ReinventedVoices

...some call It God. Sometimes I do, too, but mostly I do not bother with a name. For expedience, I will say God, but that does not mean "the Father" to me. It simply means whatever it is that we find when there are no people, there is no money, when we are utterly alone, but search and find some strength that seems larger than our own.

In my adult life there were two times between 28 and 42 when I was acutely aware that I was calling on something that did not feel like only me. The first was after I'd been as far from any church as I could be for about more than a decade. Like so many children of the sixties, free love and "finding myself" were my religion from college through most of my twenties. At least this is what I told myself. When I fell in love with Matt, I knew that I was running from some demon I could not name. When he used me and threw me away, I cycled into self-destruction and running like hell from those dark places I could not yet quite touch, could not bear seeing. My dreams were peopled by a faceless man who touched. A laugh that was familiar, but which disappeared just as the face began to come into focus and I would awaken. I was not yet ready to remember my brother. Or my grandfather. Or those times I'd worked so hard to bury beneath ten tons of minutely detailed memory of everything but...

A funny thing happened one day when I was 27. It was February.  And it was six years before I remembered anything of the abuse of my childhood. That fact is significant.

Chaos: My Family's Special Friend
Ten days before this my father had gall bladder surgery, in the days before lasers. While he was in surgery, I got a call from brother Jim's wife, Sue, that he had been in a severe car crash with another woman.  He was in a coma, not expected to live. She was in shock and angry, but she was clear in her message to me. "He's a bastard but I'm not wanting him to die, and I will stick with him while he recovers. I'm his wife. He's my kids' dad. I just--"

"Sue, no one can or should ask for more. I think it's good for you to do this much. You must be in hell."

I found out that she had no money for bills, let alone his hospital stay. Their insurance was minimal, through the car insurance mostly. I went to my mother's but, of course, she was drunk and incoherent, so I called for the siblings. We split things up: Jean Ellen got a loan from her credit union, Jack would drive to New Hampshire to see to business there, and I would deal with telling Mom, when she was conscious, about Jim and tell Dad.

Only Dad had complications and went directly to ICU. It was fifty-fifty whether he would make it, but I knew I had to tell him. He was not in a coma. Mom, however, was semi-comatose throughout. How nice for her. I piled her into the car, propped her in the corner of Dad's cubicle and told him. It was only the second time I watched him cry. Then he said a curious thing, "If it makes me a bad father, so be it, but on some level, I almost wish he would just go. Oh, God, what kind of man am I?"

Something back in the recesses of the dark in me said, "HUMAN." I shoved the thought out, however, and said, "Well, Dad, this really isn't the way for him to go out, for Sue's sake. And sometimes near death experiences change people."

This seemed to help him.

It was five days before Daddy was put in  his own room. He had spiked a terrible fever and was still on massive antibiotics, still with a fever over 101. Jim was still in his coma. On the sixth day he came out of his coma, but he, too, had a massive infection from a wound on his leg. They were now hoping to save his foot.

Celebration and Black Ice
In the meantime, I had been awaiting news from B. U., about my application to the Graduate School of Education, because I wanted to get a terminal degree in  Adult Education. Good things come all at once...

I got a call from Jack that Jim would make it and keep his foot, then a call from the hospital that Dad would be okay, and a letter of acceptance from B.U. the next morning, I could not wait to go to the hospital with all the news. It was February, warm and foggy. I hit the top stair to the driveway, and a patch of black ice. I fell down six stairs on my back, and when I hit bottom, I knew I was in trouble.

I made it to the hospital to tell Dad the good news, leaving out graduate school. I went to the ER from his room.

I was scheduled for an emergency myelogram. It was 1980, just before MRI's.  Two ruptured disks and no disk at all at the base of my spine. I knew I'd had problems, but this finished me off. I was immediately put into a body cast. As luck would have it, the ER doctor that day was my orthopedic surgeon and he said, "My dear, you will need surgery. This finished off our work I'm afraid." I had had two months of PT and was exercising regularly up to this point.

Fighting to Live, Praying to Walk
Jim made it; his marriage didn't. Dad made it; Mom drank to celebrate. Business as usual.

Except for me. The six months between the fall and my first surgery resembled my clinging to the side of a cliff, more than anything.

It was a terrifyingly dark time. It was more a dance to escape my own past, the memories that haunted me, but which I was not prepared to face. When Jim was nearly dead, I was horrified at my own initial thought, 'Good. Die, damn you.' So I ran to any man who looked my way, in a frenzy of dangerous sexual behavior.

I was in a body cast for a month and lost weight. I kept losing weight because I could not keep food down. I thought it was stress; I was mistaken. The thinner I got, naturally, the more other women told me how great I looked. I did not. You could see every rib and every vertebrae. I could pour water into the gully of my collar bone. I photographed great, though, because of the gauntness of my face. I did not miss work; I did not miss rehearsals for a play. I pretended that I would be fine.

By June, my legs began to collapse and the headaches started. Every day, on my way into Hartford, I'd pull off to the side to quickly vomit, then go to work. Once there, I'd take the migraine medication and try not to pass out. Sometimes my legs would collapse in the stacks, but I was so expert at pulling myself up onto a book truck or the shelves that sometimes no one registered I'd fallen.

I had had to turn down the opportunity to go to B.U. Even I had to face that particular truth; I never told my family that I was even accepted. Everyone was so busy with Dad and Jim, with Jim's divorce, that I did not care to worry them, and what was the point of talking about a program  I could no longer join?

So I buried my pain in men. For an hour, maybe two, I would be beautiful and wanted, then I would leave. I did not care, I thought, whether I lived or died.

