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Theatre of Fears

Warning: Contains graphic content & adult themes.

Many people say they would love to relive their twenties. Not me. My twenties saw me giving birth, giving up the child for others to call her daughter, flipping my truck, giving birth to my son, testifying against my father in a heart-breaking trial, and living in the emotional cage of an abusive relationship. I worked multiple part-time jobs and clawed my way through school. No matter what I did, I could not get ahead. My past haunted me and my present plagued me.

I had no escape and no outlet. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea of ending it all began to take form. I could not imagine how my life could ever turn out okay. I was completely mired in despair. Since it couldn’t show on the outside, all of the fear and hurt turned inward. This, in turn, made the depression even worse and sent me in such a downward spiral that the vague form in the back of my mind started taking a real form.

My thoughts dwelt on how I would end my life. Every time an idea would take shape, however, intense fear stayed my hand. Even then, I couldn’t even do that properly. I began having lucid nightmares. As if my waking hours were not bad enough, sleep was no longer a place of safety. Some of the worst nightmares, like the one below, followed me from sleep to waking in the form of hallucinations.

I think it’s safe to say that this was officially my lowest point. This suicidal fear was also what pushed me into finally allowing hints of my wreck of an emotional state to eek out. A short time later, antidepressants entered stage right and slowly, ever so slowly, life began turning around. The change did not come in time to save me, though. Images like those in Theatre of Fears had already burned themselves into my being. I don’t know that I will ever really be rid of them.

Theatre of Fears

What do I fear?
A play of the worst before me
In my dream I saw them
Sitting in the rows
Waiting with applause to watch
The actors speak their parts
They strut and sing and say their lines
We ooh and ahh and laugh and cry
As the actors cue us.
As colored blood begins to flow
From buckets up the stage
And each of us are touched with visions
Each sees his own and we fear each other
The blood still flowing at our feet
Then all pointing, all laughing at me
And I stand before them
I feel a gun pressed to my head
And all out there enjoying the scene
I cannot find the words to plead
So I stand helpless there and muted.
Then I am no longer there
But lost and terrified
I hear my own voice but the words do not come from me
The voice is listing out my fears
One by one they’re mentioned
Each one marched before my eyes
I am powerless to stop them
As if I am on trial
And each are witnesses against me
Fire raging up before me;
Locked in a room with death
Pale faces watching, blaming me;
And the blood, it is still flowing.
Eyes like moons, round and unclosing
Until the flame engulfs us.
Then high on a tower
My heart coming out of my chest
Hands on my back and as I fall
I turn in time to see the sneering face—
The one who pushed—
Of one I often loved.
Instead of falling down to death
The scene replays time and again,
And I relive the pain of recognition.
The blood still at my ankles
Staining me for life forever
It occurs to me to cry
To find I am already
And the heat of my cheeks
And pounding in my ears is real
As I enter the fringe of waking
For a moment, there I am
And again I hear my voice
I am clearly speaking out my fears
Repeating
As if listing out my sins
So vivid then I hear them
Brandished out for all to see
Pain pushes me into waking
And I cry all the harder for it.
Even though my eyes are open
The visions still are with me
I hear my breath and see pitch black
Nothing visible to welcome me back
But there I am lying in bed
I reach out my arms beside me
To feel for the casket I was just in
Only a moment ago
The walls are not there
I am not dead
My trial by fear ended, though not
For in the dark I still hear my voice
Calling out the fears one by one
And remembering…

Love You Forever

I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
My mommy you’ll be.

Robert Munsch – From Love You Forever, 1986

To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.

– Traditional wedding vows

When I was very little, I had two heroes. One was Peter from Peter and the Wolf. He was brave and caring and I wanted to be just like him. The other was Wonder Woman because… well, she’s awesome. I wanted to be just like her, too. She, like Peter, was brave and wanted to help people. Spoiler alert – neither of them are real. There are a group of people among us, though, who are even more courageous and self-sacrificing than Peter and Wonder Woman, and they are totally real. Their whole lives center around helping someone other than themselves.

