Family – Page 25 – One Woman's Quest

Reform Called For

Placed without consultation
in an undesirable position –
certainly didn’t ask for this –
I am decidedly displeased.

Princess tendencies expected
pampered outcomes – exalted
deployment – hypochondriacal
drama despises responsibility.

Lack of working boundaries
merits complaints, too many
unknowns counterproductive,
yet I will forge ahead, accept.

Cross-purposes: reckless regard
for what’s important, and a need
to make things right (regardless
of cost) drive me to distraction.

Craving simplicity, am motivated
to create a suitable environment,
encounter more obstacles, feel
sabotaged from all angles, despair

lash out – not maliciously – only
begging for accountability, willing
understanding of consequences –
without collaboration futility arises.

Clear guidelines are needed here,
unrealistic expectations not helping,
need predictability, healthy protocols,
reinforcements to calm the chaos.

Foundational barriers breaking down,
the royal tower is crumbling – radical
change in the offing – reset, commit,
we can do this with ~~duel~~ dual effort!

Ocean’s Legacy

My father’s eyes were the ocean,
hypnotizing, alluring, and I desired
to know their depth, their mysteries,
certain that true love dwelt there.

Volcanic was his temperament,
a constant fiery, churning nature,
that both awed and frightened –
danger always lurking: precarious.

He was the mountain, and we; his
offspring cowering in his shadows,
smothered by his darkness, only
dreaming of light: tortured souls.

Impotent in the face of his angst,
sought reparation elsewhere, looked
for his soul in the heart of others,
longed for healing from his disease.

Found eyes like his, mannerisms
that mimicked, aspired to love,
encountered unspoken truths:
learned of addiction’s demons.

Ran from one man to another,
constantly confronting same
wall of denial, dance of anger,
insurmountable debilitation.

I am my mother’s daughter,
congenial to a fault, driven
to please, pleased to submit,
an alcoholic’s dream mate.

Like my mother, I long for
something indescribable –
certainly unattainable – believe
that I am fated, unlovable.

Fallen, as I have, as she had,
into the mesmerizing blue
of his ocean, craving to know
the love that surely dwells there.

I Need You

What is wrong with me –
too tired to argue, finding
argument in every utterance,
wanting peace, contrarily
lashing out without reason?

Is it the effort to untangle
my mind from the jungle
of sleep that leaves me
shattered, head-throbbing,
overly protective/defensive?

Your words are assailants –
bullets piercing my already
inflamed cerebrum – I recoil,
(this is not passivity) too spent
to quibble with your fallacies.

Maybe it’s frustration following
moments of equilibrium, in which
I aspire to normalcy, make plans,
set goals, am body-slammed
into reality, deflated once again.

I am building walls, shunning
interaction – heart aching, soul
despaired, I threaten congeniality,
fall apart – am sorry, and not
sorry – angry, righteously.

If I had words, I would praise
your loyalty, thank patience,
extol virtue – but I am too weary –
the formulation and expression
of ideas buried deeply within.

What is wrong with me is
the constraints of my current
disability – smothering sensibility,
crushing potential – dismembered
complacency, gutted propriety –

I am raw, festering, cringing
remnant, psychically flailing,
resisting daemonic, magnetic
impulse to disintegrate, surrender
to nothingness – cease to exist.

Forgo your platitudes, search
my eyes for truth – find the light
that flickers there – soft sorrow,
clutching onto hope – a lifeline –
and hold fast with your love.

In Remembrance

I stare at the photo of my father,
that last Remembrance Day,
in awe of a person we never knew.

Just fifteen, the awkwardly tall
figure joined ranks with an elite
squad trained for unarmed combat.

He’s wearing his Commando’s beret,
medals proudly adorning his breast,
symbols whose meaning are now lost.

They were the best and the brightest,
sleuthing out enemy stores, carrying
imperative data to oncoming troops.

He cried that day, as candles glowed –
symbols of lives lost – “Good men,”
he muttered, and squeezed my hand.

A suicide mission, he’d called it,
armed only with a knife and hands
of steel – a black pill if caught.

