January 17, 2013
-
Falling Off My Throne – Dark Nights
I often so sanctimoniously listen to others as they bear their selves to me, because I am, and for the most part, people believe this of me — That I am a wise woman, and the pathetic truth is that when it comes to most of lives beyond my own, I do seem to have a lot of insight. I have lived much of what you have lived, and I have met you on your journeys as we pass each other, and I am moving past mid life into a place where, if nothing else, then I should be able to put my arms around you and to say; “Do not worry sweet one, your pain will go away, and you will know laughter. You will know that the sun and the moon play dirty tricks behind your back and dance with the stars, and you will catch them one night being naughty calling all of those at the bottom of the earth to come up and to play before the heat of the sun is just too hot for all but The Queen and the King of Fire to Dance With.
I tell you, reluctantly to pray unceasingly, for the reward ahead is greater than all which is behind, and I try so hard to be that person my self, for I want only the best for you and for me — I want all of our early trials to be just that — Trials and for a Gracious God, A at Blessed Mother, and one large basket of love to be left at our doors every day. If there is anything remarkable about me, it is that I do not envy the wealth and success of any of you, for I know the truth about how you cope inspite of the fact you can jump in to a warm people and watch the snow from an inside tropical garden where the scent of a gardenia almost smothers you with something so glorious that any one unaccustomed to it would pass out just from the pleasure. Most long for your world, because I have seen you at the hour when you depart this life, and you are naked and without, going into the unknown just like the rest of us, and no great drummers come or dancers with leis that welcomed your importance on jaunts to the islands fall down on others shoulders as they dance the last dances of life somewhere far away from the unremarkable moment when you are again just one of us — One who lived and passed this way, and all of the appropriate mourners will come to the memorials planned for you and the celebration that your name will be carved in to some monument if you were generous. Some granite or carver of stone will emboss the last of you in this life.
It does seem wonderful to the souls in little houses, to those who repeat the institutional goodbyes to console the mourners that this sameness is the great equalizer such as the moment when a head presses hard on a cervix to open and each trembles for a minute until their is the a first breath, the same air of the same world will full all who have lived up on this earth, and it has the suspense of the most poor and desparate of souls to live and to breath for a time. ”God,” I think that has to be the greatest of your triumphs that man and woman rich or poor would have two moments in life which they share no matter the station — The breath that is life, and the breath of farewell, and it is one common thread from there with everyone unsatisfied with their poor lot depending on the day.
I am going to tell you though, that too many of us suffer in the great in between something which I hide like it was a treasure of the speck of poison which would destroy all of our lives, and I am so tired of it — The, “It,” that depression which so many of us suffer from, and I am going to tell these people right now that I suffer too, and there are sometimes months and weeks when I would just like to rest it all away not to have to put up with another tomorrow when I hurt. Did you hear me? I am so tired of these waves of depression which I thought would disappear, but they return, and I take the Dr’s medication, and I understand that I suffer from PTSD, for no one could have been the child that I was, that my brothers and sisters, and so many around us were without being plain and damaged goods, absoluutely tormented, “Damaged Goods.”
For you who are so brilliant that you believe you have never known depression, then are you not special, but the sad part is that you hardly know love either, for the extremes of emotion are the characteristics which make keep us all from being a bunch of zombies flitting around and not feeling anything. Depression and joy, again polar opposites, but I have been through it all with depression except for the magical day when it will disappear and leave me alone, and it is crushing and bruising, and I can tell others things to do which seem to help them, but I am so tired, and I am so weary with having these weights up on these shoulders. They were the demons of my parents which separated them from love, and only in later years would they have the courage to let much of it go as they buried a brother, a sister, the last parents, and had what they felt was all of their needs in this life, then I watched the tears become less and their threats to murder each other to subside, and now I do not know how they got to that place which seemed to be a little better.
They both began to see nature as that which was far more beautiful that the worry that their skin was becoming thinner and older, and they complained about the pain in their bodies as arthritis, the same which I have, ate away at their joints, but they were satisfied with the old television shows, with the middle of the day naps, with the trips, “Uptown,” and with Sunday Church where they got all of the news, and as they got older and better, our middle age slipped in and so many of us were haunted by the earlier years that we felt mercy would never come to our door. Right now, I need mercy so much, and I need for my book to do well — My book where I told you about their stories and ours, but now it is our turn to be fascinated by the hummingbirds, the colors of the flower’s blooms, and to know the stories of the neighbors, for the sheer pleasure of clean sheets and the warm bath, and I have my moments; Do not get me wrong, but I need right now, and I do not know what I need, but I can help you in an amazing way, because I have walked in your steps, have carried your burdens. I have been young, in love, middle aged, and a career mother, and I left that past behind. The people who once could cannot hurt me any more.
