sueeeus

A collection of fragments until I can find how to process them further.

five years and ten million stitches of love

I thought I saw the hummingbird do a flyby past me on the deck, not long before I got the call to say goodbye.  I felt a surge, a thrill, a sense of hope.

Today I saw the hummingbird for certain.  Bright green.  One of mom’s favorite colors.  And not one, but two.  The other is a greyish brown, so maybe they are a pair.

Reading back on the dreams, I am caught up and overcome with further tears as I realize the one was prophetic, because it was exactly the scene when we were gathered with her to say goodbye.  I read it back and relive those moments, still so fresh in my mind.  In the physical present real world moment of saying goodbye, I felt at a loss, as though I couldn’t find the words to speak and I’d botched my only chance; in the spirit she knew that I was there with her and she knew exactly how I felt and what I wanted her to  know, limitless, undying love which shines around us like a million suns.

Some of the sorrow seems to revolve around wist.  There is no question about her now.  She’s blazing brightly, swimming in heaven’s embrace now.  The wist is for the earthly time, the moments not spent loving and joying, the time lost from all the things that distract us from love and joy.

So of course it comes to mind that if in this present moment I am rewinding and reviewing the aching years of her life and how she could have been more joyful, I can’t help but notice that I myself am often distracted from joy, and my own life is flying on by.

Forgetting to live my life joyfully because I’m busy taking care of or being concerned about something or someone else.  That’s not what I want.

Pot, kettle, black.  So I need to do a better job of living joyfully, of being present, of being aware of the journey.

I’ve been wrapped up in my quilt, soaking up the love and memories.  Every quilt has a story to tell.  Five years and ten million stitches, all at my mother’s hand, thinking of me, sewing her love to me with each and every stitch.  The colors, the fabric textures — she put careful thought into all of it.  This masterpiece has been stored away for years, because I never wanted it to get soiled or stained.   She would consider that ridiculous of me.  It’s a practical item,  meant to be used.

I’m using it now.  I wrap myself close and look at all the details and think about what life moments took place when those stitches were made, and realize how much love and life has been shared all along, in languages that I didn’t recognize.

a hummingbird in December

I’m taking it as a sign of some sort.  It will present itself eventually.  I hastened to clean and fill the feeder, in the hopes it will soon return.  My mom loves birds.

~*~*~*~

I’m going to tell you my dream, Mama.  And some of my thoughts.  I want to hear about your dream, Mama, and what it looked and felt like from where you are.  We will compare notes!

We are in the spirit, so we present ourselves in joyful child form, sparkling little girls.  You with your platinum curls, golden eyes, and milky white skin, me with my wispy brown waves that won’t stay out of my face (I get that from you, by the way).  We are wearing fluffy dresses and roller skates, regular Shirley Temples!  I take your hands and we clasp them criss-cross.  We are in the spirit and I assure you that we can do this.  After all, I saw it done at Teatro Zinzanni!  We are on a circular pedestal and we begin to skate in a spinning circle, round and round, faster and faster.  We are joyful little girls, skating our hearts out, giggling with delight.  I’ve explained to you that as we spin, we are weaving a web of light, and we are opening a portal to heaven.  Because we are getting ready to do some healing work.  We need a strong beam that will serve as a funnel, a tornado of light that will draw the poisons and sufferings out from our beings and incinerate them with the fire of heaven.