They are caregivers and they are amazing. I know several personally and am constantly astounded by their willingness to give everything for the person they care for. It could be a parent or child, a sibling or spouse, or even a close friend. They mean the world to the people they care for.

These generous people don’t always feel generous. Quite frankly, the job is difficult, demanding, draining and often takes a major physical and financial toll on the caregiver. The caregivers I know share several traits and burdens. They are prone to depression and health problems that are frequently preventable. They often sacrifice their own health for the well-being of their charge and feel that it’s their duty to do so. They are driven to be everything all the time for others and will feel guilty when they can’t do more. They see how difficult things are for others and are hesitant to ask for help. The life of a caregiver can be isolated and lonely. They suffer greatly at the pain of the ones they love and would take it upon themselves if it were possible. So why do they do it?

I can answer that question with one word… LOVE. That’s it. That’s why they do it. They cherish the parents who taught them what love is. They honor them as best they can. They treasure the spouse that they promised to love through all until death. These caregivers are living the selfless life that love requires. Whoever it is they care for, for however long they need to, they show the rest of us the goodness that is still in humanity. It’s not “I’ll love you until it’s not convenient” or “until boredom do we part.” Caregivers give everything for love, every moment of every day and they take their role seriously.

They are not perfect. Sometimes tempers run short. Frustration is the name of the game. They need to vent. They need support. Even small acts of kindness can mean so much. Those of us who stand by the sidelines sometimes feel helpless, but we can help. We can be the shoulder to cry on. We can volunteer to give the caregiver a break or offer to lend a hand with tasks that the rest of us take for granted, like grocery shopping or cleaning. My husband says “many hands make light work.” Each of us can help lighten the load and in doing so, spread the love.

The life of a caregiver is not easy. Depending on the condition of their loved one, they might have to endure physical or mental abuse. They might wait for months for just a few moments when their loved one recognizes their face. Through the tears, they still put one foot in front of the other and carry on. Like nurses, they’ve probably seen it all.

To you, Caregiver… You are my hero. I know it’s hard and there are times you might want to give up. There are days that your confidence is shaken and your heart breaks. There are those of us who want to help you. Please ask. Let your needs be known. You do what you do for love; let us do the same. You are amazing – whatever you do, remember that. You show the world what it really means to love unconditionally. That’s nothing short of a miracle.

Clearing the Air

Trust me, it’s not very easy to do.

Many years ago, the scent of humanity was humanity itself. In time, the rich and powerful began to spray themselves with flower water or put flower petals in their pockets to mask their body scent. Fast forward to more recent years and we see the development of perfumes and colognes. These were to more effectively cover the natural scent of the body.

Deodorents came along and made the natural odor of the human body more neutral. At the same time, scent was added to the deodorents because neutralizing the natural scent apparently wasn’t enough. Washing and drying clothes began requiring scent because the perception of clean is associated with flowery or oceany or baby powdery or whatever description of scent appeals to the consumer. Perfumes and colognes are huge business to the point that people who wear them as a matter of habit feel naked without them. Scent became an accessory.

Somewhere along the line, scent was added to everything. Cleaning products, personal hygiene products, hair products, and detergents are scented as marketing targets the insecurities of people who fear their natural or neutral scents. It’s just not clean if it doesn’t smell. As the various businesses grew and the demand for all things scented increased, the composition of the scents became more complex. Even “unscented” products are not odor-neutral; They just don’t have the flowery, oceany, powdery, whatevery scent added to them. Odor neutralizers just smell like chemicals instead of name-a-scent.

Add the obnoxiously enormous variety of personal scents to the range of chemicals in the environment – think pesticides, building products, gasoline/diesel particulates, smoke, and whatever else is floating around out there – and you get a recipe for disaster. From the grand scale air pollution to the perfumed lotion used by the coworker who sits a few feet away, clearing the air has never been more difficult.

