Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη (Eternal Memory) Chapter 3

These wounds won’t seem to heal

This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase
I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along
- Evanescence

Getting older: responsibility, relationships, career, realizing mortality. I am barraged everyday with yet another strike to sanity - the insane are normal and all the rest are merely fools. You want me to smile and laugh and sing, and smell the flowers and watch the birds soar, maybe even get out of bed? Put a lime in the coconut and then we’ll talk.


Really. Drinking laws, smoking restrictions, drug abuse, skyrocketing therapy and happy pills, murder, theft, earthquakes and tsunamis, starvation, homelessness, pollution, guns, everywhere sadness and pain. I can’t wake up out of insomniac sleep and hug a tree now, can I? I did as a child. I was protected by parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and surrounded by cousins and friends. I never thought that those protections would crumble and leave me exposed to life. And no one prepared me. You just can’t teach life, you have to live it.

My cousin Reenie gave me a single star sapphire earring to wear. We are both named after our grandmother, Irene. Irene is Eirhnh in Greek, meaning peace. The earring is a memory, reflection, bond that ties us together and to our family; it reminds us of the symbol we stand for, and perhaps a secret key to my identity.

Eirhnh si ton agnonti= Peace be unto you.

I found myself waking up on the morning of March 3, 1999 a bit groggy and worse for wear. I had spent the night before celebrating my birthday with friends, consuming too many Amstels, enabling me to numb the sadness of my grandmother’s death. Upon waking, reality began to slap me around. My stomach barked, not just from over-consumption, but nerves. I could hear the movement of my parents, siblings, and aunt trying to get ready for the funeral: six people fighting silently for showers. Even with all the commotion, an eerie silence filled the air. I got out of bed and fumbled about the shower, accepting the inevitable.

After preparing myself, and finding my appearance appropriate for the church and respectful of my grandmother’s memory, I took my black-clad self upstairs to see if my father needed any help. I was not surprised to find him feeling weak and anxious. His new experimental chemo treatments had left him drained of life and as helpless as a child. On top of this physical torment he would be burying his mother. His emotions, similar to my own, were a mix of relief that she would no longer be suffering and sadness for her loss. The depression that was growing inside him debilitated him even more.

My mother and I helped get him dressed and cleaned up. We attached his suspenders to his dress pants, helped him button his shirt, put on his socks, clipped his fingernails, and attempted to tie his tie. I could not help it when the tears welled up in my eyes. This was my father.

When I arrived at the church, I looked around and saw all my cousins, now grown with families of their own, and many of my father’s boyhood friends. Over the years a large rift had developed between my father and his sisters and brother-in law. I remember the days of family gatherings and feasts around my grandparent’s table. Lately, none of the holidays were celebrated around a festive table; no visits over coffee and dessert were had. The Grand Canyon separated cousins and aunts and uncles. Now at the matriarch’s funeral we were united for the first time in uncountable years.

I finally brought myself to say, “Goodbye,” to my grandmother. I walked up to the casket with Erica for support. For the first time since I was told she had passed, I felt an ocean form in my eyes. She looked beautiful. I saw her just two weeks before; she had looked less than human: her hair was stringy and oily, face drawn and pasty, as she slumped in her wheelchair, cluelessly staring out the window. She smelled of age and neglect. Now she had a peaceful grin, her hair fashioned as it had been in my childhood, her make-up was soft and natural, and she was dressed in her favorite dress, a bold purple and fuchsia flowered party dress. This was the grandmother whom I had loved. She was finally at peace and accepted it. I was glad to have this as my parting image of my grandmother. I felt our connection even more so at this moment, for I was named after her, and she had now passed it on to me.

The priest finished the service with a eulogy that actually made the family snicker. He either didn’t know my grandmother that well or he was just trying to console us with beautiful words. He talked about my grandparents as a team and never speaking harsh words to each other, which was laughable; their relationship of 60+ years was never without raised voices or name calling (we wondered if the priest just really didn’t understand Greek). Then he went on to say that my grandmother never complained, especially about her miserable condition in old age. This, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth. My grandmother would constantly say, “What life is this? Why did God do this to me? Why can’t I just die instead of living like this,” and others just as these. I looked around at my father and his two sisters to see them shaking their heads and even giggling over this. It lightened the somber atmosphere.

After the absurd eulogy everyone went up one last time to say, “Goodbye.” I hadn’t realized how many people had come into the church during the service. There were friends of the family that I hadn’t seen since my adolescence; people that my father grew up with and were his best friends, with whom he’d lost touch. At this point the sorrow seemed to shift from that of my grandmother’s death to my father for his pain and the consuming cancer that afflicted him. Wave after wave of people would give their condolences to my father’s family, then would face him and clasp his frail frame. They didn’t want to move on; they were holding onto my father as if they were holding onto his life. It became the morbid foreshadowing of his death. And the tears welled in my eyes. Even though my father has always been a difficult man these people still loved him. Everyone seemed to share the same guilt for letting the insignificance create gaps in time. When people came up to me they hugged me too tightly and said, “I’m sorry.” When I looked into their eyes I knew why. I understood the years and the human ways of trying to ignore and conquer time. I felt the pain of people regretting the things that had been placed between themselves and unconditional love. It was not my own life that flashed before me, but my father’s.

The burial was quick as the March wind attempted to blow the sorrow away from us. The rain that was expected waited until we filled our cars and drove on. The flowers that we placed on top of the casket were as bright and colorful as the dress my grandmother wore inside her bed of white satin. There were no more tears. She was at eternal rest. We were going to miss her, but now there was no more suffering. The crowd of family and friends departed the cemetery with arms around each other reminiscing about the grandmother whom we all loved.

Everyone reconvened at Alexander’s for the memorial luncheon. My father went home because he couldn’t eat or swallow. When I told his friends this they were sad because they wanted to spend time with him, to wipe away the years that had passed between them. Before the meal my uncle, my father’s brother-in-law, made a speech. He gave this long-winded speech in Greek, but then followed with the important parts in English.

He said, “George and I may have never seen eye to eye or gotten along very well, but we do share something that goes beyond personal differences: we deeply loved the same woman, his mother, Irene. This woman did everything and anything for her family, and sacrificed much of her self for it. It is time to learn this lesson that she left for us; love each other, family is most important, and never let differences interfere with this love.” Then he came over to me, gave me a hug, and said, “Your father and I may not like each other, but I love him, please tell him that.” No one else heard these final words, but I spoke them to my father when I got home – a tear followed a line in his cheek and he smiled.

My cousins and I sat together, comparing stories about our grandmother. We laughed at her superstitions, smirked at her incessant candy distribution, and chuckled at her unwavering faith in the uses of Jean N’ate. We walked down memory lane, talking about the family feasts during the holidays at my grandparents’ home. We poked fun at each other as if we were children again at our grandparent’s house and took turns rambling over our grandmother’s words of wisdom. The morning had faded into afternoon and now evening. We were celebrating our grandmother’s life by allowing her to bring our family back together.