By day, he never spoke of war,
at night, he screamed in terror,
Why such a mission? I asked.

He’d had his own secret cause,
a war waging within him – bent
on eradicating his heroic flaw.

War made my father – a disciplined,
regimented man of iron, intimidating,
fearless – machismo at its best.

He returned a hero, celebrated
with his hometown, and left again –
the lie still alive within him.

My father was a valiant soldier –
counted himself as privileged –
to serve alongside the honourable.

At fifteen, a girl whose body
belied her existence, enlisted
in a fight to become a man.

* * *

In remembrance of the countless men and women who put their lives on the line in the name of freedom – every one of which has a story.

For You, Dad

Anti-establishment
and flower power
formed the backdrop of my youth.
Women burning their bras,
Hippies holding sit-ins,
War in Vietnam.

Ideals began to form.

Beatles and Rolling Stones
were household names,
and school children took
the Pepsi vs. Coke challenge.
Twiggy and Mary Quaint
set the fashion stage.

I lived in creative times.

A flower-toting leader,
dating well below his years,
wooed his lovers and his nation
with a French accent,
and called in the army when
the FLQ threatened peace.

Passion awakened in my heart.

Open concept was my classroom,
education free-style.
We had a Wong and a Suzuki,
and watched the Black Panthers
on a sometimes-coloured TV,
and learned that we were WASPs.

I was on the edge of compassion.

Talk shows revealed infidelities,
and debated homosexuality –
criminal or mental instability?
Equal rights meant equal pay
while Country Clubs posted exclusions
and institutes housed the nonconforming.

I started questioning.

Home-made prevailed over store-bought,
and a Valium suppressed mother
kept my father’s castle,
and we went to church on Sundays
and practiced perfect smiles
and learned to pretend.

Enlightenment comes at a price.

Too young to understand the dynamics
of my brooding inner turmoil,
I raged at the discrepancies,
and swung with a fast right,
fighting for a justice
I could not articulate.

I learned to hate.

The consideration my father preached
was a one-way street.
He spewed racism, and sexism, and abuse;
over-worked, over-drank, and
railed against a world
where he could find no acceptance.

I discovered we had secrets.

Teen pregnancy, LSD,
and schizophrenia invaded
our patriarchal fortress,
internal combustion threatened,
yet we held fast to our façade –
happiness and solidarity.

When Dad came out I wasn’t ready.

High school came, along with disco;
Barbie dolls were traded
for platforms and menthols.
While Rocky Horror gained a cult following
my father revealed his own cross-dressing
ambitions and asked us to call him Liz.

I learned to run away.

Halter-tops and tight blue jeans
attracted adverse attention,
the police told me after the rape.
I crawled back home and began to cut
unable to feel through the armour
of numbness I had donned.

There was no way out.

Donahue paraded real life transvestites
before a disbelieving audience,
while psychiatrists spoke of deviant addictions.
Electric shock treatments broke my father,
he begged but I pushed him back in the closet.
We would not speak of it again.

I steeled myself against life.

Landlines, now, are disappearing,
Televisions smarter: Reality the new fiction.
Songza picks my playlists.
Integration and differentiation
are the educational goals I seek
to fulfill in my role as teacher.

Relief followed my father’s death.

LGBQT is on the forefront
workshops teach about sexual orientation
and gender identity,
and I learn that it is hormones –
not addiction – that decide,
and the realization pierces my heart.

There’s been a tragic misunderstanding.

My liberated, forward thinking mind,
strangled by a self-serving heart
slammed the door on possibility
eclipsing the brilliance and creativity
of the soul that was my father.
I never knew his authentic self.

There is no going back.

The river runs within me now,
a deep and endless stream.
The shards of my former reality
too shattered to mend; I stumble
humbled by the inadequacy
of this human existence.

I write for you, now, Dad.

Adrenal Spin

Death has visited us,
and subsequently,
visitations, and
a funeral.

Ours was a loss
long anticipated,
suffering relieved
by passing on.

Dutifully, I planned
to accompany Mom,
show support, and
represent our side.

Disability answers
to its own drum,
and this added stress
inflamed the beat.