According to the CDC, the number of people with asthma is increasing every year, many of them children. About one in twelve American adults have asthma and one in ten children. Asthma alone costs the US approximately $56 billion a year. Yes. That’s billion… with a B. And that figure was from a few years ago. The numbers for COPD aren’t any better. It’s the third leading cause of death in America. Emphysema… Allergies… Pneumonia…  Various infections… For those of us with any of these, the saying shouldn’t be “gimme a break”; It should be “gimme a breath”.

You’ve probably heard of the items on that list of breathing problems. There is another one that you might not have heard of. It’s called Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). An estimated 13% of Americans have it (do the math, that’s more than asthma), and approximately 46% of those ultimately have to go on disability because the effects are so incredibly debilitating. People are not usually born with MCS (although there appears to be a genetic aspect of susceptibility); It is something that develops over time after a “trigger” that acts as a catalyst for the condition. The difficulty for me and my fellow 13% of Americans with MCS is that many believe that it is not real.

Not that long ago, the medical field believed that asthma was completely psychosomatic. It’s been in the last fifty years that this myth has been busted. MCS is in that boat now. It’s not new. I’ve found resources dating back to 1972 that cite sources published on the subject even before that. Thanks to some early work by author Alison Johnson and those like her working to raise awareness, more and more people have had that aha moment that replaces the mystery of “what the heck is wrong with me?” Rather than a complete dismissal of MCS, there are now those in the scientific world who are beginning to understand and try to help.

So, now that you know how many people have it, you are probably wondering what all of it means. MCS, put simply, is the sensitivity to a variety of chemicals. Different people react differently to various types and strengths of chemicals. What seems to be a common factor is an event or series of events that start the whole thing off.

For me, it was working at a plant nursery when I was in my early twenties. I sprayed pesticides and growth inhibitors and fertilizers as instructed, without understanding that the safety equipment was inadequate. Sure, I’d use the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) when spraying, but then take it off before going right back into the growing zones, exposing myself to the exact same chemicals I was just protecting myself from. Frequently, I’d find three legged frogs or two headed lizards in the drain ditches. That should have been a major red flag that working at this place was bad for my health, but I was happy to have a job. I had to leave the job when I began having migraines. The migraines were so horrible that I could not move or speak or even open my eyes. After missing too much work, I left. I gave no notice. I simply could not get out of bed and when they called to find out where I was, I told them I would not be coming back. After I quit, the migraines stopped.

As time went on, I became more sensitive to smells than I was already. I had always had a profoundly powerful sense of smell. My husband calls it my superpower; a friend calls it doggy-nose. It became problematic when adult-onset asthma crept up on me. My asthma kept getting worse and smells were sure to trigger asthma attacks. Smell wasn’t the only thing that triggered me, but it was the most common. When exposed to a perfume or other chemical scent, I have four seconds before I quit breathing. Four. Seconds. That’s as long as it takes the average person to read this sentence.

Let me elaborate with an incident that happened less than a year ago: I’m singing and directing the choir at my church with my back to the congregation. A woman wearing perfume walks behind me. I can’t see her and have no warning (not that it would help). My husband sees her but is unable to warn me. He counts after she walks by… one… two… three… four… I quit breathing. I just stop. My throat closes up and my chest constricts and I choke on nothing. I start to panic (this happened before I learned how to remain calm). I have no control over my own body. I stumble back against the wall and slide down, trying to gasp for air. My eyesight swims and my fingers start to tingle. The sound of my heartbeat throbs in my head and chest while well-meaning people gather around me to see if I’m okay. The cloud of her scent is still in the air. I motion for them to take me outside.

When they finally understand, they have to practically carry me out. The fear and pain (not to mention the embarrassment) are swarming in my head like a thousand angry hornets. I start to get strands of air through my constricted windpipe and accept my rescue inhaler, struggling to get enough of it in to start working. This is a trick because to use a rescue inhaler, I have to be able to breathe in the medicine. If I’m not breathing, the medicine just stays in my mouth (eww). Now I’m sitting against a pillar on the front steps of the church with people bustling about me and making a fuss. A few of them are wearing perfumes and colognes, which exacerbates my condition further. I have to choke out a request for them to move away from me, embarrassing all of us. After all, they are trying to help. Slowly, I gain control and start raggedly breathing again. Almost an hour later, I can stand (shakily) and head home with my husband driving.