Life’s lessons are what we choose them to be.

Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη (Eternal Memory) Chapter 2

A furious Angel swoops down like an eagle,

Grabs a fistful of the infidel's hair,
And shaking him says: "You shall know the rule!
(For I am your good angel, do you hear?) You shall!
Know that you must love without making a wry face
The pauper, the scoundrel, the hunchback, the dullard,
So that you can make for Jesus when he passes
A triumphal carpet of your love.
Such is love! Before your heart becomes indifferent,
Relight your ecstasy before the glory of God;
That is the true Voluptuousness with the lasting charms!"
The Angel who gives punishment equal to his love
Beats the anathema with his giant fists;
But the damned one still answers: I shall not!"
-- Charles Baudelaire

Why as children do we believe that parents know everything, can cope with all life’s challenges, and do all the right things? Because: we need them and depend on their skills and blanket of protection. I remember thinking that as I grew older some magical force would instill life’s wisdom in me. Reality check. I know that parents are no smarter or capable or enlightened, just seasoned. I still harbor resentment and anger and frustration and sorrow over my relationships with my parents, how they morphed, unraveled, crossed, were human. Who was I before now? I don’t remember. Trauma is a changeling. This shouldn’t be news to anyone unless you think you’re sane.


Photographs are amazing thieves. They capture a moment in perfect unreality. They shock your senses and send them reeling to a time passed. Comments, people, places, memories return with the clarity of a DVD, and you watch your movie of life in replay. My albums contain stolen pictures of my parent’s secret lives before children, childhood portraits, friends gathered in intoxicated merriment, and pets long since resting under the lilacs in the back yard; all episodes of my comedy, drama, and horror life. One in particular was taken at my parents’ 28th wedding anniversary.

My father sits center surrounded by his girls and wife. We are smiling and casual: a family. What the picture actually says to me is another more graphic truth. I focus on my mother to my father’s left. His arm is draped around her shoulders, but she does not sink into his embrace; her arms are in her lap and her body language is stoic. The reason for my venom returns – her spite is evident.

“Mother! What the hell is your problem?! You’re so inconsiderate to dad?!” I barked following her around the kitchen as she darted from my fire.

“What do you mean?” she replied, hoping to get away with a ‘what-innocent-old-me?’ act.

“You’re treating him like shit!”

“How am I doing that?”

“You procrastinate with his needs, and practically ignore his very existence!”

“I do NOT!”

“Don’t give me that crap! I’m tired of this whole thing! I’m in the middle of both of you!”

“You don’t get it, Renee, do you?! For the past twenty seven years I’ve put up with his attitude and inconsiderate actions. I can’t do it any more. I really don’t care!”

“Shut up, Mom!...like I haven’t lived in this house too? I know that he hasn’t been the model father or husband, but he needs his family now. He needs us to forgive him and help him. He’s trying to reach out, but you’re being too much of a bitch to see it!”

“Renee! Just back off! I don’t want to hear it anymore,” she said as she conveniently disappeared into the noisy laundry room.

In 1994 my father went for surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. He was going to have the valve in his esophagus removed because of severe damage done to it by what most people think little of, Acid Reflux Disease. He had recently undergone several blood tests, cat scans, and MRI’s to make sure there was nothing else wrong; they all came up negative. For some unknown reason I decided to take the day off from work to keep my mother company in the waiting room. Both my parents tried to talk me out of it, saying that the doctors assured them that the surgery was standard, and they didn’t predict any complications. But I was going with them.

We were up and out the door by 5:30 am. The sun was just barely peeking out, and the morning dew rested heavily on everything outside. My father insisted on driving, exclaiming, “I’m not an invalid! I’m just going for surgery.” So we let him drive. I sat in the back seat beginning to dread my decision to spend the next five hours in the hospital waiting room. I looked out the windows, watching the few other cars on the Schuylkill drive by on their way to work.

Occupying my misery with watching the travelers on their way to city offices, I was presented with the stomach-in-throat view of witnessing an accident: a little grey compact passing a bunch of cars, weaving in and out of lanes, well over the speed limit, then three-sixties, crash, crumple, bang and whew…we were too far ahead.

“Dad, someone’s watching over us today. We just missed that accident.”

“See, that was a good sign,” he said and drove on.

Once checked into the hospital we sat silently in a waiting room, passing the wee dawn hours, not wanting to speak our anxieties. My parents sat down next to each other in a closeness that must have reflected their pre-marital affections; ones that I had never seen or known, and grown to disbelieve the existence of. I could feel the tension and the fear in their closeness and solemn silence. I knew I had made the right decision to come. My mother needed me; though we fought sometimes we were always close, and today maybe I could offer her some of the comfort that she had given me all these years. She was my best friend and comrade in schemes, allowing me to be an American girl, not a silent, restricted, traditional child.

About a half an hour passed and the nurse called us to our next stop. We went to my father’s room and were told that we only had a few minutes before they started his IV and pre-surgery meds. I kissed my father and said I loved him, wishing him well during the surgery. Then my mother walked over to him, shaking slightly, double checking that he had everything, and that he was ok.

“Ok, George, we’ll be in the waiting room,” she said to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek and holding his hand.

“Don’t worry Maria. I just wish you didn’t have to wait around so long.”

“I brought my crocheting with me. I’ll be fine. If you need anything have the nurse get me.”

“I’ll be fine. They know what they’re doing.”

Another kiss and “Bye, daddy,” and we were out the door.

The waiting room was somewhat comfortable with carpeting and cushioned seats. The pictures on the wall offered relaxing tones of blue and grey, an escape from the sanitary hospital decor. We sat for about an hour and a half, shifting in our seats, trading magazines, and exchanging small talk. A nurse came in and told us that they were prepping dad for the surgery, which would last about four hours, and then she disappeared from the room.

Hungry and already stir crazy we wandered down the maze of bright, sterile halls, looking for the cafeteria. It was high morning now, and the hospital was buzzing with movement: pagers echoing down the corridors, medical staff power walking from room to room. When we finally found the cafeteria we surveyed the fare offered us; hospital food…less than yum. We sat down across from each other and picked at our so-called food – burnt toast - and sipped our watered-down coffee.

“Mom, is everything going to be ok?”

“I think so. The doctors are really positive.”

“Are you going to be ok?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. You just seem weird.”

“I guess I never thought about your father and I getting older and having medical problems, that’s all.”

“I’m glad you and dad are getting along these days.”

“Me too…me too,” she said as if drowned in the milky darkness of her coffee.

On our way back up to the waiting room I picked out a book—a five hundred pager, Judith McNaught’s Whitney, my love (a brainless beach book to keep my fears at bay) —and some snacks. The eternity of waiting before us, we shifted in our seats and moved around for different perspectives of the four walls caging us, reading and crocheting the hours away.

