Forsworn Roseline

Hold tight to abandonment
for its psychology is key
to the freedom of standing
at the locked gate
of an open cell in which nothing threatens
to fetter the longing lover
with the manacles of a finish
line. The one who gave up on solitary
freedom before it became her
did so in interest of actualization:
the principles and mix-ups
of a real life experiment
in making leaps between
the righteousness of youth
and unconscionable senectitude.

The pioneer circles 'round
the sacred ground, the place of a flash birth
and a disaster area death. She circles the brick
house of a corpse
bride who was consumed
by the rare Fear
of Intrusion felt. Undying
is the ardor of the mercenary
for the steadfast steward
of a homeland hidden
by nightseason. The keeper of a motherland lost
touch with the art of chastening
possessives - efforts across field
and freshwater. The room with a view
keeps the keeper
from becoming
unkempt, though she still remains at odds
with her unmastered skill.


On the night of their midnight
matrimony, the pirate wades ghostside
on a floating tree box and grieves what was not
planted deep enough
into earth, beneath the spring
umbrella of a summer noir
on walkable terrain. To her pirate,
the Dark Lady remains chaste, in wait
of the wisdom of her traveler
who survives the trauma of captivity
in a war with fatherhood and in memory
of an unrequited suicide.
An immortal lover does not mistake
beginnings for endings, does not forget
forsworn and holy Roseline.

Maria Callas - Casta diva - Callas Toujours - Debut Paris 1958 - HQ

The Attic Salt Witch

The Attic Salt Witch
has attic salt lips
and an attic salt tongue

The Attic Salt Witch
revels in her refinery
but caves for none

The Attic Salt Witch
lets you read into her
quips if you're easy to shun

The Attic Salt Witch
raises one eyebrow
at the first mention of fun

The Attic Salt Witch
doesn't move an inch
when she's on the run

The Attic Salt Witch
will stand in acclamation
for a mirror in the sun

The Attic Salt Witch
tells it like it is
until the tale has begun

The Attic Salt Witch
spins a web of dreams
until into it she's spun

The Attic Salt Witch
loved a Flour Faced Geisha
but feared the shrill metal sound
of the song long unsung

The Attic Salt Witch
made Attic Salt Love
once and only once
under a table set for one

The Attic Salt Witch
kissed a Buttercup Miss
and then knew sweetness
could never twice come

The Attic Salt Witch
took a  mineral bath
in a saltwater ditch
with a wand as her tease and her gun

The Attic Salt Witch
is environmentally conscious
as she carpools from home
to be the canoness of nuns

The Attic Salt Witch
doesn't know what it's like
to taste the salt of her Venus crest
on another witch's tongue

The Attic Salt Witch
has never been up
into her obturated attic ago adjourned
to find the Saltwater Sea
that cannot be outrun

Abnormal Discussion Week 2: If People are not Labels, then People are not People

The theme of my night: People are not people. People = a label. Gotta love it. So people ARE labels, then?

I love this course material. PSY 424. I'm actually enjoying the material. Almost as much as I enjoy ethnic and feminist literature (I said ALMOST, don't get carried away...). The discussion posts made by most students in this on line course are, as you might imagine, much shorter and less...well, less...


Anyhow, I plan to post my discussion posts on my blog when I think they are worthy of being read by someone other than me.

QUESTION 1

Question Posed: Many people argue for a “people first” approach to clinical labeling, recommending, for example, the phrase “ a person with schizophrenia” rather than “a schizophrenic.” Why might this approach to labeling be preferable?

Simply put, it would be inaccurate, unnecessary and insensitive to use a label that describes one aspect of an entire person in order to characterize the entire person. While most of us know that a person is not her or his disorder, a person is not her or his sexual orientation, a person is not her or his physical condition; it is difficult for the majority of us to define what makes a person a person. We spend a great deal of time, as humans, trying to understand and develop our individual personalities. We are constantly bombarded with messages in the media that encourage us to define ourselves in terms of one of our preferences: what music we like, what coffee we drink, what kind of e-reader we use. The media banks (CHA-CHING!) on our desire to Be Somebody - to identify with something, to associate ourselves with something larger than ourselves. If we feel a sense of belonging and community in something (in a group, for instance), then we are likely to feel a certain degree of pride in the label attached to that community. If we feel isolated and alone in something (in a long-time struggle with a family member, for instance), the we are likely to feel a certain degree of shame in the labels and meanings attached to that struggle. In that regard, the degree of isolation and sense of belonging largely determine our perceptions and feelings about any given label. But, whether we shun or embrace a label, people are still not labels.

Even the term "people" is just a linguistic device created to for the purposes of communication and identification. Though it's hard to definitively say why or how, there does seem to be some human drive that propels us to create language in order to interact and communicate with others in the world. Speaking of language and labels, I was captivated and intrigued by Halgin and Whitbourne's description of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a "common language."  Though I doubt the authors considered the linguistic connotations and connections and interpretations that can be made in connection to the organization and delineation of disorders, their reference to a common language is a perfectly fitting and far-reaching descriptor. I appreciate the way in which the authors frame the language of disorder as a "common language" because it evokes the simplistic yet profound idea that we all espouse in some form or another: to engage in a common language. We seek, in our work environments, in our romantic relationships, in our home life, to create and relate a common understanding. We seek, and it is very natural and beneficial to do so, community and communion and communality. A common language can free us to be ourselves, but it can also confine us. It benefits us to identify with and feel part of a community. However, if we become so identified with and infiltrated into one community, or into the foundational language that creates that community, we may lose sight of ourselves as individuals within that community. We may even become so accustomed to the body of language that we cannot see or think beyond it.

