"What is to give light must endure burning." --Viktor Frankl

“I have wasted years of my life
agonizing about the fires
I started when I thought that to be strong you must be flame-retardant”

--Amanda Palmer, Ampersand

“When you learn to love yourself
You will dissolve all the stones that are cast
Now you will learn to burn the icing sky
To melt the waxen mask
I said to have the gift of true release
This is a peace that will take you higher
Oh I come to you with my offering
I bring you strange fire”

--Indigo Girls, Strange Fire



15 April 2019

Letting Go

2018. In response to a call for submissions for a local two-pages, two voices play writing contest, I wrote a play based on a conversation I had with a social worker in the ICU when my youngest child died. My play was not selected, but writing it was an extremely helpful process--a kind of exposure/expressive arts therapeutic process that helped me come to terms with some traumatic memories I was having trouble processing. The play does not represent exactly what was said or what happened. Unfortunately, though, that makes it no less real. 


Setting: an ICU hospital room. The lights are dim. A PARENT in their late 40s is huddled in a chair next to an empty hospital bed. As the scene opens, a SOCIAL WORKER in their late 20s enters and sits down next to the PARENT. 

SOCIAL WORKER: Did you camp out here all night?

PARENT: No, I went home last night and came in early this morning. He was still in the coma, and the cats needed to be fed, and I needed to get some sleep.

SOCIAL WORKER: Were you able to get some rest?

PARENT: Yeah, I managed to sleep a little. It’s hard going home and going upstairs. That’s where we found him and where the paramedics worked on him. I expect that’s going to be hard for a while.

SOCIAL WORKER: Sometimes memories like that take a while to process. He’s still out for tests?

PARENT: Yeah, in order for the doctors to stop the protocol they have to do an MRI. I think it’s a liability issue more than an ethical issue at this point. The other tests confirmed what we already know.  He was dead when we found him. [PARENT starts to cry.]

SOCIAL WORKER: I heard that you decided to sign a DNR, so I came by to see if you have any questions or if there is anything I can do for you.

PARENT: Thank you. [Several seconds elapse before the character speaks again.] Everyone has done their best to help. I appreciate that. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what to ask. I’ve had stepparents and in-laws and grandparents die. But not a child before.

SOCIAL WORKER: This feels different.

PARENT: Yeah. Very. Because of the drug use, we’ve known for years this was a possibility. This wasn’t the first time I’d knocked on his door, terrified I wouldn’t get an answer.

SOCIAL WORKER: You’ve all been through a lot together.

PARENT:  [Nods.]

SOCIAL WORKER: So the doctors determined this was drug-related?

PARENT: No, they don’t know. It wasn’t an overdose. The drug tests all came back negative. And all his drug tests at rehab have been coming back negative. His blood pressure has been ridiculously high and hard to treat for years. Could be rebound hypertension from one of the drugs helping him stay clean or from drugs that don’t show up on drug screens yet. Could be other health problems. We’ll never know for sure what happened.

SOCIAL WORKER: Not knowing is hard.  

PARENT: Yeah. I just wish…[Starts to cry again.] I should have checked on him sooner.

SOCIAL WORKER: I’m sure the doctors explained that there was really nothing else you could have done. Sometimes it’s still hard to not think about “what if” though, isn’t it?

PARENT: Yeah. I expect the guilt will take a while to get over, too.

SOCIAL WORKER: Guilt and thoughts of “if only” are normal parts of the grieving process. If you think you’d like to talk to someone about that, or about any other part of your experience, I can give you some names and contact information.

PARENT: Thank you. I have a counselor already, so I think I’m good with that for now.

SOCIAL WORKER: The palliative care team will follow up in a few months, in case you change your mind. I also understand that your son was an organ donor. Have you spoken with Nancy from the donor recovery center yet?

PARENT: Not yet, no.

SOCIAL WORKER: She should be here soon. And if I can do anything, let me know. I’ll come by again in a bit.

PARENT: [Short pause]. Actually, could you…could you help me process something before you go?

SOCIAL WORKER: Of course.

