Tag Archives: Beloved

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U is for ursine

U is for ursine. Have you ever felt ursine?

Ur”sine (?), a. [L. ursinus, from ursus a bear. See Ursa.]

Of or pertaining to a bear; resembling a bear.

Ursine baboon. Zool. See Chacma. — Ursine dasyure Zool., the Tasmanian devil. — Ursine howler Zool., the araguato. See Illust. under Howler. — Ursine seal. Zool. See Sea bear, and the Note under 1st Seal.

I am thinking of my sister again. My mother called me tiger and her bear. “Chris bear” was one of her names. Have you felt tigerish or ursine? We talk about a temper like a bear or hibernating when we aren’t feeling very social and then there are teddy bears and care bears and last night I saw the new Jungle Book movie.

I know the book well and loved it. I spent much less time with television. The movie is a mix of the book and the Disney version and I am considering the deviations. Sher Khan did not kill the wolf leader in the book, though he did influence some pack members. And the ending is changed and an interesting change at a time when we are afraid of the disconnect that many of us feel from nature. We are afraid that too many people and that sin of greed are destroying species and destroying the world.

And so I do feel ursine. Sometimes it feels unbearable. Sometimes I want to rear up like a grizzly bear and tear down the veneer of civilization. Sometimes I just want to sleep as deeply as a bear and dream…. dream of playing with my sister.

In my photograph, two cars have crashed in the Octoblast and one has been ejected forcibly: that is my sister bending over it…..

 

 

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M is for mourn

M is for mourn. We mourn for losses. Mourning is part of being human and we have to give grief room and space. How can we love and feel intimacy without also feeling grief and mourning?

M

I wrote a poem the day my sister died. I had flown home four days before, after seeing her in hospice, 7 years of cancer. I flew home the day before her birthday. My birthday is three days after hers. She died the day after my birthday. It has now been four years.

An apology, a love note and a remembrance

I step outside into a fine mist rain.

I am enfolded in cloud.

The dog still wants to be walked.
The cats want their treats.
The bunny rattles her cage.
The fish will want feeding at the usual time.

My heart lies stunned in my chest.
The dog does not pull.
I walk measured.
He waits.

The rain comes harder.

I hope that where you are, is joy.

The crows harsh caws comfort me.
I answer.
They watch from the tree tops as we circle.

I am enshrouded in cloud.

We are back to the house.

I try to remember.
I have the birds.
I have the trees.

We go in.

first published on everything2.com with other poems for her here: http://everything2.com/title/An+apology%252C+a+love+note+and+a+remembrance

I don’t know who took the photograph. Probably my grandparents.

 

 

 

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B is for bored

B is for bored? All of the emotions that I could pick that start with B, and I pick bored?

But I am going to talk about bored in the context of chronic pain: and suddenly it is not boring at all.

Welcome to 7 Sins and friends, a spectrum, a kaleidoscope, an ABC of emotions.

B

If you hear the same sound over and over, like a faucet dripping, can you tune it out? I can. I can tune out practically any noise and I have fallen asleep under bright light in a Casino room full of ringing and blinging and alarming machines.

You may not have quite that level of ignoring something, but you can certainly tune things out. I have been reading Jon Kabat Zinn’s books on Mindfulness Meditation and I have used his mindfulness CD. I was having trouble sleeping after my father died, and I would use the CD. However, I used it in the reverse of how it is meant.

I used the body scan. Dr. Zinn talks in a slow calm tone and has the listener move from body part to body part, just feeling what is there. Not tightening or releasing muscles, but just starting with the left toes. At the start he says, “This is to fall more awake, not to fall asleep.” And I fell asleep every time.

But what does this have to do with pain? If you have tried meditation and focusing on your breath, your mind wanders. It gets bored. It starts think about the grocery list, or that person who yelled at you or ….. anything but the breath. You keep returning your mind to the breath. One day I had a hurt knee and was trying to go to sleep and thought…. hmmm. So I focused all my attention on the knee pain. Really tried to get inside my knee. Felt the pain fully and entirely….. and soon I was thinking about my grocery list. I pulled my mind back to my knee. My mind was sulky: yes, it hurts some, so what? Can’t we do something else? I am bored!

We are taught that pain is bad and I see many people in clinic who are afraid because of back pain. They are afraid to move because pain means something is wrong. Only most of the time it means that they have injured back muscles. The back muscles cramp up to protect themselves. The muscles must be soothed and stretched and healed and to do that we have to both pay attention to the pain and move without hurting the muscles worse. Sounds a bit boring,Β  right? Bored is more important than we think….

I took the photograph at the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula Washington, in 2004. We were not bored.

 

 

 

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Costume 8

This is the last in this costume series and now it’s revealed. My sister was not wearing a costume but she contributed to the festivities by showing off her ballet skills. Her daughter was more interested in dinner than ballet at that particular moment, even though they performed together. My sister loved to dance and loved the costumes there too.

Taken in 2009, Lake Matinenda, Ontario, Canada. My sister died of breast cancer in 2012.

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7 Sins and friends

My blogging from A to Z this year is titled 7 sins and friends….. sins? I am thinking about emotions and how many our culture says are bad or that we should not feel. Men are encouraged to be strong and silent and women are encouraged to be nice. “Feel good all the time!” says our culture. But we can’t, won’t, don’t.

