Sunday, October 28, 2007

the Unwanted Gust of the Mind

LWP 10/28/07
Piece # 3 - PLACE
“An Unwanted Guest of the Mind”
sbrowder

My mind is a dark place. It is achy and flu-like. I feel sick with anger. I am locked in my “mind place” and cannot find the key. I am so angry it feels like it is raining on the inside of my ways. My mind is a gray and a testy place - skies filled with tornadoes and hail storms. No one dare to go near me or they may be blown away.
When did this anger slip in uninvited to my “mind place”? Was it simply a day last week? Did one incident open the door and let anger in? I remember smiles and I still hear laughter, but it has no affect on me. I fret over what has taken residence and rules my thoughts and emotions. I am even angry with those I love, those I do not know and even at myself. It would seem that I would of at least excused myself, but no, I cling to my anger like a lover.
Only sadness keeps me from imploding. Instead I explode. I do not hate my life and let sadness have its ultimate result - death, I just resent my life’s state of mind. I want to live but live with a promise - a promise that I will
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rise to a different level. I want to climb to find some new revelation of place and me in it. But, as I am now, I cannot find this place- hell, I cannot see the doorknob.
I can still smell eggs cooking in a buttered pan, but they have become rancid in my nose. I want to blow out all their smell like snot in a tissue.
I cannot finish eating the eggs. They are yellow and scrambled. They are too bright - that kind of yellow. These eggs spread out on my plate, spongy and messy. Yoke mixed with white, they are nothing. They taste like nothing. What does nothing taste like? Egg whites.
I think these eggs are crumpled nothingness. I look at them and wish they could become the fowl that struts around a farm yard, scratching at the ground. Instead these eggs are foul. I am done with eggs.
My dreams are an ugly place. Sleep is no longer a sweet scented place. Like an extension of my wakeful place my anger shows up here, too. Characters in my dreams are reversed. Instead of me being full of rage and nastiness, others fly at me. I whimper, pleading with them to stop.
My husband, who in my waking place , is beyond kind, is displaced in my nightmares, by some altered thing. My husband was one of those people who had a wonderful childhood. Then altered , when I came into his life, he
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spoiled me so that I became rotten and in many ways I think I spoiled his life. Now in my dreams he becomes the spoiler who abuses me emotionally, thus wreaking my mind with confusion and pain. It feels like he is taking his turn. It feels like paybacks.
I wake from my dream place disgruntled and broody. My mood is like a sour wash clothe that repulses my face with a warm pungent smell. I continue to wash my face with it hoping that the perfume of the soap will overcome the sourness. I wash and still feel dirty.
I am disgusted with this anger which drains all my brain juice. I am left tired and moody. I grope around in my “mind place” looking for a bright spot to snap me out of it. Surely there is some thought I dropped somewhere and by recovering it, I will be propelled forward and out of this room of gloom.
I think maybe my unquiet mind is like the scary tunnel ride at the fair. I sit in the car twisting this way and that while all along the way mechanical devices bolt up-right from the dark , dangling webs and cold blasts of air assault my senses. I smell something electrical burning. I don’t want to think about what it could be. Then it’s over and the rickety, steely car bursts into the light. Why won’t my mind leave this Haunted House and leave me
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free of this ride?
But no. I am like an anchoress living in solitude. Everything is filtered through my “showings” - visions of the angry mind. Only unlike Julian of Norwich, I report “showings” of man’s relationship with an armless Devil. I warn mankind to leave their anger like an old coat on a chair and return to God. Yet I am locked away, a self appointed recluse. I am the living dead.
Then one day, like an accident, I find I have walked out of the Keep, the funk, this fog in my brain. My brain, once so twisted and tangled with angst, now is strung out smooth, white and glossy. I am no longer denied joy. Was this a gift? Was a basket of goodies left on my doorstep? Or did I muddle through the anger in my “mind place” by working out my own salvation?
Never mind, I am free. My brain is full of new wrinkles, endorphins, and serotonin. I look out the windows of my mind and see fair possibilities. Julian of Norwich has a new “showing”. She reports a “showing” of the righteousness of God. There are many words of comfort moving in and through the rooms of my “mind place” to a pace of lovers, happy and full of desire.
* * *
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My time is up. Fifty minuets per session for five years of regression, I
have dug up every old feeling that latched itself to anger and swept every nook and cranny of my “mind place”. Emotions and moods are melded into parts and pieces that fit together like puzzle pieces making a new picture - a surprise.
Will anger ever set up residence in my “mind place” again? Yes, I believe so, but it will be a fleeting guest who is checking out, baggage and all. No longer will anger so easily touch all those old rooms in my memory. I find myself in a new place. I can walk around in this place from room to room, moving through, holding the keys to each. Doors can open and close. I do not have to lock myself in any one room, I live in them all. I am no longer thoughtless.
In my “mind place” I have found social salvation. No longer bound by old anger, my place is no longer cluttered. Will kittens and puppies dance through all my thoughts? Not always, but the difference is that new anger will not be tied on a rope to old anger. My “mind place” has new furniture.
I have climbed out. I found the ladder. I left the scraps under the table.
Look at me. This has been my little rebellion against being stuck in one place. My mind is a good place to be. I can eat eggs again!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Show