We spin together, round and round, faster and faster, and we weave a funnel like a beehive, with thick honey golden coils, but it’s not enough.  We need a pyre with the strength of a hurricane for what we are to do.  The dream changes, and we are no longer little girls.  I’ve summoned the siblings and we are all here, your tribe, all of us, in the spirit.  We are joined together hand in hand, encircling you, tenderly.  You are a slight and elder form, seated on a cushion or a couch, maybe your hospital bed.  You glow with an ethereal platinum light, and we, your tribe, glow brightly with a golden white light.  You are not strong and we radiate a cushion of warmth that surrounds you and holds you so that you can rest and float and allow the poisons and sufferings to flow out when heaven’s gate is opened.  Our hands clasped, we form a tribal circle and dance around a blazing fire.  It’s a magical display, a joyful pow-wow.  There is so much energy as we dance and celebrate and rejoice and love.  The fire blazes stronger and stronger and the golden tendrils of light weave together, stronger, tighter, stronger, tighter, forming a blazing tornado of golden white light.  The tornado blazes, tended by the tribe.  You and I are back to little girl form, two Shirley Temples, seated in the center of the tornado, where it is quiet and still.  My arm is around you and I’m the big sister now.  You feel lost and afraid; you are small.  I hold you and comfort you and assure you that I will protect you, that you don’t have to be afraid, you don’t have to know what to do, you don’t have to know who to be or how to be.  You can just rest and I will hold you and take care of you.  I’ve got you.  We are in the spirit, I say.  See?!  You relax and melt into my embrace.  I brush a wisp of your platinum hair from your sweet face.  Now we are ready.  I hold you, you beautiful, pure, innocent and precious child.  You are wrapped in my embrace, and we are wrapped in the holy blazing embrace of heaven.  We are in the still place where time and space have no meaning.  The space between.  Where our molecules and our energy are distinct, and we swim about through the waves and fields of the essence of our being.  Here we find the poisons and sufferings and draw them out, out, out, like the way a log jam collects and grows and is gently yet persistently carried downstream towards a waterfall, the poisons are pulled through the blazing tornado, seared, clarified, and absorbed into heaven’s embrace.  We swim and stir up the waters to release more sufferings.  We extend our reach to embrace those near us, our beloveds; we are all in the spirit in this cosmic goo, so we beckon their sufferings out and away, to send them back to become one with heaven, too.

There were other dreams.  So many dreams.  I showed you my chedvah place with the bright pea pod green grass and blue blue sky.  I showed you my sleeping diamond-skinned dragon mother-ship.  We climbed inside the ship, two little girls, and hid and played.

And I helped you see, from my eyes, how worthwhile your life has been, how you always did the best that you knew how to do, how your part brought about deep and widespread blessings, and how thankful I am for you.

~*~*~*~

Somewhere in the night I had a moment of conviction in which the clear act of faith is to go ahead and book the vacation rental house for our summer celebration of life and family, and to boldly assume that we will celebrate her birthday together in February as planned.

I hope she feels strong enough to continue earthly living.  For myself, I think about the sunset years, and there is a hope to share the sweetness of age with my dear sisters.  I wish for my mom and her sister to be able to share more of their sunset together.

And selfishly, we all wish for Mom to want to hold on, because we’re just too tired to process more loss right now.

He has gone back to the river of souls.

~*~*~*~

Sail on, little bird.  Sail on, my dear baby brother.  Thank you for shining your brightness in the world, for the time that you had to shine.  I’m the lucky one, that I got to be counted among your beloved.  We are the lucky ones, your beloved.  We love you so.

~*~*~*~

We are so connected, my tribe.  We seldom see each other, or speak with each other, but our ties run deep, not constrained by space and time.  We feel each other, as though we are networked together.  And so we are.

~*~*~*~

Such an inescapable anguish!  We know he wouldn’t wish this on any of us, my brothers in arms, and we are so acutely aware in this moment that we don’t ever wish this on each other, this inevitable part of living.  We don’t want each other to suffer.  We love each other too much, too deeply, and want to protect each other from such anguish.  To the extent that we chide with each other that we need to make a joint pact such that we can all just go at the same time and spare each other this part of things.  And then we laugh.  Because we know that it’s all just a part of things, and the thing that is important to remember in the here and now is just that, the here and now.  Live fully, here, now.  Joy in this day.  In this very day.  Love now.

~*~*~*~

I’m trying to find a way to describe with words the expression of these feelings.  Something like the way that all colors blend into one to become pure white, in a similar fashion, all emotions blend into one to become pure white love in its most raw and ragged form.  It’s blazing with a radiance that can almost not be looked upon, and the flames are ragged and jagged explosions, bursts, that radiate outward from the core, which is, I suppose, the main line, the spirit of God.  Exquisitely unbearable.  It’s a feeling that’s almost too painful and too exhilarating to feel, each extreme emotion pulled to its outermost ragged limit, to the point of shatter, and there they all coexist, all the emotions, as all the colors, on the verge of explosion, barely contained.  Raw.  Pure.  Love.

When I retreat to find that place of healing, I think it’s my version of prayer.  I described it, in part, before. 