Attempts at resting,
met fired adrenals –
locked on fight/flight
as my mind reeled

conjuring images
of confrontations,
inquisitions, and
judgments, then

raised unrelated
issues unresolved,
spinning webs,
speeding pulse

I spiraled into
a perpetual abyss
of wiry panic –
release unattainable.

Disappointment
my hangover,
as predictably,
I am a no show.

A Sorry State

Stubbornly, I follow
my desires and motivations
over the edge, humbly
rediscovering
my sorry limitations.

Calling home, hoping
for a sensible response –
reliable, clear-headed –
(I should know better –
no one like that exists
where I come from).

Miss Vanity and Ms. Martyr
come to the rescue, with
Perfect baby, Spirited baby
and the Despondent One
in tow, along with
adolescent Asperger,
awkwardly incapable
of social intercourse.

Doubtful of their intentions,
certain of their impracticability
and suspicious of neglect
I pull back, angered,
threatening to exert independence;
I don’t need anybody
least of all, you people.

Miss Selfless smiles reassuringly
gesturing for my compliance –
she has everything under control
there is room for everybody –
I climb on board –
surprisingly comforted,
conceding assumptions.

I am embarrassed by my situation,
in need of repair…
Approach cautiously, I warn
it’s a steep state of decline.
My stories, exposed, overlap,
piles of debris cluttering
where hope should dwell.
This is not a place for children,
or the pure of heart.

I feel trapped, but don’t express it.
Ms Forever Up and Miss I’ll Pray For You
smile as if to say:
Don’t worry, Silly,
we’ll clean this up in no time.
And look after the babies?
And look after the babies.

Weariness begs me to surrender,
trust these dubious cons –
too overwhelmed and overcome
to care, resigned to repeat
the drama of the past –
fearing this is my lot.

Dissatisfaction niggles
Don’t give up –
there is more to aspire to
a greater dream to dream
give it time, give it time
and quit driving yourself
beyond the confines
of this current state
of dis-able-ment.

My Spirit Stands Strong

Progress – seldom linear –
tosses me into unexpected decline –
stranded and incapacitated.

My son – with labour-hardened strength
leaps to my side, steadying me
and I feel the fear in his caring grip.

My daughter, ever compassionate,
reaches out for me with horror-filled eyes
as my body crumples onto the bed.

My husband, my oak, seeks to comfort
his voice betraying the helplessness
this futile predicament imposes.

Beloveds, I know that you see me
this dis-abled, non-functioning shell
weakened and sickly, lying on this bed.

Do not be deceived – that is not me –
it is only an illusion –
a vessel – temporarily fettered.

I am, in essence, beside you –
ambitions and desires intact.
Feel me there, tall and proud.

Sense the wholeness of my being
remember me for the woman I am yet to be –
My spirit stands strong.

A Case for Moderation

“Before illness,” I tell my therapist, “I had things I was working on – I was engaged with life. Now I can’t do any of that. I feel useless.”

She nods. “Yes, that is what illness does.”

I’d had two days of feeling better. Two days of being able to sit up and actually do a bit of housework. “I felt so good that I actually started to allow myself to make plans,” I tell her, choking up.

“That is the trouble with this disease,” she explains. “Patients have good days, and they do things, and it sets them back. You need to learn to enjoy the days you are feeling better, without increasing your activity. Your body needs rest; rest is what is going to get you well again.”

I look away. How can I tell her about the messages that have been haunting me these past days?

“I feel stripped of all purpose,” I manage to confess.

“Ah,” she says knowingly. “One of the things that we are able to do when we are well is avoid the voices in our head; without all that busyness we are alone with our demons.”

“Exactly!” I love this woman! “It sounds crazy, but I keep hearing my father’s voice.”

“What is he saying?” She leans forward.

“You don’t have any problems! You don’t even know what problems are! ” There were more too: Time is money. Waste not, want not. I tell her about how he never allowed us to sleep in, made us get up and do drills on Saturday morning before cleaning the house.

“Your father wanted you to be strong, able to face whatever life threw at you. What is missing from that picture is the message that home is the soft place to land.”