Language is both the creation of community and the creator of community. Before spoken and non-spoken language, there existed a non-verbal, non-human realm communication. The movement and interaction of the elements is a very synchronous and cyclical form of communication. Non-human elements in the world interact and come together in various ways. Water is absorbed into the air and comes back down to earth in order to water the land that harnesses the seed from which something, in direct sun or in partial shadow, grows to feed a hungry land creature that puts something back into the soil to replace what it has taken. We could look at human communication the same way, were it not for the great many languages that have allowed us to define and redefine and deconstruct our natural place in and relationship with the world as well as the language of living. I very much see the common language of the DSM as having dual-roles as both explicator and creationist. I think the authors of "Abnormal Psychology: Clinical Perspectives on Psychological Disorders" provide an excellent framework in Chapter 2 for understanding the purposeful yet limited and limiting nature of the DSM. It, like any language guide, provides its disciples and speakers (from varying backgrounds and at varying levels of fluency) with a evolving framework and instructive guide. It, like language, is a way of looking at something - it's a world view in and of itself because it creates a world view. As with any world view, there will always be limitations and contradictions with which its visionaries must contend.

In "The Dream of a Common Language," Adrienne Rich provides a poetic language for and about women by speaking in the language of women. Rich's collection of poems, separated into three sections, is, indeed, a "whole new poetry." The creation of a language arises when their is a need for such a language. The need exists because one of more members of a group, often a silenced and invisible majority or an oppressed minority group, desire to articulate their experiences in order to preserve their experiences and create a sense of community among themselves. More than anything, though, the language of the group is created in order to reach out to those outside the community in order to seek understanding and compassion from outsiders and oppressors in the hope that such an understanding will create change. The DSM was first developed in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association. As in the case of Rich's poetic language, and the way it spoke to and about lesbians and marginalized/outsider women, the American Psychiatric Association sought to create a common language to speak to and about psychological disorders. It sought in its earliest form, on a very elemental level, to challenge misconceptions about mental health and unhealth as well as to create a communal resource and framework for, in which ratings and criteria and definitions could be used to connect insiders to one another and outsiders to insiders. It served and still serves as a tool to dispel stereotypes and stigmas that leave individuals with mental illness feeling isolated. It serves as a common language among mental health professionals as well as a way tool for those who have experienced mental illness to understand themselves and feel connected to the common language. And, for those outside of the mental health profession, it provides an informative framework into which the common language can be accessed, processed and comprehended. On the other side of that common language is the unfortunate fact that there will always be someone or something left out of that language. While language seeks to make outsiders insiders, it inevitably excludes and, therefore, creates outsidership. If there is a community to be in, there is also a community to be marginalized from.

Besides the limiting and dualistic nature of language itself, a common language always is vulnerable to misinterpretation and misuse. That is to say, sometimes we let the power of language go to our heads. Sometimes we forget that language is just language, becoming so caught up in the story of one common language that we lose our ability to interpret and experience the world in new ways, with new languages and new stories. That is my fear for the DMS and for the field of Clinical Psychology itself. The authors, however, do a wonderful job of calming my fears in their very comprehensive and sensitive presentation of the language. Halgin and Whitbourne offer us a very human-oriented and human-based approach to the subject of Abnormal Psychology, by providing us with the essentials of the common language while at the same time staying case (or individual) focused. They don't force us into a common language of dualistic labels; they, rather, apply the common language unobtrusively and without pretense into real life situations. I certainly have my own concerns about the ability of the powers that be in the mental health industry to influence and dictate our perception of mental health through their construction of a common language (with financial pressures from insurance companies to over-diagnose and overuse the label of disorder in order to suit the medical-model that allows the field of mental health to be a financial industry).

Anything that becomes part of what Minnie-Bruce Pratt calls "The Money Machine" is susceptible to becoming so caught up in the financial side of things that it loses its authenticity and effectiveness. Still, if the DSM is handled with care and thoughtfulness, as it was by the authors, I feel it can be a helpful common language. It all depends on the context and the individual situation - which is what the "people first" (and relationship-oriented) approach to clinical labeling is all about. I am curious about the theoretical background of the authors, since their style and approach appeals so much to me. I very much appreciate how attuned they are to the dimensionality of the individual. It's hard to read this chapter, even in light of the differing views that are presented, and not feel at ease about any fears you have about the dehumanization of the mental health diagnostic approach.

QUESTION 2

Consider the reasons why treatment is not always successful. How do the client’s insight, judgement, motivation, and ability to change affect treatment success? How do the clinician’s education, modality, competence, and theoretical orientation affect treatment success?

There are many things that might affect the success or failure of a treatment. Modality certainly would affect the types of treatments, as well as the goals for (and criteria for the success or failure) treatment. In a group therapy setting, the goal might be more centered on improving the functioning of the family unit as a whole; whereas in individual psychotherapy the goal would likely be more centered on improving the functioning of the individual (however - an improvement in individual functioning always leads to an improvement in interpersonal or communal functioning). It's hard to say how, exactly, the personal and theoretical orientation of the client and clinician affect treatment success. That's like trying to pin down the cause or root of a phenomenon. We can say everything affects everything, so yes, of course, insight, judgement, motivation, education, competence and theory would all affect one another and engage in an interaction that would affect the overall clinical process. Defining treatment success is just as difficult. We would have to have a very strong theoretical background, as well as a deeper knowledge of each of these qualities of the clinician and client in order to really say how the set of circumstances and characteristics come together to form a working relationship that results in treatment success or failure. It's also very difficult to define success or failure. Even a small step in the direction of mental health (of functionality) or a step away from isolation might be considered a success.

