i am so incredibly manic. my eyes are wide and wider surely looking like the stereotypical “crazy eyes” i feel insane, my brain on fire, wide open. everything all fight and flight and run and scream and panic cold and hot and fire and ice and death
the only things that I know will help the only things that I know will sate this I cannot have smoke and sex and sleep comfort and softness hard and fast.
so I do what I can I medicate as much as I dare I empty this out into here I prepare to fight. but already I am losing.
it is 10:18am and i I can feel less tight less clanging less Panicked. less of a horse caught in a burning barn, less a wildfire my shoulders lowering My eyes softening. I find smiles there, and here, too.
So I have begun the mind-bending exercise of wondering how my dead husband would be dealing with life if our roles had been reversed and he was the one who survived me.
I have been caught in a dysphoric mania, ultra-ultra rapid cycling with depression all day, working a full day with a full staff and a full store and less bandwidth than I can afford.
I am driving and it is night and it is dark and it is foggy and it is misting and the road is fast and usually this scares the shit out of me but tonight it isn’t tonight I just want to get home.
Why can’t I get up. why can’t I just get up.
It lifts for a little bit, a little while.
then
it is as if I have taken an enormous swallow of pain Inhaled lungsful of death A huge blackness fills me, empties me My eyes grow wide, wider still tears filling them, pooling, overrunning them splashing my glasses running hot down one cheek then the other
I just have to make it home. Home.
Thirty-seven minutes of this around and around and around.
Home. Sitting in my car, engine running, music on anything to drown out the noise in my head but nothing is enough. smoke. ease the knots enough to feel just how tightly my core is clenched. my entire body feels as if it is collapsing in on itself, shoulders slumping, spine curving jaws tight, the only things moving are my eyes and thumbs.
the smoke is taking hold, finally i can lower my shoulders remove my tongue from the roof of my mouth breathe in and out. finally.
Up at four-something; the sound of an upchucking cat isn’t a noise to be ignored. Pushing him (gently) off the bed so I won’t have to wash the entire coverlet again. Tangled in the comedic/horror movie mess of giant bed + weighted blanket + CPAP mask and racing against the threat of a heaving animal simultaneously a thousand miles away and on top of me, I know that my day is going to be a fight.
The waves of depression and subsequent rapid cycling and eventual mixed states yesterday only subsided because I smoked myself into oblivion. I ate a shit ton of sugar and passed out. Took an edible to stay asleep.
Mojo. DUDE.
I go to the bathroom, look at my phone, my email. I’ve been avoiding the actual mail and swiping left on my email like it’s a dating app. The email saying my rent is posting today.
Okay.
I’ve been looking at my balance, not buying things. Nothing. How do you get money?
You sell things.
You have things to sell. Good things. You even have photos.
why, then. why frozen. Fogged. Stuck. Frozen.
I can do for Mojo, I can take pretty good care of him. If no one else.
It’s 6:14 in the morning and I realize I can’t go to work. I can’t control this today. I barely could yesterday. (there is no longer any thinking about what would happen if I had to, about how terrible it would get)
there is no longer any fear of safety.
that is a difficult sentence to write. to digest. I cannot breathe. i cannot breathe. . breathe. breathe. . What it means what it means is that I can do what I need to do to care for myself without worrying about getting written up, or in trouble, or fired, or discarded. Left. Ghosted. It means that I have compassionate people who care about my safety for my sake first.
My safety for me, not as an asset. A tool. A toy.
It is 6:27 in the morning and this is what that is, this rage, this dysphoria. This sadness, this depression.
This makes it so clear to me, finally. The sheer disparity. Reminders of how it felt. The unpleasantness, the imbalance. I don’t want that. Not ever. Not even knowing.
So, now what. Delete the playlist (again. It has one song on it.) Done. Back away. Understand this isn’t ever going to change. Really, though. Understand you don’t have to burn it to the ground, either. Really. You can continue to walk away.
you know there isn’t always a trigger but a lot of times, there is.
it is seven in the morning and I am inside as the rain begins to fall. it isn’t, though, raining outside but sure as a rainfall cools the planet feeds the plants smoke slakes my thirst, soothes my fear.
the sky is lightening, the grey becoming less so enough to douse the harsh overhead light and open the curtain.
Mojo in the foreground, backlit, sheer grey linen curtain gathered in the center. hanging from the window: a suncatcher in the abstract shape of a whale, made of driftwood and vintage beads, and a small astronaut 7:08am
I am worrying about how I will manage things but right now the fear isn’t strangling me. it’s sort of set apart, a bit. It isn’t going to stay there, not today. Today is going to be
(oh, Mojo)
better at home. Quiet, as I need.
it is seven forty-nine in the morning and and there isn’t much getting done today.