Facing Fear, Finding a Toe Hold
Until I saw the doctor and told him about my legs. He looked at me hard and said, "For how long has this been happening?"

"A month, maybe two... I am not sure." I looked at the floor. It was late July.

While I was there, he scheduled a myelogram and surgery.  The disk had fragmented into the spinal canal and pieces were impinging on my spinal cord and the nerve root, both.  I was scheduled for emergency surgery two weeks from that day.

I was told that I could die or be paralyzed from what was happening.

All I registered that day was, "What do you know? I don't want to die after all. I really don't." My body was numb, but at last my mind and my heart had come to life.  For the first time in more than six months, I cried.

What followed in the next five years were eight back operations that entailed seven months of hospitalizations, nine months in various body casts, 37 blood transfusions (before AIDS testing), traction, seven months of physical therapy; I also got married and was instant mother to two half-grown children. I had to be brought back--whatever that means--during or after surgery eleven times. And I had ten days in a Striker bed. You would think it would all be a blur, but it is not. I remember details of almost every stay, and what was done. I remember the smells, the sounds, the nurses, the pain.

But that first operation was the most dangerous. It nearly killed me, but when I finally left the hospital three weeks later, I knew that this back of mine had saved my life. I had something tangible to fight, and learned that I wanted to fight. It was not until three surgeries later, however, that I understood what it really was to feel alone, and that I found that there was something beyond my stubbornness on which I could draw,

And it was then that at last, I rediscovered Grace in my life.

*****
Off for vacation for a few days. Have a wonderful weekend, one and all.

I dreamed me another painting, and I did in the midst of working on a new, pretty long and intense blog post. Unfortunately--or fortunately--the painting is calling more loudly just now than the blog post. I need to work on it while it is fresh and alive in my mind.

I think of this as good news.  The blog post is about my longest hospital stay, from late March of 1982 to the second week of May. I went in when the world was brown, and came out when the world was at its height of Monet Spring... after rain, as the sun broke through. I walked into all that bright, started to tremble and began to sob. My father held me as I tried to absorb the cacophony of color. There were about six down pillows in the back seat so that I would be able to be reasonably comfortable for the two hour ride home. I had 37 staples in my back, as well as a raw scar from the left side of my stomach just above the hip around my side and just reaching the left side of my back, the deepest incision capable in the body, they said. And I wore a body cast as well. I had nearly died four times during the stay, and had endured three spinal operations and ten days in a striker bed.

It was a stay that changed my life. And the grayness, the sterility, the metallic harshness of those seven weeks made walking into light nearly unbearable.

So I dreamed me another painting of too much bright, of flowers that seemed to explode their beauty in my brain with such an intensity that I thought my heart would cry.

The story will appear when it is done.

****

In the meantime, I am including a few more blogs I follow. This may be a mish-mash of old and new, but that's fine. And, as was the case last week, some of the blogs I've found have been stumbled into because they are followers of shared blogs. Small world in here, but that is comforting to me. Bear in mind that my ordering of the blogs I show is nearly random. I will always try to highlight at least one blog that is newer to me in with older favorites.

Here goes:

Artistic Balance - Carl may have been my second follower. His was one of the very first blogs I found in here. I fell in love with his photography from the get go, as well as his spirit and his love of his family. OH, hush, Carl. His painting's none to shabby either! I'm a particular fan of any shot he takes that involves running water, but the flower on his page this week IS spectacular.

Numinosity - Kim is one of those people who has traveled to other countries, and has a way with describing those travels. She is also an artisan who works with found objects and creates just beautiful jewelry and more. Her site is about more than her work. If you go back a few months, I believe you will find an entry that shows you just how varied and rich her life has been. I'm prejudiced. Her big sister was one of my best friends in high school.

Lines and Shade - Aparna is in India. Photography and poetry (or prose poetry, if you prefer). Aparna's work is just lovely. I think so at least. She says that sometimes she makes no sense. I don't care--and I am not at all sure that I agree with her. I hope you find that your breathing slows in a GOOD way, as I do.

In Search of White Space - Well. Erin. I'm at a loss as to what to say about Erin. Her poetry hurts my heart more often than I know how to say. Sometimes the beauty simply makes me smile. Or tear up. Then, too, she has been known to make me laugh outright. She is a poet. Many of you already follow her; I know this because it's how I found you! Enjoy.

And finally,
ein klage-himmel - James Owen is a photographer. His single photograph posts with some short line or two below amount to poetry to me. I have not been following him long, but I love his work and hope you will, too.

Please note that there are plenty of other "old favorites" of mine that are not here. I'll save them for another time--Jo, Donna, Dave, and Brian, to name four. And a quick note--I believe that I follow every person who comments, and exploring blogs has led to finding others, as each of you already knows.

I shall return when I have finished writing my entry and have enough of my painting done that I'm confident the image in my mind will not fade.

Happy Sunday one and all. I just came up from the studio and am covered in spring green, pink and purple paint. Just like a kid, right down to a spot of purple on my nose. HOPELESS.

Ten anonymous spam, some of which was obscene in my email today. One or two were tolerable; not ten. For whatever reason, spammers are reading old blogs and trying to send comments which, though they do not show up on the blog comments themselves, show up in my Inbox. And whether or not I do not open them, I do not trust that information is not being mined even more because of them.

So, I hate two word verification myself, but it will not keep me from reading your blogs. I had complained about the system before because of my eyes, but now I realized what it keeps from my mailbox.  I'll be more patient with my old eyes and with the system.

Anyway, I hope it will not drive you away from mine.  Sorry guys. I will try again in a couple of months. Perhaps there will be updates in blogger.