As we discuss this topic, I think it will helpful for each of us to think about how we might define success in a psychotherapeutic setting. I can't say anything about how any other client or clinician might define success. It's even hard for me to say how I would define success because I don't have the first-hand experience and I have never though about this subject before. I'm glad to be considering it, though. I have never, formally, been a clinician; however I have been a client. When I came out of the closet as a teen, my parents arranged for me to see therapists (it was my mother's desire that I should guided, through therapy, out of my defiant state of lesbianism). I saw a few clinicians at that time. I only considered one of those clinicians successful. But I still have trouble defining what made his approach successful in my eyes. I believe it was mostly a manner of his gentle-nature and theoretical orientation. I cannot actually define or point to definitively his theoretical orientation, I can only say that I felt accepted. I did not feel any pressure to tell him the lies I was telling everyone else. When I told him that I believed the love between the person in my past and I was mutual, and filled him in on why I felt/thought that way, he did not react with hysteria. He did not diminish nor negate my feelings. He honored my autonomy and even validated my feelings and experiences (not just by listening but by showing empathy and, dare I say, compassionate love).

To this day, I think about this man (he is a pastor and is near retirement) and wish that I could have continued seeking out his acceptance and moral guidance throughout my life. That was the closest thing to acceptance, in a counseling situation, that I experienced during that emotionally profound time in my life. I actually think it was his motivation-less mindset that made our work together successful. He did not seem to go into it with an agenda. Perhaps after he evaluated me, he felt that the best treatment plan was to provide me with a safe place of listening and true acceptance. I was, at the time, experiencing a great deal of unacceptance in some of the major realms of my life. Given that, I think he thought what he could best provide was a place of acceptance. Listening and acceptance and story-sharing and validation WITHOUT an intention to change or alter anything may have been his treatment plan. Isn't it ironic. His lack of seeking, his lack of a plan to change me was actually the thing that most affected (and perhaps even changed) me. What I needed more than anything, at that time, was a person I could trust and confine in and feel safe with. I did not have to worry that he was going to report the teacher I loved or tell my mother what she wanted to hear or request that I not label myself as a lesbian "just yet." Just knowing he was in the world, with the impression he made on me, made me a stronger, healthier person who felt she wasn't completely alone (who felt a great deal of relief knowing that someone out there, even just one single person, could understand and honor my love and perhaps even believe me).

He did just what I needed: he made me feel sane and acceptable. I felt sane and acceptable on some level, but my mother was forcing another message down into my psyche - that I was crazy, deranged, sick, evil. I don't know whether or not he felt he was successful with me, especially given that we had to stop meeting fairly early on because my parents could no longer afford it. I only know that I perceive myself as having benefit from it. I would like nothing more than to someday be able to provide that acceptance and validation for someone like myself who is isolated by their own intelligence and open-mindedness. Sometimes people just need support when they are in a place of isolation (when they find that they cannot relate easily to the majority of other around them, for whatever reason). My personal account as a client of counseling raises an interesting set of questions about the mutuality and/or separateness of client/clinician perception: Can a clinician feel she has been successful if her client does not feel it has been successful (in other words, can the perception of success by anything other than mutual? Is it still success?).

How To Come Out of the Closet, Easy Step-by-step Guide to the Big Day

This is a How To video. How to come out of the closet. It addresses how to come out of the closet. You can come out of the closet to anyone - you can come out to your parents, you can come out to your neighbor, you can come out to your yoga instructor, you can come out to your English teacher (I recommend this highly), you can come out to your great grandmother, you can come out to your sister, you can come out to your daughter, you can come out to your dog, you can come out to anyone. This video is meant to be both funny and relevant. Coming out can be scary and traumatic. I, personally, had a traumatic coming out experience. However, this video makes light of that by showing how coming out can and should be. It's the easiest way to come out of the closet and the best case scenario for coming out of the closet. And the major theme that I hope you will get from this is that: Coming out of the closet, as scary as it might sound to you, really doesn't require anything special from you. Just the reserve and the courage to do it. If you have the courage, you CAN do this. It's all about being and expressing your authentic self to the world. So this is a how to be yourself video. The first thing you need to do it get out of bed. Sometimes the most simple and habitual activities are the ones that are necessary for something that feels very big and insurmountable. All I want you to do is get up, show up, and be yourself. Wear a cross or commit superstitious acts if they help you to come out and be yourself. Some people have a very warped idea of what it is to be a lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, asexual, etc. person. Do you think that lesbians and gays get up in the morning and behave in immoral activities, such as, oh, say, singing in the shower or gargling with Listerine, or brushing their teeth? Lesbians and gays and people outside of the sexual (heterosexual) norms are not as different as you might want to think. Okay, well maybe I'm not the most mainstream of the bunch - but I get up in the morning, eat my breakfast, sit on the toilet, brush my teeth, sing in the shower, make the bed, etc. The end of this video is probably the most important part of it. Of course it's funny for me to place my two year old in a chair to come out to her. But sometimes that's a good place to start - start coming out to yourself in the mirror, move on to trees, then to pets, then to young kids. If you can come out to a mirror or to a tree or to a cat or to a two year old, that's a start. In those places, you will find acceptance (if you can't find it in the mirror, try a pond instead). You want your first coming out experience (the first time you tell someone you're gay) to be a positive experience. If there are others that you know will not react with love and acceptance, don't start with them. Take an advocate with you when you approach someone who may not be able to react with the respect you deserve. Don't go alone. Don't come out alone unless you know you'll be safe. I think the best thing this video does is to show that we start out as very loving and accepting people. The silliness of me telling my daughter I'm a lesbian is actually important: it makes the point that SHE COULD NOT CARE IN THE LEAST and that my sexuality is irrelevant to her. She is not the object of my affection, she is not being courted - she is just being told something that is irrelevant to her. She loves me, and doesn't give a hoot about my sexuality. She's a kid, sexuality means nothing to her at this age. Can you believe how easy it is to come out to her? It's nothing. It's as as easy, and better, than taking in a breath of fresh air. Make coming out easy on yourself. Enjoy it. Enjoy your first experience. Make a toast. Cheers to your Big Easy Day!!!

Under the Covers / Behind the Porn Star Eyes / Lie the Trying / and the Tried

(Please note that this new blog post, written a while ago, was taken from another that it no longer seemed to fit with...)