Four hours came and went. My mother leaned back and closed her eyes. I noticed worry lines crossing her face. She looked drawn and tired. When she opened her eyes again she stretched and asked how much time had passed. We asked the nurses’ station for information, but they sent us away with nothing.

“Mrs. Pappas…I just found out that your husband is still in surgery. I don’t think that there are any complications, just that it is taking longer than expected,” a nurse explained finally attending to us.

“Well, do you know how much longer it will be?”

“No, they didn’t say. But the doctor assured me that he would call on you as soon as they are through.”

My mother busied herself again to avoid being overly concerned. I went and sat down next to her while I read my book. After a while I realized that I only had a handful of pages left, and my mother was asleep again. Another three hours had passed without a peep. As I finished the last page of my book the nurse came in, my mother woke up, and we were directed to the doctor’s office without another word.

Once seated in the doctor’s office, I leaned over and held my mother’s trembling hand.

“Maria, the surgery went fine, George is in recovery now…but…we did find a malignant tumor. We removed it as well as a few lymph nodes in the surrounding area. Now, I don’t want you to get too upset. Since all his tests were clear we believe that the cancer was very isolated, and we feel strongly that we removed all of the bad tissue.”

“But…how…what happens next?”

“We’ll talk to your husband tomorrow once he has more of his strength back. There will be chemo and radiation, but that is just to be sure that there are no renegade cells.”

“When can I see him?”

“I have to warn you that he is attached to machines and IVs, and isn’t very coherent.”

“I don’t care. I want to see him.”

My mother stood next to his bed and rubbed his hand; a few tears trickled down her face. I tried to do the same, but blackness crept and my ears echoed. I moved towards the doorway only 5 feet away, but seeming a thousand steps, just as the eerie abyss took control – losing the lights I began to pass out. A nurse realized what was happening and offered water and smelling salts.

“Is that your mother and father?”

“Yes, I don’t know what happened to me. I was prepared…I…I…”

“Don’t worry, dear. Take a few deep breaths, and don’t let them on to your surprise. It will be ok.”

At his bedside, I held on to the rail with one hand and rested my other on his shoulder. He turned bleary eyed towards me and nodded his head in recognition. “I love you,” I said to him. Then the nurse took my arm and led me back out of the room. This time I dropped. Weakness, profound fear, incomprehendable emotions took a hold, and I couldn’t return to his side.

My father received numerous treatments after his return home, and was given a clean bill of health. Over the next five years my parents reverted back to their miserable selves – though in a deeper and more complex way - as my father alternated between succumbing to and triumphing over his cancer.

My father’s temper veered towards ruthless and irate in speech and action. Time was eroding my mother’s patience and movie-esque vision of marriage; she had enough of his almighty ego and bad attitude.

“George, I’m busy too.”

“God damn this house and the people in it! Can’t you do anything?!”

“Oh, shut up. You have no idea…”

“Don’t tell me to shut up! When I’m dead you’ll see…you’ll see…”

Most arguments mimicked this scene, including banging on walls and tables and stair stomping. Dishes would clang and doors would slam all along with their murmured words of resentment - their self-made, miserable lives together. My father wasn’t the knight-in-shining-armor that she dreamed him to be, and my mother wasn’t the perfect-suzie-homemaker or the good-little-Greek wife that he wanted her to be. The bitterness kept growing inside them, consumed them.

The sicker my father became the more my mother’s anger grew. The more dependent on her he became the more she purposely ignored him: she’d forget to call in and pick up his prescriptions; she wouldn’t make phone calls for him when the paralysis of his vocal chords left him no voice; she stopped cleaning the house and doing his wash. She never spent time with him, not even to periodically check on him to offer assistance. Little by little, my sisters and I took on various responsibilities. Our mother faded into the background: a shadow of a mother and wife, sulking, lurking around, embittered and raging inside.

By the spring of 1998 my father had taken a turn for the worse. My mother at this point couldn’t be bothered; the simplest, humane action was a chore. I had become my father’s aide, taking care of phone calls, wash, bills, doctors, letters, preparing him for bed, including dressing him, calling in nurses to bath and prep him, filling his feeding bag with his nourishment, being his daughter and friend, and then collapsing myself.

My mother, once my best friend, I resented. My father, once my mortal enemy, I tried to save. I realized that my father did love us; he just didn’t know how. I forgave him, the man who never let us want for anything, who worked 70 hours a week to give his daughters and wife the world, but failed emotionally. I’d spend my nights tossing and turning, trying to make sense of this life turned upside down and inside out. My mother and father had somehow traded places in every way imaginable. It hurt, made no sense, and created a chaos that still does not rest.

One cold morning my father rang his bedside bell for me to come up; he was cold maybe or looking for some companionship to warm his spirits. He was three days into a new experimental chemo that made death more appealing. I found him in his oversized armchair, looking frail and ashen. He pointed me towards the edge of his bed, motioning me to sit. As I did I saw something I had never before, a well of tears in his eyes. Overwrought with emotion I knelt down in front of him to hear his trembling, raspy voice.

“Am I such a burden on my family…Do I ask too much…Do I ruin all your lives with my sickness…Do I disgust every one so much…”

“No, dad, no! Don’t ever think that…”

“Why, why do I feel like this…”

“Please, dad…”

“I can’t go on like this any more…I can’t take the pain.”

“Dad, please…we love you…don’t feel that way…I know it’s hard…that’s what a family is for…don’t ever think anything else…”

“What have I done to my family?” What…what…what have I done to my wife…she...sh…”

“No, dad…it’s just too hard on her…she’s trying to figure it all out…please dad, don’t take it that way…we don’t want you to be like this…”

“I can’t…I can’t…have…I done this…oh…God…what has happened…”

“Dad I love you, we all do, please, we want you to be better…just…know that we love you…”

I tried to hug him, to hug all his tears and pain away. A torrent flooded down his face, his eyes swollen and red, and he just cried and shook and cried and shook.

“Thank you, Renee…I’m sorry…I’m…” he hugged me then pushed me away.

I left his room and ran down the steps with my own tears threatening to drown me. I found my mother in the kitchen and spewed venom. I hated her at that moment. Each time she tried to dodge me I hated her more. I chased her around the kitchen until she hid in the laundry room. I ran outside for air, begging for answers, understanding, comfort.

“Why…why…why?!” I cried out the sky.

I understand that I couldn’t understand anything. And struggle with the fact that I will never understand, merely learn to cope. I don’t remember those days anymore, the ones where my mother and I were inseparable, friends, partners in youthful energy. I don’t even remember the girl I used to be. The change I experienced was the great Pangaea separating, and I live in a new world with new boundaries and landscapes that I battle to survive to find my place and make sense.

