduating today. This evening. Whoa.

I'm still having random anxieties over it. Like, what if somehow my name didn't get added to the list because I didn't fill out form 397A42 five months in advance in triplicate? What if I'm sitting there in front of my family - who are actually showing up (whaaaat?!) - and my name doesn't get called, and I just sit there like a dumbass? And my family's like WTF Bones?

Sigh.

I called the people in charge of the ceremony this morning. I'm on the list, it's all good. No worries.

This just doesn't feel real enough to not go wrong - to not end up being not real.

But really, it is real. Weird.



Anyway.
I have from now until the end of June or so to find some income for my home. Until I do, my tasks for myself are to 1, find a job, and 2, be a writer, and 3, be a painter.

Pictures and writing samples to follow. 

some non-fictional thoughts

I took a break from writing fiction today.
I had reached a 'pause' in my flow, and I had homework to do, errands to run, etc., that made pushing myself to write seem wasteful. Especially since this was one of those days that I could barely hold myself together. I had random crying going on, flat affect, and massive anhedonia. Major Depressive Disorder: it's a blast.
Actually, it was the anhedonia that clued me in to just how bad it was. Me, of all people, feeling uninterested in anthropology and wondering if I even wanted to keep studying evolutionary psychology in grad school next year? Yeah, that's a clear sign that shit is bad. It also made me realize that my hesitation over submitting my grad school app for the ev-psy program at U of A was mainly a symptom of depression, not an honest hesitation of "do I want this?" However, I still don't know if I can do it. I mean, yeah I'm capable, and I'm passionate about the subject area and all that, but... my depression has been really bad this year. So bad that I've actually failed two classes because of it (I just couldn't rouse myself to do the work), and I might fail another. I can't afford to do that in grad school, obviously, but neither is my depression just going to disappear between now and then.
I want this. Even when the depression makes me forget that there's anything in the world that I want, I want this. So I'm going to apply. And hope my brain doesn't betray me if I'm accepted into the program.

NaNoWriMo: Day 5

Only 980 words today on my NaNoWriMo book, When Stones Sing.

But I also got (most of) my homework done, went to class, took my son to his soccer game (they whooped that other team's butt for serious - I kinda felt bad for the other kids, but not so bad that I wasn't totally cheering when my son made a goal), and got my errands done.

And, today was kinda a bad day with the depression. So all in all, this was an extremely productive day, considering how difficult it was to do anything at all.

Excerpt? Why yes of course:

Everyone’s settled but me, she thought, as the clock on her bookcase ticked toward midnight. The girls were sleeping near the warming stove. Trip was sleeping, curled in a tight little ball of cat on the seat of her chair at the kitchen table.

Jacq couldn’t settle.

She put her coat back on. The girls and Trip lifted their eyes, but made no move to follow. Boo’s tail thumped the floor a couple times, but when Jacq closed the door behind her, Boo went back to sleep.

Jacq’s feet took her up the hill and through a maze of paths and houses, over the crest between the canyons, and down the other side into the back end of Brewery Gulch. She came out onto the main road right between two gentlemen’s clubs. The crowds on the Gulch were raucous. She pushed through the foul-smelling men with her head low. Three doors farther down the canyon and across the street, Jacq shoved her way between two beefy revelers and into Madame Holly’s House.

Jacq recognized the girl on the stage at the back of the room, but she scanned the crowd for Sasha just the same. Some of the regulars were there, as were just as many that Jacq didn’t recognize. Vince was there, though his dark skin, dark clothes, and the lack of light where he stood made him hard to see. His huge frame took up the entire back corner, making it easy for him to be sure none of the customers tried to jump up on the stage with the girl, Lacy, harass the fiddler, or make their way into the dressing room through the door behind him. Jacq caught his eye and he smiled, briefly. There seemed to be no evidence of Sasha, however. Jacq found a likely spot at the bar and leaned into it. The two tenders were flurrying about at the far end. One, an almost androgynous brunette woman in a slim red dress, caught a glimpse of Jacq and held a finger up. Jacq waved back and pulled up an errant stool. The woman held three steins by the handles in one hand, and pulled the tap with the other hand. Then she turned and slid the brimming steins across the bar to a miner shaking a fist of dollars at her. She grabbed his money and another empty stein to fill. Jacq looked away as the fiddler – Joseph, she noticed – halted his song to announce a new dancer to the stage. It still wasn’t Sasha.