When I awoke at this morning, it was almost five AM. Elanah was standing at the side of our bed. I put her in the middle. Then I added Darah because I knew if she woke up on her own (i.e., without Elanah) she would be upset. Once they were both down and asleep, I didn’t want to move them for fear that they would wake up and not return to sleep. I tried to sleep next to Darah in the few inches that were available, but I was hanging off the bed so I decided to move into the twin bed by the window. My feet were cold, but I didn’t want to wake Elanah with the sound of the sock drawer opening so I piled pillows over my feet. I was still cold, so I covered my head with the comforter. And that was when a blog entry unfolded. In the quiet dark morning. Blogging. Mind-blogging. Basically, the voice in my head spoke aloud a whole blog entry that was coherent and insightful. No one else reads it or hears it, just me. Sound like torture to you? It was to me. Anytime I compose something, usually on the fly, in my mind; I feel an urgent desire to get it down on paper or on keypad. Around 6:30, I finally ended the unwritten entry and fell asleep. At 6:45 Elanah woke us all up, and we actually cooperated because we knew the wood floor installers (are they technically carpenters, or ?) would be coming soon to work on putting in our oak bedroom flooring. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been to bed before twelve or if I had taken the hot bath I was planning to take after the girls fell asleep last night or if I had actually risked waking the girls up this morning to open the computer and write the blog entry that was in my head. I didn’t do any of the above, I just had an insightful conversation with myself despite my freezing feet and had a fifteen minute power nap after having four or so hours of sleep. So here I am, delirious yet trying to take myself to the place where early morning insights live.

Before we turned off the lights last night, Sandy announced to us, “Mummy’s wearing her movie star eyes tonight.” When she started to say my name I was expecting her to say, “Mummy’s having a tough night, she seems to be stressed.” I was surprised by what she said, because I WAS acting like quite a sleepless grump (and that was last night, before going to “bed”). I looked at Sandy with my movie star eyes. “Awe, really? Thank you. I’m so exhausted, I thought I was wearing my sleep-deprived eyes.” Then we both agreed that maybe I was, maybe movie star eyes are just sleep-deprived eyes. In any case, I’ll admit that I’d give up a night’s sleep to be told by an amorous Sandy that I have movie star eyes. What’s two! Unfortunately, I think I have gone beyond movie star eyes and entered into another state of eyedom. I won’t be surprised if Sandy says tonight, “Mummy’s wearing her porn star eyes” or “Mummy’s wearing her movie extra eyes.” Or, even: “Mummy’s wearing her medical student eyes.” I don’t know if I was raised to be vain or if it’s just in my veins (!), but I feed off of complimentary verbal attention when it comes from someone I respect, find interesting, admire, am attracted to, or even someone I know nothing about. Never enough, never enough. The bottomless well behind my moviestarpornstarbmoviemedicalschool eyes. Throw her a compliment and she will put on a free show, folks!

Behind my movie star, or movie extra, eyes is a mind though (I'll have you know!). A really rambunctious and unstoppable mind. A mind that works sometimes like a synthesizer on Speed, unless someone mentions anything mathematical or anatomical or chemical (in those cases, a mind comes to an immediate halt). I'd get to the point if I had one. But here, here's something: I do a lot of reflection. I’m good at it. I like doing it. If it had been a subject in school, it would have been my best subject. I could reflect on anything. I’m convinced I could connect myself to anything. I can find myself in anything. Fibers from the rug, runoff in the ditch, the note on pitch or flat, the grease of the print on the mirror, the word on the edge of your lips that never makes it out, snowflakes so slight you wonder how their dusts of dew amount to anything. Am I just that narcissistic or is this a “gift”? Oh well, I’m just reflecting again. I could reflect my little life away, and then my movie star eyes might become rocks of fire lighting the night sky. It can be a nice quality, the reflective trait, especially as it expresses itself in writing and other conversational platforms. But, like anything, if you live with me and my constant state of reflection, you’d start to get sick of it and wish I would just be quit reflecting for one goddamn minute. Ask me to change? You couldn’t. Not when I don’t want to change. Maybe, instead, you could see me less often or see me differently and once again rekindle your appreciation of my life of reflection. Live next door to me and pretend you're meeting me for the first time when you see me stopping to stare at the moon on my way to my midnight mailbox. Maybe you could forget about the neurotic state of my reflection and imagine me to be a dreamer with a penchant for a lovely night sky. Often as soon as a moment happens, I start reflecting on it, creating art from it, analyzing and connecting it to other smaller and larger moments, memories, concepts, characters, stories.

So, in other words, I can think. I’ve got that one covered. I can think (often aloud) in such perpetuity that you'll surely want to strangle me after a month of being trapped with me on that (...) desert island. After you try to strangle me, I will give you some space. But then you'll find me writing thoughts in the sands with my fingers. You'll be relieved to know the tide will wash away the lines by morning but you'll find me there again, after the tide has eased your trouble, using my whole body to write a message with my seashell assistants and crabby consultants. (Actually, who can say what effect a desert island might have on me....I can only imagine - and when I'm not reflecting, I'm imagining...). I'm good at thinking. As for all the other ings in life, I may be at a loss. On my tombstone, it should be said that  “She thought reflecting-thoughts and she reflected all she thought.” Hold that, I need some time to further...reflect on it. I’ll come up with something better (but if I don’t, that’s a starting place…and while I’m on the matter of my gravestone, don’t forget to hire an artist, using the six dollars I have to my name, to chisel two Georgia O’Keefe style cunt-inspired flowers intersecting. And if you are visiting my plot, don’t leave flowers. If you leave me artificial flowers, I will come to you in the night and give your cunt such a stir that it will never be still again! Please, in lieu of flowers leave vials of Witch Hazel, speak aloud sonnets, cast spells, masturbate, do something indecent. Come to me when the moon is ashine, especially when She is yellow and harvesting something she shouldn’t be harvesting). Oh, but enough reflection about meeee (myyyy future resting place); I’d rather reflect, right now, on some of my (whoops!) early morning reflections.