PARENT: I, um… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. They’re going to bring his body back to this room. And eventually they’re going to do all of the things they need to do to unhook all the machines and harvest his organs and all that. And…what do I do? Do I stay here? Do I leave? He’s not here anymore.

SOCIAL WORKER: Different families do different things. Some parents leave. Some choose to stay. There’s no one right thing to do. There’s just what you need to do that’s right for you.

PARENT: I just… I’m not sure how to explain this. I’ve…I’ve loved him, and cared for him, and counting the time I was pregnant, I’ve spent 28 years doing whatever I could to help keep him alive…When I leave here, it means that’s not my job anymore. And I don’t…I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to leave. But I don’t know how to stay. I just know that he’s not here anymore.

SOCIAL WORKER:  You’ll always love him. And when you’re ready, and you’ve said your goodbyes, it’s OK to let go and to let the hospital staff take care of your child. You don’t have to come back to this room or even to the hospital unless you want to. You’ve done all you could and should.

PARENT: I’ve already said my good byes. And I’ve let other family members know so they can do what they need to. 

SOCIAL WORKER:  [After a long pause.] Maybe you’re not ready to let go just yet.

PARENT: [After another pause, PARENT stands, wiping eyes as the lights fade.]


14 August 2012

Thoughts on the Do vs. Be Dichotomy


Circa 2002-2003: I wrote this while I going through my divorce. Though it's dated and in need of substantial revision, I was pleased to rediscover it and to find that something coherent came out of my pain during that time. Others have more eloquently and more substantially discussed these themes--but it was meaningful to me to write it and helped me make sense of a tremendous loss. 

I was thinking about Oprah on the way home and how she doesn’t have time to do a lot of things like answer all of her mail and shop for groceries and clean her refrigerator. I was thinking how in order for her to do the work she does she must hire people to help her do these other things. And I was thinking that it’s OK because other people can clean the toilets and do a great job, but not everyone can be Oprah Winfrey and do the things she does for people. She has special gifts to give the world.

Then I was thinking about my own life. And about the Do vs. Be gender dichotomy.  Men Do and women Be. Supposedly. I think one of the things that led to my divorce is that somewhere down the road my ex-husband thought I was the only one who needed to clean the toilets so he could do things to help other people. That’s a woman’s job, right? They’re there to take care of the mundane things so the man can focus on worldly things. Men can’t give the world the gifts they have unless someone frees up their time by cleaning for them and raising their kids for them and doing their laundry for them and cooking for them and everything for them. It is a waste of the man's time and energy and gifts to do that kind of work. And, it should be added, it does nothing for his self esteem.

To some extent it seems this kind of hierarchy is necessary. It reminds me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. These levels of development work on a societal level, not just on an individual level. But the problem is that many marriages don't allow both spouses the opportunity to reach higher levels of development. There is no sense of self-esteem when what the men do is valued and what the women do is devalued. After all, anyone can clean a toilet, right?

The reality is that the mundane stuff never goes away. But it serves a purpose. It must be taken care of first before the other work can get done. It seems our values are mixed up. Yes, we should value the people who have special gifts. But we should also value the people who make it possible for these people to develop and share their gifts. And we should also create opportunities for all people to develop and share their gifts.

The wives who do the mundane work so their husbands can do the more valued work also have gifts to offer the world. But if they are told that the husband’s gifts are always more important, then the world lacks the gifts the wife has to offer. If wives and husbands shared the responsibility for the mundane work, then both would have time to pursue other work.

There is another problem with the Do vs. Be dichotomy: It seems that it is not true that women Be and men Do. We say that, but there is a discrepancy between what we say and how things are. We say one thing but do another. I’m thinking of a book, Why Women Get Sick, that I read recently. In it the author points out how women are told they are weak, but in reality the women are frequently the ones holding everything together. They are responsible not only for physically holding the family together, but holding them together emotionally, spiritually, and even financially in many cases. I think it is incorrect to say that women just have to Be. We tell ourselves that, but it seems that women Do a lot so that men can Be. Women buy into the myth that they are dependent on men, but in reality, the men are dependent on the women. Just as slaveholders were dependent on slaves. The slaves did all the hard work so the slave owners could be wealthy and powerful. They tried to convince the slave that s/he was inferior and incapable and it was his/her place to serve and submit. They wanted control without responsibility. That is tyranny.