Her words strike a chord. “That concept was foreign to me for most of my life,” I tell her. “I never even conceived of it until I met Ric. Isn’t that awful?”

She gives me a sad smile. “The trouble with growing up in a family where work ethic is everything is that you are always living up to someone else’s expectations. Your father set the bar high and to get there, you had negate all natural instincts. You weren’t allowed to feel tired, sad, angry, etc. All that would be pushed aside in order not to disappoint him.”

Even as she speaks, I see myself going to my room, disheartened by my feelings, wanting to hide – out of sorts. Emotions were not welcome in our house; weakness was abhorred.

“Then you found yourself alone as a single mom with three kids. There was no time for your needs. No time to be sick, or rest, so you carried on out of necessity.”

“And I had my own business,” I add to the list in my head. “No possibility of taking time off there.” To my therapist, I add: “I don’t know how to banish the guilt.”

“Journal the messages when they pop up,” she suggests. “That way you can get them out of your head and onto paper where you can see how useless they are. Tell yourself that by resting you are doing exactly what you need to be doing. Getting better is all about listening to your body.”

“And when others ask me what I’ve done with my day…….?”

“Their questions are triggering you childhood demons. You are hearing your father’s voice behind them. Tell them you are doing exactly what you need to be doing to get well. Leave it at that.”

I sigh. For months now, I have felt like I have to justify my existence to everyone. I have felt like such a failure.

“I have done the same thing to my children,” I blurt out.

“Likely,” she smiles. “It’s all you’ve known.”

“Oh God,” I moan.

“There is nothing wrong with a good work ethic as long as it’s balanced with proper rest. It’s all about moderation.”

I have missed the moderation piece of life’s puzzle.

Will I ever learn?

Commanding Love

“Come sit down beside me,” my father pats the floor commanding my presence as he would a dog. I hesitate. The glass in his hand tilts dangerously, threatening to spill the amber contents, and his voice slurs slightly. A dangerous scenario.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” He reaches a hand out towards me, and I know it is useless to object. I accept the invitation, settling in at his feet. He pats my head, absentmindedly stroking my hair.

“I am proud of you, Squeegie. Did you know that?” I have an idea. I’d overheard Mom and him talking the other night and he’d said as much, but he seldom says it to my face, unless he’s been drinking: a double-edged sword.

“My father was a brilliant man, you know.”

I nod my head. I’ve heard this story before. “I never got his brains, but you did.”

“Oh, that’s not true, Dad, you’re very smart.”

“No, no. Not as bright as you are. There isn’t anything you can’t do in this world if you set your mind to it.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Where is this going? I wonder. Last week Dad chastised me for only getting 96% on my math report. How does anyone miss four percent? he blasted. Sounds like you were careless, to me!

“The thing is, Veej, it’s not enough just to be smart. You have to have goals and ambition. You have to work hard. Me, I wasted my life. I let my demons take over. Don’t make the same mistakes as me.”

I never know what my father wants from me when we have these conversations. I feel more like his confessional than his daughter. “You haven’t wasted your life Dad; it’s not too late.”

“Oh, yes it is. I have been weak; a fool.” Looking up I see the tears forming in my father’s eyes.

I remain silent. This really isn’t about me, I realize. My father is seeking reassurance. I pat his knee, and let him ramble on, my mind glazing over. The thing is, I’d actually built my hopes up for a moment, thinking that my father was going to praise me. Of course, he wasn’t; it’s not his style. I should know that. Day after day, I watch him debase my mother, cursing her ineptitude. Then he turns that venom on us children, yelling about our incompetence, and reminding us how we will never amount to anything.

“You do love me, don’t you?” Dad’s winding down. This is my signal to break free.

“Of course I do, Dad.” I rise and gently kiss his cheek.

He catches my wrist and pulls me towards him. “Look me in the eye and tell me you do, Veej. Tell your old man you love him.”

“I love you, Dad.” Pity floods me, temporarily whitewashing the underlying anger.

Later, I lie in bed letting the numbness of disappointment overcome me. Praise never comes without a hitch in this house.

(Image: www.dreamstime.com)