"I'm worried about my daughter"

Mom was hallucinating. I said: "she's okay. She's fine." She nodded, her eyes wide, trusting me so, and replied "okay." A few seconds later she was "back" and I was me again.

If I tried to fully imagine what her body looked like as it burned to ash inside the creamator, I would go completely mad. There are places, images, realities where I am not yet ready to go, but for some reason keep feeling like I must. I see myself climbing up a steep mountain in La Paz, Bolivia and letting fly some of her ashes. I see myself watching them as they float away, free.

I think my mother was freest those months when it was just the two of us on the Vineyard. Her laugh was so easy then, and she went to sleep early because her body finally had a chance to completely relax. Every muscle, every pore. Her breaths were deep when she took a nap, and she looked like an angel. When she woke I would make her soup and a small smorgasboard of cheese, crackers, hummus, lox and a beer. That's what passed for lunch in my house, unless Mom had cooked and there were leftovers, or Dad had picked up KFC on the way home from tennis on the weekend. Then, when they moved to the Vineyard full-time tennis was every day and the chances of fried chicken even greater.

But I didn't so much care for other people's friend chicken. I liked Mom's. I flatter myself that I make a good variety of chicken dishes to rival Mom's. They're different, of course, but very good.

I'm tired. Every pore. ;) It feels good. That song of M's always knocks me out. Makes me sad, makes me remember, makes me write and then makes me sleep.

Good night, Mommy. Touch me if you can. My heart needs a recharge.

"I'd Be Happier In A Bar"

I'm watching a Janis Joplin documentary. She's telling a reporter that she'd be happier doing this interview with him in a bar. I watch the film and wonder how much of the time she was flat drunk. Or frozen on heroin? How could she keep time with all those influences...??? People used to say she was ugly, but I think she has the cutest, All-American girl-type smile. The other ridiculous and disassociating thing were all the people standing on stage behind the band as they played. They stood back there with drinks in their hands, their suit jackets tailored tight against turtlenecks as they swayed in hip post-Beat fashion to the coolest music on earth at that time, sucking, as they did so, the very life out of her. "Take it. Take another little piece of my heart..."

I can't remember the meanest thing I ever did to my mother. Maybe leaving. I didn't leave in the spiritual sense - never that - but all those times I left to go back to school, when we held each other too long... so long that I almost missed my train, or too long because it didn't feel right at that moment to leave. Leaving mom is something I was never comfortable with or good at. "Had I known what it took to come this far... would I have...???"

Would you change the world to fit for me...? She did. In every way. And try as I might I am not winning the battle against missing her less.

Cycles

Everything, it seems, happens in cycles. But this is different. Do you all feel it? There's A LOT of energy swirling around and, although cyclical in feeling, is also undeniably a little different. Take the current conflicts going on all over the Middle East. While it's no surprise that these kinds of military expressions of hatred cycle through that region regularly, it still feels like there's something different happening now. I wonder if it's evolution. No, I'm not kidding. To evolve doesn't necessarily mean to progress, it means to change. The feeling I get from the Middle East is that this isn't the same old argument being handled in the same old way. This is more finite. It seems as if Israel is deliberately unleashing a violence they've been storing for just such an occasion, while it also seems as if Hizballah is defending itself as if it's been preparing for this fight for years. I srael won't stop unless the world stops it, and Hizballah won't stop unless Israel stops. If anyone has the upper hand, it seems to me to be Hizballah. They're not making desperate decisions, they're making calculated ones, while Israel is acting like a bully that just got his come-uppance and is swinging wildly with everything he's got.

How this affects my life is... well... is the same as how it affects all of our lives. For at least ten years I only skimmed over news of Middle Eastern conflicts. Today I am reading everything I can find because the conflict has changed. Is changing. Before our very eyes. And if we're not careful, it could spark WW3, and who on earth could survive that?

I had a dream last night that the earth split in two. Right down the middle. The two halves went floating apart in space, one getting burned-up by floating too close to the Sun while the other - the half M and I were on - stayed relatively in the same place. The trouble with our half was that, as a result of losing so much mass, our gravity and weather got all fucked-up. I am now obsessed with finding out just what would happen to life on the living half if this ever happened. Would we lose gravity? How would that affect living organisms? Us?

I don't find it at all conincidental that what was important in my dream was that M was on the side that survived. Even in my unconcious she cannot be hurt or in danger because I simply couldn't bear it.

A Little More Sacred

I left a message for my friend Nathan:

"Hey, how is it that, at 'almost 40,' both of us are still up at 10 o'clock. I mean it's fine and all, but I know you and I certainly know me and I'm fairly sure that both of us would rather be asleep right now. But see, we're both interested in the world and doing our part to save it and, as a consequence, we're busy as hell... so, I don't know... Anyway, I'll literally only give you ONE guess as to who this is, after that, you're on your own! Seriously, though, give me a call back tonight if you can, I'll be up until at least midnight, and I want to talk to you about something that can't be done during work hours, it's a little more sacred than that. Alright, I love you and miss you. Bye."

"It's a little more sacred than that. My mother died." Eesh...

Is my idea of others' reactions to the news of my mother's death greater than her actual impact on them was? Am I building her memory up too much? Am I going to be disappointed by people who aren't hurt when they learn of it? I have a lot of people, people close to me, telling me I have to move on, can't let this sadness rule me. K... How close were you to YOUR mother, asshole???????!!!!!!!!

N: How did she die?
A: We think... cancer.
N: Who is "we?"
A: Tom Lynch, oncologist.
N: What kind of cancer?
A: We think... lung.
N: Why aren't you certain?
A: Because Tom isn't and he's not saying any more.
N: There was an autopsy.
A: Yes.
N: Results?
A: Metastasis.
N: As predicted.
A: Yes.
N: And.... nothing else?
A: Cremation.
N: Ah...
A: Yes.
N: A pity.
A: Yes.
N: You're sad?
A: It's a little more sacred than that.

I have a greiving process. It's not rocket-science, but it works for me. When I had my last "extremely bad thing that happened in my life" I dealt with it head-on. Met the fear, shook it's hand, went into an emotional & psychological tailspin, rollercoaster ride and survived, with a lot of help. Friends, family, Mom. Mom is always bigger than everything else, even family, and so she gets her own category.

Anyway, so I have experience in how my "process" works. I think that's very good! What if the death of my mother was the first "extremely bad thing that happened in my life"? Who's to say how/if I would have come through it? Cause if you take current evidence of my state as data and throw me into the past with a set-up of never having gone through someting like this, I warrant the numbers wouldn't look good. I think it would take me A LOT longer than it's taking me to deal. Dad says he pushes aside memories and feelings of Mom when they come up because they just make him sad. Well, you know what? Memories and dreams - even bad ones - are all I have left of her, and I will hold on for dear life, thankyouverymuch.

Fuck... Meet the girlfriend? You've got to be kidding...

This has been a hard day. I live in priviledge so "hard" is relative, and so, relatively speaking, today was hard. I found out that my father can't help me financially as he did my brother and my brother's wife. I found out that I am, essentially, worth one-third as much as my brother. Not that I'm crying over lost inheritance, no. I'm struggling financially and could use some help, that's all. But, relatively speaking, I'm okay.

This makes no sense, and anyway I'm too angry and disappointed to try to make sense. So I think I'll just leave it here. Maybe I'll comment some more later/have a revelation, but for now this is it. Maybe some of you can comment or send me an email saying: "we're still here. You're okay. Hang in there." I don't know...