Edge of The Mountain

Fingers On Fire

2011-07-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

Last night
The world was aflame
The sky brushed crimson on indigo
The setting sun meeting the fingers of fire
Leaping from the grill on the deck
Guiding Him over the horizon
To another place where
Dawn would be breaking
And the world was dimly lit
The sky brushed pale gold on azure
The sun rising to meet the blood-warm fingers
Of another pair of lovers
On another day

In Bel's Firefor Susan

2011-05-08T14:09:00.000-04:00

through the thickening, greening leaves

i catch a glimpse of his leaping limbs

gleaming horns, a knowing grin - Cernunnos, the Horned God -

the King Stag, in rut

and in this verdant world of his

a warmth flows through me, a quickening

and suddenly, i hear hooves pounding

bounding through the forest, he comes

my own King Stag, the One i Love

pressing forward, rushing towards me

Yes! his breath on my neck, i turn,

He's There! and into his arms i come

- tricia l. edge, 5/1/2011

2011-03-12T20:47:00.000-05:00

still

bad days
leading to bad nights
upstairs neighbors' fights
so i turn out all the lights
and let the tears fall

one down
so much more to go
the one path i know
you can say, "i told her so"
it won't help at all

from here
it all seems so clear
my life ruled by fear
so i held onto you, dear
so i wouldn't fall

night's come
i sit here alone
lights off, mute the phone
let go all the things i own
you can take it all

Wishing For...A Farewell To Arms

2011-01-15T00:16:00.000-05:00

"[S]omething is drastically wrong with what's going on in our United States right now. And when an individual is turned down to get into the military and then can be -- is able to go out and buy a .9-millimeter Glock pistol, and he had one of the -- or his clips were the extended clips that were limited to law enforcement only, and, you know, that -- or somebody has to put a stop to that."

~ Colonel Bill Badger

Army, Retired

For those of you who, during the past week, have been living in a cave, or without power due to ice, snow, or a combination of both, Col. Badger is one of the heroes - along with Roger Salzgeber and Patricia Maisch - who subdued Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused of killing six people and wounding 14 more at a political gathering in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, 2011. Three days later, Col. Badger spoke with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Situation Room, and responded to one of Blitzer's questions with the above quotation.

I cannot say whether Col. Badger knew why Loughner was rejected by the Army. Military officials indicated it was due to a failed drug test, yet many media outlets - and even more bloggers - have speculated Loughner's mental health was the primary reason. Whether or not a positive drug test led to Loughner's failed attempt to enlist in the Army, it has been well established that he suffered from severe mental illness(es). Which brings the question of gun control to the forefront once again, most significantly this one: should an individual with a mental illness be allowed to legally purchase and own a gun?

This evening on ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer, David Wright interviewed Bob Templeton, organizer of the Cross Roads of the West Gun Shows which opens in Tucson this week, eerily reminding me of the equally tasteful decision made by the National Rifle Association's head honchos, including Überguntoter Charleton Heston, who refused to postpone or relocate their 1999 National Convention in Denver eleven days after the Columbine massacre occurred just miles away in Littleton, Colorado. Templeton, stepwise with the NRA party line, does not want any additional restrictions on gun ownership as it would "punish all gun owners."

I'm confused, nay, baffled: do Templeton and the NRA fear all current and/or potential gun owners may fail a test of mental competence? My goodness, no wonder they oppose nearly all forms of gun control. (In February 2000, the NRA gave thousands of dollars to Colorado state legislators in an effort to defeat Columbine-inspired gun control laws. Their efforts succeeded, and only a few NRA-backed laws passed, gestures such as a law allowing police officers to arrest individuals who buy guns for criminals or children, and the re-authorization of longstanding state background checks.)

Now, as I pull my tongue out of my cheek, I must make a very serious, not to mention private and somewhat embarrassing, admission: I suffer from a severe and potentially fatal mental illness and should never, ever be allowed to purchase a handgun. Yet, here in my home state of Georgia, I can.

In 1968, federal laws were passed in an effort to keep guns out of the hands of mentally "disturbed" (I love that euphemism) individuals. The law is terribly strict: a psychiatrist's diagnosis is not enough to support an individual is mentally ill; treatment must be court-ordered. However, some states have legislated tougher restrictions than the federal bans. In Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Washington, potential gun owners must waive all rights of privacy to their mental health records. In California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island, buyers must obtain a gun license from law enforcement officials. (Those poor constituents of Hawaii, Illinois, and New Jersey are hit twice! I suppose they must eat NRA conventioneers for breakfast in those states.) But in the remaining 36 states, mentally ill individuals are subject only to the same, generally meager, gun control laws which exist for anyone else. Here in Georgia, in a mere 48 hours I can have my own .9 millimeter pistol - although personally, I'd probably choose a .22 revolver given the size and strength of my hands. And while no one in Georgia or any other state needs to worry about their own safety from me, my loved ones would surely need to worry about mine. You see, since the age of nine I have suffered from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), formerly known as clinical depression, and I have contemplated and/or attempted suicide more times than I could even hazard a guess. Most of the time, medication and therapy keep me safe and (relatively) sound; however, every so often they fail, and I fall down into the deepest, darkest well you can imagine, where I can see neither the sign of even a glimmer of distant light, nor any foothold with which I may climb my way out. These episodes usually last much longer than 48 hours, and unless I made a cry for help, no one could stop me from buying and receiving a handgun, taking it back to the apartment I share with no one but my dog and cat, putting it into my mouth and blowing the back of my brains onto my soft sofa with its red-and-gold silk pillows, the photographs of family on the table next to me, and these pretty gold walls.

But hey, at least I wouldn't inconvenience any other potential gun owner. Including the sociopath who used to come over to the apartment across the hall where his ex-girlfriend lived and beat the crap out of her. Hell, maybe he already owns guns; I haven't seen him since, a week after I moved into my apartment, she just disappeared in the middle of the night.

None of this is bullshit, none of it fabricated, elaborated, glorified, or gore-ified. It is the mean, hard, cold fucking truth, just like the deaths of all those high school kids in Colorado, the babies in Oklahoma City, and one beautiful little girl in Tuscon, Arizona, who had so much more to give to the world. Just like, I hope, I do.

If not, well...

"You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

Farewell To Luna, Our Very Own Beautiful Moon

2010-07-30T11:24:00.034-04:00

Six days ago, and two days before the full moon, I wrote a silly poem which appears below this post. The first stanza of the poem makes reference to one of our cats - really, one of Susan's cats - who has been the only cat with the privilege of sleeping in our bed most every night. At the time I wrote the poem, Luna was having trouble eating or even drinking water, and we were trying different things to keep her hydrated. On the night of the full moon, she seemed better, and Susan and I were cautiously optimistic. Unfortunately, it did not last, and when Susan awoke yesterday morning, poor Luna was much, much worse, no longer able to use her hind legs and meowing in a very different way. She called our veterinarian who makes house calls and she came that afternoon, giving us time to hold Luna and tell her everything we needed to tell her, and just be with her. Carol came and sedated her; once sedation took affect, she administered the medication which sent her off.

Luna was 15-years-old and she had a very good life. She and her litter mates were born in the ruins of the old Cabbagetown Mill, several years before the famous fire. Luna's mother belonged to Susan's neighbor and, the night she was ready to birth her kittens, she managed to escape from the house. After a week or so, the mother cat returned to her home with (at least some of) her kittens, hiding them in the crawl space beneath the house. Susan's neighbor desperately attempted to trap the now feral kittens, but it was not an easy task. Finally, after five long weeks, the two remaining kittens - one sleek, handsome, solid black male and one tiny, gorgeous, calico female - were captured. Given they had never been exposed to humans for the entire five weeks of their lives, these two feral kittens wanted nothing to do with us now and had no problem letting everyone know it. The neighbor offered the kittens to Susan, and she jumped at the chance to care for them and bring them into the human world. Susan named the sable-coated kitten Annwn, an old Welsh word for the Underworld. She pondered over the female's name for a bit. She knew her name's meaning should incorporate "light" and "glowing," and contemplated Guinevere, Welsh for white and smooth. But then, the beautiful calico made it easier for Susan and simply told her what her name was: Luna, the Latin version of Selene, original Greek goddess of the moon: white, effervescent, exceptional. Once Susan named the kittens, she tended to raising them. She was patient, no matter how many scratches and hisses she received - and how little she saw of her two new charges during the first six months - but she never gave up and slowly coaxed them to come out from hiding, and then slowly to become accustomed to other humans, as well. When Susan came to live with me ten years ago, Luna and Annwn came along; Annwn, however, did not fare well in the suburbs. He ran off to explore and never came back, except in Spirit to let us know he was gone but at peace.