That isn’t true, no. no it isn’t.
progress, however glacial a pace, is progress still.
think i had a psychotic episode today. i don’t know for sure. it was while i was driving.
what i do know is that the fear and terror that i felt was as bad as it has ever been terror and fear so huge that it overtakes everything but there was no pain no physical pain to be afraid of just the fear that always accompanies it no looming precipice in front of me nothing different about the day. nothing.
what i do know is that approaching ten thirty this morning while i was driving while i was driving i was filled with overwhelming dread i mean serious fucking dread like a tornado sky out of the clear blue. arguing with myself over what to do really, i mean come ON wtf look at the complete lack of signal how much further now? not much i pulled over as soon as it was safe enough hazards on, music on into the deep we go i had to tell someone what to do, it became clear. i pulled over, made a short video. said what i needed to say that i am okay (i do not believe that for a second FUCK no but i don’t understand what’s happening, either) my phone pin. my master password. again that i am okay but i need to tell, i need to say. in case. so no one is sitting there with my dead hand in theirs trying to get into my phone the way i did. the way i had to. i have no plans. no ideation. only the nearly ever-present need to fight to stay connected to the earth.
i don’t think love ever dies, not by itself, no. I think you can kill it. rather, I think it can die, but it has to go down violently. Sometimes it can be so sudden, like a switch, an “oh!” and it’s gone, vanished. Other times it lingers, hangs on longer than is healthy. making its presence known unpleasantly. Taunting, but there is no smile, no joke, no closure. Only unease. Only anguish. Not regret, no. That’s the confusing part. As angry as I am, still As angry as I am I know that it was good Not enough to stay. Not enough to keep ignoring my own self. Not enough for who I am now. Not enough for who I have Become.
You need to stop what you’re doing and listen to what’s linked below. A love poem to New York by Roger Cohen called “I Forgive You, New York”.
I’d had to stop listening to it when it first aired; too painful. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past fifty-two years, it’s that painful things can’t be avoided forever. I’ve learned how to lean into the pain, breathe through it, adding potsmoke as often as necessary, let it untangle, unsnarl. To understand that not everything that happens is meant to be understood. That in itself has been infuriating, frustrating, obliviating. That even though I am hurt, hurting, in pain. That even though, I can’t be sure that I will ever know why. That I can’t compel the answer. That nothing I can do, no innate power of mine is enough, no existing love and care and kindness is enough, that I have to accept that I may never know. Because even if I went against my nature, blew shit up, caused a lot of unhappiness past my own, that not even that would be a sure thing. And that so many more people would get hurt for nothing.
So I can only appeal to better natures to tell me. I can only be hopeful that better natures exist and that I have not been completely misled for so long.
And if that is the case, then I really, really need to be gentle with myself. Because learning that painful a lesson is going to take a long time to absorb.
finally a spate of cooler weather of breezy weather. easy-breezy chicken francese cooler head less on fire brain, still convoluted and badly tangled, untangling. thoughts racing and tangled more, faster but less I don’t know less what? Less rage, more anger. Less fury, more sadness, and disappointment. Less fire, more ice.
More clarity.
There is no “what did I do to deserve this?” or “I didn’t do anything to deserve this” No. Those thoughts begin to bubble up and are stopped at the first word. Silenced. No. No. I say no. I will not begin to embody those thoughts. This has nothing to do with me. Not ever again. Nothing. No thing.
it has gone on so long now that there is no coming back. there is no balm, no quiet murmured assurance, no comforting touch that will ever, ever save me. Save you. Not from this.
I thought I knew you. I suppose I do. You know what you have lost. I see now what I have gained.
where did you come from? (out of nowhere, out of time) you are at the same approximate place in space and time I have proof that time travel exists. I do. It does.
His time ran out. Mine began.
Ours is..? Ours is beginning.
I have learned so much along the way here To you, to here, to now. I have learned enough to be able to show you the way for it seems you are ready to learn.
firing of the DonnaGama wood kiln at New Prospect Pottery July 2020
summer is full of fire.
summer is full of rage and fire and heat and no. summer is full of can’t, of won’t. summer is hateful and vengeful and all together too much. too much. the rage in my brain and the rage on my skin on my body this heat. it is boiling my brain, i can feel it shrivel and pucker it is pulling inward all my tendons, my ligaments it is contracting my soul, dessicating it my plant is thirsty. the planet that is my body is cracking under the drought i am feeding her, watering her soaking her. it is barely enough. it is enough to coexist on the slightly softer edge of civility but the near-constant TARDIS-like screaming of the emergency brake the cacophony of heated elements in continuous collision heating too quickly for safety safety is nowhere to be found. it isn’t even looked for. not for me, no. not for me but for another. her safety, her (((relative))) sanity is my priority. through her i have found salvation. so when i see, when i observe when i walk into a scene and e v e r y t h i n g everything is tangled a nest of snakes and snarls because someone isn’t listening almost at once i can see oh gods i can see! I can see what needs be done and i turn, slowly. and i direct my rage, my fury funnelled directed as a firehose would be put the wet stuff on the red stuff i am using my fire to put out a potential backdraft i am raging and it is working, slowing the progress. progress. again, though, someone isn’t listening someone is risking everyone else for their what, big dick move? someone is risking everything. no.
