a woman tried to hand me a pamphlet titled 'the secret to happiness'. I politely declined and kept walking

listening to the scenic designer all evening

I am drowning in all the things I don't know yet

I do know the powerfully successful ways I get noticed

begin to rise above

but here is the tender space

where I have to contend with my fallibility

and the designer was so tender with me, when he so often is not to anyone

my colors are on point, instinctual, noticeably correct

but the application I put on, then wipe off, put on, then wipe off

The color is good, you just have to trust it, he told me.

His aged friend worked with us in the quiet of the theatre

as they rambled and told battle stories

they talked about a color that was missing

agreed

their intimate awareness of the thing-that-was-color

a thread connecting them to something

in the space between and underneath the words they were using

and I realized I had cut that out of my life for some reason

chosen to learn the languages of others

rather than speak in my own, with people who were fluent

getting off at my subway stop, at the edge of tears

I am full of so many feelings

I am amazed I can keep moving one foot in front of the other

choices I've made about the future choking me with their definitiveness

humbleness, day to day admitting where I come up shortness

potentially living constantly in a state of not being good at a new job, different job

fear of picking a direction I won't like the taste of, that I will regret putting in my mouth

anger at friends helping to dig this hole I might never climb out of

the prism I always talk about wanting to be like

this is what it feels like I realize

and maybe I can feel all of these things

knowing the foundation has been laid

and inertia set in 

when 

in a moment of clarity I made a choice about my future

maybe I can feel all of these things 

and still trust my instincts

let one foot fall in front of the other on their own

while I take the time to savor each refraction, emotion

without getting lost

thinking about the designer who we had been so angry at earlier 

for the impracticality, unnecessary grandiosity of the set

hearing them talk reminded me of Tony from the carpenter's union

retired, but kept showing up

not for the money, but because that is what he is shaped like

and I realized this lame little theatre with its blue haired audience

was a twilight stage for them to live in the shadow of what they had once been

because that is what they are shaped like

and all of my frustration shifted into love

a clue.

a thread.

In all of this patience, where is the passion?

(Epic poems about a regular life)

I.
My little brother called
it was the third time someone at the company he worked for had set him up
to take a fall
It felt like holding the hand of a victim, like I was explaining the inevitability
of sexual assault to a young woman
heartbreaking
as I explained how to protect himself
the way I had learned to
Don't trust anyone's intentions, especially the boss
especially the boss
Ask more questions about them then they do of you
Because they are gathering clues about how they can fuck you later
Learn as much as you can about everything, because any not-knowing
will be held against you
even if it isn't your job
always leave a paper trail, something that can be referred back to later
when they lie
about your attempts to correct their mistakes
to ask for help, guidance
anything
And never take it personally
The chumminess or the betrayal
you are just a pawn in their landscape

But if you play your cards right
and constantly watch for traps
even pawns can wield a ton of power

Let them dig their own holes little brother.


II.
He woke me up with that phone call
I had been practically despondent
Christmas and New Years passed
My hip joints cried out for movement
An arctic chill had descended on New York City
And I had a work injury that turned into an allergic reaction
that made my face difficult to look at

Excuses really

I think I felt safe enough to be so vulnerable
I knew I was going to survive, I am invaluable to the people I work for
But my professional prowess on a recent gig
Threatened other crew heads in the space I spend the most of my time
I felt like a child getting spanked for being too smart
I was helpless in the face of their insecurities
Grown men scared of a little girl full of laughter and sunlight

familiar territory really

I used to speak to my older brother exclusively in French
to piss off my abusive, crack addict of a step father
who hadn't finished high school
I didn't mean to push that same button when the French company arrived
I was the only one who could communicate easily with them
the same trigger turned my brilliance into a weapon against myself
like I am eternally engaged in battle with my step father

Like being what I am is a sin I must constantly atone for

As I lay in bed for a week
watching movie after movie in the winter darkness
storylines overlapping, magnifying and adapting
nuances of things that matter to us as a species, cultures, emotional beings
In the kaleidoscope of my broken heart I started to understand
the value of stories and traditions to remind us of the depths of feeling we are capable of
when we forget

when winter comes

Like a ray of sunshine reaching out to an almost dead plant
my little brother called, upset
his honesty and integrity being used against him at work
and I got to say to him the things I wish someone had told me
watching him reach out in distress to someone he trusted and respected
reminded me that I could do the same
so I texted my boss and I got out of bed



III.
I'm starting to realize
that I am in mourning
some subtle shifts in my trajectory
have illuminated the landscape ahead
in a completely different way
ways of being
and relating
successes I've hitched to other people's stars
lifelines I've clung to for survival, for years
are beginning to shift and transform
shedding like skin cells
everything is the same but different
the initial loneliness
of reorienting from others
to myself
was terrifying
but now I can't seem to get enough
of myself
as exciting as things are
it still feels like saying goodbye to a lover
a parent, a close friend
to everything familiar