Luna, on the other hand, stayed with us through thick and thin. She put up with two pit bulls, three dachshunds, and four other cats. She learned the boundaries of our new land on this mountain very quickly when, right after we first moved in, she went on a walk-about and ended up in a compromising position on a branch high in a tree on our neighbor's land after her dogs chased Luna up said tree, and we had to pay a guy $100 to climb the tree, grab her and stuff her in a pillow case, and return her to safety! She never left our property without someone with her again. She didn't need to, for our land, our woods, our creek, and all the living creatures sharing the space with us was enough to keep this sweet kitty happy, as long as she was with Susan. And although she did like sleeping on my head, or my stomach or side or wherever she could fit, Luna was, from beginning to middle to end, Susan's cat.

Susan gave her the best life, and she gave her a very peaceful death. Her energy is still with us in the house, and Susan is making her cedar box in which we will place her in her bed, along with a few things she loved, and a few things which have meaning for us spiritually. The area Susan has chosen to place this cedar box, made with such loving hands, is beneath a red maple and next to a chestnut oak, so she will be shaded by Beauty, and guarded by Strength. She will always be at home, and yet she is free now:

Free from pain, free from all sufferings of the body, free from fear

She can run through the woods with the same speed and grace she had as a young cat

She can be one with the Earth and Wind, one with Water and Fire

She can play for as long as she wants to play

She can be here with us as long as she wants to be here...

And when she is ready, her beautiful Spirit can catch a Moonbeam

Spiral up, up, up, until she reaches the Summerland...where someday,

Susan will find her beautiful moon-kitty, her Luna, again

We Love You

Sweet Luna

Fare Thee Well

Just Another Silly Love Song...er, Poem

2010-07-24T19:50:00.003-04:00

Because of you...
We have five cats
And I'm allergic to cats
Especially to the one
Who sleeps in our bed
On top of my head
Even though it's quite a big bed

Because of you...
We live in the sticks
With the frogs, spiders, and ticks
While I wear heels in the dirt
First hoping not to fall
Then that this town, so small
Gives this high-tone girl her own mall

Because of you...
Our house swells each day
With junk you won't give away
And should I dare to suggest
We have a yard sale
Goodwill if we fail
One of us would end up in jail

And because of you...
This house is a home
I know I'm never alone
And none of these little things
Can break us apart
Try testing my heart
For we are, Always, Split Aparts

On Fossil Fuels...And Human Fossils

2010-07-19T17:04:00.008-04:00

Three months into the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and BP announces they have placed a containment cap over the main well leak, which is finally controlling the major flow of oil, although minor leaks still exist. This is good news, of course, but in no way can it mask the damage that has already been done. Millions of gallons of oil are in the Gulf, much of it in deep water which, compared to shallow spills, causes even greater concern to scientists and environmentalists for a variety of reasons. One obvious reason is the difficulty required in removing oil from deep water. More troubling is how it may affect the marine ecosystem. This system works from the ground up, so to speak, each marine species living off the one which lives below it. If low-level food sources die off, that in turn affects mid-level sources, and so on. It would not only affect the Gulf waters, either. For one thing, the Gulf ecosystem reaches many other systems, like tiny fingers spreading far and wide. Furthermore, while it seems to be static right now, the oil spill could easily channel into the Atlantic at some future date. Once this occurs, it won't be long before the entire marine ecosystem is affected, at some point even crippled. This will, in turn, affect the rest of the environment, including the climate, health, and even the life of many species across the globe - including humans. Which is only fair, considering we are responsible for this mess.

During these past three months, I have watched the news and heard the stories, the wrenching details of people whose livelihoods vanished in an instant, whose beautiful shores turned brackish and thick. They had lived by and worked these waters all their lives, as had so many generations before them, as they had intended to pass down to their own children. Now, BP will not answer their calls or mail them their checks in a reasonable amount of time or, if they do send them a check, the amount is a pittance of their normal summer income.

Then I see the pictures of the Gulf wildlife drenched in oil, pelicans so coated you can hardly see their feathers, songbirds choking and dying before our eyes, dolphins washing ashore, dead on the dingy beach because they were unable to surface and breathe through the thick coat of oil spread for acres upon acres across their waters. And in the bayous skirting the southern coast of New Orleans, where Susan and I spent our honeymoon a decade ago, the oysters are nearly extinct and the luscious pink crabs are floating, belly up, in the poisoned waters.

Tears fall down my cheeks silently. I can't help it. I listen to the vitriol against BP and President Obama. I understand it, too, especially against BP the more I learn about how they have consciously and continuously chosen to cut costs over providing sensible safety measures, and against the past administration(s) and the agents within that administration who chose to deregulate the oil industry and, even further, allowed Big Oil to get away with murder simply by looking the other way. As for the current administration, I am not capable of determining whether eighteen months was enough time to fix such a behemoth of a mess, but certainly President Obama made some mistakes in the beginning of this current fiasco.

But none of that matters, really.

I was driving into town a couple of weeks ago and I stopped to fill my car with gasoline. Up to this point, I had been thinking about writing an essay about the oil crisis. As I was filling up my car, a 4-cylinder Honda Accord, I looked around me at the other customers and their vehicles. There were three extra-large SUVs, two king-cab pick-up trucks, two coupes similar to my car, one motorcycle, and one monstrous, diesel-fueled XL king-cab pick-up truck towing a sizable speedboat (which also required fuel, though presumably it would need to be purchased at the lake.) I got back into my car when I finished, put a CD in, and found the appropriate tune for my mood. A myriad of images of wildlife, birds and fish and mammals brutalized by our greed, flashed before my eyes; I squeezed them shut but the visions remained, and the tears rolled down with them. As I listened to Amy Ray croon, I knew where the blame lies for the giant mess in the Gulf. We can all point our fingers any which way we like, but the truth of the matter is we need to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves:

What do I want to leave to my descendants...

and what will be left for them if we continue with the status quo?

"All the fur and fin will lose again
Cause our better is their worst reckonin'
And our fine-feathered friends
Will sing until they bleed
And how will we replace that symphony?

I've got the blackest boots, the whitest skin
Satisfy my sugar tongue again "

-"Sugar Tongue" ; words/music by Amy Ray; © 2009 Indigo Girls; Reprint by permission.

The Dangers of Watching Too Much Television

2010-05-28T13:38:00.012-04:00

For nearly an entire week, we have been without phone and Internet here in our remote locale - or, as our recent guests - my parents - would say, "The Boonies." This horrific condition ended yesterday, thankfully, before any irreparable harm was done. I didn't miss the telephone that much, but the lack of internet connectivity was very, very difficult. No e-mail, no Twitter, no Facebook - losing contact with friends and family and...whatever you call those people you Follow or Friend but have never met...was the first and most obvious loss. I didn't realize, however, how many other tools I use all the time and would miss. I couldn't Google any of the hundreds of (generally trivial) questions or contrivances which came to mind, or check the price or availability of some product I may want to buy at some undefined point from any one of the online sites I have bookmarked. Hell, I felt empty without seeing my happy little home page opening on Firefox. Oh dear, I'm tearing up now just thinking about it.