Under the covers this morning, I thought about and almost reflected on extroversion versus introversion, human social needs and persuasions and states of socialization. Though I don’t know why, what got me thinking (or the first thought I remember having) was a memory of an email my Witch sent me when I was trying to appeal to her and convince her to agree to meet Sandy for dinner. She wrote me to say, “You are not going to like this and I have certainly tried to think of another way to say it, but I am stumped so I am just going to say it.” I know you're thinking: Okay, let 'er have it, Witchypoo! But she didn’t actually say anything directly. She went on to describe the “one successful relationship with a former student” that she had, saying that they met one-on-one once or twice a year to talk about the things they used to talk about when she was his teacher and he was her student. (Oh the stifling provincialism, how I longed to stifle Her Province!) Oh, pardon me. I didn't realize she wanted to talk about the things we used to talk (...) about. You mean to tell me she did not want to talk about how good she made me feel when she slipped me the proverbial tongue for prolonged periods of time? That would have been a slippery, sloppy, slurpy, salivating kinda conversation. She wanted to talk about what we talked about...wait a minute...what DID we talk about? Gee. All this time I was waiting to talk about what we didn't/couldn't/wouldn't talk about when she was mine and I was hers (er-rummm, I mean when she was my teacher and I was her student). How utterly preposterous of me to think (!) we might talk (!) about what we did not say. Oy. Someone hit me with something. Right. Now. I just need a whack every now and then to get it out of my system. Shake, shake, shake. It's true that ten years apart allows me to be a little quicker and more clever in my response to our former selves and former communications.

All ill-intended babyish cleverness aside: essentially, she was trying to say that she did not feel comfortable meeting Sandy. She couldn’t directly say it. And I thought I knew why then: I thought she was uncomfortable with meeting Sandy for two reasons. 1. Because she was uncomfortable seeing me in a romantic relationship with, gasp, someone else. And, 2., because she was uncomfortable with the lesbian and age-defiant nature of my relationship with Sandy. Particularly with the real, flesh-and-blood, in-your-faceness of it all. I think as I start my Abnormal Psychology course, I might be learning about "fear of intimacy" but I don't think I'll be reading anything about "fear of intimacy with Jesus" or "fear of intimacy with former student who loved the stars out of you and who you, with trepidation and delight, also loved in return." Do you know that fear of intimacy, if chronic/habitual, can and is labeled a "disorder." I don't say that to be mean, I still love the woman to pieces even if she's afraid of me and my love, but I never knew about this ("fear of intimacy"). If there is such a disease and my Witch suffers from it, then all I can say is that I know I was the cure and I'm sorry she never got the chance to drink me down or try me out in a clinic. Instead, I just scared her and then lost my humanity to her (and became a ghost to her with only the power to haunt). That's a really sad story that I don't wish to rewrite but only hope has a happy ending. I don't want to put her off. Not in my heart of hearts. Not like the way in which the one hundred page letter I wrote detailing my every thought and feeling and action during our two years together put her off (why do I take that as a compliment to this day?).

All in all, she couldn’t give me a better reason than: that it was not something she had done before with a former student. "If wishes were horses, this beggar would ride." 'Cause I wanted more than anything in this circus of a world to do something with her that she had not before done with a former student. As a matter of fact, we WERE doing something she had not before done with a former student by simply having SUCH a Con-versation. See, I was confused because I thought she was a revolutionary, like me, and wanted to join me in the Revolution. I don't know wherever that idea came from...my, oh my, how could I expect such a slap in the face of convention to occur all over a little thang called love. My sister would scold me and say, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be nice?" To that I say: I want to be nice, but if someone puts me in a straightjacket and ties to me to a table and then leaves me there for all eternity then I might say, 'Fuck nice, I'm gonna be right. What choice do I haaaaave? Wahhhh!' Given a better set of options or opportunities, I want you to know that I will throw right right out the door and I will be nicer than nicer than nice. Come on, you know I will. When she's right, she's right. (Insert loving wink, will you?)

Back then, angry sarcastic me wanted to respond to her email: “Oh really. Fascinating. It seems you were perfectly comfortable “challenging the norms” with me when I was your student. You didn’t seem to mind entering into all sorts of uncharted territories with me when I was (maybe or maybe not yours but certainly) no one elses; but now that I am out of sight and out of mind, now that my time has passed its expiration date for your confusion, now that I’m obeying your command and moving on – now that you’ve entered the phase of denial, terror and self-protection; you must erect trivial boundaries upon every word I utter. And all for what? All for self-protection? What are you protecting yourself from? What kind of monster do you think I am?” All my anger at her message was really a mask for my suffering and loss. The pain I felt at what I thought was losing her love and acceptance was exacerbated by the fact that I also felt like I had no one. (Message in my psyche: My friends and family are all deserting me, and now, of all people on Earth, the one I thought was different than the rest – the one I entrusted with my vulnerability in the hope that she would understand or at least love me, joins their ranks). Talk about disillusionment! It would have been an insurmountable darkness if it hadn’t been for the light that was Sandy. Sandy, the person who understood more than anyone else and gave me room for whatever anger and pain I was dealing with and who never stopped loving me even during the infrequent times when I blamed her for not understanding. I do not look at or consider Sandy to be My Personal Jesus, although I think she’s a lot better for me than my old Catholic God used to be. I do not put Sandy on an, eek, pedestal. I just know how to give credit where credit is due and also how to articulate the strengths and weaknesses that I see in a person. I choose to see the overwhelming strengths and put them above the inevitable weaknesses (in others and also, I hope, in myself). I had no one from my pre-Sandy life who was there in a way that I needed, but I did have One who was far more than enough to me (and that was Sandy).