Commentary on Eternal Memory

So I haven't read my Precious in about 5 years...I wrote it, presented it, and hid it away.  I remember being afraid of letting those mentioned in its ink know my reality and soul.  I cringed thinking that I could bare no more of me without tearing my skin from my bones.  The history is simple:  as a teen a good therapist and someone I will hold dear to my heart forever gave me my first journal.  She said write, share if you want, keep it private if you prefer.  I took her suggestion to heart an put my teen angst to paper and committed my poetry and some short stories to its pages.  I still have this journal, the only one I ever really kept, and as time moved along I would spend a few hours hand copying my collections into the safe confines of its binding, a compilation of mish mosh - of me.  And if by chance some new verse comes to mind I will place it there as well.  I laugh reading through my early pages now, but that's what growing up is all about.

I really never wrote beyond that little pink cloth book with a bouquet of something fresh on its cover until undergrad.  Those years at Penn State Abington changed my life in so many ways.  I would compose a novel on that time alone, but perhaps that's better left behind closed doors for now.  There are several teachers with whom I credit my crystallis: Seesholtz, Miller and Simon the most.  I learned to be a writer and be personal and free with my pen.  And in those days it was a pen and lined paper.  I started standing up for myself, my beliefs, principles and perspecives: I found my voice.  I was able to use this magical time to piece together my soul in pages of dreams, memories and papers.  By grad school I emerged and produced my Precious.

I look back at this blog from the depths of my post-partum madness and recognize that same fear of exposure and truth I had on printing day.  Over these past two years I've been able to release most of those ghosts and even though they hang around and remind me they will always be a part of my Mindspace I don't fear them, they are a part of me and helped create me and they can be friends not hauntings now.  So today I introduced my old ghosts to the new spirits and they can have a party, drink vodka in my honor and do a little dance...I know they will get along just fine.  I am curious though...if they will invite me to tea.

Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη (Memory Eternal) Chapter 1

In a world where all is borrowed,

And time like elusive dust seems to
Just slip through out fingers,
All we really have are these precious moments
Where we can make fertile the soil
In the garden of our hearts,
That here love may make its home
And here the mortal seed may flourish.
For life like a magnificent mysterious cloud holds
Its shape and form only long enough for us to blink,
And all our precious memories are but shadows of
Time that will drift away like fallen leaves returning
To the emptiness from which they came.
Thus we are, like innocent children flowering
In the garden of souls.
-- Azam Ali


It’s a curse to think sometimes. How many years have gone by and I know nothing more and nothing less. Of course that’s a lie. I know much more, but feel as though it is much less: more information only leads to more questions – never-ending, cycling.


The crystalline flakes fall from above, resting like cotton on the yard. It’s been snowing all day, and now as the sun is low on the horizon, I hear neighbors starting up snow blowers in harmony with shovels scraping the pavement. The seemingly futile effort to remove the whiteness from sidewalks and driveways has begun. These sounds are an intrusion in the quiet. I always say, “It sounds like snow.” Snow sounds like nothing: peace, solitude, wiping away all that exists, a non-space and non-time, a pure moment when you understand the vastness of life and your presence in it. As far as you can see the dirt of everyday life is erased and a new world emerges. Normal commotion on the streets is paralyzed and for a time families sit together and watch a movie or share a meal; parents teach their children to sled and make a snowman and snow angels. The frustration and stress of our modern world becomes frozen in time. We can simply “be.”

As the sounds of the blower engines and shovels continue to echo, I’m reminded of my father bundled up head to toe, looking like the sta-puff marshmallow man with all his layers.

“Come on, girls!”

“It’s still snowing…”

“Too cold…”

“I’ll come out when this is over.”

“Yeah! Can we build a snowman?”

My sisters and I grumble or hesitate or jump at my father’s request to help him clear away the snow. There are four of us: me, being the eldest and most troublesome of the lot; Erica, the quiet Schroeder; Chrissy, spunky and playful; and Connie, too young to see any reason why being outside in the snow wouldn’t be fun. My father is so excited to “play” with his new snow blower, he hands us all shovels, like this is really sand and we want to dig. He doesn’t really give us any instruction, just to clear the porch and off he goes, strutting along, making pathways, and piling up snow-rubble for us to make forts. He doesn’t really care that we’re running across the street to assemble a neighborhood snowball fight because he and the other dad’s are shouting pleasantries across the way.

“Morning, George. Get that from Sears?”

“Sale. I’ll help you with your sidewalk if you’d like.”

“Thanks! I might get myself one of these babies.”

For some reason they are enjoying the “work”. After the sun dims in the sky, my father calls us back in the house. Dad and daughters track into the laundry room - leaving a trail of soiled water, hats, scarves, gloves, boots - sniffling as the blast of warmth emanates from the fireplace where we huddle together crimson-cheeked next to the fire.

I wonder when those smiling memories began to fade, when the moments of snow ceased to bring my family together in this wonderland. I really don’t need to look farther than my years as a teenager that linger darkly in a cave that I keep contained behind a boulder. Not that I was any better or worse than your average teen; it was the times and my upbringing that collided, and the result was painful to both myself and my parents, especially my father. Teen angst set in and me, his eldest, his star, his angel of purity, was turned into a stranger before him. Neither he nor my mother could comprehend the enigma before them that was me, and I didn’t make it simple, rebelling against my culture, religion, tradition, and myself. That’s when the snow irritated me.

“Renee, get down here and help.”

“I’m on the phone. The girls can help you.”

No more would I run outside and take the shovel handed to me as a toy. I didn’t want to play, I wanted to go shopping, hang with my friends at the mall, and didn’t want to be suffocated by family togetherness.

Then again, what would you expect from a child sheltered from the streets by Greek Orthodoxy and traditions, and sent to a private Catholic school for a better education – at least better than the public schools at the time. It was the seventies and my parents were new to the whole parenthood event; I was the honeymoon baby after all. I may have been sheltered, but only because they too were confined by their Leave it Beaver ideals. I opened a month-old Tupperware of leftovers in their faces when I turned 15 and a year of public high school had enlightened their precocious little angel.

I can’t help but to wonder if my parents’ June-and-Ward-Cleaver mentality instilled a slight romantic view of family in me, or perhaps, it is adult acceptance of my Greek heritage that makes me seek a blood-bound family cohesion. Mind you, I didn’t spend my teens in a remotely ideal functioning family, but for some reason I believe in one.

I hold onto the notion that even though my father considered me demon seed and possessed by Beelzebub himself, it was merely because I grew up in a different time, and love was all I needed. And guaranteed, I didn’t know it myself. I wanted to experiment and explore, curiosity was my downfall, resulting in years of family and personal therapy and distaste of all things familial. Was it me or the fact that my parents didn’t know how to teach love? Should it be innate?

I refer to the 12 months beginning March 1999 and ending the following February as the year of sorrow, but also the year of my new awareness. I painfully watched my paternal grandmother pass, followed by my father, who was in turn followed by his father - 12 months and an entire family decimated. I was in my late twenties and trying to grasp getting older and finding my identity while coping with mortality; it wreaks havoc on an already sensitive spirit.

