Revalations in a San Diego Airport Bar.

 I figured something out this weekend, and it is so goddamned sad.  

I have spent my whole life thinking my mother doesn't love me.

 Like, she says she loves me, and she is always trying, but I for sure believed with my heart of hearts that she was just being nice.  That I didn't deserve her love and would never really actually get it.

That was reserved for other people, like my brother.  

But I guess I never thought it out loud...said it out loud?  I felt it in my heart, but I never thought it consciously.  

And then this weekend we talked.  And she did her usual song and dance about trying to make things right, that she thought I was too smart for her to parent me, even when I was in kindergarten.  That she was intimidated by me....even before kindergarten.  And it still sounds tinny to my ears, like a half truth, but this time I actually heard her.

That, coupled with two other things, has convinced me, though, that she might love me. 

The first happened weeks ago; I got a hold of some old family films from when I was an infant and a baby, and I watched them with her.  I had already watched them with so much self judgement, so little empathy for the little human I was, the child I saw on the film.  But she said instantly, instinctually, what a beautiful baby I was.  And I realized she meant it. And my heart broke.  

Then, this weekend, the morning after we talked, I snooped in her phone a bit, just to see what there was to see.  It's an old, shitty habit I've almost broken, but I indulged.  You learn so much about people this way, after all.  And the first photo that popped up, the last thing she was looking at, was a photo of me.  Which is crazy, because why would she choose to look at a photo of me unless she had to, or wanted to.  And she didn't have to.

So I guess she wanted to?

Even though I was just in the other room, just sharing a bedroom with her yesterday.  

She still wanted more of me.

Fucking crazy.

I think she might actually love me. 

 

Kiss Off

 Of all the people who have left me

of all the people who stopped loving me

of all the people who I succeed in pushing away, 

scaring away

running away from

Of all the people who decided I was too much

too loud, too wild, too obnoxious, too much

You are the biggest surprise.

I never thought you would leave me, not completely.

I should have known, you've let me go so any times, picked so many other lives over me 

But somehow I thought you would always love me in the end for the you in me

the loud, the wild, the obnoxious, the too much came from you 

and now you use it against me

like feeding me poison and then punishing me for my illness.  

but in a way it's perfect, because if not even you can love me, then I can connect all of the dots, and see clearly that I was built for this life of loss by you

slowly, over the years, each little chip and fracture adds up to make me who I am, 

Imperfect in every possible way, 

yet a perfect reflection of you.

And now, because you don't want to speak to me anymore, you'll never have to look at that perfect reflection

and see who you are, what you have wrought, what your choices look like in the psyche of your child.

Actually, it all makes perfect sense.

How You Walk Through Fire

 Charles Bukowski once said, "What matters most is how well you walk through the fire".  Or he wrote it, honestly, I haven't fact checked this, but I saw it on a beautiful piece of graffiti art, and after spending plenty of years reading Bukowski like he was the genius he thought he was, I am compelled to reflect.

And it might feel insensitive to use fire as a metaphor while California is burning, but it might also be apt.  And, frankly, it's 2025.  It feels like someplace on earth is always burning; if not California then the Amazon, Australia, Gaza, Canada, the Notre Dame.  We are always burning, the world is on fire. 

We are on fire.

And we all have to find a way to walk through the fire.  The literal and metaphorical fire, the personal and the communal fire.  And how we walk through this fire will dictate what the next fire looks like.  How we weather the next fire informs the fire that follows, it's intensity, its heat and influence.  

And it doesn't feel like the fires will ever stop coming.  Maybe in the past, in previous years, we imagined a world where this fire was a once in a lifetime fire, a once in a decade fire. These days the word unprecedented has become a thin parody of itself, worn out from use. The economy, the climate, the political sphere, even how humans choose to treat each other seems to have reached a crescendo.  We have found new depths of suffering, pain, and harm.

But as we walk through this fire, I choose optimism over pessimism.  Because we walk through this fire together at least as often as we do alone, we find new ways to commune with each other and support each other.  These unprecedented times are ripe with potential for growth, for kindness, for community.  

