Memento mori

Everything I see is a memento mori, a reminder of impermanence. Not just the skulls, the rotting fruit, the dead birds and bubbles of classical artwork, but also the delicate flowers, the clouds, the newly born animals, the shadows on the mountains, the light on the water. I see a reminder of impermanence in the dimpled knees of a baby as much as in the spotted and veined hands of a crone. Everything is changing, all the time. I look at my face in the mirror and I hardly seem like a solid thing. This too shall pass. This body, changing and aging all the time, will soon be gone. Life passes in the blink of an eye. Why pretend otherwise?

This is reality. I don't find it sad or depressing, but rather beautiful, right and perfect. Without death, each moment of life would not have the immeasurable value that it does. We value precious metals because they are a finite resource. So is this life.

My mind runs over these well worn tracks again and again. Am I repeating myself? Perhaps. But this is one of the most beautiful truths of my life, a message well worth sharing.


2017-05-13

why I write about my pain

I just heard this on the Dear Sugar podcast: “Writing can be a powerful tool for social change, but only if you write about the things that are uncomfortable. What if Anne Frank had just written about trees?”

It was exactly what I needed to hear, because as I write about my own experience, much of it traumatic and uncomfortable, I sometimes feel like it is a narcissistic enterprise, more valuable for venting or self-expression than anything else.

This reminded me why I speak up about my trauma, and why I post those writings publicly. I don’t want sympathy, I want others with similar experiences to know that they are not alone. I want the family members of abusers and victims to realize that even though the victims might seem to be okay, they aren’t. Speak up. Do something. Stop it from happening. Perhaps abusers will also read my writings and be brought face-to-face with what they have done to others.

We are so good at hiding our injuries. We are animals, after all, and what happens to the wounded antelope? But we aren’t a part of the food chain in that way any more.

For me, baring my wounds though my writing and in conversation with friends and family has not only helped me to work through these experiences and let go of my shame around them, but has also prompted others to reveal their own stories to me, which I hope was helpful to them on their own journeys of healing.

By ignoring our traumas, and not talking about abuse, we are continuing to brush abuse under the rug. Far better to bring it out in the open, to see it, to acknowledge it. That is, I believe, the first step towards change.

2017-01-31

Soberanes Fire

2016-08-12

I’ve had an intense several weeks. The Soberanes Fire has ravaged the Palo Colorado community, which was my home for several years and continues to be a second home for me and especially for my daughter. So many friends and neighbors have lost their homes. Most of T’s acreage has burned. His home, along with a few neighbors’, is now an unburned island in the midst of a desolate charred wasteland.

I was so afraid for his safety, for his home, and for the others in the community.  I was sick with worry about those I knew were on their properties, defending their homes, especially T, who I knew to be impaired by a terrible flu and high fever. Each new report of a home burned was like a knife in my gut. A bulldozer operator died fighting the fire. Another knife to the gut.  

I know what it is like to feel like your life has been destroyed, the past obliterated, your future a yawning chasm of uncertainty, all your illusions of safety and security destroyed at a stroke. Perhaps losing your home, your possessions is not the same as losing your spouse, but in some ways it gives me that same feeling. Like a partner, your home is your sanctuary, your anchor and refuge in a world of chaos and transience.

2016-07-25 Facebook posts: a snapshot of what a day of this fire was like.

1 p.m. I just talked to T and he is at home, still safe. He was actively fighting the fire last night, along with a 50-member crew from CalFire. All the deadwood, tree and brush clearing that he has done over the years is now paying off in a big way. They’ve been using all the fire roads he’s worked to keep clear as well. Because of his level of preparedness, CalFire has been motivated to (and able to) make a stand all along his property at Long Ridge Rd, which you can clearly see on the maps. They have been making heavy use of his water tanks (all that storage is paying off). He’s now 7k gallons low on his needs for the coming year, but that’s why I bought that water trailer a few years ago. That thing has really come in handy as well. It has a powered sprayer and he’s been using it to put out spot fires.

He said he could watch the fire slow down significantly when it reached areas where he has done clearing.

Tr’s place burned (empty for years), and they were going to let O's burn (Because it is a wood structure? Because it isn’t a primary residence?), but T convinced the captain to save it (with water from his lower tanks) because from there the fire could easily come back up the brush hillside towards P’s and his place [O's later burned]. Much of the woods on T’s lower property to the north have burned (CalFire did a backburn down there), but R’s house is safe. W’s burned. F's is safe [F’s later burned]. J's is safe.