Examples from popular culture illustrate how families and roles have changed. Shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Life According to Jim are examples, I believe, of the traditional family in transition. Yes, it's great the women's movement has helped empower women, but it has not done enough to empower men and help them adjust to the changes. Many men are unsure of their role, and more importantly, they are unsure of the power they have in that role. They are feeling vulnerable.

Another characteristic of this of this transition time is that there is no authenticity. What we say is not what we live. Our performance has not caught up with our competence. Men know all the right things to say. And women know all of the right things they would like to hear. Men know how to tell women they are equal. And women and men think the women are being treated as equal if the man offers to do dishes and vacuum and watch the kids and change diapers. The problem is that the men aren't doing these things for the reasons they say. They don't do them because they think they are responsible for them: they do them as a favor. They feel like they are doing something above and beyond the call of duty. They do it because they want to, because it feeds their ego, not because they feel like they have to. 

So what happens when they have to? Some of the men I know feel resentful and unappreciated. They really haven't gotten it that it's their responsibility to take care of themselves, let alone the wife and kids in times of need. That is above and beyond the call of duty, remember. Because men have never been taught that it's their responsibility—they have never been taught how to effectively respond—they feel out of control and overwhelmed. They are used to being taken care of, and when the wife can't take care of things like she used to, the men have a lot of anxiety. And they often look for someone else to take care of them.

Many men simply repeat with their wives what they have learned at work, which is often another example of the master/slave relationship. Bosses abuse their power to keep their employees under control. If the boss lets the employees know how talented they are or that have the means, they might start their own business and compete with him. That can't be allowed to happen. It's the employees’ job to make the boss successful. They are paid to only need what the boss needs and wants. They can't do side work because it's disloyal. All their time and energy must go toward making the boss rich and powerful and happy and successful. That is their God-given duty. It's not the boss's job to make the employees rich and powerful. It should make the employees feel happy and successful when the boss is happy and successful. That is what they were created for.  And how dare they not appreciate all the boss does for them. Don't they realize they would be nothing without the boss?

Many traditional religious structures illustrate this hierarchy as well. Many of us have been taught that the hierarchy is God, then man, then woman, then children. In this system, women and children never have direct access to God. The man always serves as mediator. Just as the boss serves as mediator between wealth (and success and power) and employees.

We see how this kind of rigid traditional system can be harmful to women, but what about the damage it does to men? The women may have all of the responsibility but they also have the tools they need to thrive and be independent if the system collapses. But by assuming all of the responsibility they deny men the ability to be independent.

Men are just as much a "victim" of the current system as women. The way the system has worked has been that the man's needs always come first. Always. That's the hierarchy. And the woman is supposed to meet all of his needs. Had we taught men and women that they were responsible for and capable of meeting their own needs themselves, and had we taught them how to meet them in healthy ways, perhaps they wouldn't do it in unhealthy ways.

Women have been fighting to dismantle this system, but some have tried to invert it rather than create something egalitarian. Some people feel that taking responsibility means blaming someone else. And many women are resentful for having been oppressed in the old system. No wonder the men feel threatened. They are now in a position where they feel dependent and they fear that women will try to control them. They are anxious about their new responsibilities and feel afraid and ashamed when they can't do things as well as women because they haven't had practice. They also feel resentful and defensive. In the old system men were used to being better than. In the new system, equality feels like a step down.

Another problem we face is that our definition of respect is changing and that has left both men and women confused. The old definition of respect was to treat people as you think they should be treated. It was easy to respect women because the men were the ones determining how the women should be treated. The women had no say in it. If the man said it was respectful for him to open the door for the woman, then the woman couldn't complain he was being disrespectful so long as he was doing the things he deemed respectful. Never mind if the woman didn't care if he opened the door. Never mind if what she really wanted was for him to do the dishes.