There’s another version in which I’m not in the physical plane at all, so there’s no figure, no spinning, no tornado.  My non-physical self finds the heart-spark and I visualize breathing on it, deeply and gently, carefully coaxing the ember to emerge and grow.  I breathe my emotions out, feeding the glowing white ember, and it becomes stronger and stronger and warms me and nourishes me at the same time.  There’s a flow happening, kind of like a toroidal Fibonacci thing, and I suppose that figuratively my heart is at the center, and there comes a point where the center opens up (sort of like the way the jaws on a chuck open to release a drill bit), and the flow becomes more like a fire hose, bright white light, sort of like that scene from the 5th Element, where she completes the circuit.  Then I am breathing long deep steady breaths, and it’s as though I’m a vacuum cleaner, this firehose stream of bright light, pulling people’s struggles out and away from them.  It’s sort of like lucid dreaming, in which my physical body is doing one thing — the breathing — and some part of my mental self is monitoring the whole scene; it knows that my soul self has gone out to take care of a few things…  My spirit (?) then scans for anguish and sends tendrils out from the main stream to reach out and connect to those pains so that they can flow out from where they are causing suffering.  In those moments, it seems as though I’m channeling, that I am in the spirit, and that I draw those sufferings away from these people who are crying out in their innermost hearts, and those sufferings are drawn into the stream where they dissolve and become shiny new energy, ready to launch new dreams.  All the while, tears flow, and I feel as though I am healing (because my own emotions are flowing out and away from me), and that I am helping others to heal as well.

Sometimes I wonder if this is my calling, the thing that I’m supposed to be doing.  Maybe I’m a healer.  Nobody needs to know that I even exist, for me to do this work.

There is another version of healing trance that I can describe.  It’s like the first one, in which I visualize myself spinning, arms spread, spinning around and around, sending waves of light, love, comfort, and harmony out from my extended hands, weaving a tornado of protection around me.  I stand in the center of stillness and catch my breath and gather my strength.  When I am filled with strength, I envision myself, sort of like an Olympic figure skater, spinning so fast and then pulling the body in tighter and tighter, spinning faster and faster, tighter, so tight, all that spinning energy gathering speed deep and close in.  Spinning faster, faster, tighter, smaller, more and more concentrated, a cyclone, like nuclear fusion, faster, tighter, smaller, until it’s almost infinite energy bound in an infinitesimal point…   ….and then POW!  It’s a pulse explosion, and I send a blast across the cosmos and it surges over and through everything in its path as it radiates and washes a blast of healing energy out through the dimensions, cosmos, layers.  It sounds megalomaniacal, now that I describe it.

~*~*~*~

Those have been the forms my prayers have taken, for some years.  I have two new forms that have emerged since Tuesday last.

~*~*~*~

It’s like the others, in getting the ember going, and the tendrils of light are like threads, and I begin a looping crochet stitch, weaving a chain mesh until I’ve completed a circle and then begin the next circle, interweaving each new loop, and the chain begins to take form and grow strong, and then new weavers come, all of those who are pouring out their love right now, their spirits find this thread and they all begin to weave their light threads into a web of healing light, a fortress of love pouring into my brother, seeping into all the areas where strength and healing are needed.  All of the looping and interweaving continues, building a glistening, radiant cocoon, while concurrently, the beloveds are all joined arm in arm like a ring of children, dancing in a circle, singing a loving song, spinning an outer shield of pure white light up and around the weavers, around the cocoon.  We are all in the spirit, channeling our love together, nourishing him, nourishing each other.  We heal each other as we heal him.  And he heals us.

~*~*~*~

The other vision begins like the figure skating one, only we are here together, and he’s on a hoverboard  or skateboard thing and I’m on skates.  The first time, it began with just me, and then we found each other and teamed up.  Now, we meet back up and say, time to get back to work.  This, because I keep falling asleep from exhaustion.  I am so fatigued that my body just stops.  It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to sleep deeply, and now I don’t have a choice.  I wake up, and go about my day in a sort of a detached state, doing the things that I have to do, but with a sense of hurry, because I need to be able to stop and be quiet and still and try to find my way back to that place, because we have so much work to do.  I get back, and we skate about, looking for all the places that need to be attended, and we infuse, we fortify, we weave new connections.  The beloveds have arrived, and we’re all skating up, down, in, around, our trails of golden light fusing new pathways.  It’s kind of like the enchanted cleanup scene from Beauty and the Beast, where all the enchanted ones dance about in a joyful and exuberant display, pixie dust sparkling here, there, twinkle, poof, all the while the place being put back into order, tip top.  He leads the way on his hoverboard, spinning loop-the-loops and figure eights, this way guys, follow me!  We laugh and skate and make a golden new network to let the love flow where it needs to go.