IV.
I feel like that Dr. Suess book
'Are You My Mother'
Like I've been desperately trying to
Convince somebody
To take the other end of this umbilical cord

But I think it's my responsibility
to take care of this child

an observer’s measurement in the present determines the behavior of a particle in the past

My first day of kindergarten I was so nervous I just stared at the piece of toast with butter and jam that my stepfather made for me. This man I didn't like was the person dropping me off in this new environment and the thought of eating that toast seemed arduously painful. I waited until he left the room, then ran down the hallway to flush it down the toilet. I couldn't just throw it in the trash because he would notice it, and I would be in trouble, but there was no way I could choke it down. 10 minutes later, as we were getting ready to leave, he called me into the bathroom. That piece of toast had betrayed me, it floated on top of the water in the toilet.

At our previous apartment, I remember clearly having a similar reaction to food, I couldn't take a single bite of the dinner put in front of me, and didn't have the words to convey my distress. I was given the option to take a bite of everything, or receive a spanking. I chose the spanking because it felt safer than trying to force food into my body. I exaggerated my cries so my mother wouldn't hit me as hard, or have my stepfather's ruthless hands do it. For years I had a hard time eating in front of people, even through high school, if I had prepared food, if one of my brother's friends walked in, I would leave it at the table and hide in my room, come back for it much later. Even now, when supervising labor crews, I often drink coffee instead of eat lunch, something about having a full belly makes me slow, feels vulnerable, like I've lost some essential sharpness that I need to see everything and respond at a rapid speed.

Earlier still, when we were still living in Sarasota, the daycare that my brother and I went to was a place of terror, where the people who worked there were unafraid to slap any of the children left in their care. I was constantly in trouble, because I apparently always looked guilty, I knew they particularly hated me. It was impossible to sleep during naptime, but I learned to pretend after countless days of them discovering my eyes wide open, even though I was silent, and I had to lay in that cot alone as punishment, watching everyone else play. Years later, my mother admitted she knew they were abusive, but felt like she had no other choice, could afford no other solution.

In the years of dealing with my stepfather's addiction as he moved between jail and our home, we experienced increasingly dangerous scenarios. I remember all of us huddled in the hallway with the lights out, hiding from windows like it was a hurricane, but it was my stepfather banging to be let in. I don't know much, but I know my mother had filed a restraining order against him. I remember being in the fourth grade, on the playground at school when he walked up and tried to convince me to leave with him. I refused because I was not stupid. Fast forward to the seventh grade and he lived with us again. He would clench and unclench his fists whenever he spoke to me when we were in the house alone together. I woke up in the middle of the night often to see him in my doorway with my light on. I would walk home from school as slowly as I could and lock myself in the bathroom with books for hours. I pushed him in every way I could, using large words, speaking to my brother only in French, I wanted him to hit me. It would have been easier to remove him if he did. So when his wealthy mother informed us she wouldn't send us Christmas gifts if we didn't send her thank you letters, it seemed like an odd stipulation. We wanted nothing from her. That same year she sent us a bunch of wrapped gifts, and my mother and I opened all of them in confusion. The bright packages turned out to be things like a loaf of bread, a box of waffle mix, pop tarts, other various things that might be lying around someone's house. My mother also received a box of used makeup and a broken ornament from my stepfather's sister. Horror and comedy often live close to each other - we rewrapped everything and put it all under the tree for my siblings to experience. We laughed ourselves to tears.

I don't remember ever having any illusions about Santa Claus, since I went with my mom every year to purchase Christmas gifts for my siblings. For all the times we had to scrape together quarters to buy milk at the gas station, or take the bus to go grocery shopping cause we couldn't afford a car in suburbia, or couldn't pay the electric bill sometimes and kept all of our food in coolers - watching my mother wrestle with what she thought we might be excited to open that she could afford was awful. All of our gifts, from everyone in the family had a similar desperate cheapness that seemed to have nothing to do with knowing who we were or what we needed. Year after year I received Barbie stuff I never played with, because I was never interested in dolls. I drew constantly growing up, and it wasn't until I was almost in high school that someone caught on and sent me dollar store watercolors and cheap sketch paper, even though I was already working with sophisticated media at that point. All we really cared about was the food, because we could eat our fill of delicious things for weeks afterwards, and we could see our cousins, who understood us in a way my school friends never could. The closest person to me growing up was my cousin Elizabeth, her and her brother were all but ostracized from the family because of her mother's death, leaving them with the shady man she chose to marry and have them with. My aunt was disowned by my grandfather on her deathbed at 30 years old, and her children grew up starved for a feeling of being inside of a family. Every Christmas Elizabeth and I would walk my neighborhood for hours discussing what we had heard the adults say about each other's parent, desperately trying to figure out what was true. We wrote letters for years, while she was trapped in the house with that man and no phone. The two of them eventually joined the airforce to pay for college, since their father hadn't reported taxes in decades. They are making their own families now. I am so proud of them.