About two hours after the incident, the rebound hits me. I black out where I sit. One moment I’m looking at Facebook and the next moment my husband is shaking me saying that I’ve been passed out for four hours. I can’t move. I’m in the exact same position I was sitting in and my whole body feels like it’s made of metal. Seconds after, my head explodes in pain. The following migraine endures through medication and I feel sick from it for several days. I don’t feel quite right again for about a week, and Heaven help me if I come into contact with anyone who has so much as a mild cold during that time. I will get sick. It’s a given. Not only will I get the cold, but it will evolve into bronchitis before it’s done, if not worse.

This scenario is my normal. I know how long I have between exposure and reaction, then between initial reaction and rebound. I do not want an ambulance. There’s no point to one, really. I know what’s happening and what will happen after. Avoidance is my only hope. I don’t go into detergent aisles in stores. I don’t enter stores like Bath & Body Works. I avoid people who I know wear perfume or cologne. My children know the reaction and what to do.

One of the most common things I hear when I put on a mask or try to remove myself from a situation that is triggering my MCS is “well, I don’t smell anything.” This is usually said in a tone rife with skepticism or outright disbelief. Consider that there are some people who are born completely blind. There are also those who are born with such an acute sense if sight that they perceive shades and hues of colors that the average person cannot distinguish. There is also every possible variation between the two extremes. Now apply that to a sense of smell. For someone who is not sensitive to smells, the smell might be slight or not perceptible at all. Biologists have found that after five minutes of putting on scent, the wearer becomes desensitized to it, i.e. people don’t continue to smell themselves. I do.

The other thing I hear quite a lot is “I only wear a little.” Imagine this situation: My child comes home from the first day of school with a letter saying that there is a child with a serious peanut allergy in his class, so there will be a ban on all peanut products to ensure the safety of this child. Darn… My child loves peanut butter crackers. It’s one of his favorite snacks. I decide that a little bit won’t be a problem. After all, this peanut allergy thing is blown out of proportion and that kid’s problem should not be allowed to effect my kid’s snack time. I send peanut butter crackers with my kid the next day. Now think about this: What gives anyone the right to blindly determine the severity of another person’s allergy or condition? What if the action severely hurts or kills the person with the allergy or condition? What makes one person’s choice to ignore a policy more important than another person’s well-being? Peanuts or perfume, if it’s dangerous for another person, what’s the difference?

There is no cure. There is no pill to make it go away. When I’m wearing a mask or have to leave a situation for self-preservation, I am watched like I’m a freak. I’m blamed for inconvenience. I’m ostracized because many people do not want to give up something they perceive as harmless. I seem unfriendly. I don’t mean to. I don’t dislike people, I just can’t let myself be exposed to the chemicals they use. This is not all a ‘poor-poor pitiful me’ thing. It is, instead, a glimpse into a condition that is worsening and becoming much more pervasive.

Believe me… I wish it could be different. I would give almost anything for a new normal. As it is, I and others with MCS just have to work for awareness and hope for understanding.

Into the Fray

This weekend was all about diving in headfirst. We have lived in this house for ten years now and it’s the only home my girls have ever known. Since our family stones have not been rolling, they have been collecting moss. Actually, we’ve been collecting everything.

It’s a little like carbon dating. If you shoot the probe down through the layers, you can see the progression of the last ten years. At work, I am highly organized and people have said to me “wow, your house must be pristine!” Yeah, not so much.

In my efforts to organize, I came across some great stuff that I had squirreled away on sticky notes or in notebooks that made it more fun (and in some cases, gave me a bit of a jolt) as I went. I’ll share a few:

S: Mom, here’s a tip about me… I stay awake until I’m asleep. (This was said with a completely straight face.)

Scrawled on a sticky: “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

R (as I’m hugging her goodnight): I miss you.
Me: I miss you too.
R: I miss you all day.
Me: I know, Honey, I miss you too when I’m at work.
R: You gotta get fired.