Sometimes it takes tragedy to remind us of love.

Reflecting on past moments of crisis, and  how I navigated through them, it seems that I kept on doing the thing that I was doing.  I went to work.  I think, maybe when the emotional stuff is beyond what I am able to process, I shift it behind a veil where I can keep an eye on it while continuing with life as usual.

So today I worked and dove into very focused and detailed tasks, to keep my mind fully contained.  It helped me today, but now it’s night, and now I am finally alone with my thoughts.  Now I can let tears fall down my face as I begin to wrangle all of me into concentrated loving attention that I can send out in waves to the people I love most in this world, my family.

I’m startled by every text notification ding.  I’m afraid to look and I’m desperately hopeful to look.  I’m similarly alarmed by the sound of the phone ringing.  I realize that I must hold my breath and not release it until I know who’s at the other end and why they’re contacting me, because I find myself exhaling when the determination has been made, and after that it’s difficult to catch my breath.  I can’t get enough air.

We all feel so helpless.  There is nothing we can do besides love and hope.

He wants to live!  He sure got a lemon of a vehicle, and figuring out its quirks has taken such toll, but he’s tried so hard to figure it out and give it what it needs.  He’s doing his part!  He’s done everything the doctors have told him to do.  He wants to live.  Or he wanted to, before this.  I don’t know if he wants to now, because this…  …this one’s ravaged him hard.  Is he in there, pounding his fists and shouting at us, hey, I’m right here, don’t worry, I’m just looking for that danged short so that I can fix the circuit and get this machine back online.   I hope.

There is so much love!  A steady stream of friends have come to the hospital to see him and wish him well and give their love.  He is a fine, fine person.

My family is aching.  The arms of my heart are wrapped around them, holding them tight.

I just recognized another interesting thing about emotional crisis.  Exhaustion.  Feeling like I’ve only barely begun to process the emotions, yet nearly overcome with exhaustion, to the extent that I feel that I could collapse or pass out.

I left, to save myself.

I didn’t stay, to protect them.

~*~*~*~

I read somewhere recently about human survival instinct, how a drowning man would pull you down to save himself.  It was a cautionary tale, not to advise against heroicism or altruism, but more to be aware of the tendency in some people to out-prioritize their own needs with others’ needs.  There can come a point where one is over-depleted and can no longer help others or themselves.  Don’t get to that point.  It could be a long journey back.

~*~*~*~

Right now, he is fighting for his life.  Maybe he’s not fighting.  Maybe he’s just in between right now.  He IS alive.  His heart is beating.  He hasn’t woken up.  Maybe it will be like a reboot, and things will just come back online soon.  That is my hope.

I keep waffling between my inner knowing and my outer doubting, through the certainty that he’s coming back, born again with important tales to tell of his time in between, in the allness, of being in the light and being the light.  He will be renewed and convicted and impassioned by the things he learned in his time away.  He will want to return, to share these important things with us!  And then the physically constrained thoughts surface, in the form of doubt and despair, that his physical body is overwhelmed, that he will decide he’s too tired to fight to come back.

Some of my siblings are assembling.  Those who can are on their way to be with him, in person.  I’m home.  I took the day off to be still and weave an entangled web of love through the ether joining with them, healing with them in the only way I know how to help right now.  I can’t go.  Not yet.  My physical self can’t be around them, where I will be faced with the outer doubting and crumble in the combined fear and sorrow and helplessness.  My internal self is with them, where I am strong, where I can draw from the energy of heaven, and build my strength, as I’m joined through the ether with them, weaving a golden web of light around us all.  Healing us.  Protecting us.  Nourishing us.  Warming us.  Strengthening us.  All of us.

~*~*~*~

So many of us, my siblings and I, seem out of phase with our physical selves, these vessels that contain us, like we are strangers in a strange land.  Foreigners.  These physical bodies seem so unfamiliar, like we just can’t seem to align our mental selves with our physical selves.  We are bewildered when we encounter health issues, surprised by their appearance, which is no surprise at all to those on the outside looking in.