And that's how I choose to walk through the fire.  Every time I witness need, there is an opportunity to help, to alleviate suffering, to reduce the need.  And in that opportunity a universe of potential exists, a tiny mass of potential, ripe like early spring fruit.  That is my wish for the new year, my resolution for the next round of fire that is already upon us.  May we find in each moment of suffering , the potential for love and growth.

I did that!

 In April of 2023, my son was attacked by a dog.  People differ in how they like to describe the situation.  My mom calls it a dog bite.  My cousin, who owns the dog in question, still doesn't believe there was a bite, so I'm not sure how she would describe it.

My sweet, 40 pound six year old was standing next to his grandmother, when the dog in question pulled himself free of my aunt, who was holding his leash, to jump on my child.  I heard all of this second and third hand, but I saw the shredded t-shirt, the puncture marks on his hand, the scratches around his neck.

The grown ups in charge at the time gave him two bowls of ice cream and bandaged him up on their own, eventually getting him into clean clothes and to a safer space.  I was asked not to seek medical attention, not to report the attack as a dog bite, not to tell the police. 

Instead I did all those things and more.  I got him in front of a doctor and two mental health professionals to process his trauma.  I bought children's books on dog bites for us to read together, and talked to my child about PTSD.  My child and I constructed narratives about good dogs and bad dogs, friendly dogs, helper dogs, and dogs that shouldn't be around kids.  We spent more than a year slowly reintroducing him to dogs and healing his trauma, with the help of friends and strangers.  And today, my son is fairly comfortable with most dogs, and cuddles his favorite big dogs with ease.  

Today I was asked how I thought it happened, that my child could be so resilient, could get over this thing so quickly and easily.

First off, he is amazing,  He is a strong kiddo, and I am so deeply proud of him.  And a lot of friends and dog owners spent time talking to my child, sharing their patient dogs with my child, and generally being awesome.  

But also, I did that.  

I held him, I read to him, I talked to him.  I made appointments and drove him to professionals, and asked for advice and took time out of each day to help my child heal.  And it was absolutely worth it, because he is an amazing child who deserves to live with joy and without fear.  But it was also hard work, and I did that work.  He did that work, too.  We did that.  

And I will say it with my full chest. I did that.

Don't Collude With His Shadow Self

 I found this phrase written on an index card in my journal, while searching for a poem I wanted to revise.

It is a note I made during a therapy session almost exactly two years ago.  I had started doing this only recently, probably as a guard against the combined effect of age and chemo on my memory.  

"Don't collude whit his shadow-self.  Asking for help/telling the truth is letting him in, taking the pressure off.  The good parts come from sharing"

I find it such a striking phrase today, two years further into our relationship, two years deeper into my life, two years of growth and experience under my belt.  How easily our sick parts seek companionship with the sick parts of others.  how quick we are to let the small, broken, damaged bits of ourselves link up with the small damaged bits of others, replaying those old, hurtful patterns again and again because they are familiar, even though they are destructive.

Don't collude...

Like it's a secret, yet powerful meeting between the hurt child in me who does not trust and the hurt child in him who grew without tenderness.  Like they, our shadow selves, are out there somewhere, trying to drive us into self destruction and mutual destruction.

Like there is a me, desperate to keep things the same as they have always been because the hurt and betrayal are so familiar that they've come to feel like home.   A me who would rather never admit that I need help or support, and then can rage at the isolation an betrayal with a sense of vindication.

Because to break the pattern, to betray the shadow self, would be to have to live a different life, a different truth.  Live in a world where I am worthy of love and so is he, and we can give it to eachother freely, without contempt or compensation.

Because the good parts come from sharing.

Buying Peace

 Driving in to my office yesterday, I picked a playlist at random.  Some Spotify-created summer rewind playlist. 

It was all sad songs, angry songs, songs about resilience.  Songs about heart break, divorce, loss, and recovery.  The occasional bop from a Disney movie.  