So, in this dreadful state, what is a girl and her various dogs and cats to do to fill the emptiness? The answer is obvious: watch television. Not just the shows we TiVo and always watch, but random nonsense such as MTV's Disaster Date and Parental Control, or VH1C's One Hit Wonders, and HGTV's Selling New York (I didn't even realize it was for sale!). And these are just the few I am not too ashamed to admit to watching. The situation was dire, my friends, it truly was.

Once again, Susan was my knight(ess)-in-shining-armor coming to my emotional rescue. She was not in the horrible shape I was since she was able to connect to the Internet at work. She was able to calm me down and assure me I could get through the withdrawal symptoms without resorting to picking up another addiction. And she was right; I didn't need the silly remote which operates the various machines required to watch television these days. But it truly sank in how dangerous it is to watch t.v. with such abandon when Susan showed me two photographs she had taken while I was in a zombie-like state, staring at some bright, shiny things on a home shopping channel. I was holding my darling little chiweenie, Sara Lee, and her eyes were also fixed on the screen, when Susan captured this picture:

I was shocked, as I am sure you can imagine. I had no idea I had such large, manly hands! Of course, Susan then pointed out that Sara Lee's eyes do not normally glow as if she had received a massive dose of radiation. I was so ashamed, knowing that I drifted off in front of the t.v. while my poor animals were forced to watch whatever was on. Ah, but again Susan was able to alleviate my guilt and fear. For it seems there are some benefits to having a very, very (one might say obese, if one wasn't in the same room with the subject) large - excuse me, I mean "big-boned" - cat. Orlando, the brown tabby in question, came to the rescue while I was catatonic. So to speak. Susan had taken this photograph, as well:

Yes, this cat saved me and all the other kitties and puppies in his harem, I mean house, simply by removing the remote from my large, manly hands (and on such a petite young woman, it must be ghastly to others), turning the various machines off, and returning to the comfort of his natural state...a nap.

So, dear readers, let this tale be a warning to you. Never trade your laptop for the t.v. remote control. Dogs and cats have absolutely no interest in computer screens. As for cats and keyboards, that's another story.

Evermore

2010-05-23T14:55:00.004-04:00

this big bed, so empty without you
becomes an ocean upon which i float
and conjure, and dream of, my Beloved
'til the sea sends me safely to your sacred shores

so i dream i'm lying against you
nestled in the hollow gracefully carved
from the curve of your neck and your shoulder
joining the finely sculptured ridge of clavicle

soaked in your skin, sun-kissed and freckled
spiced with sandalwood and your salty sweat
the tracings from my tongue tattooed its taste
immortal, your beauty's burned in my memory

Fire Alarm

2010-04-08T20:50:00.003-04:00

I have a few words to share on a current event whose coverage, for the most part, has lacked vital information which I feel I must correct for the good of all humanity. It is, after all, my mission in this life to educate the masses.

As most people know, yesterday a 27-year-old diplomat from Qatar was caught sneaking a cigarette on an United Airlines flight. Obviously suave and well-schooled in both diplomacy and the laws of the country he was visiting, the young diplomat attempted to divert the scrutiny of his air marshal captors with an offensive and insolent joke, professing he was lighting his shoes on fire.

Of course, this single, sarcastic quip set in motion a series of events, escalating in severity, landing the jerk smack in the middle of an international tsunami. (I see great things in the lad's future.) And up to this point, I have no quibble with the media's treatment of this story. What bothers me are the ubiquitous comments, even among the most respected journalists and talking heads, decrying the fact that diplomatic immunity prevents the man from being charged with any crimes. "If you or I said or did this, we'd be dragged off to jail!" and "It's not fair diplomats can commit murder and get away with it!" are the epithets clogging the airwaves and the Internet, without providing a balanced account.

I understand the emotions behind these declarations, and I empathize with people who are proud of our legal system and condemn this event as unjust. My grievance is with the media who, on the whole, have ignored any significant explanation of diplomatic immunity. And there are very good, very important reasons for its existence.

From this point, the journalist in me is dying to present a treatise on the history and usage of diplomatic immunity. Unfortunately, I have been unwell and simply am not up to that task; I apologize to all who will be crushed with this news. Instead, I would like to impart what is, in my opinion, the primary justification for the United States' diplomatic immunity agreements with other countries, as codified in 1961 by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. It is a simple matter of protection, preventing our own diplomats from falling prey to the laws of other countries, laws which we would deem unjust or abhorrent. It is a necessary, and often messy, fact of international politics which requires countries to maintain relations with foreign nations, even those nations whose harsh laws are objectionable to them. If we did not follow this international law, a U.S. diplomat could be put to death for what would be a minor infraction by our standards but not by another nation, or perhaps have a hand chopped off when a delicate custom was violated, or lose an eye after an inadvertent glance at another man's wife, and so forth. These are not wild suggestions. (Trust me, I am never wrong.)

Yes, it's annoying when a foreign diplomat parks wherever he wishes, violates traffic rules, and generally abuses the benefits provided him. The few occasions when a foreign diplomat avoided trial and punishment for manslaughter or murder were contemptible, and it could easily happen again. It is not fair, but it is the unfortunate cost for the benefits we acquire in return. Anyhow, my father always told me, "Youngest daughter, life ain't fair." And like me, Daddy is always right.

Beneath A Fairer Moon

2010-03-27T16:10:00.005-04:00

Welcome To Twenty-Ten And Thanks For The Memories, 2009

2010-01-15T22:20:00.006-05:00

I am caught in the crosshairs of the glowing red numerals on Susan's alarm clock, the huge 4:30 staring straight at me, accosting me in the midst of these still, dark hours between midnight and daybreak when even the cats are quiet and pensive. We are two weeks into January, Twenty-Ten as shiny and pristine as a newly-minted coin, and after two long weeks at full capacity, the house now seems empty and hollow. Befuddled by the sudden drop in barometric pressure, my brain refuses to slip into the routine of the status quo, and once again I have been unable to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. Perhaps by now I would be used to the pressure changes, but the glorious and hectic holidays were followed by a less-than-stellar week-long stay in the hospital, as my body once more feels it is necessary to prove I am still saddled with severe Crohn's disease and, on top of that, must now contend with recurrent bouts of pneumonia and the COPD which accompanies it.

December sped through our lives like a conquering army, leaving in its wake the debris of the holidays and a hangover effect I cannot blame on alcohol. I want to take the entire month of January off the calendar and just hide away somewhere, recuperating, but Life refuses to stop its march onward and the phone is ringing off the hook again, the bills are piling up on the kitchen bar, and the To Do list I keep on the table by my chair is growing longer every day. Still, even in this state of ennui and melancholy so familiar to me in the dead zone between Yule and Valentine's Day, there is an undercurrent of hope buzzing along, just beneath the surface, telling me that 2010 will be better than 2009.

A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last

It is Christmas Day in the Edge/Springfield home, and the scene is a feast for the senses: that consummate crooner B-b-b-Bing Crosby purrs an incandescent "Silver Bells" through the speakers; Susan has managed to coax a roaring amber fire out of the logs in our fireplace; the spicy-sweet marriage of rich chocolate brownies, cinnamon- and allspice-laden apple-pecan dressing, and nutmeg-in-eggnog wafts through the kitchen, permeating the entire house; and our Fraser fir festooned with hand-painted balls, cut-glass bells, fine coppery leaves, and crystal icicles is newly graced with the fruits of my gift-wrapping labor: glossy green and red packages bound in gold or tri-colored ribbon and adorned with bells and sprigs of holly. We are the quintessential Saturday Evening Post vision of a country Christmas, surely ready for our Southern Living photo op, or a guest spot on The Martha Stewart Show.

Until you take a second look, that is.