They now have a pretty good firebreak where the fire has already come through and burned all the fuel to the north and west, but they are not completely out of danger yet. It could still wrap around from the south or east. We are all hoping that will not happen.

T is still sick and completely exhausted, but has kept going, because what else can he do? Some neighbors are going to try to come back up today, so he won’t be the only resident up there any more.

This has been an intense roller coaster of emotions for me, and I am safe in my home in Santa Barbara. My heart goes out to all those whose homes are endangered or burned. Because I'm secure and have internet and phone I'm doing my best to keep everyone updated with whatever info I can find. I've got Google earth and the latest MODIS data.

I had an intense moment yesterday afternoon when I saw the latest data, showing T's home safe, and my spirit soared. Then I saw that a neighbor's home had burned, the swath of red across all of upper Green Ridge and so much more of the Palo community, and just like that I came crashing down again. Burst into tears. This isn't just points and lines and polygons on a map, these are people's homes. Their histories. Their lives. I know what it is like to feel like you've completely lost the life you had, to have no idea what the future will be.

Prisma Dreams filter processing of a shot of fog in the valley I took from T's property a few years ago

the blink of an eye

The indifferent stars glitter overhead

as generations of men are born and die.

The rocks in my garden

collected over a lifetime

will outlive me

for certain.
The scattered bones
reminding me
that as I am
they once were
and as they are
I will be.

Crystals

bought and paid for

grown in the earth

over aeons

mined

cut

and sold for profit

decorate my home

with its walls of paper and dust.

When all this is gone

all memory of me forgotten

they will remain.

What can we do

in the short span of our lives?

The blink of an eye

less than a blink

in the lifetime of the universe

of this solar system

of this planet.

Our currency

which we work and die for

is little more than numbers on a screen

zeroes and ones

stored in servers

imagined and agreed upon

buying and selling pieces of this planet

thinking we own them

when they will outlive us

and all our descendents.

the day I learned what grief is

the day I learned what grief is

that bone-deep agony

every part of my body aching and throbbing with pain

my mind a keening wail of misery

that moment of remembering, upon waking

the incontrovertible fact

that I’ll never again

look into those eyes

hear that voice

feel those arms around me

hear those familiar steps

and just as I was emerging from

that dark pit

where no light could reach me

I was plunged in again

even deeper than before

for a while, all I could do

in my dreams

was to float in a place of gray mist

shrouded by fog

as if wrapped in cotton wool

neither thinking, hearing, seeing, nor feeling

I had to drag myself back

back into life

back into pain

written 2016-05-11

about April 17, 2009

October grief, just like every year

October.

It’s October again. The grief has been creeping up on me for a few days, but I was busy and distracted and only noted a feeling of unease at the back of my mind without connecting it to October. I wondered vaguely what was wrong but was too busy and distracted until today to sit with it and identify the feeling.

The distractions are gone and the grief has come roaring up, no longer creeping quietly, almost unnoticed.

I lie on my bed and sob, wail, a mess of tears and snot and grief. It is not an easy thing, surrendering to this pain.

The weight of grief is back, pressing on my chest, constricting my breathing. My throat is tight, my eyes wet. My hands shake as I try to type this and my body is racked with sobs. My heart is breaking all over again. Oh, October. I thought this year might be easier, lighter. It’s been six years. But the pain is crushing me, ripping through me, tearing me open, again, like always.

This year another name has been added to the list of those I grieve. Another person gone, gone forever. This, this is the time of year I feel all those losses, stacked up like stones, pressing down on my chest. I feel like I’m being crushed by their weight. Another friend who was once my best friend has died. He is the fourth person who was once my best friend who has died. The third to die young. Unlike the others, he chose the hour and the means of his own death.

I feel weighted down, exhausted; my body is leaden. Every time I stop moving the grief wells up inside me again, stealing my breath.

I think about the way my Gramma died, surrounded by the women who loved her, her last breath leaving her body as I wrapped my arms around her, pouring all my love into her in that hospital room. I think about how my husband died alone, how suddenly his breathing stopped, his spinal cord crushed and severed. I think about how SH died, choked to death by her rapist in her own living room. I think about how SM died in despair, hanging from a noose of his own making in that green forest, next to Atascadero Creek.

Life is fleeting and fragile and painful and sometimes brutal.

2015-10-15 

at my husband's memorial, 2009