~*~*~*~

An epiphany.  Wanting and needing so desperately to focus my thoughts and intents on him, this brother I barely know, finding my untamed thoughts constantly turning this into something about me, wrestling with the ensuing self-disgust, jolting my thoughts back.  What about them?  How terrified and shaken they must be, especially those closest in the lineup, those who grew up with him.  Recoiling at my self-absorptive ugliness forced me to think of them, to look at things through their eyes, and to have compassion for the turmoil of their shaken hearts in the face of this tragic uncertainty.  We have so many complex interrelationships with and amongst each other, some alliances, some factions, some solid, some fragile.  Through it all, we have a certain thread that bonds us all, something deep and internal.  How they need assurance and hope and comfort.  This I can do.  What they need, I can give.  This is where I am strong.  I tap into that thread and connect it to the mainline and let the love and healing flow.  We feel each other’s love, which isn’t constrained by time or space.  We are connected.  I send them strength, from the inside out.

~*~*~*~

I had to save myself, to help them.

let there be light – photo credit to the Resonant German

Depression is an ugly beast.  It’s incomprehensible.  It is vile.  A trap.  It is a vile trap.  And it’s an experiential thing that others who haven’t tasted it can even begin to understand.  You want to be reached, but you don’t know how to let yourself be reached, because you’re trapped, in the dark.  You want to be helped, but you don’t know how to let yourself be helped, because you’re trapped, in the dark.  You want to live, but you don’t know how to let yourself live, because you’re trapped, in the dark,  where you’re running out of air and you can no longer breathe.

Sometimes, it’s too late.

There aren’t any do overs.

LIFE IS SO FRAGILE!!!!!

Life is such a beautiful and precious thing.  We all get it, a gift, without asking.  It’s so random, who we are, where we ended up when we entered this world and took our first breath.  We got what we got.  Nobody asks to be a Star Bellied Sneetch.  Or a North Going Zax.  We just are who we are.  Why is it so hard to just be?

I AM SO ANGRY!!!!!

I am angry because I am helpless.  And because it’s too late.

There were signals that drifted to me and through me from across the universe, but I didn’t pay enough attention, or I didn’t understand.  I reached out, but not far enough.  In retrospect, it’s as though her spirit was crying out from the place where she was trapped and otherwise unable to call for help, and those were the messages that drifted to me.  Because I have been thinking of her.  I wish I had reached her.  Maybe, just maybe, it would have made a difference.

So yes, I am angry.  Not at her, not at myself.  I am angry with the ugly beast, and I want to wage war against it.  I want to tell everyone I see, everyone I know, everyone at all, that THEY MATTER.  I don’t know where it comes from or how it happens, this despicable beast called mental illness, but I will battle it any way that I can.  I want to pierce the darkness that any part of any person might be trapped in.  Because that’s all it is.  A trap.  A dark, despicable trap.  The con of the ages.  I want to blast it apart with nuclear force and set it ablaze with the brightest of lights so that the preciousness of who they are is evident, that their life is treasure, and that I am privileged to be someone with whom they share breath.  I want to infuse hope and vigor, to spark enthusiasm and joy.

Who can ever truly know what’s going on within another?  How many people do we know who are suffering inside, wrestling with incomprehensible things?  What if we were to take a moment to just say hi, or smile.  An unexpected greeting can disrupt the grip of the ugly beast, and it only takes a little light to break the darkness.  It could save a life.

My heart is broken for her, for our family, for everyone.  Her anguish is over, but in its place is a heavy blanket of sorrow and new anguish in the hearts of those who love her, those who need her.  It’s a shame.  A complete and terrible and horrible shame.  A beautiful, vibrant, strong, loving, courageous, intelligent, capable, talented, and amazing person with so much to live for has been tricked out of her own life.  Nobody saw it coming, so nobody was there to help.  Nobody could help.  It’s a tragic deja vu.  History has repeated itself, and I wish I had been paying better attention.

I’m holding my children tight, taking extra moments to make sure that they know they matter, they are important, they are wanted, they are loved.  I’m listening more.  I’m sending out my love.  To everyone.  Because everyone matters.

a matter of perspective

Night time, alone, I sit in my bed with my thoughts.  Music softly fills the background.  I sit with my back against the leather headboard. Toni Childs sings The Dead are Dancing. I sit, letting thoughts of my life drift through my mind. Tears stream down my face. My thoughts are in parallel with unuttered prayers. What is expected of me, come tomorrow? Mother. I’m a mother. Yet here I sit, late at night, cleaving to whatever fragments of thought I can visualize that represent me.  My essence. My spirit. My soul. My self.  I take this moment to find myself, to honor myself.  Otherwise, through the day, I live from moment to moment to moment, consumed by the myriad tasks and responsibilities that never end.