People say, “Try not to feel that way.” Now when someone says that to me, I think, that is a feeling that they are not comfortable with, but I am comfortable with it, enough to express it. We label feelings with value judgements. Happy is a good feeling, anger is terrible, but really it is all neurological information. It is part of our system for exploring the world, just as touch and taste and sight and hearing help us explore the world. Imagine if we could not feel fear: a toddler walking off a cliff because they have no idea to be afraid. And without pain, we would not pull our finger back from being burned. If we can’t grieve, we can’t truly love.

I sat down yesterday and made a list of emotions and feelings, from A to Z, and I have more than one for each. I will only choose one for each letter, at least that is the current plan, but think of the richness and complexity of human feeling. Why don’t we celebrate it instead of excoriating it? And doesn’t every human have the full spectrum of feelings? We may not be comfortable with a feeling or have a name for it, but I think we all have all of them.

The photo is from Halloween, 2005, dressed up for church.

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Paying as I am paid

Perhaps I will feel better about the state of medicine and corporate fraud preying on the poor and elderly and disabled in the United States, if I pay my bills as I am paid: let’s think about that.

I go to the grocery store and ask for a print out of the receipt before I pay. I look at it carefully. “I think that one sku number is incorrect. I am returning the bill for you to correct. Meanwhile I am taking the groceries. Please mail the corrected bill to me and I will check it and respond within 6 weeks. Thank you.” I smile and leave.

I look at my electric bill. My name is misspelled. I write a note. “Your bill is incorrect. Please correct it so that I can pay you promptly.” I mail it.

I look at my garbage and water bill. My ex-husband’s name is still on it. “Mr. Lizard is not at this address. Here is his forwarding address. Thank you.”

I carefully examine my gasoline bill at the pump. I step inside and explain: “I think that your pump dispensed 3 oz less then the measured amount. I have an exacto fuel measuring device, and your pump is wrong. Please mail me a corrected bill so that I can pay you promptly.”

There. I have no more bills to pay. I eat lunch, happy that I will be earning interest on the pittance that I am paid.

Thank you, United States corporations: you have taught me so much.

I took the photograph in 2011 on Halloween.

 

 

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Costume

My sister loved to dress up in costume. She died four years ago next Tuesday and her birth day is tomorrow.

The photograph is me and her daughter, in costume, at Lake Matinenda in Ontario, Canada, in 2009. I brought a rather demented flower fairy costume. The gloves are my mother’s: crocheted, uncomfortable, romantic and impractical. The whole outfit was entirely silly and impractical for the woods. My sister would bring long ball gowns up to the woods. We played dress up at my grandmothers with our cousins, in my mother’s 1950s prom dresses, in the middle 1970s. We thought her dresses were ridiculous. So were ours, of course.

I am not sure exactly what my niece is dressed as: a boy, I think, and maybe she was being a rapper.

At any rate, it is fun to dress in costume…. miss you, sisty.

 

 

 

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Sink

Sink

I tried for a long time but now I am back in the water. My tail is back. I am so happy with it that for 20 minutes I just swim and dive and play with my own tail, chasing it. I am ready, strong again. I call my people and the waves.

I tried awfully hard on land. I hid the knife that my sisters bought. He married the other one and kept me in the little building in the garden. Everyone knew including her, it was normal for them. She didn’t enjoy his tidal pull, his pounding, the waves. It gave me so much joy. I sang without my tongue. My tongue was not cut out, that is a myth, one of those stories. It’s just that that is how they like the women: voiceless. Silent. Obedient. Admiring. Wounded: oh, he would kiss the poor feet, mangled jangled feet that I am forced to wear on land.

All for love. But: she had children. Three. And I watched as he treated the males as princes and ignored the girl. Mere princess, valueless, to be trained for a strategic wedding. Added value for the land, a pawn in training. She found me. And I pitied her and raised her and told her tales of my home, where people are people, not a gender. Not raised as a separate species.

She disobeyed and her father had her beaten, only where it would not show, and locked up. Bread and water. Cold and cruelty. And suddenly my love was slain. It was as if I was awakened and looked about and saw his cruelty to women and to his wife and his daughter and to me. I was a toy, an amusement, loved only if I kept silent and was crippled by my feet.

I rose and called the waves. The land flooded and the castle was broken and I reached the little princess in time to change her, to give her a tail too.

She is so surprised: in the water. She keeps trying to go up and breathe air and it chokes her. She swims in wild panicky circles, choking on the air, as I drag her out from the castle.

Now we are in the sea and the waters recede, full of broken bodies. Male bodies. I changed every woman I could find and the children if they were young enough and the girls. I called my family, my people. They came and each grabbed one, to drag towards the sea. The ex-humans fight and cough and wail and cry, but we drag them.

And now we sink, each holding one. We sink into the depths. They hold their breath, fighting, but we are so used to our tails and are stronger. And one by one they let the air go and breathe: and breathe the ocean. Breathe. We are entering the dark and the phosphorescent fishes come to see.

Soon we will be home. Just a little further into the ink black: sink.

 

I took the photograph in 2012 at the Pacific Northwest Synchronized Swimming Regionals. This is a young team routine with eight swimmers. These two are each lifted by three teammates, using only swimming, never touching bottom……