It took me about half of my 30 minute drive to figure out what summer this playlist was from, and pinpoint the emotional state I was in that summer.  And then, dots connected, the songs spent the rest f my drive taking my body back to that time.  I started to feel the music resurrect the anxiety in my muscles, the sadness and betrayal in my bones.  I felt the way I gripped the same steering wheel five years earlier, when everything was entirely different.  And then I did the most important thing.

I remembered the wishes I had then, the hopes and plans I sketched out roughly in my mind while I listened to this same collection of songs in this same car on these same roads.  And I felt pure gratitude.

The peace that I have purchased over the last five years, through sacrifice and love and work and luck, is so valuable.  The woman who listened to Liz Phair's Divorce Song on repeat in between mournful used-to-love songs by The National would have chaffed in the relative comfort of the life I live now.

And so I walk these days in gratitude for all the things I take for granted now, that I was afraid to wish for a few years ago.

And I remember that the goal is to continue to buy peace, find joy, build a world anchored in love, respect, and growth.

Holding my heart in my hands

 In the morning, before he wakes up, I hold my son in my arms and smell his breath.  Inhale him.  He is getting older, longer, smellier, but he is my own flesh and blood that I made from my body, raised, sweated and bled and cried for every day of his life and many days before. 

And then I think about what it would be like to have him taken from me; to have to watch his beautiful, perfect little body be broken in ways that cause pain, in ways that don't heal, in ways that can't be fixed.

I think about the absolute searing pain I would feel, if I couldn't press his sleeping forehead to my lips, or his clean hair to my nose, or lift his body into my lap, his hand into mine.  how would  I live if he was taken from me, broken, burned, beaten.

I never used to think these thoughts, until Gaza.  Until I began to track the suffering of the Palestinian people as they watched their loved ones be beaten, crushed, burned, cut, violated, tortured, frightened, maimed, and massacred.

And now I can't stop thinking about it.  I catch myself crying at the absolute unfairness that is the relative ease and safety of our life.

The almost overwhelming privilege that exists in my ability to promise my child that I will protect him, keep him from harm, keep him safe, fed, clothed and clean.  What an absolute load of bull shit.  A government could take that ability from me, break my promises to my child, in a minute with their weapons and their heartless, soulless violence.  And render me powerless to do the one job that matters in this life, protect my child.  

Everyday I think about what a friend of mine said when her teenage son committed suicide.  She reflected on all the time she spent cutting grapes in half to keep him from choking as a baby. 

We do that, as parents, as care givers.  We strive to protect them from the tiniest risks, to shelter them and herd them into maturity, relative safety, hoping they arrive in adulthood intact and capable. 

But what happens to all of those efforts when your child is ripped from you by an occupying army, and imprisoned for years without contact?

What happens when a bomb or a sniper's bullet pierces your child's skin, tearing through the flesh you carefully nourished and cleaned day in and day out.

What happens when your child's fears are no longer irrational fears of monsters under beds, but very real fears of death, destruction, and unthinkable loss.

What happens when your child is hungry and you are powerless to feed them, when they are thirsty and you are powerless to quench their thirst?  What happens when your child needs to be comforted by love and hugs and kind, soft, nice things, but you are dead and your poor child is huddled alone in a tent, bandaged and hungry with all of the orphans of a genocide that global powers refuse to admit is taking place.

How is anyone walking around right now, functioning?  How did we pay our taxes and plan out meals without remembering the mother who asked to cut of her own hand to feed her child, the 2 year old orphaned and amputated alone in a tent, the child crying for help, isolated in a car full of dead relatives, and the bombed out ambulances driven by aid workers murdered in their attempt to rescue her from what must of been a horrific final day of her incredibly young life.  

There is so much pain, suffering, frustration and angry boiling in my broken heart, and you have the audacity to discuss the appropriate way to protest, the right time to speak out, the civility of sharing images of the destruction my government has spent billions funding?

Fuck all of the way off.  I will help burn this system down until a new one is born.