Tears.

Tears.

Tears.

So healing.

Could I even do this, sit in silence with my thoughts and my tears, if I were married? How do people who are coupled survive? They must be able to find the moments they need, no matter their life situation. Or maybe most people aren’t like me.

Probably.

I suppose I’m a rare bird.

Part of me hungers and aches for the feeling of being wanted. It seems so ridiculous, to spend a lifetime chasing such a fleeting experience. As if I’m missing something. Does anybody else feel this? Why do I? I feel so alone. I always feel so alone. Why? I am NOT alone! So how can I feel this? Why do the tears continue to stream down my face? I wish I knew.

~*~*~*~

Coping. How do people learn to cope? How do they learn about coping? When I was young, I had lots of headaches and tummy aches. As in, every day. Every single day. My sensitive nature has been with me all along. As an adult, here I am, 50 years old, pondering the notion of coping. I have a gin with olives that I’m nurturing, and a playlist of some of my favorite tunes set on shuffle, keeping me company. The boys are peacefully retired for the night. The morning reality includes a commute — 1.5 hours realistically; 2+ hours if conditions aren’t favorable. It’s excruciating for the gentle soul that I am to face that in the morning. Daily. Its so hard for me. So I sit here, again propped in my bed, tears streaming, thinking of the word ‘cope’. I’m coping.

Why am I not shaking my fist at the sky and triumphing? Why am I just coping? Everything is SO GOOD.

SO. GOOD.

My life is truly GOOD! So why am I struggling so? Will I ever make peace with myself? Is it all about me, when it boils down to it?

~*~*~*~

I don’t mind being raw. I don’t mind being vulnerable in writing these things that represent my moment, my now, my thoughts and emotions as they travel across the landscape of my mind and my heart.  Truth is truth. It’s courageous. I rock! I say what others might not have the courage to say.

And the dead are dancing again. Probably it’s meant to be, the way the music shuffles and certain songs repeat. All things have a reason.

Love. <3 I’m writing love everywhere. <3 Leaving love everywhere. <3  Cuz that’s all I am, when it boils down to it. Love.  <3

~*~*~*~

I don’t mind being raw. Truth is truth.

My nature yearns for understanding. Explanation. If I can understand something, if there is an explanation –for some thing, any thing, most things, I can make peace with whatever it is, and let it go or let it be.  At times I encounter things for which reason escapes me.  Experiences that I can’t explain.  Choices that confound me.  And just because something seems inexplicable, doesn’t mean that it is.  It means only that I haven’t yet acquired the wisdom or perspective to understand.  When I was a child, I spoke as a child, understood as a child, thought as a child…

Also, time is a great healer.  Time and a peaceful disposition.

Occasionally thoughts and memories are stirred, and I am drawn to ponder once more these inexplicable things.

Nobody makes it through life unscathed.

lost in my mind

Recently, the concept of exploitation has surfaced in my mind as an explanation of sorts for certain life events.  It’s by no means a complete or satisfying explanation, but it’s the beginning of a channel of thought that might lead to a deeper understanding.  Exploitation suggests an offender –the one exploiting, and a victim –the one exploited.  It absolves, somewhat, the one exploited from the responsibility of the situation.  Not that I am advocating transferring responsibility for a situation to someone, anyone, or anything other than myself.  The thing is, if I’m caught up in the self-blame game, or the coulda shoulda woulda cycle, I spin around and around and never get past that.  Understanding is never achieved, and I can’t put the matter to rest.

I don’t know what draws or compels one to exploit another.   Oh, I suppose things like power, control, greed, and self-serving attitudes fuel such things.  I still fail to understand the draw of such things, other than to feebly attempt to fill some deep seated emptiness, insecurity, or fear.

Anyway.

Once, on a night train in Southern Italy, packed like sardines with other travelers, my friend and I were molested by an Italian man.  Or rather, by his feet.  It was hot and late, and we hadn’t paid for sleeping quarters, so we all dozed in our seats, facing each other with our feet stretched out before us.  It seems like there may have been 8 or 10 people in each booth, 4 or 5 on each side of the booth, facing each other.  The locals slipped off their shoes and put their feet up, and it seemed the normal thing to do in such circumstances.  Budget travelers trying to minimize the discomfort of a long night time train ride.  At some point in time, the man sitting opposite me started to slowly move his toes and probe.  My friend squirmed and glared at him, but I tried not to move.  Her squirming and glaring may have made him stop advancing the foot that was planted in front of her, I don’t know, but he kept on with the foot planted in front of me. I wanted to scream at him to stop, but I didn’t.  I was afraid of making a scene in front of all those foreigners.  He kept on, and I was afraid to look at him, but I occasionally caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my half closed eyes.  He seemed sinister.  Perhaps I detected a smirk of sorts, as if he dared me to make him stop.  I didn’t move.  I held my breath and pretended to sleep.  I didn’t know what to do.  I don’t remember when he finally stopped.