I was angry at my father’s god for taking him and causing so much suffering; my mother’s nervous breakdown and her nonchalance; my sisters’ youth and its selfishness; my maternal grandparents for moving back to Greece; and life for being so incomprehensible. I was alone and without guidance – at least in my teens I thought I knew it all and was completely unaware that immortality was a thing for fiction only; I lived carefree and reckless. Now my world went topsy tervy and I began to confront the demons hidden deep under folds of grey matter.

As a child I spent Sundays witnessing the endless 3 hour religious services spoken entirely in Greek, or in Sunday school classes applying the differences between what I was learning from the private Catholic school I attended versus Greek Orthodoxy. The Christian belief system embedded itself in my consciousness. I was a model daughter to my father, innocent and wholesome, and capable of speaking his mother tongue after years of Wednesday night Greek school. He was proud of me.

eva, tdw, tria, tesera...deka penta - smack! I became a stranger and danger to my father and his sensibilities.

Let’s just say that all things Greek were evil to me, along with any traditions that I spit on as I applied the notion of rules-are-meant-to-be-broken.

“Renee, let’s go! We’re leaving. Get your ass down here.”

“I don’t want to go to church. I’m not sitting through 3 hours of babble.”

“Don’t you speak like that. Ungrateful heathen. You don’t have a choice. Renee, you disgust me! Get out of my face. You are not my daughter!!”

“You don’t understand me. We live in America; I hate those people at church, and I hate you!” These words regularly rang through the house; my father would belt at the top of his lungs and beat walls and doors, trying to exorcize the demon before him, the changeling that stole his precious first born. His face would contort and lethal steam rose from his ears, thus began the converting of simple life into an inferno.

At 19 a note left on the kitchen table advised my parental units that I no longer cohabited in the family abode.

It was the year 1995 and I found my image in the mirror foreign. I had been living with my boyfriend, Brian, who had just the Christmas before become my fiancé. I spent several years of my life with him only to realize that my dream of husband and father was crumbling under a lifestyle more suited for Lifetime TV. My rebellious teenage self was growing into a woman and learning that life cannot exist on beer and smokes alone, and I craved the family I had left behind 6 years ago. In May I packed my bags.

I stood in the center hall of the apartment I shared with my fiancé and took one last glance around. The dark paneled walls and brown carpets were gloomy, not warm, not home. All the flowers, paintings, and knick-knacks that once adorned my living space laid in boxes that lined the walls. I peered into each of the rooms to be sure that nothing was forgotten. The first bedroom was scattered with baseball cards and fishing equipment that had lost the organization of the cabinets and shelves that were moving with me. The main bedroom had only the bed and dresser. I decided to let him keep them since the bed stood for something we no longer shared. The kitchen was bare, save for a service for one and an old picnic table with broken and chipped boards. The family-room furniture was all that remained: his TV, an entertainment center, sectional sofa, and second hand coffee tables at least made the room bearable. I felt only slightly pained to realize that he was left with nothing, but the fact remained that we had created our home with my family heirlooms, and they were coming with me.

After my final check, I walked into the family room and found Brian sitting on the couch, drinking his cursed beer. He wouldn’t even look at me. OOOOOOO, how that enraged me!

“Well, I’m packed up…I…I guess I’ll put the last of my stuff in the truck and head out…”

“Whatever…humph.” His only reply.

I took the last box downstairs, and drove away - tears streaming down my face.

There’s truth to the saying, “When it rains, it pours.” For at the same time that my personal life was in shambles so was that of my family; my moving home coincided with my father’s parents moving in with us, and facing the shock of the return of my father’s cancer. Surreal, nightmarish, chaos - all at once our lives were upside-down.

Here’s the Dali for you. Grandfather - Alzheimer’s and Muscular Dystrophy; Grandmother – blind, dementia, and congestive heart failure; Father – esophageal cancer; mother – nervous breakdown; me – 23 years old with identity and guilt complex; Erica – living in Boston to attend college; Chrissy and Connie – teen angst. The house consisted of barely functional dysfunction: Greek and English seared the air in the confusion brought about by the lives forced together. My mother and I took turns being nurses for my grandparents while denying my father’s illness.

“Renee, please help your grandmother to the bathroom. I’m getting their dinner ready.”

“Mom, I can take care of them tonight. Go relax.”

“Thank you. You’re grandfather is having another episode today; he’s calling for Armando again. Who is this person?”

“We’ll never know.”

“Come on, yiayia, let’s get you to the bathroom.”

My father was so distraught seeing them in such poor health that he could barely be in the same room with them. Instead of being compassionate towards them he was angry, and suffering his own illness, which fed his anger further still.

“Dad, this is your home now. You are home. Stop talking like a crazy man. I did all this for you.”

“Where are my keys? I have to go home now. Who are you?”

“Dad, it’s George. See, there’s your TV and bedroom. Maria is getting you dinner.”

“Where’s my car keys? What craziness is this?”

“Stop that!” My father pounded on the wall yelling and stormed out of the room.

My grandparents became lepers in their own home because of the way my father acted towards them, and because of how our frustration and disgust with them became visible; we had become slaves to them. This was too much responsibility for an already troubled household; it was sad, shameful, and heartbreaking.

By the fall of this same year, my father had pulled through the cancer once again - remission. I decided to go back to school. My mother was losing her mind. The fighting and confusion generated a vortex of anxiety when you walked into the house. For three years following my move home I was living in a war zone: father vs. daughter, husband vs. wife, child vs. parent, health vs. illness, and sanity vs. chaos.

It was during these three years that I was constantly reminded of why I left home at eighteen. My father and I were always fighting while I was growing up. My mother and father had not had a happy marriage for years because of strong differences of opinion – Greek traditions versus American living. Not a breath of air in my house was taken without consequence.

“I’m out of here. Going to the mall.”

“You’re staying home tonight, this nonsense of you being out all the time is stopping now.”

“George, she’s a teenager. Let her spend time with her friends. She doesn’t need to be home tonight.”

“Shut up, Maria. This is your fault the way she’s become. She’s disrespectful and careless, and you allow this. I’m the man of the house. You listen to me.”

“George, your temper is the problem. You are the one at fault for our problems.”

My father would become so incensed at times that he would scream and yell, shaking the whole house. I remember counting the days until graduation not just to be out of school, but to be closer to leaving home. My father was a bitter man, no doubt due to his lack of childhood, from being an immigrant and working from thirteen years old to help support his family. He was angry at the world, and from watching how he treated his own parents, I saw that he was angry at them too. He was leading me into the anger and resentment track that he fell into himself. His inability to understand the nature of life was destroying himself and his family.

Now I was voluntarily back in the environment I escaped, and loosing grip slowly. The apocalypse was sure to be soon.