Then you may notice little oddities. From midway down, the magnificent Yule tree seems to be rather bare of adornment; what ornaments remain hang askew, or are bereft of a decoration previously displayed, or - worst of all - are shattered at their necks, languishing on the branch with only their silvery caps and spindly hook-legs remaining as evidence of their former glory. Little detective work is necessary to catch the culprit who committed this crime, as our nonchalant orange tabby saunters through the room trailing needles and bits of broken glass. Two of his brethren join him for a bathe by the fireplace, the perfect vantage point from which to survey the festive fray. Two pit bulls and three dachshunds produce more than enough gas, especially when they have been provided treats they rarely enjoy, to overpower the sweet scents from the kitchen. And as soon as Johnny Mathis' smooth serenade with "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" ends, the CD changer skips to an updated Christmas collection and the sudden, pounding bass from Run-DMC's "Christmas In Hollis" has both man and beast crying foul - man in the form of Susan's effervescent mother Pat, beast in the form of the three dachshunds whose pen is situated directly below the speakers. At least the fire is still beautiful, I muse, but then Mother Nature has the last laugh as a sudden gust of cold wind whips down the chimney and blasts billows of smoke into the living room. Ah, what a delightful evening!

If you pull the camera back from this vignette to look at the bigger picture, this one raucous day was significantly more pleasant and enjoyable than much of the rest of the month. December was a hard end to a hard year, a year full of sickness and change and strife. My son Ethan graduated from high school, turned eighteen, moved from our home to his university, began college, and started a serious relationship in the last half of the year, changes which proved as difficult for me to deal with as they were for him. Actually, Ethan thrived in his new environment, enjoying his freedom a bit too much and ending his first semester on academic probation, a position he shares with quite a few classmates. I struggled with every other aspect of his metamorphosis, finding it incredibly difficult to let go of my only child as he becomes a man. As the year concluded, I was able to embrace Ethan's maturation, his need for freedom, and his relationship with his lovely boyfriend Brandon, recognizing one of the advantages of being mother to a gay son: I will never be replaced by another woman.

I have been less accepting of other trials the year presented. Ethan's eighteenth birthday coincided with the end of child support and a significant portion of my Social Security Disability benefits, cutting our already meager finances by nearly fifty percent. Although aware of the effect well before it commenced, there was very little Susan or I could do to prepare; we had no feathers with which to cushion the blow. On top of the financial hardship, my health deteriorated a great deal in 2009, requiring a major shift in doctors and medications, and impeding on my use of this newly created website and my enjoyment of life in general.

The year was not an entire wash, of course. During the most difficult times, the hardest trials and tribulations, I am shown again and again how incredibly lucky I am to have Susan. While I am a born pessimist, prone to bouts of severe depression on a Sylvia Plath scale, Susan is her father's daughter: the glass is not merely half-full, it is overflowing. Even when this eternal optimism becomes irritating - and all the natural-born pessimists out there will understand how it does become irritating - her undying love never gets old. No matter how bad I look or feel or behave, Susan loves me, completely and unconditionally. I was also blessed this June to attend a huge family reunion in the Long Beach area of Oak Island, North Carolina, sharing a lovely cottage with my parents, brother, sister and brother-in-law, Ethan and Susan; the remaining families were in cottages nearby. The year saw an even closer bond grow between my mother and me, a relationship I treasure. And while my blog suffered, I was able to complete editing and writing jobs while continuing to work on projects for myself, from poetry to short fiction to essays. Perhaps I'll even finish some of those projects one day.

I am not sad to see 2009 end, though, that is obvious. Its denouement came on a brilliant, bitterly cold day, with a rare December 31st Blue Moon - using the popular, albeit incorrect, definition as the second of two full moons in one calendar month - and a partial lunar eclipse. As I sat huddled under a blanket on my favorite chair, listening to Susan and Ethan shooting her 9mm handgun and lighting firecrackers and bottle rockets once the midnight hour arrived, I thought about the entire decade which passed. First, the decade led me into professional, fine art photography, with an introduction into human form and figure which became a passion and led to shows and sales; then, like a child coming home after an eternity away, I returned to my first love - writing. While I continued to write poetry through the years, I had not attempted other forms of fiction for a long time, let alone found an outlet for the essays which had been at the core of my craft since I was young. Perhaps it is too late to become the world-famous journalist I had planned to be from the age of six or seven, but it is not too late to write the words which would have made me famous in the first place! My spiritual quest grew in leaps and bounds during these ten years, as I incorporated my Celtic heritage by blending Wiccan principles in with the American Indian paganism I had followed in the 1990s. Susan was at the helm of my foray into Wicca, serving as my preceptor and guide; as I watched her with Ethan and Brandon, dancing just beyond the glass door leading to our front porch, their cheeks red from the cold, smiles wide and white, I realized the most important people in my life were right in front of me. In 1999, I met Susan at the Showcase Photography School in Atlanta; on the heels of a devastating end to a prior relationship, she and I would become fast friends and, in January 2000, fall in love. Certainly for me, the defining event of the first decade of the second millennium would be my relationship with Susan, and our tenth anniversary would soon arrive, on January 13, 2010. The decade brought a closer alliance between Ethan and me, as well, as we spent its first year on our own and most of the remaining nine as compatriots - often, I regret to admit, allied against Susan in some silly way, and sometimes to the detriment of my parenting duties. The Great Love I had found, the enduring relationship I had forged with my beautiful son, these are the thoughts that passed through my mind that cold night, on the cusp between the last decade and the next.

And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold onto these moments as they pass

It was a long December, a long year, but there is reason to believe this year will be better than the last. If this decade is only as good as the last, I will be a very lucky woman, indeed.

“A Long December,” lyrics/music by David Bryson, Adam Duritz, Charlie Gillingham, Matt Malley, Ben Mize, and Dan Vickrey; © 1997 EMI Blackwood Music, Inc./Jones Fall Music; Reprint by permission.

Samhain Greeting or, My first attempt at Haiku

2009-10-27T17:53:00.014-04:00

bare woods, witches 'round

spy the march of smoke-cold breath

Samhain's ghosts approach

A Question of Equality: Separate Is Not Equal

2009-06-05T14:43:00.014-04:00

I am angry, I am frustrated and I believe I have good reason to feel this way.

Tuesday night, NBC reporter Brian Williams asked President Barack Obama about his views on gay marriage. The president gave the same answer he has given on previous occasions: he believes marriage should only be available to heterosexual couples; instead, civil unions should be allowed between homosexual couples and these civil unions should provide all the same benefits afforded to a marriage. I screamed at the television, as I am often inclined to do; I find it cathartic. My partner Susan sighed and said basically, she believed the president's views are reasonable. As far as she is concerned, the word marriage is not important; the significant issue is giving gays the same legal rights afforded everyone else. (For the record, lest anyone misconstrue her political leanings, Susan is a libertarian and she did not vote for Obama, expecting his administration to deliver us into an Ayn Rand dystopia à la Atlas Shrugged. I, on the other hand, tend to lean far left in my political inclinations; I supported and voted for Obama and, for the most part, still do support him.)

Several months ago, my father made a remark similar to Susan's statement. Although he believes it is an outrage that gays are not allowed to marry in most states, he felt that the gays in California shot themselves in the foot by pushing for the right to marry. He believes gays would fare better if they argued for civil unions with rights equivalent to marriage rather than focus on the word itself. Futile as I knew it would be, I did not debate him. The circumstances with Susan are different and I fiercely voiced my arguments to her.

It puzzles me that the president does not see the speciousness of his recommendation. Jim Crow laws offered the same logic, allegedly providing separate but equal rights and privileges for African American citizens. Contrary to popular opinion, these laws were not confined to the South; most states and the District of Columbia legalized discrimination. The United States Supreme Court put a huge dent in these laws in 1954 with the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which outlawed separate but equal policies in education. However, it took ten more years to repeal most Jim Crow laws with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Three years after this monumental legislation, under Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, unconstitutional, thereby ending all raced-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

Do these cases and efforts sound familiar? They most certainly should. Providing civil unions for homosexual couples may seem equitable, but it is not.