Little boy at martial arts testing: Why are your toenails red with black stripes?
Me: Because that’s the belt I’m testing for today. I like to make my toenails match my belt.
Him: I could paint mine…
Me: …..
Him: But I’d have to paint them green and that would be awkward.

Another sticky, from when I was apparently attempting to motivate myself: “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” Charles R. Swindoll

There were papers from when I’d lost my job because of a corporate buy-out and immediately after, papers from the hospital regarding my pregnancy with my youngest (R). Yes, those happened at the same time. There was, with those, some rather depressing journal entries about how difficult it was to find a job when pregnant.

There were drawings that ranged from a few scribbles on the back of a sheet of music to intricate mandalas on art paper. Between the two, there were lots (and lots) of pictures of kitties in various degrees of detail and many renditions of our house and us, usually smiling under rainbows and bright yellow sunshines.

It’s really no wonder how our house got so full. When there are such wonderful memories and beautiful things associated with them, it’s difficult to let go of things. I think the trick is to capture these things as much as possible with pictures, scans of artwork, and journaling the adorable things kids say and keep them in a way that doesn’t take up more room than a jump drive. The only thing left is to make sure that we pop those jump drives in every now and then and reminisce. By doing so, I can maybe have the seemingly impossible organized (mostly) house and keep those moments that will never come again.

After all, kids really do grow up too fast. I’ve got to grab onto those priceless moments every chance I get, even if it means that our house is a little bit less than pristine.

For My Girls

Meow meow meow, mew meow meow…

For S and R, cats are not just critters. Cats are all the rage, a movement made more potent by the fact that we can’t have a cat because of my allergies. This does not stop them from collecting every cat item they can find… think stuffed animals, posters, shirts, more stuffed animals, books starring Bad Kitty such as “Bad Kitty for President” and “Bad Kitty Gets a Bath”, calendars, pajamas, even more stuffed animals, etc. You get the idea.

S spends far too much time watching cat videos on YouTube and playing with apps like Neke Atsume Kitty Collector. When she can’t do that, she pretends to be a cat. In fact, that’s one of the few times the girls can actually play peacefully together. One says, “hey, pretend I’m a kitty and…” off they go with imaginative scenarios where one, if not both, is a kitty.

So in homage to the Great Meow, here is a cutie poem for my crazy cat ladies in training, translated into English from their original Meowese. Just try not to purr if others are around… it might be contagious.

The Kitten

Tiny cursive critter
Weaving her way
Through every nook and cranny
As if she could
Squeeze her little round face
Even smaller
To fit through impossible holes
Her delicate whiskers
Measuring the spaces
To decide if she could pass
Her faint voice
Sending mew-mew-music
So light it dances
Overtop the air
That unpracticed song
That lifts from her infant tongue
Reaching back
Into where she cannot go

Who breaks a toothbrush?

Ya know, I knew this was gonna be one of those days. How? Well, it’s not just an eyebrow raising title… I actually broke my toothbrush this morning. I had to use just the brush head to brush as best I could. Needless to say, for as much of a big-mouth as I am, it didn’t work well and wasn’t a very satisfying brushing. I spent the rest of the day longing for a solid-handled toothbrush and a thorough scrubbing. It was the first in a list of ironically funny things today that when I say them out loud, they sound like I’m talking in code. Things like “I dropped my smoothie on the mouse” (computer mouse, not the squeak squeak kind) and “Surely I’m not the only one who falls up stairs” and any action preceding the words “Yeah, I totally meant to do that.” The list goes on.

My husband and I have a list of things we never though we’d hear come out of our mouths. The list grew into a book once we had kids. Shocking, right? Kids have a way of doing things that seemed like a good idea at the time and ended up not being thought through all the way. As long as no one gets hurt and the house is still standing, many of these things are quite funny in hindsight. Sometimes VERY long hindsight.

Page 62 reads: “Goldfish don’t eat carrots.”

Page 433 cites the ancient words of wisdom: “We don’t paint the rabbit with orange juice!”