NO. summer is full of fire, and don’t, and no. it is my place to draw the line here, it is i am one hundred per cent sure of this. i am for the first time in my life, backed up on this. in every single other case in every other single moment in my life. every single one. you are too much. you are too intense. you are. we got this, you can stop now. too much. stop.
I am not too much. I tell this man he needs to stop. I tell this man “you need to chill the fuck out right now and stop.” and he looks at me, stops, hesitates. I can see his body wanting to continue. “you’re not listening and you need to listen.“ he isn’t, but he is looking at me intently. “who are you?” he thinks I don’t care who the fuck you are. I have never done this before, this woodfire but i do understand science I do understand and so should he.
I don’t care who he is, only that he doesn’t care to listen and so I am outrageous in my language I am extreme. outrageous?Rageous. Righteously raging and definite. I use the skill and dexterity and froth that I keep so tightly locked away the fire that i only unleash in the bedroom and i direct it all at this man and he stops, deflated. defeated. finally. slinking away to complain to another (she knows i’m right, too) ((and what is this, high school? have you learned nothing.))
I don’t care that he is embarrassed (don’t do stupid fucking shit then, asshole) I don’t care who you are all I know is that you are dangerous. You will not rise over me. You will listen. Or you will leave.
The fire has emboldened me, lent me her strength, her fury. I listen to stories of needing the fire, of missing it. I have understood missing Saturn; I am understanding the fire, now.
this morning as I sat dissecting the weekend, the experience as I sat discussing the ineptitude, the abject narcissism of one person, the overwhelming love and support of nearly everyone else I realized I realized my gratitude for this asshole, too that for the first time (a weekend of firsts) for the first time I was able to use this rage this dysphoria this reliably unreliable tool this weapon. I was able to harness the power of the sun focus it on something harmful burn it out like a cancer. leaving room for new, healthy growth in its place.
Fire burns; fire renews. She is an explosion of hope.
it's so hard to be without you
lying in the bed, you are so much to be without…*
it is a bit north of nine am and i am driving i am driving back up to the pottery, we are firing we are firing and i am needed i am needed. i have promises to keep on my way so i do.
(i don’t remember whether the windows are open or closed;) i am trying to remember whether it was the air conditioning or the wind that made me question question whether i was hearing what i was.
(a few days ago ((five)) a few days ago i was insane insane and unable to stop it
a year (?) ago i made the decision to microdose psychedelics a couple of months ago i decided for true, and asked for help. a few days ago i began. i wept, shaking, shared my fear, and help came. i did as i was bid. i am nothing if not a good girl.
rattles in my head that empty drum filled with doubt
Everything you lose, the wisdom will find its way out
i am driving. i am listening have been listening. i am hearing more? somehow the music is filling the cabin differently, more, more separately? more. i can discern and follow discrete instruments and still pay attention to the words, and it is as if the more i am noticing this the more complex it appears while remaining fluid and whole.
i am driving home, we are done for now. i am driving and have restarted the song having remembered that i have this to write, to explore. the guitars are so ripe and juicy and it is as if i can taste them. I am heading home to Mojo. I am heading home to no one to share my day with. there is no one to see my face, to watch my eyes flash as the overwhelming love i have explodes I am balancing that thought with conversation, albeit one-sided you aren’t there to tell you aren’t there. the instant, truthful thought that makes me swallow my thought as the breath to express it escapes my lips but you were never happy for me you were never excited for me. but what if you were? in the end, especially the very end but that last year you began to see me really see me maybe the way you did when we first met. maybe for the first time in a very long time.
Every night is lonesome and is longer than before
Nothing really matters anymore
It's so hard to be without you
Used to feel so angry and now only I feel humble
Stinging from the storm inside my ribs where it thunders
Nothing left to say or really even wonder
We are like a book and every page is so torn
Nothing really matters anymore
It's so hard not to call you
So I do.
Thunder's in my bones out in the streets where I first saw you When everything was new and colorful, it's gotten darker Every day's a lesson…
The noise without no longer scares me. It’s the noise within that does, always has. But maybe hearing the separations, the pieces untangled maybe maybe that is how i untangle the noise within.
The Salty Widow 