The main contention expressed in the debate over gay marriage surrounds religious freedom, with certain factions among various religions claiming that allowing gays to marry violates its sanctity. This assertion is insidious and fallacious. Marriage is not sacrosanct. While many people choose to marry in church and have their union blessed in some fashion, the contract is not legal without a marriage license, a document required by and granted solely by the government. Furthermore, while a license issued by the state is mandatory, a religious ceremony is not necessary. Atheists, agnostics, any heterosexual couple can have their marriage in city hall in the presence of a judge. Many individuals without religious credentials may preside over the ceremony, in fact, whether it's held on the beach, in the backyard or while parachuting out of a plane. Religious affiliation has nothing to do with the legality of marriage, nor should it; separation of church and state is fundamental in this country, explicitly guaranteed to every citizen by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The impetus for the First Amendment is due in large part to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a law of separation between Church and State." --Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. Time and again, the United States Supreme Court upheld and strengthened the intent of this law, interpreting the First Amendment to include freedom from religion as well as of religion, and ensuring no religious view affect individual rights.

In the California Supreme Court decision upholding Proposition 8, it cited the right of the citizens of California to affect laws based on majority opinion. Further, it stated that individual rights were not impeded by Proposition 8, as homosexual couples are provided most benefits of marriage through California's existing domestic partnership statutes. The California Constitution differs from most state constitutions, allowing voters to revise the constitution with ease. Should majority opinion allow voters to infringe on individual rights? In 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in the United States, approximately 72% of Americans were opposed to the concept. In fact, the number of adults opposed to interracial marriage became a minority for the first time in 1991. The U.S. Supreme Court did not base their 1967 decision on voter opinion, but rather on the court's obligation to protect the rights of individual citizens, whether or not the individuals are in the minority.

I live in Georgia, and similar to all states in the South and most states in the rest of the country, domestic partnerships are not recognized. Therefore, I cannot add Susan to my health insurance policy and we must pay exorbitant fees for private insurance coverage; although the company which provides my benefits allows domestic partners to receive benefits, it only does so if the employee lives in a state which recognizes these partnerships. Susan does not have the right to visit me in the hospital at any time she wishes, nor to make decisions for me when I am unable to do so; we must circumvent this problem with Durable Power of Attorney privileges, and these documents require an attorney and are difficult to implement. We cannot name our partner as the beneficiary of life insurance, pension or retirement plans or even leave property to the survivor upon death; again, we can only circumvent some of these issues with our attorney's help and joint ownership of property. Even if President Obama's idea to provide civil unions to gay couples makes headway, it is unlikely this state will offer such unions. The president asserts individual states' rights and insists this is not a federal matter. I refer him to the Defense of Marriage Act signed into law in 1996, a federal law limiting the marriage rights of homosexual couples. This act was passed in spite of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia which expressly guaranteed the right to marriage, overriding state law. It further violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause, the Equal Protection Clause and the right to due process afforded by the United States Constitution. Former President Bill Clinton was urged to sign this law by the vocal opponents of gay marriage, who feared Hawaii's expected passage of a gay marriage statute would require other states to recognize those marriages. Fear of gay marriage opponents is the same motivation behind President Obama's views; no politician, liberal or conservative, wants to alienate a vocal and powerful group of voters. If there is anything I can say about the opponents of gay marriage, it is that they are very vocal and very powerful. Even as many more Americans support the rights of gays to marry, the issue is important only to a small fraction of these voters; few heterosexuals unaffected by laws legitimizing gay marriage feel a need to argue for their passage.

Would I be satisfied if a civil union with rights equivalent to marriage was afforded Susan and me? Yes, I would; I am not an idiot. Tolerating such a law is not the same as accepting it, however, just as tolerance towards gays is not the same as acceptance of them. I read somewhere that civil unions are about death, while marriage is about life; I cannot remember where I read this so unfortunately cannot cite the source. The essence of this observation strikes a chord inside me: there is a certain connotation applied to the word marriage and to the institution itself; it cannot be approximated with a different set of circumstances applied to a minority of citizens. As other minorities have argued before me, separate is never just and it is not adherent to the principles this country was founded upon. Separate is not equal.

Deja Vu

2009-06-01T23:37:00.004-04:00

My father, my father

Is a very good man

With love in his heart and lines on his hands,

Working hard hands

Such a very good man

His daughter, his daughter

Is a very wild child

With eyes the color of the wild Irish sea,

That's me

Such a very wild child

And back and forth through time I feel

We've been traveling,

Traveling through time

The chicken, the egg

Who was first on this leg

Who was first with these wild Irish sea eyes

My father, my father

Is a very good man

With eyes the color of the wild Irish sea

A sea, a sea

That is me.

A Chronicle Of Ink

2009-05-27T02:07:00.010-04:00

This post is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for my mother and father; my sister probably will not appreciate it either. This post is dedicated to the freaks, the growing ranks of the pierced and tattooed bodies in our midst.

I came late to this community. I was disenchanted, stuck in suburbia with the stay-at-home soccer moms and well-groomed corporate dads; it is safe to say I did not fit in very well, though chameleon that I am, I managed to fool them for a time. The facade slipped a bit the year I turned thirty and decided I was finally wise enough to permanently mark my body. I had long since decided what I would have tattooed, an Irish Claddagh in celebration of my Celtic heritage. Given my environment, I chose to be discreet and had the tattoo placed on the left cheek of my derriere.

The fever took me quickly; in a year I went back to Dirk at Sacred Heart Tattoo in Little Five Points with a beautifully designed Celtic cross, sticking to my theme. He engraved it upon my left shoulder. Soon after came the character for woman in a now-defunct dialect of Chinese; I had studied ancient Chinese history in college and felt an affinity for the culture which I wanted to give due respect. This mark was placed on the right side of my lower back, in an effort to negate a tramp stamp and to afford a balance to the placement of each tattoo.

Around this time I began the impetuous, tumultuous and fevered affair with Susan which, in a steadier form, continues to this day. Our connection was immediate and intense, and I felt with her an affinity and need I had never before experienced. She said we were Split Aparts, an endearing term derived from Plato in the Symposium: "Each of us when separated, having one side only...is but indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half." I was certain she was correct and, in fact, still am sure of it. The appropriate symbol for this union of souls was evident to me: the mathematical representation for infinity. It was only fitting that I have that symbol tattooed on my tailbone, for reasons which are neither appropriate nor prudent to relate.

Now I had reached the magic number: once you have four tattoos to claim, you are officially addicted and bound to ink your body many more times. I awarded this achievement with a different sort of medal, one to which I was less accustomed. Although my ears are pierced many times, including three piercings in the cartilage of my left ear, I had no body piercing. I decided to mimic Susan's piercing during a visit to the Atlanta Tattoo Arts Festival, with a captive bead ring in the nipple of my left breast.

With our fortunes merged, it was only fair that Susan and I trade off tattoos; first it was her turn, then it was mine. Susan has a few more rounds to go to catch up with me; however, that does not override the deal. When my turn came around, I decided it was time to honor my relationship with my son, Ethan. After much thought and research, I decided on an image of a wolf howling at the moon and the words I protect you protect me; the words and image encircle my right ankle. The wolf was designed by a wonderful artist who works with and is a good friend to Susan, a young woman by the name of Amanda Emert; I chose the wolf because it is Ethan's totem animal.

I am an exhibitionist, I admit it freely. With great delight I chose a public forum for my sixth tattoo, the 2006 Atlanta Tattoo Arts Festival. I found a female artist on the Internet whose work I admired and who planned to have a booth at the festival and scheduled an appointment with her. As always, I had spent a good deal of time choosing the next design, returning to my roots while pledging my spirituality with a crescent moon detailed in Celtic knot work accented with a star in the shape of a pentagram. The artist inked this design on my right breast, much to the delight of several male onlookers. Susan was, shall we say, less amused than me.