By the spring of 1998, whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, my father was taking a turn for the worse. He was having problems swallowing, was tired all the time, and losing weight quickly. He went to the doctor’s after accepting the fact that something was obviously wrong. When he returned from his appointment he walked in the door solemnly and went straight to his room. The tumor was suffocating his esophagus. He could no longer eat; a man once over 200lbs., was now looking at the scale reading 120lbs; he was skin and bone, frail and weak. My grandparents had no concept of what was going on around them and fed off our anxiety: my grandfather would violently strike at anyone who came into his section of the house with his cane, yelling, “Who are you? Get out of my house.” My grandmother would throw hysterical fits of her own, claiming “What life is this? Why does the God Almighty give me this life? This is no life.” My mother could no longer function in the household and the house became as chaotic looking as our emotions. She locked herself in her room, covering her head with the blankets and pillow to block out reality. My grandfather talked to the air, while my grandmother complained. My mother was shutting down, and I had to pick up the pieces.

Once the summer hit, my father had a feeding tube put in so that he could try to gain some strength back to fight his disease. It was also agreed upon that my grandparents would go into a nursing home. Now that the stress of caring for my grandparents was gone, it was time for me to face the denial I was in about my father. I knew he was sick, but I never really believed that it would kill him; he was a tough man, and I didn’t think that anything could bring him down. Even though I was always fighting with my father and harbored resentment towards him, I couldn’t accept the fact that he could die. I had spent so many years hating him for his condescending attitude, his perfectionist ideals, his irritated tone of voice, his overly critical expectations, and his anxiety over insignificant things that I never got the chance to love him. I was watching the powerful, authoritative man whom I called my father waste away and turn into a frightened child. I began to realize that all of his intimidating ways were just a shield to protect him. Having lived with his parents for an extended amount of time, I found that they didn’t know how to show love or affection either. My father had learned from them so these characteristics had been passed on. He had an unrealistic sense of control that led him to believe that he could control life and its circumstances and everyone around him. He had almost passed these ideas onto me until I saw through his facade. I began to love him.

When my father had gone into surgery to have the feeding tube put in, “something happened” -- he came out of surgery with paralyzed vocal chords. He was left with only a raspy whisper for a speaking voice. He couldn’t even do the one thing that he loved so much, yell. In trying to get himself heard, he would stomp on the floor or bang on the walls to get our attention or express frustration. The kitchen in our house tends to always be thick with conversation and activity. Here is where my father would become the most agitated. Since he couldn’t speak over the multiple conversations going on between his family members, he would become red in the face and knock things around ‘til it was quiet enough for him to be heard. I wonder if this was God’s way of silencing his unjustifiable temper? Eventually he learned that his temper was putting undue stress on his body and resorted to waving his arms in a “this-is-no-use…forget-it…to-hell-with-you” way. It forced him to listen to other people for a change instead of silencing them. I began to say, “I love you” to him whenever I was given the chance. I even would give him a kiss on the forehead to reassure him that I meant it. He never really said it back, but I could see it in his face the way it softened as he smiled.

By fall we learned that the chemo and radiation failed. The doctors decided to put him on an experimental drug that made him so ill and weak that it broke my heart to look at him. When he would get a treatment he would stay in bed for the next ten days. He would just lie there on his side with the blankets pulled up about his head. He looked like an ashen ghost of a human lying there in bed. The pain emanating from his body seemed to penetrate my own being: I would shutter upon entering his room. Sometimes he would sit in the big armchair next to his bed with his hands over his head and his elbows resting on his knees, leaning over a waste bucket, sobbing. His esophagus was blocked; he couldn’t swallow or vomit. This only added to his misery. There was no consoling the weak creature that replaced my father. There were times when I couldn’t even go into his room to set up his feeding tube for the night for fear of the tears that would roll down my cheeks. The odor of sickness in his room and his own graying aura would keep me at bay. Now that I wanted to love him, I was too distraught to.

We were on borrowed time already, and the owner apparently wanted it back. There were no other experimental studies available, and both Sloane Kittering and Fox Chase turned him away. All we could do was wait. Regardless of the pain, my father would still muster the courage to move on; he would be showered and dressed for four hours of work at Raytheon each day. He still tried to maintain that false sense of control; it was the only thing that he had left. Somehow it kept me going too. It gave me strength to watch him fight.

How to Release a Ghost

So I said I wasn't going to blog today because I just didn't feel like it.  I've been spending every spare second catching up on years of lost reading...my brain has been starved.  I wanted to talk about Anya's first official hair cut or how sucked in by the eReader I recently purchased wirh gift cards I've become and how I've turned off the TV at night and even disconnected from FB further than I expected in my experiment.  But I haven't felt compelled to detail all this insanity.  Yet 4 minutes before quitting time and a nanny to relieve I suddenly can't stop myself.  And here is my question...

I have a memoir that grew from Undergrad to my Graduate project that I'm compelled to introduce here on my blog.  I feel like my story is in too many pieces now and I must merge and meld them all together.  That being said...I'm curious...shall I plunk it all out in one gory installment, or shall I release a segment daily or weekly or periodically as I walk down my mindspace lane?

Dead Relative Society

Post tummy-sick day, complete with Pedialyte and minimal solids; I reluctantly taught my dance class and lumbered to bed. I settled in nicely considering the 3 hour nap from earlier in the day. Usually a nap means no sleep that night, but obviously I needed the extra down time. I turned on the reading light while Anya crawled over my head and book demanding to be the center of attention. She pointed to the black cuneiform on the pages, and when I said it was a big girl book she said, "Oh," and proceeded to lay upon it. I can only assume she was not amused by the dull pages her mommy attempted to devour.

I realized reading was not an option since Anya refused to curl up and sleep. Off with the mini light, page bookmarked and glasses to the head board. Snuggle. No you can’t pull my hair. Twinkle, twinkle little star…snore. Glasses, light, book, yay. I finished my first book in years. Coming from a previous English Master’s student I am a shamed of myself for letting life come between me and my secret lives. I am reclaiming my imagination. I am refusing the lure of the internet and TV after hours. I want to set an example for Anya. Soon I hope to read her more than 3 word books and bring her into my world of lands and people from beyond our backdoor.

I was hoping to watch The Good Wife before I called it a night, but I wanted to dwell in the new land a bit longer. The end of a book makes me sad…I’m usually not ready to leave my new friends and their home so soon: this was no exception. I drifted off considering their lives post The End.

I used to always remember my dreams. Actually, I typically kept a dream journal. I ran out of energy to track my mysterious grey matter encoding and decided that I should enjoy the blank memory or exciting adventure each morning. Last night got my attention. Of course the further removed I am from my REM time, the less clear and accurate my memory becomes. I’ve had time now to analyze and wonder and I note a whisper down the lane effect on the events already. But I must take a moment to jot down what is left. Perhaps it means nothing, or maybe later I will look back and understand.

