Making the call

This belongs on Ophelia Dreaming but it goes hand in hand with Trust Fall so here it is.

Today I called the Norwalk Police Department and stammering a bit explained that I had been rescued on Monday by a 911 operator and that I'd googled 911 to death but found no indication of how to reach any of them, other than dialing 911. I didn' t even know where they were or what government body directed them.

The woman who answered the phone started out brusk. She must take awful calls all day long, because, you see, the number I dialed belonged to the Chief (that's what's listed!). She asked me when and where and when I couldn't give a street name but could give a rough time she searched the case records until she found me. She gave me a case number but she didn't really tell me about 911. She gave me the name of the White Haired Superman but not the name of the operator.

She was starting to warm up when I kept pushing about needing to say thank you. Then she said she'd transfer me to Communications. I thought maybe I was getting PR or something and they'd at least give me a supervisor's name to contact. Someone to write to.

A man answered the phone and I told him what I wanted. I gave him the case number and he said...

that was me!

And I started to cry. I should have known that voice anywhere and having been told I fell right back into his virtual arms. I told him everything. I told him how I felt making the call and that I'd called once so many years ago when I thought I was going to die and gotten a recording saying the service was not in place. I told him how it felt when he mostly found me by GPS, he told me how the technology works and how happy he was about it. He asked me about Cletus and I told him about vaso-vagal and how it was all OK. He told me to tell her to be well and not scare Mommy like that again.

I told him he saved my sanity and that I'd never been so scared in my life.

I told him thank you and it was wonderful.

Then I talked to the woman in the Chief's office again and found out that 911 belongs to the Police Department and that they all roll up to the Chief and that sending a letter is a wonderful thing to do for them and now I have names:

Jonathan Williams - the disembodied voice who found me and held me together
Officer Mark Kucky - the White Haired Superman who caught me
Chief Harry Rillings - who will receive a letter for both.

God, that was wonderful being able to do that.

Trust Fall

You told me.
You said, Momma, I do not feel right.
You did.
You told me.
And then you showed me.

Your body convulsed,
pitched forward in an act of violent
aggression
and the ancient ones spoke through
your once pretty mouth
tearing open a portal into the bowels of hell
and you told me everything there ever was to tell.

I dialed the sacred three numbers,
pressed send
and ordered up a lifeline
dial-a-prayer, if you will.
...and wondered, will it work this time?

In a haze of white static, frantic, grasping,
breathe for you
pull you forward toward me
instructions
good
I can follow instructions
please, sir, may I have another

Pull you forward toward me
turn you
grasp you
hold you
You are no longer in the body
that lies limp, damp and heavy against me
You are no longer available to tell me any damn thing at all
Elvis has left the building
and taken you with him.

And then your eyes flutter open
Do you see me?
And you are howling like the banshees, pressed to my heart
like the night you were born.

The lifeline is still in my ear
umbilicus from some tower in Bridgeport
or Norwalk or New York City
Just where do these operators sit anyway?
In the virtual land of Donotletmego

And he did not.

The white haired superman in the blue uniform
has an open heart
which he is presently wearing on his face
as he opens the door, reaches in, touches your shoulder and pulls you
away from me
just a little bit
toward his light
and you answer him with
your name.

You know your name.

And the lifeline tells me that I have done well
and that he is going to hang up now
and I know I have been successfully
passed
from the disembodied but very present man
to the very embodied and just as present other man
and the sirens wind their way up the hill
pulling up just ahead and all these people
just like the crash cart when your sister was born
and we have landed...

... freefalling in the ultimate trust fall
for an eternity
or just a moment
into the waiting arms of our humanity.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The Gate Keepers

I am just irritated. I married a Jew. Granted, I know very little about the culture so I've got to tread with caution. We cannot go judging what we do not know. Or something like that.

I'll back up a little. I LOVE church. I love church of almost any type or flavor. That's because I didn't grow up with any church at all. When I was in the sixth grade I read the fabulous and wonderful book by Judy Blume called Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret. If you missed it, I'm sorry, I don't have time to do a book review this evening, I'm supposed to be sleeping.