Sandy and I married in 2005, when I was twenty. I didn't have anyone with me to cheer us on. If Sandy and I didn't plan it all so quickly, she would have had good people with us to cheer her on. I told my parents I would not blame them but I did not want them there unless they could be happy for us. So naturally, they did not come. I stood by my word. I never blamed them. That doesn't mean I didn't cry during our hair appointments that morning. That doesn't mean I don't feel sad when I think about whatever the hell it meant to me. It just means I don't blame. And really, despite my little snide comments about my Witch's email, I don't blame her. I know she was doing the best she could with the available information at the time, just like my parents were doing the best they could. I hope she's come a long way since then, so she can meet me halfway someday (<--- understatement). Sometimes I set the bar so high for people that they are destined to fail and then I look at them in disbelief, like "I can't believe you failed. I thought you were better than that." What a set up. I don't mean to do it, it's just part of being a little...errrrm, different. You all, my reader-friends, might have other ideas about me. I-dea-away!

Well we do know one thing. I’m very good at being “right.” I can chew a hypocrite out (and even myself when I’m a hypocrite) like no other. I’m terribly good at holding a grudge against someone who betrays my sense of fair play. I’m even terribly good at holding a grudge against The Witch I love and with whom I long for communion. It’s terrible how good I am at carrying all my grievances with me. But where to? Where will I carry them to? To a publisher, that’s where! Just kidding. Where I am carrying them is just with me. It’s nowhere but with me. I have to go back to the roots of my love in order to find the place for the letting go of the injustices.  What good will carrying them do me? Probably not a lot. I’d rather carry the roots from which the love was born with me than the meaningless third or fourth generation twigs and branches of the overgrown bush it became. If what I want is to feel the roots, I need to trim back the bush. I can’t carry the dead trimmings with me in a shoulder sack if all I really want with the bush is to see that it hasn’t been uprooted, that it’s showing signs of new growth and that it’s still blossoming occasionally.

So instead of being more angry than right, I'll be as right as I’ll ever be. Right now: I’ll be wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong to shut out someone (my Former Fervorer, my Witch Without End) who almost-literally meant The Moon to me all in order to punish her for being a hypocrite and for letting me down and for not overcoming her fear. I was wrong to expect that her human shortcomings should fall away in the face of our very good and righteous and beautiful and celestial love. I was wrong in giving her the “all or nothing” ultimatum. (And, Witch, if you're somewhere out there in the Night Sky illuminating your corner of the world, I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry...P.S. Have Your People call My People! :)

The ultimatum could be the end of me, but I won’t let it. The ultimatum, my weapon of choice in this witch-deprived world, makes me a very lonely and bitter person. I should have taken my Witch up (up and away) on her offer to “have dinner or lunch or coffee with me anytime.” I can't go back. I can't send an email to Nowhere. Ut ohhhhh. The Should-Haves have entered the building: I shouldn’t have been so right. I should have swallowed the punchy flavor of my pride in honor of accepting a person I care about. I should not have taken her indirect cowardice as a personal assault on my character. I should have accepted her with her silly scaredy-cat and mildly dehumanizing rules. Maybe she would have come into a place of bravery and humanism in her own time and in her own way. Maybe she would have bridged the gap. Maybe she would have come over to the other side. Maybe she would have stood beside me on the scaffold. Oh, maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe in the Land of What Ifs. Maybe from the Land of Should-Haves. The Should Haves, like the dead trimmings, need to leave the building now, though. The Should-Haves have no place in this building (or land or island) with its healthy and strong-rooted bush. In fact, the girl who was So Right in all the wrong ways doesn’t think it was even all that wrong that she was so right. At the time, she felt she needed to be right. She felt she needed to be right and loyal and ethical. She thought she was doing the right thing by not settling for anything less than fully supportive, respectful and humanizing people; people who welcomed Sandy into their lives with open minds and hearts. By doing what she thought was right at that time, she was right. Now if she was a different person with a different history - if she wasn't left out in the cold after she was drawn toward what appeared to be and felt like a great and powerful fire; then maybe she could have done differently. No, that's actually not a maybe. That's: she WOULD have done differently. The story wouldn't be what it is, she wouldn't be who she is today, nothing would be as it is. She, then the Right-fighter (yesterday the Right-writer and maybe someday the Right-righter) was defending and honoring Sandy. She, who then felt that hostility and anger were the only acceptable solutions, was protecting the only person on the earth who acknowledged the heart of the Revolution, looked the Revolution in the eye, and, God help her, volunteered to join the Revolution: Sandy. So listen: while She was wrong, She was also right. She was wrong and right. That’s how She’s always been, and that’s how She’ll always be. Now, unlike then, She (still me) now recognizes a little more fully the rights in her wrong and the wrong her rights. I love the wrongandright She (me) was, but when I reflect on her I often cannot help but see how the dominoes fell as a consequence of her (my) choices.