My seventh and, at this point, final tattoo came last year and is, should I have to choose, the most significant in a spiritual sense. Wiccans, and Pagans in general, give credit to every goddess and god in history; each is an aspect of the Goddess and God. This is perhaps difficult to understand and to explain without a great deal of discourse; neither is truly necessary for my purposes. It is sufficient to say that the Goddess I most identify with is Athena, the Greek Goddess of wisdom. Athena's emblem is the owl and has long since been one of my spirit animal guides. From the time a barred owl visited Susan during our courtship with a message for her about me, this great nocturnal raptor has been sacred to us. For our anniversary last year, Susan gave me a beautiful reprint of Michael Parkes' Athena, in an exquisite frame; it hangs on our bedroom wall. The picture depicts the Goddess on a cliff; Her back is to the viewer and She is bare save for stockings. Behind Her is an enormous horse, of sorts: in classic Michael Parkes fashion, the animal has features not found on your average horse. To Athena's left is a large owl and to Her right a smaller one; once again, the birds have been altered to the artist's imagination. Each has the head of a man wearing a rather unusual helmet. I am enamored of Parkes' work, enchanted by the fantastic nature of his images; therefore, it seemed only fitting to use his version of the owl in his painting of Athena to serve as the design for my tattoo. Susan photographed the larger of the two owls in the painting, traced it onto paper, and then altered it to suit our needs: the head belongs to the Goddess, with red hair as depicted in Parkes' work and as a nod to my own locks and fastened with a helmet from ancient Greece (instead of the futuristic space helmet Parkes had chosen for adornment). We took this design back to Sacred Heart Tattoo, where an exceptionally talented artist named Sten perfectly inked it onto the left side of my lower abdomen.

And so I am now adorned, from the top: left back/right front-left front piercing/left front/right back/center/left back/right ankle, as balanced as I'll ever be. I have no idea what comes next in this quest to decorate my body with art. Well, perhaps some lovely cherry blossoms gracing the curve of my back...hmmm, I'll have to think on this some more. I have time; it is still Susan's turn.

Graduation: The Letting Go

2009-05-26T14:41:00.007-04:00

Along with puffy clouds of white on the mountain laurels that dot our woods like thread on a patchwork quilt, May brings change to our household. My son, Ethan, graduates from high school this week, bringing us to the close of his boyhood and tugging at my heart with the knowledge of the impending denouement: my only child leaves home in a few short months.

I swear, a moment ago Ethan was tripping me up, a toddler nipping at my heels. I blinked, and he was learning to write his name and tussling with his best friend, Jamaal; wait, now he's memorizing multiplication tables while directing his playmates in our cul-de-sac like a little general; ah, now I look and he's taller than me and his blond locks have turned dark, and he's complaining about riding the bus to school and the boredom that comes with life in the country. Finally, we are in the here and now: Ethan is over six feet tall, thin as a rail and undeniably gorgeous to even the most jaded of strangers. The little boy who wore his emotions on his sleeve, as tender and exposed as his mother, has redefined himself in his father's image, careful and guarded and impervious to pain. Except, of course, he is not; the facade is as fragile as the ego it protects. Ethan is not yet 18-years-old and has little in the way of life experience, though certainly he has seen and heard and lived through far more than any of his peers. I have reared him with few barriers; there is little we do not share and discuss, and I am grateful for the relationship we have struggled to achieve. It only makes The Letting Go more difficult.

With obvious delight, Fate and Destiny have wed, sending me images from my own high school career. Old friends and acquaintances I'd long ago lost touch with have reappeared, reminding me of bygone days. Now, like a character in a J.J. Abrams script, I feel tenuously tethered to Time; non-linear as it is, it curves around and leaves me in a constant state of deja vu. Ethan's experiences echo my own, and I feel my life twisted with his in some strange way. Like me, Ethan is in love with being in love, ready too soon for the emotional ties in romantic relationships; like me, he internalizes the pain that comes when love disappoints, intensifying its effect without realizing he is doing so. With some solace, I can also see that he inherited or learned from all three of his parents a sarcastic wit which provides comic relief for the foibles of life. I do not expect life to be easy for him, as it was not easy for me and the times we live in are full of strife, even more than they were when I stood in his place more than twenty-five years ago. I also know he has many gifts to serve him, from his wit, intelligence and tenacity to the beauty of those deep blue eyes so quick to flash with anger or delight. Ethan's name is of Hebrew origin and means "strength." Not physical strength, it refers to firmness, steadiness; the succor of spirit that saves us in our darkest moments. We chose his name well.

So Ethan and I struggle with affairs of the heart, and use biting humor to defend against the pain we feel inside. We search for connections with like-minded individuals, a desperate attempt to stave off the loneliness that creeps inside our souls deep in the night. Nothing changes, not really; we are all haunted by the same ghosts and demons: the need to be accepted, to belong to the Whole, to share our dreams and lives with other people...and all the many ways we believe we have failed at these endeavors. "Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh," writes Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls. I am sure I examine my life more often than Ms. Saliers claims, but the result is the same. In my forty-fifth year, I believe I have mastered some of the lessons of my life, only to be brought crashing back to reality as life shoves me back into the classroom with the death of a loved one, another trip to the hospital, or the fear, loss and dread that comes as I Let Ethan Go.

Dancing With Pain

2009-05-05T13:18:00.007-04:00

"Pain is my lover, my Captain"

So began a poem I wrote years ago, describing the intimate relationship I have with Pain. I capitalize intentionally; like Death, for me Pain is an entity, possessed of human attributes like lust, jealousy and avarice.

I was never the healthiest child, my parents always desperate to get me to eat and gain weight. I seem to remember having stomach aches often, along with other vague symptoms like weakness and fatigue. Fainting spells in middle school relieved me from many dreaded P.E. classes, but no one ever pinpointed their cause; a heart murmur was the best guess. I frequented the doctor's office; unfortunately, the "doctor" was usually an inexperienced physician's assistant. I am an Air Force brat, and my family's medical care was provided by the esteemed colleagues of the Offutt Air Force Base Hospital. Current and former military personnel and their families know what that means; to civilians I can only say caveat emptor.

A willful adolescent, I left home soon after graduating from high school, shunning my university scholarship and father's demands. For four years I lived a reckless, transient life, changing apartments and boyfriends with equal frequency. My employment remained constant, however; I was a secretary at Mutual of Omaha. Although my salary was negligible, I had excellent benefits; for the first time in my life, I had access to superb health care.

One night soon after my eighteenth birthday, I awoke in tremendous pain and my boyfriend rushed me to the emergency room. It felt as though shards of glass were stabbing my gut over and over again. I had only recently seen a gastroenterologist for the first time; I called him before I left for the hospital, and orders were waiting for me when I arrived. Rushed into a room, a nurse came in and delivered the most wonderful medicine: an intramuscular injection of Demerol. Agonizing pain was replaced with a soft, fuzzy, floating feeling; I no longer cared what was wrong with me, as long as I remained somewhere in that Ether.

I spent a week in the hospital, but for some reason the physician did not perform the one, simple test that would reveal my disease. I went through months more of agony before a nurse in Mutual's Employee Health department recommended a different gastroenterologist. I went to him, armed with lab and x-ray results, and told my sad story: severe abdominal pain, embarrassing bouts of diarrhea, appetite and weight loss. He performed a colonoscopy and immediately diagnosed the problem: I have Crohn's disease. It is a genetic, autoimmune disorder affecting the entire digestive tract, primarily manifesting in the small intestine. To simplify a complex mechanism, the body's own immune system goes haywire, attacking healthy cells in the lining of the digestive tract, leaving inflamed and ulcerated tissue in its wake.

So began a long journey with severe illness. For several years, I maintained the upper hand. I denied the pain embroiling my gut, learning to wear a mask that hid my anguish from everyone else. I felt this camouflage was necessary, even required of me. For one, the physician that diagnosed my disease chose not to tell me the truth. Believing I was too "fragile" to learn I had a serious illness, he instead informed me I had a stress-related disorder known as irritable bowel syndrome. (In fact, this had a detrimental effect: I believed my own emotional state was the cause of my pain and so ignored symptoms that were, in actuality, warning signs of dangerous complications of inflammatory bowel disease.) For another, I knew signs of weakness, of true health problems, would hinder my dreams. After four years of poverty and mental ennui, I wanted to get my bachelor's degree. I could not afford to attend college full-time on my own, but my father had reservations about helping me. I was 21-years-old and, for tax and insurance reasons, he wanted me to graduate before I reached 24. This would require a heavy course load and year-round attendance, a rigor he feared my health would not allow. The consummate actress in me won out; the mask was firmly in place and no one knew when I was suffering.