LWP Oct. 24, 2007
Sbrowder
PLACE - “The Show”
I was eleven, fatherless and dogless. The death of my daddy had left me melancholy and slow moving. The death of my dog, left me lost. My face was stony and bare of life. I did not respond to much, nor cared what came and went in my life.
I moved through my life like a sleep walker. In my head I was waiting for my daddy to walk in the front door returning from one of his many business trips. Similarly, I expected to find my little dog waiting to be let in at the back door. Neither thing ever happened.
My mother was desperate to fill the craters in my heart or to fan some ember of interest that would spark some life back into her only child. The distraction had to be large enough to engulf all my senses. She took me to my first dog show.
A dog lover to the bone, I had read every book in our small public library concerning canines. I consumed fiction and nonfiction with equal fervor. So as my mother and I stepped into the huge convention center that Sunday morning, my ears ringing with the barking of over six hundred dogs, I
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escaped my gloomy existence. Sadness slipped from me like a discarded
backpack of rocks. I had found a place full of the animals I knew and loved the most.
My hand slipped from my mother’s hand as I began to wander around this new land like Dorothy in the land of OZ. For me, this place was a wonderland with the whole day spread out before me to explore all its vastness. My mother gave it to me like a gift.
The area was packed with show rings and grooming areas, exhibitors and spectators, venders, and food areas, cages and pens and of course dogs of every breed. Everything seemed to be happening at once without apparent order. My eyes were wide. I don’t remember breathing. I hardly knew where to begin, but truly, only leaving would be the hard thing to do.
I started with the area set aside for preparing the dogs to be shown. Here were cages for dogs waiting to be groomed or to be exhibited and pens of puppies hopping on little hind legs as I approached them. They greeted me with pink-tongued kisses. Their pungent, warm, puppy breath reminded me of one of my favorite smells - like the smell of a stable or the smell of a well-warn saddle, these smells, not perfumed but natural, resonate deep within our brains.
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There were long-haired, short-haired, black, white, spotted, short , tall,
smooth faced and whiskered. I could name all the breeds. It was if I had walked into a living world of all the books I had read.
Here the floors were strewn with little bits of dog hair snipped and scissor by expert groomers. Their dogs stood or laid quietly atop small tables with shinny chrome legs. Tack boxes nearby were filled with all sorts of equipment - powders, leashes, collars, sprays, combs and brushes.
I was fearless in approaching these groomers and their dogs. In fact, I moved about the building listening and watching the handlers, stewards, and judges as if I were a protégé. I wiggled my way through spectators and handlers and their dogs, determined to see it all up close. There were bleachers for people to sit and watch, but I was on the move. I had to see the prancing dogs like beauty queens strutting the runways. I had to hear the comments of the exhibitors as they waited their turn - “Just look at that rear drive and far reaching front gait.” ‘The head-piece on that dog is sure to put him in the top four ribbons.” “That lack of turn of stifle and long hock, will certainly not be that judges pick.”
I knew this language and these terms. I could see good foot placement. I knew a fine head-piece when I saw it. I was in my element.
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The square shaped show rings were roped off with orange colored cords.
Slick cement floors were outlined with black, rubber matting so that handles and dogs could keep their footing. Over-head lighting reflected of the dogs glittering coats. Each dog was glowing with a regal air. No hair was out of place. Each dog was a star!
I was close enough to the rings to not only see the beautiful dogs standing at attention but also to feel the breeze created as they and their handlers gaited past. The odor of their coat polish mingled with their natural doggie odor in a way that no mutt of mine had ever smelled.
Along one whole side of the crowded, noisy, building were rows of booths selling every kind of fitment a dog could need or an owner would want. Dog bowls, rainbow colors of leashes and collars to match, brushes, combs, pillows and bones, dog toys, figurines, pictures and books galore of all things dog. I fingered it all, while the venders explained and hawked their wares.
As I meandered my way around the exhibition hall, I began to look for my favorite breed - Collies - Lassie look-alikes. When I found them in one section of the grooming area, I gazed spellbound. Here in fit form was the breed I had always dreamed of having as my own. My parents had always
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put me off by saying that Lassie dogs were roamers, which required a large
fenced yard. They also said that they were a heavy coated dog which required endless brushing, which produced tons of shed hair. My dream of owning a collie was stunted. I had never been this close to a collie and yet I was far away from my dream.
But here in this magical land of dogs, far over in a quiet corner was the solution to my parents reluctance to owning a large hairy dog. They were called Shetland Sheepdogs - a miniature version of the larger Scottish Collie. Here was my “new’ dream.
I asked the breeder/owner of this diminutive breed every question I could think of concerning their care and training. The kind lady was pleased in my interest and patient with my questions. There could be no objection to these little dogs.
I rushed to find my mother, who had long since given up on keeping up with me. When I found her, I grabbed her hand pulling her through the throngs to the pen of shelties. My mother regarded both the dogs and the light in my eyes. It was a match. She had found what she needed to bring her daughter back to life.
She purchased a catalog showing all the breeds entered that day. It listed
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their classes and the ring times of when they would be shown. But best of all it listed the owners and their addresses. I knew that this book would connect me to my very own Sheltie puppy one day.
* * *
That place, that one day, became the hobby that captured my fancy off and on till this day. At almost sixty my backyard is a play ground for two beautiful Collies. Shelties have come and gone. I have shown a few. But as an adult I went back to my first love - Collies. Having grown up reading “Lassie Come Home” at least ten times and all the Sunnybank “Lad a Dog” books, Collies have remained my steadfast companions.
That place, that first dog show pulled me away from grief and into possibilities. The ancient sport of showing dogs gave me a life-long hobby. We have traveled to many shows around the country and each time I walk into the show building, I am greeted with the same pungent odors, frenzied barking and the bustling ordered chaos of that first show so long ago.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Telling of Two Lives