Enter an enormous hall, like a banquet facility, and it had at least two rooms and a long hallway, non-descript walls papered a burnt sienna and round tables covered in white table cloths dotted with coffee cups, white napkins and what appeared to be the end of dessert. The tables were packed and all I could hear was the murmur of a room full of chatter. I couldn’t make out everyone, but I knew all those present. I found myself drawn to a table where my Yiayia Irene and Thea Foto were sitting. They seemed younger than I remember and they were both so happy to see me. I can’t remember them saying anything specific, but I know I see their mouths moving and they are smiling. For a split second I note I may be dreaming, after all our relationship with Thea Foto post dad’s death was the equivalent to Siberian exile. I recall going to hug them, but never actually doing so, and sitting down with them exclaiming how happy I was to see them and how well they looked. I also, strangely, recall placing an obvious baby doll in front of Thea Foto and her fawning all over it, but it had no name, and was definitely a newborn stand in.

I stood up and saw Uncle George A. seated at a table not far away. He seemed larger than life and I could hear his booming laughter. He turned to me and waved and I felt warm and safe. I can distinctly say this was a gathering of the Pappas clan, although my father was curiously absent. If I saw him sometime in my dream his image is lost now. I know I walked around and said, “Hello,” to many people that I hadn’t seen since they travelled on. I remember thinking how strange. I don’t remember any of my family from my mother’s side there, and thought that may be strange as well. I believe now is when I begin to understand I must be dreaming or why was I dining with dead relatives.

At this point the “feeling” of comfort and security fade away and I am in a hallway off the room. There are tables set up with big pictures of vacation homes and bright and showy advertisements. I immediately understand this to be a time share and a scam for all those present. I’m a bit panicked now and running around the place saying, “No, tell these people to go away. Don’t talk to them.” And I wake up when everyone is telling me trust the time share folks and to sign up too.

When I woke up I wasn’t afraid or even disturbed. I was fascinated about the Dead Relative Society that I visited during my sleep. I’m not sure that it means anything at all. It is just so strange to have seen and remembered some specific people, and wonder why certain people were absent or part of the blurry murmurs. I hope this is not a portent and I am curious what warning it may be. My unconscious mind hasn’t spoken in so long; I forgot it had opinions of its own. Perhaps I just woke up a long dormant part of my mind with the book I read.

Being Human

I've awoken to the realization that I'm a borg designed technology zombie with conversion swift and painless via time vampires and ADD villians.  The fight is on!  And how might you ask I'm planning on defeating the evil empire that has captured my soul?  Not so easy I can assure you.  Silent baby steps, I cannot allert myself to the slight adjustments I'm making or the ripple effect will be violent.

Step 1: Disengage from all FB games - except one to pass slow times at the office;
Step 2: Purchase book and read it - not to be used for paperweight or wedge;
Step 3: Turn away from shiny screens via above mentioned literary device;
Step 4: Blog more often replacing journal of the 20th century - some technology is a must so as not to be tricked again by said modern evil;
Step 6: Only check blackberry twice when not in the office - the world will not end, I am not the keeper of the button;
Step 7: ...I've said too much already...

I am tired all the time.  I am busy all the time.  I constantly feel forced to connect.  Most of this forced feeling is self inflicted, but some is a direct result of brainwashing...resistance will not be futile.

Stay tuned for updates from the Resistance...

A Heinous Beast

I'm not sure why I'm writing this morning: perhaps it's an insomnia induced stupor; maybe I don't feel like focusing on my work yet, or maybe this will never make it to publish. In any case...my head is bleary and achy and my joints are on fire: I'm tired and having a high-level pain day...um...yay...not.


4am...my eyes popped open like a rolling shade. I thought it may have been my 5:45 wake up time and I had successfully slept through the night. Not so. I looked to my side and Anya nestled deep into my ribs, but no toes in my nose or knees in my throat. I listened for the ridiculously loud neighbors in hopes that their rustling and bickering woke me. But alas no. Awake. I tossed around and snuggled and cuddled and messed with the covers and the pillows: no sleep for me this night. Sometime after 5 I dozed off...5:50...alarm...thwap.

I know why I can't sleep. I feel stress and fear nibbling and chomping at my brain. The house, my job, feeling like we are both single parents passing at odd hours with a cordial hello and goodbye, the laundry, changing over Anya’s next size clothes, my aging body, my car, the lack of a means to function financially: the circling vultures sqwak and scream while the clock pendulum swings back and forth. Is it a sink hole, quicksand, the earth's edge, a black hole? I don't really care what analogy or metaphor gets used - the reality of this awful place and feelings keep even the vampires out.

I want to begin a tirade on modern society and the destruction of the family and community and the corruption of what we call capitalism and democracy in this modern society. But that pales in comparison to what aches in me today. I want to beg for miracles for those I love who are facing the pain and agony of illnesses that our modern world mass produces. I cry thinking of my dear friends suffering like my father did...their plight tears open old wounds and I hurt for them like I did my father. I have no strength left. I hear my father whimper when he thought no one was near, "Why? Why me?" And trail off into sobs. I think of my friends now as the mothers we have become and my heart aches as they look into their child's eyes, holding strong. I cannot comprehend their strength. I am proud to call them my friends and those I look up to.

The empath in me hopes that no one faces the world alone, without hope and love. That when the night seems darkest we know that we live, adventure and laugh together. That even though some moments we feel and face alone that we are still joined together by the passing of our breaths. I'm not the praying kind, but if there is some great omnipotent being, I want to have faith that it is not a cruel being, thriving on our suffering and pain. Yet it is so easy to blame some unknown for our misery; it must offer us comfort as a justification or grand plan to our plight. Or we develop platitudes and clichés to make sense of it all. Having watched my father suffer day by day, hour to hour my venom towards all the fluffies is immeasurable.

I know that no amount of words or hugs makes it better. I know that the pain is so deep that it is untouchable. I know that the fear conquers the most rational being. I know it makes no sense.

The Bog of Eternal Stench

So....fucking...tired...snore.  What the hell?  In an attempt to placate my husband I once again ventured to get Anya to sleep in her crib.  After a month of puking and screaming at the idea that we expected her to slumber in her own bed and, therefore, sleeping with mommy (or daddy some nights), we had to get her back into her crib.  We took Anya upstairs together and with hugs and kisses Rich left Anya and I to our goondnight routine.  Anya and I sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I Love You and and one round of Wheels on the Bus.  Anya laid back to snuggle and finish her milk and I returned the cuddles.  When the yawning, rubbing of the eyes, and nesting into the crook of my arm started I knew it was time.

I scooped up all 24 point whatever pounds of toddler and not as gently as I would've liked placed her into her crib - yes I put the side back up earlier in the day.  "I love you sweetpea," and I swept toward the door.  "Mooooommy, mom mommy mommy mom no mommy mommy pleash pleash mommy...."  And here we go.  I stood by her crib and let her hug me while I rubbed her back.  "You are a big girl and need to sleep in your bed."  "NOOOOO mommy pleesh," she continued to wail.  Slowly over the next hour I step by step retreated...I refused to pick her up...she's not going to get me this time.  I went from hugs over the rail to aloof and not touching her slowly, but giving her kisses on her head every now and then for some comfort.  Eventually the tears stopped and she just clung to whatever part of me she could reach over the rail.  She sucked her thumb and I thought started drifting off on her feet.  She even laid down a few times and I thought, "WIN!"  But as soon as her head hit the pillow the mommy pleeshes started all over again. 