I've started to notice that I choose people with walls, I find impenetrable surfaces and I patiently push against them until I find myself inside of them. If you were to ask my closest friends about how we met, they would tell you variations on a single story - I showed up, and I kept showing up until I was familiar. I think I get a sense of being held inside of other people's walls, like I can let go a little because someone has my back. There is a sense of kinship in our closed offness, our tactics of protection. It is a specific kind of intimacy, much like the kind you might share with a sibling, and we can speak frankly of our distancing techniques, proudly of the coldness we bring to passionate situations, disdainfully of people who are unaware of their lack-of-affect on us.

The more you don't need me, the more I can trust you.

I had a tarot reader/professional therapist call out this false premise during a reading recently. 'You are misidentifying the source of the disconnect', he told me. 'I get the feeling that for you to win, someone must lose in most cases', he said. I can't stop thinking about that, how often I come into situations and walk away the hero - I know often someone is cast as the villain, the failure, the incapable by a necessary comparison. To be right, someone must be wrong. Am I fighting for validity by invalidating the people who made me question that? -'Who would you be harming by being you?' he asked. I don't even know what myself feels like, because it always seemed like a threat to the people I needed to keep me alive.

'If you are the ground, what do you step onto?', he asked me.

Walls can't move. I have to give up my identity as a wall, if I want to take a step on the path towards myself.

It is amazing to me, how we carry these experiences with us, how they become bricks in the walls we build around ourselves, forming the foundations for how we perceive and react to all the people and situations we encounter in our lives. My story is specific, but not unusual, and the rawness of my presence makes perfect sense if you consider all the ways in which I've learned that I am alone, because my feeling safe was inconsequential in the minds of the people making choices for the child that happened to be me. I learned that feeling safe was unnecessary, rather than a vital part of establishing how we engage with the world. As an adult, when people are sharing their childhood memories around me, any time I bring up my experiences, it is met with extreme discomfort, and I have learned that my history is shameful, is something I am not allowed to share, is somehow not as valid as everyone else who can exist around me. And my mother insists I forget, that I focus on the things she offers me as indications of a happy childhood as if I can erase her trespass to make her feel less guilty, at the expense of my shining a light into my own shadows, forever trapping me blindly inside of them. It seems daunting, as I listen to other's stories - to consider the idea of feeling safe, a luxury that I cannot relate to, like owning a hot tub, or vacationing in Europe . I wonder, looking back, if my mother also didn't have a sense of that word in her vocabulary. I wonder if the seeds of that were sown in my great grandmother, who had my grandmother at 16 years old, in the Great Depression. Maybe Safety was something lost long ago, maybe that gaping hole is my heritage, that absence IS the thread that connects me and my relatives through time. Maybe learning about that word is the key that might release the unheard little girl trapped in my body, in the web of fear and fight or flight responses, where my 'self' expression constantly requires dangerous situations for me to mobilize around, to feel called into action.

Though it has gotten me this far, I'm tired of being a tank.




"Remember The Tinman"


There are locks on the doors
And chains stretched across all the entries to the inside
There's a gate and a fence
And bars to protect from only God knows what lurks outside

Who stole your heart left you with a space
That no one and nothing can fill
Who stole your heart who took it away
Knowing that without it you can't live

Who took away the part so essential to the whole
Left you a hollow body
Skin and bone
What robber what thief who stole your heart and the key

Who stole your heart
The smile from your face
The innocence the light from your eyes
Who stole your heart or did you give it away
And if so then when and why

Who took away the part so essential to the whole
Left you a hollow body
Skin and bone
What robber what thief
Who stole your heart and the key

Now all sentiment is gone
Now you have no trust in no one

Who stole your heart
Did you know but forget the method and moment in time
Was it a trickster using mirrors and sleight of hand
A strong elixir or a potion that you drank

Who hurt your heart
Bruised it in a place
That no one and nothing can heal
You've gone to wizards, princes and magic men
You've gone to witches, the good the bad the indifferent

But still all sentiment is gone
But still you have no trust in no one

If you can tear down the walls
Throw your armor away remove all roadblocks barricades
If you can forget there are bandits and dragons to slay
And don't forget that you defend an empty space

And remember the tinman
Found he had what he thought he lacked
Remember the tinman
Go find your heart and take it back

Who stole your heart
Maybe no one can say
One day you will find it I pray