I suppose the topic of rape prompted this train of inquiry.  What defines such a thing?  The lack of consent?  Does not fighting back or raising a scene mean consent?  Does not actively or overtly objecting mean consent?

Another experience involved an Iranian man.  He was charming, gregarious, and smooth talking.  We were neighbors and met when I moved into an apartment after breaking off a long term relationship with a decent guy.  Now that I am writing about this, I recall he told me he was Italian.  People were more accepting of Italians than Iranians, he later told me, so he generally presented himself as Italian.  Somehow, and to this day I cannot explain how events transpired, I ended up being a sex partner to him.  I never wanted it.  I never consented.  Yet I did what he told me to do.  Why?  I DON’T KNOW.  I would lie in my bed at night and he would do his thing.  MY bed!  Why was he even in my house?  I would lie there like a sack of flour.  Not one bit of interaction.  I would think to myself, how can he possibly enjoy this?  It’s completely one sided and not the least bit interactive.  There was no embracing, no kissing, no motion other than him getting himself off in me.  I can feel my face wrenched in a grimace as I write this, perplexed and disgusted on many levels, to this day.  That wasn’t the extent of it.  He would stand in front of me and tell me to drop to my knees and blow him, and I would.  I did what he told me to do, and it continued for some time.  I don’t know how it happened.  I don’t know why I did it.  Once he brought a friend over.  The General.  They brought a Persian meal of some sort and we dined, then he left.  Where did the other guy go?  Why did he leave?  When would he be back?  They had some flurried conversation in Farsi and he left The General with me.  A stout man in his 60s, I’m guessing, who spoke no English, and used to be a general, back in the old country.  I don’t know.  We were sitting on the couch and I attempted to make conversation.    Apparently he had some background in sports medicine or physical therapy and he picked up one of my arms and began to massage it.  I don’t know how much time passed, but somehow I ended up in my underwear on my bed, being massaged.  It was a bit like an out of body experience in which I looked down and saw a big old Iranian man working his hands over my nearly naked body, working his way towards my nether regions.  How did my clothes come off?  How did I end up in my bedroom, on my bed, nearly naked?  I saw myself and my tattered underwear.  I had this ratty tatty bra that I was trying to get a few more wears out of, and it had a big tear across one of the cups.  It was embarrassing for it to be exposed like that.  Nobody ever saw it, because it was underwear.  But seeing myself in my tattered underwear in front of a stranger prodded my brain into a better state of clarity and I snapped back to reality, jumped up and made him leave.  I’m glad he left.  He could easily have forced himself further.  That was my wake-up call, as if whatever fog or spell I was under lifted, and after that I was able to form a plan to get the hell out of that situation.  There is a lot more to that story, in which I realized that I wasn’t at all safe, but the mere fact that they thought I was a stupid woman gave me the buffer I needed to get myself to safety.  I played dumb after that, more or less, then moved several towns away, in the dead of night, without a trace.  Understandably, I have a general prejudice and phobia toward Middle Eastern men (I have some very dear Middle Eastern friends, so it’s not a universal prejudice).

These aren’t the only events or experiences in my collection.  There are more, and I am only one person.  One gentle, nice, intelligent, and even strong person.  How many other people have tales like these to tell?  Of all the spoken experiences out there, how many more remain unspoken?  I suspect the number is staggering.  I would venture a guess that more than half of all people have an experience of similar proportion with which they can identify or relate.

So.

Was that rape? I don’t know.  Exploitation?  I think so.  I didn’t want any of those situations.  They are a part of my life, part of my collection of experiences, part of my history.  Have I come to terms with these things?  No.  Because I don’t understand how or why they happened.  I’m not the kind of person who lets things like that happen.  Yet I did.  Why?  How?

I DON’T KNOW.

Was it okay?  No.

Am I okay?  Yes.  But I still don’t understand.