The Telling of Two Lives LWP
sbrowder October 2007 Piece #2

It was impossible to say. For me, it was more impossible to hear. The speaker and the hearer would suffer after the telling and maybe for much longer than either would think would have been necessary. But that is the nature of suffering, it has to be endured or let go of with a deliberate act of will.

* * *
My son had been a fisherman - an expert fisherman. I had seen him drown a worm a time or two. Others had seen him fish, and they marveled, at not only his ability, but his innate sense of rhythm in the cast and his knowledge of fish.
He was twenty years old when I found an old photo of him in the act of fishing. It was a picture of an artist. He held his rod in one hand, so expertly placed. The cap in his other hand, dangled in a relaxed casualness. A slight smile drew his lips into a knowing look. He seemed to know that if a fish was there, its underwater days would soon be at an end. The fish would answer this fisherman’s lure like sacrificing itself to a god.
For me it was simply a picture pulled from a box. This blip of exposure, frozen in time, was my middle child. I wanted to breathe life into this flat snapshot of someone who I thought I knew. I wanted to see the familiar. I wanted to feel the intimate essence of the spirit of the boy who stood at the edge of brackish waters and brownish green marsh grass. I wanted to touch his tawny hair, teased by a slight breeze that played at his hairline

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revealing a high, intelligent, brow. I wanted to look into his eyes that I knew would not turn to me but followed the rod’s line to the surface of the water and into the depths of all things. I wanted to kiss his full lips that sealed a mouth full of a secret. I wanted to know this son, this expert fisherman. I did know this boy standing on this bank then, but in just a few years I would not know him at all. Never would I know him as he was in this photo. How cruel for this picture to hide his life. It mocked me. It fooled me into thinking that this expert fisherman was my son. But this picture was only the surface of him, not revealing the undercurrent of who he was.
He had been a reflective child, a day dreamer. He was quiet and somber, almost as one affected. I never once remember spanking him for anything. Redirecting and explaining things was enough. He seemed lost in his own world, and only held his finger like a bookmark, in places that were important to him.
All through his elementary school years his teachers had recommended him for special classes, but I fought them. He may have been disorganized and had some slight eye-hand processing problems but he had tested above average in IQ. He was indeed special, but not in the way teachers saw him.
He never wanted to play sports, but with a little nudging from his dad and some teasing from his older brother, he had played one season of baseball when he was eight. At ten, his grandmother had given him karate lessons. We had all been so proud but also terrified at the number of times he had gotten the worst of it in matches. He loved to build things, first with blocks then with his dad’s tools. But most of all, too soon to be out of my sight, he would sneak away to the nearest pond to fish. And always he would come home elated
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with his catch, begging me not to be angry.
As he got older he charmed the girls and the girls charmed him. He dated many, got
seriously smitten by one, got engaged, moved out, broke it off, and moved back. [Until this very day he would tell you he loved her and always would.]
I loved him more than my life. During those sweet remembered years of boyhood I had always been prepared for scraped knees, cuts and colds, ant bites and bullies - all the things a mother can fix. But life had a terrible way of building in an un-fixedness. There was no cure, no program, no priest, or band aid that could fix my son, my precious, delicate, expert fisherman - not even my love. If only I had known.
Pictures. Like a room in my mind, I was led to the tricky place called, “memory”. I could place my hand on the cool, round knob of the door and go into the room of “him”. There I was greeted by visions of all things, ”him”. With eyes closed and the picture in my hand, I was free from the outside world. We were safe. The time spent there was sweet, like the taste of water after a long journey. We could meet there, cuddle, laugh and remember our lives. But I could not stay in this room. It was false. I am his mother but what I did not know then, it was not the true him.