The brunette bartender caught Jacq’s attention with a well-placed stein of beer.

“Jacq, she’s here, but she’s busy right now.”

“Busy?” Jacq stared dumbly. Of course she was busy, she was so beautiful.

“Not like that. It’s not her night for that. You know that. She’s jus’ not dancin’ right now ‘cause somethin’s come up. You can go ask her yourself.”

“Oh. Ok. I will. Thanks Tanya.”

The bartender waved Jacq off.

Jacq collected her stein and eased off the bar. She slid her way through the crowd until she was even with Vince. He nodded at her, giving her a warm smile. Was it so long ago, she wondered, that his smile – so surprising on his rough square face – would have melted her knees? She smiled back, and pushed through the door to dressing room.

The dressing room was empty but for Sasha, who was sitting at her vanity and twirling a pencil between her fingers. A letter lay half-finished in front of her. Sasha glanced up as Jacq closed the door behind her, then looked back to her waiting page. Jacq didn’t say anything, just looked at the woman before her. Sasha had satiny bronze skin and a ballerina’s graceful limbs. Her wavy black hair, thick as a ship’s ropes when she grew it out, was cut short and clung wetly to her face. Jacq wondered again what such a beauty was doing in Bisbee, or even in Arizona.

Sasha sighed, put down the pencil, and turned toward her audience.

“Jacqueline.” She leveled her jade eyes at Jacq expectantly, but Jacq could only stand there dumbly as the moisture evaporated from her mouth at an alarming rate.

“Oh Jacq,” Sasha’s soft alto chided, “what are you doing here?”

“Come to see you,” Jacq croaked.

Sasha stood and stepped in close. She reached her hand up and touched her fingertips to Jacq’s dirty cheek.

“Sweetheart,” Sasha smiled, “you could have at least bathed.”

Jacq flushed. “Wouldn’t have mattered,” she mumbled. She could be fresh out of the tub and she would still feel like a scruffy pup next to Sasha.

“Were you out chasing bats again?”

“Not chasing – “ Jacq caught herself. “It keeps me occupied.”

Sasha’s smile dimmed. “I know it does honey.” She found Jacq’s eyes with her own. “So what can I do for you?”

Nothing. Everything.“I don’t know. Jacq paused. “Hoping to see you dance, I guess.” Jacq’s face heated. Why had she said that? “Hey, Tanya said something had come up – are you ok?”

Sasha swore and stepped back toward her vanity. “Damn busybody,” she fussed. “Yes, something has come up. Have you been to the Temple in the past few days?”

“No.”

“Well, Frank found a child. It was a few nights ago, when it was so windy. You remember? She was holed up in the entrance to the old cathedral. He brought her back to the Temple, thinking to keep her from going to Hel’s Table so early, and she survived the night, and now he’s thinking she needs somewhere to live.”

Jacq took a moment to process that. “So, what, is he suggesting you take the kid?”

Sasha’s eyes seemed suddenly cold. “And why not, Jacq?”

Jacq flinched. “No reason. I mean – I just didn’t know if that’s what had come up or there was something else. I mean, I don’t understand why that’s the reason you’re not dancing tonight. Not that you have to, or that you can’t –”

“Jacq,” Sasha held up her hand, “stop. It’s fine. I’m sorry. I haven’t explained everything yet. I did dance tonight, but earlier. You missed it, that’s all.” She smiled. “I got a message from Frank not even an hour ago, asking me to come help him with the child. He’s not exactly prepared to deal with a little girl.”

“How old is she?” Jacq asked.

Sasha shrugged. “Maybe four, he guessed. Said the girl hasn’t said a word to him. He’s hoping she’ll talk to me. Maybe she has parents and just got lost. I was just writing a note to send back.”

