...We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines...
Dr. Maya Angelou
A Brave And Startling Truth
http://www.poemhunter.com/...
When I co-led an inpatient unit in a prison, it always seemed to me that families of the offender were, on some level, involuntarily incarcerated along with them. The resulting complexities played out, often painfully, in different ways. And sometimes, when great hurt abounded on all sides for everyone touched by such human tragedy, I wondered was it partly selfishness or some sort of self-centeredness that contributed to the decision-making that led to the incarceration? Didn't the offender KNOW their families would suffer too?
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
It's occurred to me now, four years into my current path, that my family journeys along with me. Their sojourn is involuntary too. Why, my father wonders, would I leave a professional career to work in food? Cooking, no less. He is saddened. He thinks my mind is addled. How could I do this? How could I throw away my advanced education as easily as I have?
Yesterday, arriving and leaving work, these trees caught my eye. I snapped some iPad pics. I include them here because...trees! I think too, that I wanted to share them with any lurkers and for those with problems that are too big or complex or private feeling to share out loud. Trees soothe me, reassure me, ground me. I hope you find these images a similar help.
My Sunday visits to my sister's home are difficult. The contrasts are so stark. She is purchasing her second home. There is so much food abundance, material convenience, lights on all the time, televisions going in three different rooms. And the most secretly coveted thing: a brand new, way fancy, Japanese washer and dryer.
I no longer have Sunday night into Monday morning dread, mountains of paperwork or the sense that my work in a day is never done. But economically, my life is hard. My sister, especially, is hard on me in turn because I've taken her along, as my intimate companion and witness, against her wishes. This intrusion into her upper middle class existence is most unwanted. She tells me her fantasy: She just wants a sister with whom she can go out to lunch. We take turns treating each other. And we talk about normal things. We go shopping and buy cute things. We laugh and are carefree. We plan trips and vacation together. She wants me to be married. With children that grow up with hers. She most of all wants me to be okay.
And then, from a hurt place, because I am not her fantasy sister, she often says heartless things. Like, if I were willing to work hard, I wouldn't be poor. Case in point: She works hard. She isn't poor.
This week, she tells me about a friend of hers, down on her luck who needs a place to stay. I should let her friend be my roommate. This will solve my problem and that of her friend. She adds pointedly, "The thing is, she can't live with cats..." Her meaning is clear and hangs there in the long pause between us since, well, I have a cat. I tell my sister flatly; "I'm not getting rid of my cat. She is my family too. I
love her. A homeless man chose me out of many passerby's to care for her and we had an unspoken understanding." The conversation seems absurd to me. Obscene even--this cat has been my beloved cat for 17 years.
My sister replies, "If I was in your shoes, and truly suffering, I would do everything I could to make things better. I wouldn't rest until I'd made things better." Her implication, again quite clear, hangs there between us. "I love what I do, and where I'm going with it." I tell her. "The earth is 6.4 billion years old. My life, given that span, is objectively, entirely meaningless. I get to be the only one to truly value it, savor it and decide the value I choose to give it. I work harder and longer than I ever have in my life. It's just that the work that I love, that gives my life meaningful value doesn't produce enough monetarily for me to stop slipping. For me to get ahead. That doesn't make me bad or lazy."
We breathe together. Sisters. Yearning in each other's direction. We miss each other completely: "I would love to follow my heart and do what I love." She tells me, again. We have had many variations of this same conversation many times over the last four years. "But I have chosen to take the responsible path," she adds. Her meaning, quite clear, is stunning enough to silence me. On my end of the phone, my tears are streaming. I do not disturb her with my hurt. I retreat because I'm tired and because I can.
On Thursday evening, after listening to a similar, but spectacular emotional browbeating from my sister--in a moment of my own cruelty, because I'm human and in part because my psychological resource for coping is so damn limited with my current stressors, I told my sister what she didn't need to hear. I told her three shocking facts about my life of poverty. Afterwards she was contrite. She was kind. Patronizing. But kind. It was a cheaply won reprieve. It will be short-lived. This is, after all, our ritualistic dance around my poverty. I brought her with me. You dance, don't you, with them what brung ya?
I wondered long and hard about why I hurt her back with my reality of circumstance. Am I losing myself? I wonder. Will I come out the other side an angry, bitter wreck of former self? While she struggles in her own way with things just as painful as my own first world travails, she has economically, been very fortunate. In this life, dire economic struggling will never be her albatross. And thus, given her more limited capacity for empathy and our emotionally complex sister dynamics, she's never going to feel that I'm not to blame for my current circumstance. She is never going to understand. And, well, I did drag her along for my unscripted foray into a life lived my way.
When you look at a trees roots where they meet the soil and begin their downward journey, really See that magic I mean, does it leave you, like me, feeling grounded and soothed a bit?
As I was waking up from fitful sleep this morning, still feeling guilty for my actions toward my sister whom I do love, despite the verbal weapons we draw with one another, it dawned. I can handle this hard time. I will come through it with flying freaking colors, phenomenal woman that I am. And her hard, judgmental, unfeeling words where the matter of my life choices are concerned make hard times worse somehow. Her words make long hard moments excruciating because she is my kin, my family, my sister. She has an automatic pass to my heart. I want her to stop being one more hard moment, in a hard day. I want there to be a gentleness. A kindness. Sometimes, I just need a soft place to fall. That's my Fu@king problem.
My friends, WYFP? We are here to listen and to be a soft place to fall.