I did suffer, though, even if it was in silence. While it is not the cause of Crohn's disease, stress exacerbates any health problem. In my desire to choose a career that would both please my father and be lucrative, I majored in computer science. Intent on graduating in little more than two years while maintaining a high grade point average, I received special permission to take an overload of coursework, CLEP-tested out of as many humanities courses as the university would allow, and completed my business minor via independent study. I even worked as a university computer lab technician during my final year. To put it mildly, the pressure was intense, and my body responded with frequent cries, "Help! Stop!" For the most part, I ignored it. To be sure, it took a toll on my mental health; that, however, is another story. My kind and generous sister was the only person to whom I complained. During my first stressful summer in college, she paid the University Health Center for a private dietitian to provide meals for me; she knew I didn't want my parents to know of any problems, but the dormitory's high-fat diet was increasing my pain and diarrhea.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my university years very much. I studied hard, but I didn't miss out on many weekends; I dated a few guys, I went to those legendary Nebraska Cornhusker football games and to Lincoln landmarks like the Zoo Bar with my best buddy, Kenny. I probably drank too much, since alcohol is not the best salve on an intestine ravaged by Crohn's disease; I didn't know that, though, since I didn't know I even had the disease. In any case, I not only survived, I thrived. I did very well, and my only regret is that it went by too fast. I graduated with the grandest of feathers in my cap: I was recruited by the pinnacle of research and development, AT&T Bell Laboratories.

It was a head rush, both frightening and exhilarating. I was moving halfway across the country, from the slow and steady pace of the Midwest to the dizzying strangeness of New Jersey. Furthermore, Bell Labs was sending me to graduate school; I would spend a summer in New Jersey followed by one year in grad school, then back to N.J. with my master's degree. My juggling relationship with Pain, I surmised, was going to continue; it simply could not interfere with my life.

Pain had a different plan. Halfway through my year at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, the most intense and searing pain I had ever experienced overtook my abdomen and sent me to the hospital. I was obstructed: the inflammation in my small intestine was so severe, it was nearly swollen shut, blocking the flow of waste into the large intestine. Intravenous corticosteroids were delivered while I laid in my hospital bed, Demerol dulling the sharp, stabbing pain. My Atlanta g.i. sent for my records from Omaha, astounded to discover I had been diagnosed five years earlier but never told. When he told me himself, I didn't know whether to be frightened or relieved. On the one hand, Crohn's disease was serious and incurable; on the other, I wasn't crazy after all.

Although I missed a week of school, an astronomical chunk of the quarter in grad school terms, I salvaged my grades thanks to the - shall I say, energizing - effects of steroids. I felt better, in fact, than I had in years; sleep was not just unnecessary but impossible, and I not only completed my coursework but cleaned every nook and cranny of my apartment with energy to spare. Pain was a memory, and even diarrhea seemed cured. I deemed Prednisone a miracle drug and completed graduate school, returning to New Jersey with buoyancy and a new fiance.

A few weeks after my return, the balloon popped. Maintaining a high dose of steroids is dangerous, but as soon as I weaned off them, I became obstructed again. Soon a never ending cycle began: up and down on doses of steroids, in and out of the hospital. Prednisone is a double-edged sword, slicing away the inflammation and pain while simultaneously wreaking havoc on my psyche, sending me into tailspins of steroid psychosis and depression. Unless I was on massive amounts of steroids, pain was constant and debilitating, and I began a love affair with opiates that would become life-threatening.

There is a point in Star Trek II when Kirk describes a Starfleet training exercise used to gauge a cadet's reaction to a no-win situation. The ship employed in this exercise is named the Kobayashi Moru, and Starfleet cadets and Star Trek fans alike refer to any no-win situation by that name. My struggle with opiate pain medication became my Kobayashi Moru; without them, life was unbearable, Pain a constant and ruthless companion. With them, I was lost; my brain turned to mush, I lost interest and focus, and I spent my time in bed. In the United States, the addiction community is ruled by the 12-step philosophy: addiction, they maintain, is black and white. For the addict, all mind-altering substances are dangerous, and the only treatment is complete abstinence. For me, this rule of absolutes neither makes sense nor rings true; I dwell in a shade of grey, ranging from the deepest charcoals of the mid-1990s to the pale oyster of today.

So I had finally achieved my goals, graduating with honor from both undergrad and grad schools and employment with the best company I could imagine; in a few short years, it was gone. I tried to work, but I spent more time in the hospital than I did at the Labs. Desperate for a baby, I ignored my physician's advice and got pregnant. It was, to say the least, a difficult pregnancy. Rigid from multiple surgeries to resect them, my intestines did not gently make way for the growing fetus, but kinked and obstructed. As wrenching as cramping pain can be, it pales in comparison to the sharp and constant knife of obstruction. No relief from bowel movement will come; as long as the obstruction remains, the pain remains. Hospitalized and assured by all my physicians that it was safe, I allowed them to administer Demerol. Two nurses, at different times, admonished me, "How can you do this to your baby?" I think my (now ex) husband would have killed them given the opportunity; it was a cruel thing to say to a patient in a great deal of pain and mental anguish. After Ethan was born, healthy as a horse then and now, I attempted to return to work. Crohn's disease and my paramour Pain were not finished with me, however, and I finally and permanently went on long term disability, eighteen years ago.

We know the dance by heart, this suitor of mine and me. When I close my eyes at night I can see him, a dark shadow hovering above me, daring me to find a comfortable position. The mask I forged out of necessity years ago finds its place unheeded, even when it doesn't serve me well; how do I explain its existence to the nurse who says, a touch of scorn in her eyes, "You don't look like you're in pain, dear." Still, I prefer the protection of the disguise over the nakedness of vulnerability, to be bared to the bone. Susan is the only one who sees the truth behind the lie, the only one who is allowed. Empathy is oversold and sympathy is rare.

So we dance, Pain and I, to a symphony only we can hear. When I wake in the wee hours, his touch is the first thing that rises to my consciousness. Finally under the care of a competent specialist in pain management, I know I have a certain number of special lollipops, suckers laced with fentanyl, to use judiciously. Pain whispers in my ear, "You want one now, I know you do, but you'll need it more later; let's dance." I have other tricks in my bag, of course, spells and incantations and the simple pleasures and efforts of life; they keep him at bay for awhile. I can seem him, though, there and again; in the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of something dark. Dark, but not disfigured, surprisingly; unlike the Grim Reaper, Pain's visage is neither frightening nor hideous. To look him in the face is difficult, but somehow, sometimes, it is liberating. In the poem I wrote so long ago, I describe how Pain shows me that I Am Alive. That singular awareness comes and goes, like the ebb and flow of the tides; I try to hold onto it, to free myself from this constant struggle, but it remains ephemeral. And so, with a sigh, I let go; I am dancing again with Pain.

denouement

2009-04-30T21:09:00.004-04:00

i have no need to slay beasts

or vanquish foes

from my domain

i have no need to scale peaks

or run for miles

across distant lands

for i have touched the gods

and learned mysteries

of secrets deep

for i have felt the earth

its moves and songs

deep in the night

and there, by the grace

of my lady's hand

i become a man

Through The Lens: Southland in the Springtime

2009-04-28T23:21:00.020-04:00

With our communal camera in tow, Susan and I took a drive Tuesday afternoon, on our way to a nearby nature preserve replete with creek and waterfall. North Georgia is resplendent in Spring, Gaia decked out in Her bridal finery: frothy veils of wisteria like lavender gossamer, and the delicate white lace of dogwood embroidered with tiny crested irises, violets and bluebells, gilded with the silky stalks of last year's broomstraw; her slippers are deep green silk, a patchwork of ivy leaves and soft pine needles. It is a beautiful afternoon, as quiet and tender as a Sunday; Susan has the day off from work and she has been uncharacteristically lazy, joining me in front of the t.v. earlier and, now, commanding this adventure. I haven't a care in the world.