My witch was not the only one who got an ultimatum from me at that time in my life. There were others. There were some who got it from me directly and others who got it indirectly. My sister, for instance, got it when she asked me to come to her graduation ceremony without Sandy. My father got it when he tried to make what he claimed were logical arguments against our age difference (i.e., that my lack of experience was reason enough to abandon the relationship, that marriage at a young age traps a person for life and prevents them from fulfilling their dreams and aspirations, that I was not capable of making any decisions or taking any risks until I gained some kind of surreal experience gained only through a lack of all risk and decision). My high school friends got it when they didn’t show any desire to or interest in getting to know Sandy. My mother got it, more than anyone, when she aggressively tried to verbally abuse me into stopping what I was doing (i.e., “Jessica, do you know why your teachers will not meet with you for dinner with Sandy? Do you know why your friends no longer call you? It’s because they think what you’re doing is WRONG and DISGUSTING. She is brainwashing you, Jessica. Sandy is a sick, sick woman. And now you’re becoming just as sick as her. ONE DAY YOU WILL SEE, JESSICA. You will see that I am right. You will see that this lifestyle, being with an OLDER WOMAN WHO IS USING YOU FOR SEX, will destroy you. You will see that you will LOSE EVERYONE YOU LOVE because NO ONE wants to be around to see the SICK things that are going on between you. No one wants to be around Sandy. I don’t want to get to know her. I will never get to know her. I will never have her in this house. If you EVER try to have her in this house, I will call THE POLICE, Jessica. You are a SICK, WEAK, TWISTED little girl. Something is wrong with you that you do this. Do you think this is NORMAL? Do you think anyone else is going to think this is normal or okay? They WON’T, Jessica. Even your friends, or Sandy’s friends, who act like they think it’s okay DO NOT really think it’s okay. They are just LYING because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, Jessica. CAN’T YOU SEE THAT? You are going to lose everyone in your life. You are going to end up VERY lonely, JESSICA. I can tell you that!” But, F.Y.I, my mother has since come a long way from these early moments of bullying that she used in order to torment me into leaving Sandy.)

The ultimatum (accept Sandy and me or wish me well and say goodbye) felt like the right thing to do, the only thing to do, at the time. And it was. But it was also very sad for me, as I felt disconnected from everyone but Sandy. Sandy’s friends, on the other hand, all welcomed me with open arms. Her colleagues and friends were my main social connections at that time, and still are. My family came back into the picture, and I am very grateful for that. One major reason why I encouraged Sandy to apply for (and accept) a job in Western Illinois was because I felt so disconnected from everyone I had ever known or cared about (from People in General). My isolation made me even more dependent on Sandy, and moving only increased that dependence. So a move toward independence has been a long time comin’. I don’t see independence as being synonymous with having a support system outside of Sandy in place; there are other dimensions of this issues, mainly emotional ones, that have yet to be unfolded and explored. I know there were people who could love and accept Sandy and me as a couple when we were first together, but I didn’t manage to bring any into our lives until a couple of years later. Regardless of my introversion, social otherness, social laziness, or one-on-one preference for all social endeavors; I know that a mind governed by ultimatums will not be a very content mind.

While those close to me got the spoken and unspoken ultimatum, those not-so-close to me grew distant in other ways. Regardless of whether of not an ultimatum was involved, during the early period of our coupledom I felt isolated from the rest of the world. I did not blame Sandy at all, in fact it brought me even closer to her and bonded us in the most awesome of ways. To state the obvious, I blamed Everyone Else. For not making an effort to welcome Sandy into their lives, for not understanding our need for warm and welcoming people who could love us and accept us as we were, for not reaching out to us, for abandoning us. I don’t know how much of it was “real” and how much of it was self-imposed. I do know that my perception was that it was Sandy-and-me-against-the-world (and fuck ‘em for their ignorance!). What I felt, at the core, was hurt. It may have been that I abandoned the world, since I had been heading in that direction since my high school graduation. Or it may have been what I perceived it to be: misunderstanding and fear. Or it may have been something else: the natural transition from young adulthood into adulthood, in which a person narrows her social circle to consist of relationships with close friends and family (as well as with colleagues). It’s true that I was in an unconventional situation. I am am somewhat of an unconventional sort of person. Unfortunately one of the things that makes me an unconventional sort of person is that I am generally unmotivated to socialize and so I depend on socialization built into the landscapes of my life (social opportunities available at school, etc). I had that going at Niagara University to an extent. I made friends and enjoyed their company during and a bit outside of classes. However they did not know Sandy. They did not go out of their way to know Sandy. They did not go out of their way to welcome her into their world. And how could they?

It was so outside of their realm of normalcy to welcome an almost-fifty year old woman into their world. And then, on the other end of it, there was my contribution to my isolation. A big one, in fact. I didn’t feel like I had much of anything in common with most of the people I met who were my age in school. When they talked about going to get hammered at some party in the dorms, I couldn’t have been more opposed or uninterested. I wanted, instead, to sit and read and drink tea by the fire. When they talked about meeting up for a study session, I wanted to stay in my dorm room and study alone so that I could write poetry and dance in between chapters. I have always felt like an outsider since I was a kid. All the signs point to outsidership. I don’t know which came first: outsider status or an internal outsider characteristic. Being an outsider means having outsider privilege – whatever THAT means! Outsider privilege to create a life out of being an outsider? The questions remain: Am I an outsider because THEY didn’t and couldn’t understand me or am I am outsider because I didn’t and couldn’t understand them? Am I an outsider because I’m genuinely uncommon or am I am outsider because I have an ego-complex and THINK I’m an outsider? A grain of truth in every thing implies that the only whole truth that exists is the whole of every thing. In you and me, in our perceptions, there is only a grain. Yet so often we think we possess more than the grain. What fools! Ah, well, aside from the reflection on my isolation and its single grain of truth; what I do know, in my grain of truth, is that multiple factors led up to this moment, right now, in which I am waking up thinking and spending my day writing about isolation. I do know by now that I am very selective when it comes to deeply being interested in other people. It’s not something I’m proud of.

