AdventureWorld

Dualing Daddies

I never talk about the particulars of my “difficult childhood”—the difficult being doled out by my father. I never felt compelled to tell The World all the gory details of such personal experiences but suffice it to say that back in the day my father made the Great Santini look like a Girl Scout.
When I was little I thought he was Evil but now I think he was just crazy because he hasn’t been even a little bit evil in a long time and I don’t think evilness ever wears off but sometimes crazy does.
I forgave him a long time ago but there’s been feelings I had about that forgiveness that I’ve never quite been able to put to rest. These things are very hard to explain but FuckabunchaAdventureBoy totally got it when I said it to him—I didn’t even have to do much explaining.
One of the things is that forgiving is not the same thing as forgetting and this causes me to have to deal with the duality of having a father who’s been two entirely different fathers to me—one that was a Horror Show, who showed me nothing even vaguely resembling love; and the other a loving father who thinks I hung the moon AND the stars. Duality indeedy.
Sometimes it would do my head in, like it always made Father’s Day a real challenge—not because it brought up bad or sad emotions but because WTF do you do with that duality on the day designated specifically for sugar coated sentiment about dear old dad.
It’s not like Hallmark makes a card that says You used to be an evil bastard but now you’re pretty nice and besides you’re full of remorse and staring down the barrel of your own mortality which makes me feel really sad for you and then it makes me wonder how I can feel so sad for someone who was so mean to me but lucky for you I do or you wouldn’t be getting this lovely card. ♥  
Oddly enough they have nothing like that so I always have to wing it. I just call instead and say something relatively obscure.
Jcube had a great idea one time--he said call on Saturday instead of Sunday and that will take some of the oomph out of the pomp and circumstance. He always knew the exactly right thing to say to me, better than anyone I’ve ever known.
But meanwhile, back at the hacienda, the thing was that this time when I was in Texas the duality was somehow reconciled—no more dueling duality. He was just my father, an old man I love, who was in a lot of pain; a once amazingly-agile-for-an-old-guy who knew that he had really screwed the pooch when he climbed up on that roof. He knows he'll never be that able-bodied ever again. It's a sad truth.
All I thought about was helping him through all of this.
Suddenly it was that simple. Simple is good; simple is a happy thing.

4j3x2

yesterday

a long laundromat hour, an old fade,
a familiar slide of time;
soap in boxes, machines of it;
a sign begs, "keep this place clean."
outside, the bars are so wetly lit
in their silent huddled storefronts;
electric buses pass by in the rain
with their peculiar leviathan sound
noising the night.
electricity hums along wires
strung above the street,
fine web of wire.
i wait to be inhabited. smoothing laundry,
feeding the tumbling with coins, buses swim
along the street, sighing those metal sighs
there isn't a thing i do today
that does not have your name written, sounded into it;
sounds like something maybe looking for air,
breaching above the wetness,
maybe calling a name
out into that drak, folding sky.

~jesse b. castaldi~

Artifacts

Today I was going through my clothes, sorting out what stays and what goes. I’ve been in a big organizing mode, pulling everything out of closets and drawers and sorting through them.
Finally, all that was left was one small drawer in my bedroom closet. But every time I started to open that last drawer my stomach rolled over, like when you drop too quickly from a height and your stomach can’t seem to keep up with the rest of your body.
In fact, it was exactly like that.
I don’t put anything in those drawers except for travel stuff—toiletry cases, electric current converters, my airplane pillow. When I opened the drawer at first I didn’t even know what I was looking at—I didn’t recognize these things. And they weren’t the kind of things I wear.
I pulled out a beautiful lacy ultra-fem camisole and thought WTF??.. and then I remembered. These were the things I bought especially for that trip to Utah.I thought it would be a really nice surprise to find girly-girl lacey goodness under rugged hiking clothes. I liked the juxtaposition and we liked that word.
There were several things, some of which I don’t even remember buying. I bought them little by little, over several months. Anticipation is one of my favorite things.I put those things there, all together, so I wouldn’t forget any of them. I never took them out until today.
Artifacts of an unfinished life.
I don’t know what to do with them.
I put that camisole on and it looked good, really good, but I don’t think I can ever wear it .. or any of those things. Not even if I had a reason, not even if I decided to go on that road trip with El Papel. Because they’re not his, they belong to somebody else.
I don’t even remember walking out of the bedroom but somehow there I was just standing in the kitchen at the open window. I don’t know for how long.
I wasn’t thinking of anything or looking at anything; I was just standing there. Eventually I became aware of a bird singing, then the sound of distant traffic. I just stood there listening, listening to all the sounds coming in through my window. The sound of time moving on while I remained stuck in that moment.
And when I finally did start thinking my first thought was this is just like something else, something really familiar ..and then in my head I saw Buffy standing at the kitchen door in The Body. The scene where she just stands there staring out the door, staring but not looking. Not seeing.
And we hear the ordinary sounds of  life all around her. But in that moment time stands still for her while life just keeps moving on without her.
I always thought that scene captured grief perfectly. I was right.