Ms Blume's book woke up a sleeping need or desire in me for the community or company of spiritual communion. I went to church. I went to church all over the town of Glastonbury. I ran the gamut from Catholicism all the way down the North East Protestant food chain to the Congregationalists. Later I met the Quakers and the Unitarians. Loved 'em all. Except for the Catholics, they pissed me off something awful when I got married and discussed the possible baptism of my babies, but I sure do like the ritual and pomp. Nice. Alter boys make me cry and all that (for the right reasons). I also met the raging Southern Baptists (just the African American branch, not sure if the other branches have any bearing) - Loved loved loved, them, and the Born Again Fundamentalists (ran screaming into the night). But I didn't meet many Jews. That's because they hide the Jews in Glastonbury (just ask my best friend Deeb, she's one of two, I think).

Well then I up and married one. Poor guy. He's all lapsed and everything now too. I'm not claiming fault, I'm just noticing that yet again, without a woman in the household to direct the spiritual leanings a lot of men tend to fall right off whatever wagon they're on. I wonder about that. In any event, I did what I thought I ought to do. I tied in the seasonal Jewish holidays and the Christian holidays to the Pagan passages I happen to celebrate - um, that would be Winter Solstice and The Spring Fertility Rights; I give the rest a nod if I'm in the mood.

There is an extra series of events that is very harvest oriented. The two primary fall events are Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Atonement). Rosh Hashana (Shana Tova, all) began at sunset tonight. Beloved is in Wisconsin with his Ethanol farmers. I don't believe they have many Jews in the corn fields of Wisconsin and certainly no time or space to sit in Temple and contemplate the new year tomorrow while he's glad handing the farmers (pretty sure he ought to be ashamed of himself but I try to keep that to myself, he is, after all, my guy and a pretty good guy at that).

So I was IMing him this evening as Nanny ties up the phone line between 9 PM and 1 AM on a regular basis (and I'm pretty much ok with that as I don't like to use the phone much) and I mentioned he might like to go to temple on Yom Kippur and that I would go with him. This is an all day event. I can kind of make it to about noon and then I'm out of there and looking for a bacon sandwich (Amy, if you're reading this, I do beg your pardon). But I like it. I really do. For me it's about sitting in silence (and then not so silence) of community and examining who you are, who you have been and who you believe you want to be. I find it cleansing, honest and healing.

Howeveah....

We don't belong to any particular temple. He tried and tried to find one that worked for him and after running into the Humanistic Jews of Westport (HE ran screaming) I think he gave up. I didn't ask. Mostly because I just don't think about that kind of thing very often. So now he has no temple to go to. If he wants to go he'll be expected to cough up several hundred dollars just to pass the threshold.

Several hundred dollars. Maybe more.

It isn't that we can't but how the hell do they know that? This man comes looking for a spiritual home, grasping at the roots that defined his manhood and he cannot pass go without a substantial amount of money.

It is like this in many churches but this one takes the cake.

Before you start in on me, I've heard the reasons. I've heard. I've heard enough.

It saddens me. Yahweh, say it ain't so.

I am the fire

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

Damn.

Life is about struggle. Don't like that, do you? No, not much.

I have always struggled. There has always been a 'what next' sooner than I was ever ready for it. Right now my life is pretty much perfect. This is a problem.

Crap.

Other than the nanny adjustment, um, there's no battle to fight. Cletus Marie's father has been more or less shamed into at least leaving her alone (plus he'll give me some money every month toward her upkeep - woohoo - I don't give a rat's ass, I didn't need him then and I don't need him now). My job is my job; I can be a corporate power house in my sleep and my boss is too cowed to give me much more than, um, what I can do. My children are children. My garden is green. The deer seem to have vanished (?). My best friend has not had a psychotic break lately. (lately) My son is living his own life and I don't freaking have to look (!!!).

Crap.

Now what the hell am I supposed to do?