Pictures. I was comforted by this picture of his slim figure with rod and cap in hand. I saw him there on the marshy bank of still water. Held there in time I knew him - the son of my memories, the son of my forever.
Pictures. This was a picture of a fine young man.. This picture would be a reminder of my love for all things true. Like the color of his eyes, I would not have to choose to love him, it was love at first sight. The shape of love always remains - we fill it or empty it.

* * * *
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It was a day of awful rain and heavy traffic. I was driving my son to a friend’s house - a friend of his he wanted me to meet. My son was twenty six and had been planning to share a house with his friend. He told me I would like B-. He told me B- was about my son’s age, had a good job, and a friendly dog. I was happy to think that their plans seemed well thought out.
Secure in my thoughts, I was not prepared for what would become a pivotal moment in both our lives. Life can be so quiet and full of hope one moment and then only a moment later, at the end of one word and at the beginning of another, nothing is ever the same. All I ever knew stopped and was replaced by something I could not grasp at all.
“Mother, I am gay”. His sentences poured out without periods, like the raindrops pelting my windshield - “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time… I just never knew how… I was afraid… For all the reasons one person is terrified that he really is another person, in the same body, I was too scared to tell you… It’s not your fault, mom… This is not about you…it is who I am…I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be gay… I didn’t choose this mom…I love you… Please mom, don’t hate me…I love you… This is me, your son”.
“No!”, I screamed. “You are not gay! For God’s sake, you are my son. I would have known. Are you telling me you just became gay? Is this some lifestyle you are wanting to try? Who talked you into this? What can I do? How can I help you out of this? What will I tell your father? Do your brother and sister know about this?
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He slumped back in his seat. He was silent. Tears rolled down his thin face. He seemed impossibly sad. Then he became breathless as he his tears turned into sobs. His long fingers gripped the handle of the door. His face turned toward the window.
My screams turned into silent sobbing. I held back my pain. I wanted to be alone. I wanted time to stop. Someone had just died - someone had left me - the son of my heart. My knuckles were white as I gripped the steering wheel. I now knew I was driving my son to his lover.
This had to be an impossibility. Had my son just left on a ‘slow boat to China’. Had I failed to be at the dock to say good-bye? What would I have said? Would I have wished him luck? Nothing about being gay seemed to be lucky. But then what did I know about being gay - nothing , absolutely nothing. Differences always make everyone else feel so normal. My son had to be right - no one would choose exclusion.
“Do you still love me?” was his unspoken question. “Are you the boy in the picture?” was mine. The answer to both questions was “yes”. When we found our voices, we said so. When the rain had stopped and we were parked in B-’s driveway, we fell into each others arms and held on for life - the rest of our life. The familiar things merged into the new.
As I drove from my son and his lover that day, somehow change had brought us into focus, like it or not. We could fear it, rail against it, wail and wallow in it, but we could not stop it from coming. We had choices. We could be discontent or content, adjust our expectations and adapt, or be left behind. We chose to live in the now and hold on to what is true - the love of a mother for her son and a son’s love for his mother. We would
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not settle.
I would be lying if I said that growing does not hurt. But the truth is, as things change
they stay the same, because in the end - we are who we are. To be honest about who you are is the opposite of lying about who you are not.
Pictures. I have more than a picture, I have a promise, a promise to love the expert fisherman - my son, and his promise to love me - his mother.