The Man and The Moon

I have letters that my Dearly Departed asked me to write, right before he departed this world. Letters written in Botswana, letters that I was supposed to read to the moon so he could hear them. After all, we’d bounced phone calls off a satellite in outer space when I was "off the grid" so why not bounce letters off the moon, too.
And he knew how much I loved the moon. He wrote a poem about me and the moon one time—not a rhyming or measured-meter kinda poem; it was, as he was, unconstrained by convention. It was wild and beautiful, a waterfall of words.
At first, I thought his wish that I still write to him every day, just like we had planned, was a sweet and sentimental thing he wanted to leave me with. But now I believe it was more than that.
I think he knew it would be good for me, that it would “keep him with me” as I weathered the waves of shock and grief. Because that would be exactly the kind of thing he would think of. Because that’s the kind of guy he was. And he was right, describing the day’s adventures in letters to him every night made him feel near ..and like maybe he really would be able to hear them.
I don’t know why I haven’t been able to read them to the moon. It comes and goes and comes and goes and comes and goes but I cannot move.
At first the thought of it scared me a little I think, like it would just be too sad or too “final”.  But, also, part of it is that I always felt like it should be done at a special place, like maybe a place we loved in Utah. I’ve really been drawn there lately so maybe that’s it I thought. But…
I was talking to my brother about this because he’s the one who cried with me and said you can’t let a guy like that down on that awful day in July when I thought I could not get up and get on that plane. But me getting on that plane and going to live my dream--our dream--for both us was part of that last wish. I'm so thankful to his sister for making sure I knew this, for getting his words to me, words that I read over and over again, words that I carried with me every step of my journey.
My brother and I decided I should read my letters to the moon on a pretty piece of land he owns, way out in the boonies. A place where we build big ol’ bonfires and hang out together when I’m back in Texas.
It’s not a sacred place but it is a special place to me and my brother. And anyways, a big bonfire like the Winter Solstice one sounds right. Well, maybe not quite that big. heh. Jcube loved the Solstice bonfire celebration with his family and friends.
So, that’s the plan for my next visit to Texas so I’m coordinating travel plans with lunar cycles. I want La Luna extraordinaire. Well, and it will help with the reading part.
But even after every word of every letter has been read he will still be with me. Shining and whole. As he was in those happy last days.