Oh, if I tell the truth; Some important things have hurt undeniably, that where we would live became ordained, for it was the gift my husband wanted of all of his mother’s things, this place in San Francisco where sometimes it appears tropical, but the Pacific brings in cool summer’s air, and sometimes one just wants to be warm. I remember long, hot and miserable hours east of the rockies, and I am going there this year. My husband has lost his ability to do magical things with old houses, but he has field his life with an elder gentlemean’s orchestra, and with the stimulating conversation of people who, unlike him, took other careers outside of orchestral life, so his musical opinion is so valued among them, and I feel no jealosey that I am second wife to an orchestra. I am even resolved somewhat that the daughter who I believed would be a guiding light in our older age, the most feminine girl on the face of the earth has gone butch and decided on a lesbian’s life. I found some peace in realizing that I had another daughter whose father walked her down the aisle as she was married by the same Priest who is a beloved friend and who gave her first communion.
I cannot say that I entirely admire my lesbian daughter, for the person she has lied to most is herself. In the neighborhood where she has moved, the little girls of mothers will be kept from her home, and that is a fact, for the attitude there, and for good reason — after being a center of sexual abuse for a large diocese; Then why on earth would you want your little girls and teenage girls to hang out with these two women, and if that offends you; Then that is too damned bad, for sexual abuse goes both ways. I spent my younger years fighting off men, and I could not believe that on at least three separate occasions as I grew older, I had to give some lesbian ladies the news to get their hands off of me. We were nurses, and we hugged each other and we consoled each other, and it carried over in to our outside lives, but most of us meant absolutely anything sexual about it, but I learned that some ladies that I knew had thoughts which I did not have, and I had to tear one foolish woman away from me, and I have stayed away from that house like it was an opium den, for I was very embarassed that, I, a woman with five children, would be victim of a grown up woman to whom I had shown kindness but never any sexuality issues, that she would start putting her grabbing hands all over me. It felt like violation of old, only this time it was a woman, and I could not imagine that anyone had mistaken the effort to converse, a hug of, “Hello,” and just endeavoring to offer a person respect as a reason to grab at me, and I was over fifty! So get real; If mothers are going to watch their little boys from all male households, then there is no rule which states that they are not going to watch their little girls equally, and if that offends you; “Tough,” because I repeat that we take care of our children and guard them, and if they choose something way too uncomfortable for us; At least, in my case, I have another daughter and grandaughter who does need and care for me, and I would advise Mom’s to protect their daughters after my own experience.
But I started out trying to figure out why these dark and blue days will not let go of me as they hang on like a winter’s night, and I am aware that it is hard not to be the pretty girl; Being a mom and grandmother is hallowed ground, but it is not the approval that came with youth. Depression does seem to have time limits, so I tell myself as I tell others, to be certain you’ve had the talk therapy which you need, take the medicine the physician gives to you, and if it does not let up in a three day period; then it is time to go and to ask for more help.
I mention in my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” that three days seems like a time for all things — three days for antibiotics or antidepressants to show some effect, three days between the death, then the burial and ressurection of Jesus, three days before the soul seems to leave the body after a death, and even frresh fruit is not going to linger on a counter for much more than three days, like the rarest bouquet of flowers — three days; Lord, will you not help me but three more days, or that is how things work for me! I just offer it as a guideline, but to the most depressed, I beg them to not wait more than three hours before they get help. Depression hurts; It kills, and it is an evil which afflicts many of us, not because we are evil, but because our chemistry is screwed up.
I want it to just go away one day, leave my heart, and leave my home. Yes, I would like to go back and to retrace some of the steps which I walked along the way, “Dear Lord,” but I can not, and I was mislead about a lot that was important, but so were thousands of women before and after me, so please call me from the dark, and let me play among the moon and the stars. I am overwhelmed by the cyclic nature of the pain, and as Morley Safer of 60 minutes used to say, that if every depressed person had that which they needed to ease their pain, then a whole lot of people would be walking around with IV drips of morphine.
I have come out of my cloack, and I will live, but I am very tired of living this way. It began when I was a little girl out of fear and despair, and my fears, even of death are minor. My fear of losing my husband, my brothers, my sisters, and no one should have to lose a child, but loses will come, and it is a part of the last decade of life to learn to say goodbyes, but most of us have all said many farewells already, and the first farewells as adults were the ones where we learned that romantic love was more of something on a movie set, and we would rarely have that kind of love in our lives — For it hardly exist.
I wish you well though, and whatever help you can give to get me through some of these days of three, then I accept the invitation, though we all live by different drummers, and are called by singular bells or a cocphony of such, but I need to feel better, and for these three days to go away. I need for the world to be new, and I wish, for you, the same. Love and Blessings, Barb
Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle Ready, Award Winning Novel in 2012 in Hollywood and San Francisco Book Festivals — With a 1st in category in Hollywood