There’s a very well-known saying on page 798: “Get Barbie out of the toilet!” Man, if I had a nickel every time I’ve said that one… Rich woman, I’m tellin’ ya.

And then on what must be page 141,656, the gem from  tonight’s dinner conversation: “No, honey, you can’t get a tattoo.” This was said to my five year old daughter.

Then of course, there’s the parenting-induced Tourette’s.* I can be carrying on a normal -STOP!-conversation and have to distract a child from doing something along – DON’T DO THAT- the lines of sticking a nail file in an electrical socket. These outbursts are sudden and shocking to witnesses, especially because I go right -I SAID NO!- back to the tone and topic of the conversation as if the outburst never happened.

* Please note here that I do not say this to make fun of those who really do have Tourette’s or otherwise exhibit tics. It’s simply an analogy that happens to closely fit what happens to parents, especially once their children become mobile.

It is well-known that laughing is a common stress buster. In fact, when people get hurt, often they dissolve into hysterical laughter rather than inconsolable tears. Why? At the risk of getting a little technical, laughing releases endorphins, which actually fight pain receptors in the brain. This is beside the fact that, as parents, sometimes we just have to pick between the two.

As I said, as long as no one is hurt and the house is still standing, there is so much humor in every day. Each one of us has to be willing to laugh and experience the joy that comes with kids, pets, life, and most of all, ourselves. An integral part of life is finding that humor and then having a good long belly laugh, preferably right alongside the people you love.

 

The Girl

Abuse is a multi-faced beast. It has so many different faces that sometimes it is difficult to put a name to one of them. I’ve experienced it personally with several different faces, and while each one ‘felt’ wrong, it was not a simple thing to put my finger on it. This is why abuse is so often shrouded in silence.

Silence is the abusers ally, as is shadow. If the victim has a voice and the power of the light, they become a survivor rather than a victim. If only it were easy to make that transition. Sometimes it takes years. Often it doesn’t happen until there is an intervention. Child Protective Services is an entire organization built around the intervention. Unfortunately, CPS and other organizations like it are not always enough.

Subtlety. Little things. Things that do not trigger an intervention but eat away at the victim hour after hour, day after day, until they believe. The victim begins to accept that they are powerless. Financial abuse is not about money. Sexual abuse is not about sex. Psychological abuse is just as damaging as physical abuse and neither is truly about the act. All of these abuses as well as the other faces I’ve not named here, are about power and control. The abuser wants power over the victim. Some are opportunists; others seek it intentionally.

In my case, one of faces was my ex. I’ll call him JL. Daily for almost ten years, I heard that I was fat. He’d buy clothes for me that were much too small so that I would have to lose significant amounts of weight to wear them. Badges of dishonor, they were eventually donated with the tags still on them.

He badgered me to quit school. He hated that I was trying to better myself, but he loved it when a loan check would come in. He always found new and interesting ways to relieve me of as much of it as he could and none of them had to do with education. I’m still paying for it.

He took credit cards from my purse and maxed them by purchasing subscriptions to pornography websites and buying extras and upgrades while he was on them. He and his father tricked me into selling a car to them. They told me it was broken beyond repair. When I sold it to them for parts, they replaced a $5 part and drove it away. Eventually, I had to declare bankruptcy.

I continuously heard how I would never find anyone else who would love me. JL tried to isolate me from my family and friends, driving them away by any means he could think of. Worthless. Stupid. Who would want me? Fat and plain. Dull and slow-witted. But it was always a joke. If I got upset, he didn’t really mean any of it. I really should lose weight, though, or he’d leave me and then I’d be all alone forever. If I left him, he said he would kill himself. Well, he’d kill me first, and then himself.

JL systematically stripped me of everything he could get a hold of: money, emotional stability, self-esteem. Bit by bit he worked on me and I had no idea how to stop it. I was trapped and depressed and he pushed me in a multitude of ways to keep me there. One evening he tried to rape me because I didn’t surrender, which was one of the reasons I was able to finally leave him, ironic though that sounds. Calling 911 was apparently not the way to cement our relationship.