Think

One of the things I do in my consulting with clients is teaching them how to think differently. I know that sounds odd but if you can change the restrictive way we most often think you can change your whole understanding of an issue.
For example, by limiting your thought process to just looking to validate an already existing theory you will only see things relevant to that theory and you may miss a whole lot of other important things in the process. And sometimes you will be so eager to validate your hypothesis that you will not interpret data clearly and objectively; you will interpret it with a bias toward proving your theory. Capice?
And if you get too focused on data that can also marginalize your thinking because you get so focused on fact gathering that you lose the big picture. Then you can’t see the forest for the trees.
So changing the way you think can even change your whole worldview. It’s fascinating. I love working with clients on this kind of stuff. One thing that is always a hoot is this amazing video exercise that leaves me with a room full of gob-smacked faces. It’s like :-O
Hi-larious, I’m telling you. If I tell you about it then it will be ruined for you if you ever see it but most likely you won’t so who cares. It’s killer nifty.
It’s a video of a group of people playing basketball. I tell them they’ve got to try to count how many times the ball is passed. So, the action starts and they're passing and they’re faking and breaking ..and the counters are concentrating like hell, counting away.
When the video ends I ask each person how many passes they counted. The numbers are all over the place so they start laughing, thinking that is the lesson--that everyone can see the same thing and have such a discrepancy in what they saw.
But then I tell them to watch the video again and this time no counting, just watch the video. Pretty soon jaws are agape and holy craps are heard all ‘round the room because what they see is that in the middle of the game a gorilla walks right onto the court, right into the center of things and not one person saw it. Nope, they were too busy counting passes.
Heh. I just love that gaspy there's a gorilla! moment.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Well, that was weird.
I woke up at 4:00 this morning ..crying. I just lay there wondering WTF is going on here. I had no recollection of a sad dream, or any dream at all. I don’t think I had a dream. But I still can’t figure out how the monster in my closet crept into my bed.
Sometimes monsters are real, you know. And way more scary than anything that ever came out of tinsel town.
Needless to say I couldn’t go back to sleep. I just lay there for over an hour crying, but not in the way you would think I’d be crying. There was no sobbing or sniffing or snot—just a quiet oozing of tears. Kinda weird, those tears. Freaked me out a little .. just a scooch.
The tears surprised me; the face of the monster did not. I’ve known him forever; I’ve glimpsed him before. I just don’t often get such a good look.
I want to write about all the stuff going on in my head because that’s how I work through things and my blog used to be where I always did that. But then a couple of big whammies kinda ruined it for me some months ago (POW! Right in the kisser! I think she's down for the count, sportsfans!) 
I wish I could just be over it and I want to be over it but I’m just not.
One thing forgiven long ago, but still not forgotten; the other thing--no forgivin' or forgettin' on that front.
Meanwhile, I’ve soldiered on blog-wise with posts of pans and party plans. Because after all, everyone knows my life is just one big party—a veritable hootenanny.
But I miss writing, it was good for me. And no, I don’t considered blathering on about lip gloss and Charlie the fucking Tuna as “writing”.  I think this line is mostly filler.
So, if I’m going to do it I’m going to have to just jump back in, no dipping my toe in to test the water. It’s never going to happen if I try to do the toe dipping. Anyways, I’ve never been much of a toe-dippin’ kinda girl—I’m more of a balls to the wall G-force’ing jetfighter type. And I have that whole ninja thing going for me.
I know it will help me sort through things that have been driving me to perpetual distraction. But to really write again I have to come to terms with a couple of things:
(1) People will think whatever they want to think about anything and everything I say because people will always find a way to ascribe to my words whatever meaning or intent suits their purpose, personal vendetta, or need to assert their story as the only version allowed. As if one could call dibs on The Truth.
Or, of course there's always the possibility that they're right, that I'm just Evil, darn it! Maybe I'm really all about the Evil, all up in the House of Evil.
I might even be Evil's Evil Twin.
Possibly. Just ask anybody who actually knows me. I'm sure they'll tell you what a despicable little bastard I am.  [roll of the eyes, supersize]
And hopefully there will be no more unfortunate incidents. But if something unfortunate does happen again at least I won’t be surprised this time. Never underestimate the power of surprise--to a person with an anxiety disorder it’s like motherfucking kryptonite. (And it’s the gift that keeps on giving!)
(2) I have learned that there are some really creepy people roaming around the blogosphere, just sniffing around for other people’s pain. I call them Pain Voyeurs but maybe Pain Parasites is more like it. They get off on other people’s pain; they feed on it, savoring every jagged piece of somebody’s shattered life like a delicious delicacy. 
It gags me to think I might be offering up some mental masturbation to a bunch of sick fucks. Let's just say I don't want to be the one putting the cream in their Twinkies.
Ick^1,000,000
Ah, well. Everything in this life comes with a price tag. I guess I just haven’t quite figured out if that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

Is It Any Wonder?

I haven't written anything lately because I don't know how I feel about anything anymore and how do you write about that? I have thoughts, the same thoughts, running through my head over and over all day and too much of the night.
It wouldn't be good, but at least it'd be reasonably sane, if these thoughts were of important things that need solving. But even though it feels that way they're not really important things.  None of it really matters ..not really ..not anymore.
So why can't I stop? I know that's the right question but I sure as hell don't know the answer.
And these thoughts don't blow though my mind like a breeze, they twist and turn like a tornado.
Is it any wonder that I just want to stop wondering?