Jacq shifted uncomfortably. “Do you – do you need a ride? To the Temple? I could take you.”

Sasha smiled distantly. “Yes, that would be good.” Her face brightened then, and her voice strengthened. “But not tonight. I’ll need to get my things together and talk to Holly. I think I’ll need to stay at the Temple for a few days, at least. Will you stay, too?”

Jacq grimaced. “Maybe.”

“I saw that, Jacqueline Avery.” Sasha’s voice was soft again, happy and teasing. “Surely your menagerie can survive your absence for a few days?”

“Might be I could get someone to take care of them for me.” Jacq frowned.

“Ask Vince. He’d be happy to stay at your place for a few days. His roommate’s got a new lover. They’re drivin’ poor Vince up a wall.”

Jacq let out a soft chuckle. She could just picture the huge man scrambling up a wall like a sun spider was after him. Maybe she’d ask him after all. 

Send me to NaNoWriMo!

I'm doing something. Something big.

Read on, my friends, read on:

I don't know how many of you know this, but I've been working on writing a novel. It's a dystopian science fiction inspired by my heroes: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and George R. R. Martin. I'm spending October doing world-building in preparation for the flurry of writing in November that is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). My goal is to complete 50,000 words of text in the month of November! 

This fundraiser to help me get to San Francisco for the 2013 Night of Writing Dangerously, a NaNoWriMo event that brings writers together for a six-hour write-a-thon! Why? Says NaNoWriMo: "Because proceeds from the evening make our programs possible, including the classroom-based Young Writers Program, which supports project-based learning and writing literacy." ...And because I really, really want to do this.

Here's the link to donate: http://www.gofundme.com/sendKaty

Earlier this month, I posted a fundraiser that raised money for the charities aided by the event; those donations got me in the door. This fundraiser will help defray the cost of travel. 

This is so necessary; I have to do something with myself. Don't we all?

define "romantic relationship"

I don't know about you, but my generation of young girls was taught that you should grow up and marry your best-friend-in-male-form, who should happen to be sexually attractive by Disney standards. And, you should always be on the lookout for someone to spend your life with, because you don't want to be Alone.

I decided quite a while ago that I didn't want to get married. And I decided that again after each of my two divorces. This time, I was going to stick with it. I didn't want to be married, but I didn't want to be alone, either.

I wasn't wrong about not getting married again - I just hadn't realized how pervasive the idea of marriage was in my relationships.

A while back I wrote about my grievances with marriage as a contract. Archer left a comment on that post which concluded with this little gem: "You gotta get a man honey. But why? You ain't nothin without a huuuzzbind! But..why? Hmm, can't remember...but it's an essential truth dammit girl! Yeah. Well. What does a relationship really need to be its best self?"

He was, obviously, commenting on the social pressure on women to 'get a man' to spend her life with. Life isn't all it can be until you've found someone to be with. This idea goes deeper than a contract, though. Ultimately, we look for relationships that might culminate in harmonious cohabitation. It's relatively easy to throw off the idea of contracting your relationship; if you want a ceremony for that, there are plenty of non-contractual methods, and extramarital cohabitation isn't so inflammatory as it once was.

It's far more difficult to throw of the idea that a relationship must culminate.

Why must it 'go' anywhere?
"What does a relationship really need to be its best self?"

This train of thought rolled right over me when I was trying to explain to my son that Archer and I weren't going to be in a "romantic" relationship anymore, but that he was still my best friend. What the hell does "romantic" even mean?


I checked with the Oxford people for you:

If romance is the idealized version of love...

What is more romantic than a friendship of lovers?

What it comes down to, in my mind is this: take away the expectations of cohabitation/marriage/full-life-sharing, but keep the love, keep the friendship, keep the sex; what's left is a love that has no external forces shaping it. Marriage and all that aren't excluded, but they're no longer demanded because the expectation is gone. Without expectations, love is free to develop naturally into whatever works for the participants. At least in an ideal situation. Which is what we're talking about when we apply the 'romance' label.