Another definition of respect is to treat people as they would like to be treated. But that is difficult for some men. They don't have a lot of practice at letting wives decide how they want to be treated. They have more practice at telling them how they should want to be treated. Allowing others to decide how they want to be treated means acknowledging that they have needs and desires that are different from your own. And it means allowing them control of themselves. Men are afraid that women will try to control them. And they are afraid to feel vulnerable in other ways. What if the woman wants something the man can't provide? What does that do to his sense of identity, self esteem, and personal control? Or what if the woman wants something the man wants for himself? Who comes first? For many men, compromise means capitulation.

Is a struggle for power inevitable? How do we empower the men who don't want to be empowered, who don't or won't see the need for change, or who are afraid to change? What is an appropriate role for women in all of this? 

In many ways, men are at a temporary disadvantage because in the old system men didn’t think they would have to work so much themselves to feel successful. After all, if I “had been a good wife,” my ex told me once, then he would be successful. If he was ever unhappy, unfulfilled, or unsuccessful then it must be my fault. 

I don’t think my first marriage was really that atypical. Gender roles have changed and it seems like a lot of men are confused now about their identity and their desires. The old system didn’t allow women to get their needs met, but we don’t seem to have a new system in place so that both men and women get their needs met. Again, it seems like we’re in a transition phase: our performance has not caught up with our competence. Many men say they feel women are equal. And they do all the right things: they help cook, they help clean, they change diapers. But they are secretly still buying into the old system. The actions have changed, but the values have not.

And in some families when the secret comes out there is an all out war. Especially when it comes to whose values, whose definition of respect, which power structure will be passed down to the children. One of my lit professors, Greg Garvey, posited that the central issue in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is over who gets to reproduce with Miranda. In other words, whose values get passed on in the new world—i.e. whose values get passed on to the kids? There were times in my marriage where I was literally not allowed to speak. I had to hide books that I was reading for fear my ex would think I was corrupting his children. The kids and I were not allowed to have our own identities.

I have wondered if this was a typical battle between male and female values, between reproduction and transformation: do men have children out of a desire to reproduce themselves, and women out of a desire to transform themselves?

I think if men didn't fear that the new system would be as oppressive to them as the old system is to women that they would be more willing to work with women to change it. What many men fail to realize is that they are also oppressed in the traditional system. The king in the traditional system isn't the man, or even God, it's Fear.

I am reminded of the classic transcendentalist debate over how to reform society: Do you change individuals or institutions?
Individuals must change themselves. You can't change them. But when institutions change, that forces/facilitates change in individuals. The way to change individuals, then, is to give them the opportunity to change themselves.

A metaphor I came up with while having to contemplate divorce:

I feel like a slave who thinks the only way to truly be free is to reform the system, which means to create conditions so that each person may free him or herself.

I changed when I went to college, and as a result I changed the structure of my marriage which put pressure on my ex-husband to change. Like many men, he feared and resisted that change and we ended up with a war.

My ex wanted things to stay the same. And he keeps trying to relive the past. He believes that the old system is the best for him; therefore, it should be best for everyone. He was accurate to perceive my trying to change things as a threat to his values. He may continue to feel that he needs a wife to serve him so he can achieve success. He may continue to define success as having others be dependent on him. He may prefer tyranny.

I don't think that's where we're headed though. Change is inevitable. So how do we change the institutions of marriage and family in our society in order to help facilitate the highest level of development for everyone? Who cleans the toilets? How do they do it and not be resentful or wither up?

What I have discovered is that sometimes the only way to change an institution is to refuse to participate in it. I kept trying to create conditions so my ex could free himself, when really I simply needed to free myself.

Freedom is responsibility.

Margaret Fuller believed that if we could make marriage egalitarian, we could change the world. Maybe the work I'm doing is enough for now. Maybe it feels like I'm trying to change the world because in my own small way I am.

No wonder my ex felt threatened. It is a shame, though, that he was too afraid to see that what I wanted was for us to change our world together.

Inconceivable



Circa 2000: another of the prompts where you use words given to you, and another of the prompts for which I've forgotten the words...


He can’t be deceptive:
she knows
his taste, touch, smell, sight,
and sound by heart;
she knows his heart by sound:
by pressing her ear
to the left side of his chest, listening
for the eruption.