I was exhausted and heart broken that I was putting her though this, but knew I needed to be the mommy and make some of the rules.  I kissed her and hugged her and finally said, "Good night, Anya."  As I started for the door...I knew the pitch...that wail...the alarm...that tone...I picked her up quickly and said, "Anya don't you dare....."  HHhthwwwaaaaaa muuuuppptt  blooooosh all over me, her and the bedroom.  If I hadn't been witness to this vomit factor for over a month now only at into-your-own-bed time I would think maybe she's sick, her tummy hurts, or awww poor baby, but, no, that is not the case.  My mother snickers at my disgust saying, "You did that to me until I gave you a spoon and said eat it."  Whether or not my mother was truely that sinister I don't remember, but I'd try it if I thought it would work too.

Rich got the shampooer and spray and plastic bags and paper towels and helped me strip Anya and myself of milk flavored wretch.  I stiffled back my dry heaves, but only due to the ferocity of my anger.  I felt like a failure.  How could this be happening?  Why can't I a) get my daughter to sleep in her own bed, and b) be a mom and deal with the puke myself.  I felt defeated and deflated and incapable and beaten; all after an evening long feud with my husband to boot.  A wave of anxiety and sadness and betrayal and fear clung to my soul as Anya and I got into the tub to clean up.  She wouldn't let me put her down.  She screamed and shook and pleaded for me to hold her.  I tried reasoning with this scared little peanut, "I can't wash us if I hold you."  Rich yelled at me for scaring her, for being less than a caring mommy, for being mad and upset that I was tired, in pain, vomited on, and emotionally spent before bedtime even began.  There I was holding a sniffling toddler, wreaking of puke, and the water ran cooler and cooler until...FUCK!

For a change Rich had a hot relaxing shower before his own bedtime, and as irnony has it, we needed that hot water.  I had to turn the water off, still holding Anya, I stepped out of the tub, under the heat fan and wrapped a few towels around Anya to keep her warm.  She had stopped sobbing and shaking but clung to me as if it were the end of the world.  We stood there dripping, in the center of the bathroom and the smell of vomit baking under the heat fan.  I stared off into nothingness: broken and a shamed of my lack of motherness at the moment.  I remember rocking for a bit and that my feet started hurting and my back was breaking.  I tried to pry Anya off of me and lean her on the sink.  Success but not without rebellion from the stinking bog machine.  Eventually, 30 or 45 minutes later Rich boiled some water and directed my frozen wet stink into the tub with Anya.  I washed her first and handed her out of the tub while I bathed like they did the year my house was built (for those not in the know the 1800s).  At least I couldn't smell the stench any more.

Rich ran another round of cleaning product on Anya's room as I sat in a towel in the dining room in silence while Anya banged a concerto on the piano and giggled at herself.  After all efforts to remove said vomit from Anya's room created a smog of chemicals Rich took Anya up to our bed to fall asleep and I dried my mop of maybe cleaned hair.  My arrival to my room produced a sound asleep toddler, a drained spouse and anxiety.  Rich went downstairs to clean himself up and watch some TV to cleans himself of the grossness and frustration.  I crawled into bed bone chilled.  Hour after I hour I stared at the clock, my feet felt dead of blood.  I started getting reflux and couldn't get the rot of bile from my throat.  12, 1, 2, 3 I turned up the heat 2 degrees, put on 2 pairs of socks, and downed a gallon of milk and finally fell to sleep...all the while Anya off in dreamland without a stir. 

Double Negative

I feel verbally empty...bahahah...yeah like that is possible.  In reality I just feel silent.  It's not like I have nothing to say, but my voice betrays language currently.  I am caught between an emerging me and the me of my yesterdays.  It's not that I miss the concept of an old me, I feel lost in the whirl of the up-and-coming me.

I hear the philosopher echoing in the folds of grey within my skull; I sense the rage of a college student finding her principles;  I see the strength of a mommy with convitions and hopes; I taste the honey of dreams; yet I smell the pain of age and financial strain and confusion.  I envy the young...wait...what did I just say...young...when did I become not young?!  I believe middle age came a knocking and my mommy brain didn't think to ignore the visitor as if it were a collections agent.  What trickery!  I am not mourning my pre-baby self, I am lamenting my youth.  WTF!  Now let's think for a minute...I am not old, but i am no longer young, and that my friend is a fact. 

The saying goes with age comes wisdom.  Raised to respect others, especially my elders - they've been there done that...they know a thing or two - I believed that saying whole-heartedly.  Now I cynically view the general population as idiots that become more ignorant by the hour.  Wisdom where for art thou? Deeply entrenched in the workforce my elders morphed into peers in a blink, and I find it difficult to respect these same people whom I looked up to when I witness bad behavior, disrespect, arrogance, rudeness, stupiditity, and I could go on, but will spare myself and you.

Every human is fragile.  Perhaps by physical health, mental state, emotional situation, whatever their edge...there exists that moment when we realize that we are susceptible, gossamer beings.  Our nature evolved, originally, by protecting each others threads, yet once we reached the pinnacle of compassion we began to spiral into de-evolution and capitolized on another's frailty...any fracture or spindle solicits an attack.  I am disgusted.

I corrolate my disgust to age.  It was ok to be an independent sprite in high school, an elitist in college, a powerhouse after graduation, but then somewhere along the way I pondered me.  I shiver at the realization that at some moment I will no longer breath.  I miss my little girl, husband, sisters, mother and the rest of family and friends to an ache much like missing my father.  I understand the importance of a family and the courage of life and accept that priorities adjust and change and realign for good reason.  What escapes my comprehension involves those that fail to grown themselves, see blindly, and travel life without looking outside.  I also despise sheeple and hope that I can raise my daughter to not one herself....let's not go there today.

So...silence...oblivion...muteness...me?  Yes.  I find myself often in a place of polar points...at once verbal and assertive and contemplative and mute.  At times I can stop myself from a tirade or blasting bandwagon and propoganda, then at others I crawl into my void and philosophize.  I sometimes think I am too quiet, especially around my daughter.  She evokes a depth of meditation that I cannot verbalize.  I enjoy the smiles and cuddles, scoff at the defiance, and revel in motherhood...I fall profoundly into my abyss...which at the moment is a positive place. 

Darkness need not be bad, scary, morbid, hurtful: it can offer healing, safety, realignment, comfort.  I hear the pendulum mark the passing of the sand.  I feel the pain of the dunes slowing me and the rocks weigh me, but I am far from my destination...yet I accept that the easiest of my days are behind me.