This train of thought has changed my outlook on romance.

a piano not forgotten

I wonder what song he is playing. Something taught to him in his childhood?

A few years ago I had a chance to play around on a piano. Without sheet music, all I could recall was the first song I ever memorized, for the first recital I ever did: Mary Had a Little Lamb. I remembered, even, the harmonic accompaniment to the melody, though I couldn't tell you know what that type of chord was called. My body recalls what my mind does not. It has been so long since I've really played - almost twenty years - could I even read sheet music any more? It'd be a struggle, I think.

There's an analogy for life in that. 

easing back into life: some notes

I've been writing more lately. Like, actually writing. In a notebook. With a pen.
Somewhere along the way I had stopped doing that. I had forgotten, or maybe I had never realized, how satisfying it was to write by hand. Or maybe I stopped doing that so much because writing by hand is more likely to cause a flare up of the nerve damage in my right arm. Since I'm right-handed.

~

The other day I was talking to my mom about the possibility of me getting a disability rating from the VA (for my Depression and the nerve damage in my arm, and some other more minor issues). My advisor, I was telling her, had told me that all my issues could easily qualify me for a 100% rating. That means the VA might decide I rate getting 100% of my active duty pay for the rest of my life. My mom said, "That's great, I guess, but wouldn't that hurt your pride, to be considered disabled?" That stopped me short momentarily. Then I replied, "well, yeah it would, if I weren't disabled." Geez, Mom.

~

I'm newly single-ish. What the hell does that mean? It means my primary partner and I broke up. Archer & Bones is no longer a romantic relationship. He's still my best friend. It hurts, but it's also exactly the right thing for both of us. I have other people in my life, but my other relationships are not so intense. So I'm single-ish.

~

I had a revelation today, while I was thinking about being single. That is: I'm always strongest when I'm single. I wrote it in my journal. See? It's right there:

It's not a great picture, so I'll give you a transcription:

{Left page, top to bottom}
"I'm always strongest when I'm single.
Why do I do that?
Why do I weaken myself with men?
[Seriously, I don't do it in my relationships with women.]
How many loves has that cost me?
^maybe it's because I think in those terms
Can I stop thinking of Love as something to be caught and kept tight -
- and think of it instead as something that grows better when there is no pretense?"

{On the left side of the left page, in blue ink}
"I've seen this before, but did not recognize it until now."

{On the right page, top to bottom}
"That weakness is given shape by our culture, but the force came from my Depression, and the legacy of abuse.
This is what I must change next."

Are any of us ever completely ourselves with anyone? Isn't there always something that we hold back? - Thoughts that come but seem uncharitable or poorly timed; it's not always bad to hold things back. But sometimes, over time, holding back might make us seem to be someone we are not.

I always felt on some subtle level that voicing the thoughts that might have appeared to diminish his importance in my life was generally a bad thing which would potentially hurt his feelings and make him think I didn't really care about the relationship. (I'm using "he/him/his" generically here - it's a running theme in my relationships with men throughout my life.) It didn't matter that the thoughts didn't actually mean I didn't care, but the idea that it might be taken that way was enough to silence me. Thus, I appeared weaker, less independent than I was. I even believed it, right up until yesterday.

I don't know exactly where I picked up the idea that I had to appear weaker than I am in order to 'keep' a man. I'm aware of the likely culprits, but I don't feel like doing an in-depth analysis right now. It's enough to know that I've done this, and better to know that now I can work to change it. Phew.

~

I'm working away at my story, which still doesn't have a title. I'm finally relatively satisfied with the first two chapters, and am planning chapter three. The work is invigorating and addictive. I did a character sketch today. Literally.

Jacqueline Avery

haitus

I probably won't be writing much over the next week or three.
I'm going through a depression ...relapse? episode? whatever you want to call it.
I don't feel like doing much of anything right now, but I am doing the things that need to be done. It's just, when those things are done, there's nothing left in me to write about.

I'll be back soon. I'm just coping with life, and this is how I choose to do it.