I will admit that I lied… I told him the following poem was not in reference to him. I said it only because he had read it in the notebook he snatched from me and demanded to know why I had written it. He was ready for a fight and I was not. So I lied. Thankfully, I had already made a copy, so when he ripped it to shreds, I didn’t lose yet another piece of myself to his hand.

The Girl

The faithful silence
Dances overtop her tongue,
As the telltale violence
Which precedes his words is hung.

She doesn’t want to remember
The plans he’s made for her soul,
For where he sees a beautiful ember,
She sees a dying coal.

Her very being wants to hide away,
To save the life she’s made,
She doesn’t want to see his ways
Make all her life-dreams fade.

She cannot let true feelings show,
Lest they be torn apart,
So trapped in passionless limbo
To protect her fragile heart.

Beauty of Dreams

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt

Once upon a time there was a little girl who simply knew she was going to grow up to be a veterinarian, a ballet dancer, an equestrian, a writer, an actress, and above all, a princess. I suppose one out of six is not so bad. The vet thing was great until I found out it meant working with animals that were sick. Karate replaced dancing when I was sixteen out of a healthy dose of self-preservation. The horse thing left when I learned that it was actually painful to ride for more than about fifteen minutes. My dramatic flair never found another stage after high school. I grudgingly admit that I will probably not wake up one morning in a castle and be a real princess. My writing was the only piece that was my constant companion. Writing is my real dream.

As it turns out, it is also my real heartache. When I was that little girl, I thought I would be one of those authors whose name alone would be enough to drive the masses of adoring fans to the bookstores. “The Collected Works of KC” would stay on the tippy-top of the best-seller list for record spans and everywhere I’d go, there would be kids tugging on their mothers’ sleeve saying “Mommy! Mommy! That’s her!”

Reality check.

Nope. It didn’t happen. Okay, so, why not? Could it be because I’ve written volumes of poetry and countless stories and a handful of books but only about five people have read them? Nah, that couldn’t be it… Could it? *Sigh* I suppose so. As my luck would have it, it’s a real pain in the patella to get a book published. If self-publishing, there’s design and marketing and promoting, then you have to get someone to like you. If going through a publisher, first you get someone to like you, then there’s design and marketing and promoting. I’ve got the writing part down… the rest of it, not so much.

But the dream is still there. In fact, if I don’t write, there is a vacuum in my soul that nothing else can fill. I have hobbies and other interests, but I could live without them. I know what it’s like to live without them. It’s different with writing. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t dream of writing. Everything fuels it. Let me give an example…

The evening light outside the window was failing. Sapphire skies washed out to dull and deepening gray, casting the world into growing shadow. She squinted at the chip squeezed between her fingers. She wanted to make sure it was positioned correctly. The bug would do no good if she put it in upside down. She wouldn’t survive the night if she failed in her mission for a reason as dumb as that. Fear pulsed through her; had it been too long? She strained to remember where the latch was since she couldn’t see it any longer. The fingers of her left hand, now slick with perspiration, slid along the ridge and stopped at the minuscule slit in the casing. With her fingernail, she pried the aperture open the slightest bit, willing it to remain silent as the shadow. The sharp snap of the cover popping off in her hand froze her blood. Had anyone heard that? She counted seconds… one… two… three… the world was still… seven… eight… Her heartbeat rang in her chest until she was sure it was echoing through the hallway behind her… Fourteen… fifteen. With the cover removed, she could feel the slot for the bug. Carefully, she slid it into place with an inaudible ‘click’. The moment she felt it connect, she slowly slid the cover back into place. No one could know she’d been there. No one could suspect that she existed at all.

Yeah, that was me trying to put a memory chip in my phone without waking up my sleeping baby in her crib a few feet away. Anything can end up as part of a story. It’s like the cut-away scenes in movies when the character is absorbed in their imagination. That’s where I live. That’s where I write. It’s not real, per se, but it is real in a different way to me. When I write it down, it can become that kind of real to others as well. The only problem I face when the creative juices start flowing is that I can’t write it down fast enough; It threatens to elude me if I don’t grab it with both hands and hold on tight.