The Winter of My Discontent

I’ve had about a million things weighing on my mind for a long time now. Some mysteries have been solved but many remain. They must be Very Important Things the way they pick, pick, pick at my brain every day.
Surely they are things I need to know. But I’m soooo very tired of it. At this point I think I’d rather just be a happy idiot.
This is not like me at all—I’m usually all about the why. Why, why, why, I’m always pondering the why. I’ve always been driven by a need to understand, especially when it comes to Life Lessons. Even the hard ones.
I thought I wanted to be content like I was once upon a time not so long ago but then I thought, Really? Are you sure about that?
Hhhhmmm. I turned to the dictionary as Jcube and I would do in our meaning-mullings. We often came to some enlightening discoveries. Kinda like this one.

con•tent    (kən-těnt')  adj.   
1. Desiring no more than what one has; satisfied.
2. Ready to accept or acquiesce; willing: She was content to step down after four years as chief executive. (Or in my case perhaps: She was content to stop trying after four years of clusterfucks).

Reading these two very different meanings of the word made me realize that I’ve begun to question my previous “content”. Was my content behind Door #1, which would be a nice Grand Prize and oh so Zen-like. Or was my content behind Door #2 which would be more like winning a year’s supply of Ramen Noodles and convincing yourself it was a real prize.
Was my contentment really a good thing or was it maybe more like giving up?
Isn't acceptance an inherent element of contentment?
Is acceptance just another word for acquiesence?
I’m still not sure but thinking about content has made me anything but.
So there. 

Day Trippin'

Sunday I was in this really odd mood (yes, even odd for me). I was so restless I couldn’t settle in to watch a DVD—I kept pausing it because I really felt like I needed to do something but then I’d get up and wander around and around, not knowing what to do with myself. And I couldn’t go do something physical to work off the restlessness, like I’d normally do, because of my ruptured tendon.
I’d already hurt my leg a couple of times tip-toeing to get something off a high shelf, and squatting to look at something on a low shelf. These are two things one should never do when one has a ruptured tendon in one’s calf. Trust me on this. Needless to say I wasn’t up for further fucking with that leg AT ALL.
Then suddenly I stopped wandering and got all hell-bent on cleaning out my linen closet. It wasn’t even in bad shape but it was a little sloppy. There were some things that needed throwing away and straightening up but my compulsion to clean it was not at all commensurate with the level of sloppiness. But I literally had to clean it out, as if I was under some hypnotic suggestion your closet must be perfect.
Then I came upon a box of papers that had no business being in the linen closet so I thought WTF? Opening it was like opening a Grab Ankle scrapbook—everything in it had something to do with that trifecta of an assfucking The Universe delivered unto me about four years ago.
I went through the whole motherfuckering box like this aaaaahh   ..eeeeeeeeee ..iiiii ..Oh! ..ooooooo. I sounded like a first-grader learning her vowels.
Yowza!
I won’t bore you with (or perhaps care to share) the details but it was one big box of Really Bad Shit. No wonder I stuck that box in the bottom of the linen closet like some less-than-six-hundred-thread-count sheets.
Consciously or not.
But this crystallized some things I’ve been wondering about—it didn’t answer my questions but made me get what the nagging thoughts I’ve been having were all about. That’s the way things often happen to me, in some random way I get clarity about something that’s been bugging me in the back of my brain for ages.
Some of it even has to do with why I haven’t really written much for a long time or even when I have it’s nothing of substance. Yes, I did know I was writing a load of crapola.
But there’s so much why behind that—what other people did to me and also the fact that all the important things I wanted to write about were just too muddled-- it all got so tangled up I couldn’t sort it out and I kinda just gave up.
Really.
It’s tragic altogether. [self-effacing eyeroll]
So, there’s way too much percolating in my head right now to try to put it in one post ..unless the post was about 5,000,000 miles long and that would be downright unkind to anyone who might care to read it ..not to mention that it would possibly leave me with carpal tunnel syndrome which is about the only form of tendonitis I don’t have. So maybe not so much with the marathon typing.
Anyways, I have to chunk all this stuff out to even think about it. I break things down and in thinking them through separately also come to see the connections. Sometimes I don’t see the connection until I think about how I would try to say it if I wrote it, if I tried to make someone else understand.
I write right out of my head. Oldest Brother and Jcube both told me that I write exactly the way I talk.
And just for context you’d need to know that I write my posts in Word and then paste them into my blog. I think it’s gloriously ironic that I finally actually wrote something other than drivel and when I tried to paste it into my blog Typepad was down.
Go fucking figure.

Merry Christmas Wherever You Aure

a stocking was hung
by the chimney with care
mi amigo, I so
wish you were here