Stretching my legs out and bracing bare, dirty feet against the dashboard, I stare out the window as the landscape of Georgia rushes by: low, rolling hills verdant in the April sun, ochre and violet-tinged mountains hazy in the distance. Van Morrison is on the radio, speaking to me clearly, "I can hear her heart beat for a thousand miles; And the heavens open every time she smiles." My cheeks ache, evidence of the goofy grin I've been sporting for an hour; a shiver traces the back of my neck as Susan intertwines her fingers with mine. It was a long, twisting and at times treacherous road, the journey that took us to this point in our lives; it is the truest of loves, and I know I am lucky to have found it.

Susan has navigated back roads to our destination, driving slowly eastward. Spring awakens in the South in stages, rolling across the state like a wave, leaving a rainbow of color in her wake. Her beauty arrived here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains weeks ago, igniting plants and animals alike with the fervor of a Beltane fire. I roll down the window and inhale; the first breath of Spring fills my lungs, clean and crisp as cotton. We pull into a dirt drive and park the car, just a few feet from the entrance to the preserve's nature trail. With the camera strapped over my shoulder and a can of ginger ale in hand, we set off down the path.

Susan is set on photographing the waterfall for which this spot is renowned, and she quickly disappears around a bend in the path. I travel more slowly, pausing to take a shot of the creek that meanders through the woods, and of a narrow wooden bridge spanning it. Through the heavy curtain of oaks and pines, I catch flashes of a brilliant blue sky. Van Morrison is still in my head, and his songs begin to mingle with the music of Nature: the gentle percussion of water rushing through the stream, the rustle of leaves as the wind softly caresses them again and again, and layer upon layer of songbirds lifting their voices to the sky. Off to my right, a pilliated woodpecker strikes hard timber, a rapid-fire tapping like a nail gun on speed. At once it is a lullaby, gentle and soothing; and then suddenly it is a symphony, a cacophony of melodies intertwining. The saturation of color and sound is breathtaking to behold; if I could capture the smallest measure of this beauty, I would be thrilled.

Van continues to speak to me as I make my way along the trail, Nature's beauty echoed in "It Stoned Me." Indeed, this place is intoxicating; my head spins, each new breath rushing into my lungs filled with perfume: the tangy sweetness of honeysuckle mixing with fragrant wild azaleas and the woodsy scent of longleaf pine. I have nearly caught up with Susan; she calls me from around a bend, where she has reached the waterfall. She patiently waits as I reach her, taking my hand and guiding me forward. As usual, I have not dressed in the most appropriate attire for this venture; my legs, bare from mid-thigh down, boast various scrapes bright with fresh blood while my feet, clad in plain white Keds, slip treacherously over rocks and leaves strewn about the trail. Susan smirks with bemusement, eyebrows raised and head shaking as she steadies me, gingerly helping me down wooden steps that lead to the stream and waterfall beyond. Susan has never had a femme girlfriend before me, and feminine trappings often mystify her; she has dressed appropriately, protected in jeans, thick socks and hiking boots. Yet I know she thrills at rescuing me, my knight-in-shining-armor whenever required.

At the bottom of the stairs I am finally afforded a view of the waterfall and the wide pool of water before it. Negative ions abound, noticeably cooling the air and sprinkling my arms with goose flesh. There is magic in this place, evident in every living thing thriving here. Two tall oaks guard the far bank, their roots interlocking like Susan and my hands: they are soul mates, I understand, bound together forever. Susan has had the camera while I absorbed the scene, but now she hands it over to me. I want the lens to memorize this tableau, to capture it the way it looks to me now, the mountain alive with color, scent and sound: the water is crystal clear in the stream, reflecting a cerulean sky; its gentle lapping is now replaced by the sputter of the falls, white foam spilling over the rocks like tufts of white clouds or fuzzy cotton. Vivid splashes of crimson explode from shoots of red maple, mingling with the maroon of sweetshrubs in bloom, visual representations of the element of fire. Every shade of green is displayed, from the dusky moss of the pines to the rich emerald of ivy; white, pink and blue blossoms peak into view between the trees, wildflowers showing their Spring colors. I can hear Gaia's children whispering in the trees, a discourse generated for eons, well before and long after humans walk the earth. It is glorious.

"And it stoned me, to my soul." Yes, Van, yes indeed.

Dreaming Kerouac

2009-04-28T00:21:00.013-04:00

Last night I fell asleep reading Jack Kerouac's On The Road, and dreamed in Beat images. The cadence of my breath fell in time with a distant trumpet I swear I could hear. I was back in Nebraska, traveling that vast wasteland that stretches between Omaha and the Wyoming border. A train rumbles along a distant track as I feel a beating beneath me, the staccato of tires rolling over a highway pointed towards the West.

I've been on this road a million times, riding Interstate 80 with the sleepless truckers, speeding past lonely farms in the middle of Nowhere. Cows and corn, truck stops and gas stations, exit lanes leading to towns with one stoplight and beefy, corn-fed farm boys dreaming of life in Lincoln or Omaha, the Big city. I'm on my way to a concert at Red Rocks in Denver, or to visit a friend in Cheyenne, or score drugs in Scottsbluff with my boyfriend, John. It's a long, lonely drive, riding I-80 across the western Plains; in the days before satellite radio, the FM stations from Omaha and Lincoln fade an hour into the trip, and my tape deck is forever breaking. If I have company on the trip, we talk aimlessly of our dreams for the future; I'm not yet 20 and the future seems as wide open as the Nebraska landscape. Anything is possible now; I can change the course of my life as easily as I can turn the wheel of the car and head north, south, or back east. And indeed, the course of my life would take many turns from that point, and lead far away from my prairie home.

But tonight, tonight I'm riding the highway in my blue Pontiac, riding shotgun as John drives and Mike rolls a joint in the backseat. The tape deck is being kind and we're listening to Todd Rundgren, creaming over the Utopia concert upcoming in Kansas City. Night has fallen fast in the Plains, and we ride beneath a starlit sky so wide you'd swear the two horizons will meet. We're just west of Grand Island now, and the Platte River still closely parallels the interstate, weaving through the prairie just south of us. We'd swim in that river, at the place where she meets the Missouri just west of Omaha. In one year I'll nearly drown in the Platte on a foolish Saturday with friends, but tonight she keeps me company as she follows us west. John, Mike and I are on a quest for mescaline, making this, for us, a spiritual journey. We are acutely aware of how sublimely a hit of the substance will affect our experience with Todd and his band, and intent on achieving our goal, keeping the night company as we chatter away.

John and Mike are my Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsburg, and this was the beginning of my life on the road. I would learn to map the topography of Nebraska against the back of my eyelids, leaning out the car window, the wind whipping hair against my cheek. I would learn all the hand signals the truckers use, and how hanging my legs out the window would garner a honk of the horn, every time. I would learn the names of the waitresses in a dozen greasy, brightly lit truck stop diners and know which places served decent coffee. I would learn just how fast to push the speed limit along any given section of the highway, and which towns could boast having a McDonald's, making the detour off our path worth the time. I would learn these things and more, but most of all I would learn who I wanted to be and where I wanted to go in life. I would learn how much fun I was willing to trade for hard work, and who I would be willing to leave for a different life. I would grow up and become a woman in those wandering years, that immense span between leaving home at 17 and returning to the fold at twenty-one. And when I did emerge at 21, I would leave behind me all the friends I lived for and loved through those years. Ah, but what fun it would be along the way, the hum of the road buzzing through my body and every word we spoke rich with meaning. Colors were more intense, love was more desperate, and life, like my prairie home, was a wide open landscape ready to welcome me.