I don’t write to get rich. I don’t write for notoriety. I don’t write for the enjoyment of others, although it’s a happy side effect if that happens. I write because if I didn’t, I might as well quit breathing. I write because I dream. In the night and in the day, in the middle of activity and when I’m still, wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I am an instant away from another place and time. My imagination knows no bounds, which means my dreams, good or bad, joyful or terrifying, peaceful or sorrowful, are all beautiful. All of this fills me with my original dream from once upon a time ago, now grown up but no less playful, and binds me closer to that facet of my being that is, and will always be… a writer.

Trolls and Spammers and Robots, Oh My!

Oh my, indeed. And here I thought the worst I would have to deal with would be harsh critics. Silly me. A Second Soul has been up and running for less than two days and already I’ve been inundated with all sorts of emails and phone calls and texts. I was totally unprepared for the deluge of electronic diarrhea that I’ve received today. “Getting my feet wet” was not supposed to mean standing in a great murky swamp of poo.

I will be the first to admit that this plan was not thought through all the way. I had absolutely no idea what went into creating a blog other than writing the posts. No problem, I thought. Yeah… Right. I’m a seasoned writer but a total newbie at blogging. I wanted to do this myself because I wanted to learn something new. My mentor from years ago was fond of saying “experience in not the best teacher; it’s the only teacher.” Making mistakes is inevitable. Such is life. Focusing on that piece and obsessing on “I should have done this” or “I should have done that” is what one of my favorite psych professors used to call “shoulding yourself to death.” Say it quickly out loud and you’ll get the drift (just not around little kids because they will totally repeat what they think you just said).

This probably would have been easier if I had enlisted help. More than likely, I wouldn’t have just accidentally opened my contact information to the entire universe. Solicitors would not have spent the day calling me while I was at work to sell me their services. I ended up muting my phone. What can I say? I’ve never done this before. Oops. Next time I’ll know. For now, I have a few things to say to a few folks.

To the solicitors: Thanks but no thanks. I really don’t want your help. I will learn by my own mistakes and have fun with this. If you do it, that will defeat the purpose and I would have to pay you. Not gonna happen.

To the spammers: Go away, gO away, go Away, go aWay, go awAy, go awaY, go_away, goaway, go.away, etc. You get the picture.

To the robots: Beep beep boop beep bip bip boop beep beep. Translation: see the message to the spammers.

To the trolls: *grunt*

There. That should do it. To everyone else who really is just here to read the blog, enjoy!

Moon

Time to lighten the mood a bit…

I didn’t know what woke me. I don’t normally wake up in the night enough to open my eyes, nor to even register that I’m awake. Then I heard it… It occurred to me that the sound outside my window had probably happened again a moment before and had been what pulled me out of sleep. I promptly sat up to investigate. An owl was perched on a branch right outside my window. While owls were somewhat common in that area, they do not frequently come near houses, so I watched him in awe, visually absorbing his regal magnificence. Through the backdrop of trees behind him, I could see the moon, adding a mystic touch to the scene as a brightly glowing sliver. At that moment, a poem was born and I could not sleep again until it had been written down. “Moon” was the first place winner in the poetry contest my senior year of high school. It has maintained its place at the top of my list of favorites all these years later.

Moon

A gleaming smile
In the sky
That stretches shadow’s wings,
The Cheshire grin
With starry eyes
And the blanket of night they bring…

The owls that sing
Their haunting song
In the abode of sleeping night,
Comes the glowing
Fantastic moon
To streak the dark with light.

And yet the night
Comes creeping on
With sunset padded paws,
And as the Sun
Slips ‘round the world
To her brother Moon she calls…

“Come and watch
my sleeping world
As through the night she dreams,
Protect her with
Your shadow wings
And with your gentle beams.”

So he came
And took his post
Up in the vast night skies,
To keep watch
O’er his newfound charge
With a smile and sparkling eyes…