I curled into my husband on our bed this evening and wailed (in my most dramatic fashion)...

My life is meaningless.....!!!!

(wah)

Seriously. It made him nervous. This is good. It means he knows me.

Bonzai!!!!!!

What next?

(bahahahahahahahahahah)

For Carol

Tonight I meant to have a moment of silence for CG's mom, Carol. Not working out so silent, is it? Go ahead over to this site CG Spiritual http://contrarygoddess.wordpress.com/(I'm hoping she won't mind) and have a read from beginning to end. There isn't much there yet as she just birthed this site a little bit ago.

What you will find is a woman's journey through the passing of her mother. She, CG, had what I would call the good fortune and great good sense to be cognizant and present in the final days and hours of Carol's life. Such presence often brings to mind the love and pain, filial conflict at it's best and worst of the mother-daughter or parent-child relationship.

I am nowhere near ready to lose my parents (way too much unfinished business) and yet I am of the age where this might reasonably happen today or tomorrow or twenty years from now. My husband has lost both of his plus a sibling. It is a powerful time we have in these last years as middle aged adults (hopefully) to examine ourselves and how we came to be and our parents, in their very own light.

Hugs and fairy kisses, CG, may the stars shine clear and bright on you and yours.

My father

I find it almost easy to write about my mother, even the hard parts. I find it almost unbearable to write about my father. I'm not close enough to even know why.

I spend what I consider a great deal of time with my father. I spend a week with him at the beach (and now we actually share a house) and week with him in Vermont while we ski (we have a timeshare, he has his house). I spend a few days at Christmas and a few days at Labor Day (except this year) going to the NY Ren Faire in Tuxedo. Yes, we all get dressed up and we all go together.

I don't spend much time with my mother at all and yet, the heartstrings are solid and secure.

My father makes me crazy. I must be looking for the way home. Still.

Airplanes

I lost my virginity on the floor of a modified Cessna 182 on or about my sixteenth birthday. I say on or about because I'm no longer certain when was what and that doesn't matter so much anyway.

Except he was thirty-two. I hear this is supposed to be a bad thing. I'm still looking for the bad but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to see it. In retrospect, as a parent, the very thought is horrifying but then I'm not bringing my children up the way my parents brought me. Not in any way, shape or form.

We have rules, social mores, if you will, that we apply given our circumstances. But what happens when the cultures clash so thoroughly that the mores just can't jive, no matter how you twist or turn or spin them about?

I was a young adult in the body of a child. Puberty came late (some would argue that I'm still waiting). Children don't jump out of airplanes. If you are sixteen years old and you are exiting the body of a 182 at 9 grand you are not a child; I don't care what the rest of your life looks like. You are not a child or you are dead. That doesn't mean I wasn't a child. It just means what it means. Conflict, you know?

I like to say it ruined me for boys my own age except it didn't. I just never learned how to talk to them or maybe they just never could talk to me. I imagine I might have been marginally daunting. All this skydiving and no talking and me the ice queen because I hadn't learned to speak yet.

What I do wonder though, finally after all these years, is what on earth was he thinking?

Then, and only then, I stop and say ewe. But I still can't find the wrong or bad on my end and you know what? Maybe that's OK.

Motherself

It is very easy to hold our parents into the light and tell ourselves how we were ruined. The truth is not so simple. Life lifes, we do what we do and our parents do the same. My mother was and is a remarkable woman and I've spent years trying to come to terms with that.

I've been working lately at trying to get under the known and find this woman. I'm trying to do this because I don't see much of her anymore and I can hear the fatigue in her voice and her writing. My mother is the gonzo dream somebody once said I might be. To read her is to be transported to whatever she is experiencing, at lightspeed.

My mother is eating the entire bag of M&Ms at once. My mother is the freight train that just took out your front yard. My mother is a navy blue suit and high heels in a 911. My mother is 140 mph on two wheels. My mother is the horse breath and the horse mind and the horse soul and body. My mother is dog shows and dressage rings. My mother is the ballet or Rocky Horror (take your pick) at midnight. My mother is ginger muffins at daybreak before heading to work because her daughter weighs 80 pounds at 5'6".