She can’t be deceptive:
he can read her heart,
her mind, find and unwind
every word, every thought
until it completely unravels
her thread bare
and him ready
to erupt.

No, it’s not the sex:
sex is deceptive;
it promises eternity,
but eternity lies
in conception;
it lies
in the desire
to abstract only his sound
from her silence:
it lies
in the deception
about to
erupt.

06 October 2011

The Comfort of Bleeding

Circa 2007. Self-explanatory.


Every twenty eight days,
belly bloated,   eyes red,
body soul exhausted
I confess my ritual wish
to my partner

With any luck,
I will start bleeding today

Every twenty eight days,
my partner nods, shakes
his head, eases me
into his arms, confesses
he still has trouble
getting used to the sound
of that


Solitaire

Too hard to put a date on this one. I started a version of it in 1993, the year my ex and I probably should have gotten divorced, and finally finished it in 2003, the year we actually got divorced. 


I sacrificed
twenty years
to be with you

At first I was captured
by the solitaire surrounding
my finger, sparkling so fiercely
I was blinded by the physical
beauty, blinded by
the promise I believed
it held

I thought we would become
One
And your love would fill
all the empty spaces

It hurt us both
when you realized
you didn’t want the life
I’d forfeited for you
when I realized
I wanted back the life
I’d surrendered to you

But after too many years of playing
solitaire in the dark ‘till 3 a.m.
then crying myself to sleep
I finally decided

to escape
the kind of solitary confinement
your love put me in

I was terrified:

I thought we would become one



28 August 2011

Writer's Block


Circa 2000: I was trying for humor :-)



Under the desk,
still warm, hides
a mechanical pencil,
the point lost
inside the barrel, the
eraser rubbed flat.

Next to the desk,
still cold, spills
a stockpile of
crumpled white paper:
cannibalistic snowballs
eager to feed
on the next litter.

On the desk,
still ambivalent, rests
a single sheet of
lined white paper,
blue lines creating
row after row
of tiny, empty
shelves waiting
to be filled like Old
Mother Hubbard’s
cupboard.

“The children are hungry,”
cries the paper
to the pencil,
“But Mother is too poor
to feed them,” answer
the gluttonous snowballs,
mockingly.



Revelations


Circa 2002: The result of navel gazing, not a formal writing prompt.


One linguistics course
and one manic summer
later I discovered God
is Universal
Grammar and
I am
just one more
imperfect speaker,
uttering one more religion,
one more dialect, one more creole,
at home only in my own vernacular.



Returned to Sender


Circa 2001: I was asked to write a found poem. I supplemented instructions from a packing label.


No strapping tape allowed.

There is no standard 
conventionalacceptablenormal
Form    for this            content.

Inspect and ensure the shipping label is addressed properly.

Why               do we              try        to put _____ in            a
box?    Is there            only one                      variety of _____?
Why                are there          so         few      boxes
from    which to         choose?

Use bubble wrap or foam peanuts and secure properly to prevent damage or loss.

How much      will I    have to pay  to            deliver
this?     where has it                delivered
me?                             
Oh,      no,       did I    forget
to use the foam pea-
nuts?


My Child's Eyes


Circa 1999: I was asked to write a haiku.

Two brown suns rising
slowly above my kneecaps,
my waist, my own eyes



Fine Tuning


Circa 2005: I assigned a name acrostic poem exercise in a creative writing class I was teaching and had fun creating one of my own.


Just don’t call me Dee Dee— or beware the
Anger buried beneath layers of lace and laughter
Nearly purple but not too blue, my rainbow, an
Inch or two too short, heavy with candles,
Cosmetics, compound sentences, Coca-Cola with crushed ice and a straw
Easily too much chocolate, but never enough when
Cats escape and turn into tigers, questions escape and turn into
Avalanches. The answer, I discovered, decked out in
Renaissance-style Stevie-esque handkerchief hems and high-heeled boots:  
Everyone suffers—even Eric, my
Love, whose Tibetan singing bowl I covet. Some days he finds me
Lingering in the aisles in Barnes and Noble,
Ogling books instead of grading, imagining possibilities.