My mother is often elsewhere which equates, in the mind of the child, as not here.


Once, when I was maybe twelve years old, I was very, very sick. Very, very sick means I had a fever above 104 and woke up that way in the morning. My mother had to make a choice. Back in the seventies two things had not occurred yet (and I'm not sure they have yet). The first is that fathers still had nothing to do with children. The fact that I was sick had no bearing on my father's schedule. I'm not even sure he registered the fact. The second is that no matter how talented or necessary, women did not stay home from their jobs to care for sick children. As a matter of fact, many working women never even acknowledged having children if they meant to keep their jobs and did anything past administrative work (that was NOT what momma was doing, momma was writing code and disseminating information, same as I do today).

Momma felt my forehead, pursed her lips and then told me to stay home. She went to work. My little brother, he would have been ten, popped a thermometer in my mouth because he said I was all red. He had trouble reading it and I was no help but eventually worked it out. He called Momma at work. Momma said, give her three aspirin and make her drink lots and lots of water. Baby Bear did just that. He also didn't go to school that day. He sat by my bed and fed me aspirin and water all day long.

By sevenish, when Momma came home, my fever broke.

We all read this and think of this in terms of the child and we wonder, how oh how could that child have survived? Well I have to tell you, the child was perfectly fine. No joke, perfectly fine. The mother, though, the mother. What hell did she live through that day and many others?

I've had a few like that but nothing like what my mother experienced. Nothing. I don't know how she did what she did.

Remarkable.

Momma wore combat boots

My mother wore combat boots. I love saying that. Unfortunately nobody gets the reference anymore. If I did my homework I would be able to tell you exactly when sport parachuting took off in this country but that would be subjective anyway since most people think it still hasn't and, well, I've got news for you, it has.

Sometime in the sixties I think; or at least that's my frame of reference. I was a little bitty thing out there on the field with my even littler brother in Portage, Michigan. There was a club called Pegasus and my dad was a professor at Western State and he and a bunch of students started this. I don't know why. Viet Nam maybe. Go figure. They were all there and then not and then back and then in between in the air.

My momma jumped out of a plane because it looked like a good idea, I suppose. Or because my daddy did it and she wasn't one to be left on the ground like a cheer leader or a campus wife or anything like that. She tells me that she made that one jump and it scared her so bad she decided she was going to keep doing it until she stopped wanting to shit herself on exit (my words, not hers, she would never).

My momma just kept on jumping because here's the thing, fear goes freaking NOWHERE, unless you're an asshole and then you deserve what you get. The thing is, you've got a choice, you can make friends with fear or you can struggle. Momma made friends. Weren't too many women making friends with fear like that, way back then. Back then. Sounds funny to say but it feels like yesterday.

In 1970 we left Michigan and came east to be Yuppies. Certified and everything, I swear my parents had papers. Left teaching, joined Corporate America and away we went! Had to find a jump club though, didn't we? I thought everybody's parents jumped out of planes and maybe they just went to different drop zones but I also thought pot was legal and my parents just perfered beer and until I was thirteen my world was perfect. Oh.

I'm still trying to work that one out.

Momma was competant. That's saying a lot. Not many skydivers are what I'd call competant. Most are what I'd call suicidal idiots, or clorox in the gene pool. Or something. Some are stellar. My brother was and is stellar, but he's another story.

I made my first jump the day after I turned sixteen, back when you still could jump out of a plane at sixteen if your parents felt like signing the waiver. I would have done it on my birthday because my birthday was a Saturday but the winds were too high. I had to wait until sunrise on Sunday and then the winds dropped and out I went.

Momma drove me to the bar that night, all covered in dropzone dirt and feeling like the world was on fire (which it was) and Momma said, Heather Mary (that's my name), if you can do this, you can do anything. Any. Thing. Ever. That is required of you.

All my life. My momma wore combat boots. And yes I can. No matter what it is.