It isn’t that I don’t find people fun and interesting; it’s just that I go into most situations assuming the worst about people. And the worst, to me, might not be the same as the worst to you. The worst to me just means that they will be even more narrow, limited, hypocritical, ignorant, “right,” dishonest, self-serving, self-motivated, insensitive and self-preserving than I am. I do my best and I think I do pretty well compared to most (self-deception likely, indeed). I fell in love with Sandy, not simply because she was in love with me and we were attracted to each other, but also because I knew she was both philosophically and psychologically similar to me and far smarter than me. I knew she was the smartest person I had ever met. I had thought, before I met Sandy, that my Witch was the smartest person I had ever met. She was, until I met Sandy. Then she didn’t seem so jaw-droppingly smart, although I still hold that she is the most creative in a feminist-literary-intellectual-art connective sort of sense. She's also very aesthetically intriguing to me. As far as interpersonal relationships and inner work and psychological and philosophical wisdom are concerned, no one holds a candle to Sandy. I dare you to try (and if you dare try, that’s a ticket to Failure as sure as any). No one can be everything  to everyone. My witch, Sasha, has a lot of qualities that were winners in the romantic corner of my mind. Her aesthetic and intellectualism, as well as her humanitarianism and refinery, is, to me, attractive. Sandy is much more grounded and simple and less showy about her intellectualism - she is as unselfish and service-oriented as it gets. Sasha’s aesthetic and intellectualism is rooted in the liberal and creative arts. Sandy possesses an entirely different kind of intellectualism, one that is technical and rooted in science, philosophy and practicality. Both of them, despite their many differences, are principled, ethical and service-oriented individuals.

I see us, sometimes, as embodiments of our astrological elements (I know, sue me, I’m going to go batty on you for a moment). I, Jessica, am of the Air. My intellectualism is generated through the lofty and abstract realm where all things I think, study and do are suspended in an ethereal state as art and beauty and love. I read and learn and study and do because it takes me higher. I desire, often, to go beyond myself and my own perception. I read and study to make art about the beauty and love that makes my soul soar. I often try to go beyond myself, believing, despite all rationality, in limitlessness. Sandy, who is of the Earth, is grounded in the learning environment that is right at her fingertips. As an embodiment of Earth, Sandy is needs both Air and Water for intellectual growth, and she achieves her potential for growth most successfully when the Air and Water in her life are in balance. Sandy appreciates balance, and her intellectual endeavors are often as balanced and grounded as she is, so long as the elements around her are in balance. When she reads, she reads for the moment of pleasure. She appreciates and creates art in domestic and work environments, where it also serves a practical purpose. She does not read or look for nuance in order to heighten her high or delve into the depth of her sorrow. She reads because she enjoys reading. Sandy’s intellectualism is generated from her own sense of groundedness in reality, rationality and reason. She knows her limits and does not strive to go beyond or beneath them. She does not desire to step in the water or fly through the sky, although she admires the water and enjoys the breeze from her place on land. She does not desire to get high or fly, she does not desire to dive deep or delve – she is content in whatever soil her feet are planted.

Sasha, in the depths of Water, generates her intellectual pursuit by touching the depths of what she finds beautiful: language and art. She assumes the role of aficionado and impresses others easily, not necessarily by perceiving herself as a deep thinker but by expressing a darkness and depth of thought that many others find impressive and fascinating. She is weighed down by the depths of her self, though she doesn’t always manage to use the grounded and grounding influences of Earth, such as rationality and reason, to access and utilize her depths. She is composed of Air and is segmented by Earth, but is, herself, denser. While she admires Air’s ability to freely express art and intellectualism; she tends to admire art from below and bring her deep understanding to the surface level. She reads and intellectualizes art in order to articulate, explore and express the depths of her self. (Even Romy, the woman I dated for a couple of months after high school, embodies well her astrological element: Fire!) 

Okay, I’ve utilized my psychic abilities and astrological stereotypes for the first and last time. You can breathe a little lighter (or deeper or hotter or just stop breathing altogether) now. I know that I sound bound to a hierarchy of intellectualism and wisdom. I know that it sounds like I’m busy categorizing and labeling the pivotal individuals in my life in order to fit into some grand psychological-emotional schema. It’s true, I am. It's hard for me to get away with it. There's life in theory. And then there's life. The two inform one another, but rarely do they intersect. For instance, in theory I believe it is good for people to maintain their independence (living separately or having separate/defined spaces) while also engaging in various forms of relationships. I also, in theory, believe that Polyamory is a viable way of life and breeding place for honesty. However, neither of those theories are my realities. I have theories, I have dreams, I have delusions, and I have reality. Isn't it nice to have it all? Bwahahah. It's true. It's so true. My psychic renderings are, indeed, part of the picture of my life although they are not my reality. They are as accurate or inaccurate as any art that I perform or reflection I make. I’m right and I’m wrong, and if you can’t validate that or open your arms to me, then you can’t validate that or open your arms to me. I’ll still be here, right or wrong, true or untrue, self-isolating or not, weak and wavering or strong and solid. I will still be here. Trying to see people for who they are. Trying to see things as they really are. Trying to accept people the way they are and things the way they are. Still trying.

I Will Answer

If you will safeguard me
against unwanted intrusion;
if you will watch
my unauthorized movements
from your home; if you will give
me a book on safety
and comfort upon my return;
if you will offer
me any part of the range
of yourself from simple
to advanced; if you're exceptional
enough to be blurry-eyed
to my contingencies;
if you've moved
forward in your ideals
and taken leaps in your design;
if you will take me
whole and see me with night
vision while I reach
into a darker view;
if I'm invisible
to me yet illuminated
to you in the heat
of me, the wavelengths
of me that no one can see
but you; if you keep an A-grade eye
out on me but I go on
never knowing that I can
trust you to keep me
safe and sound; if you strive
for growth and improvement
just as I do and sleeplessly
spend your nights
dissatisfied with the traces
of your mediocrity; if you know
that you're the only one
who can do this job,
who can see this through;
if you have what it takes
to give every person
what she deserves, even me
who wants too much
of you; if you've exhausted
yourself in an effort
to do the right thing
and you see me
grieving that it was wrong;
if you've committed
yourself to offering
your services to me
or to taking responsibility;
if you're hopeful that each
of us is making a difference
in the world; if you uphold
standards so high
you might never reach them
but you'll try; if your dedication
is evident yet I doubt
it so much that I spend
time dissecting the trivialities;
if you want to serve
me as I wish to serve you;
if a phone call is all it takes
to start the automation
of my homeland, then will
you do me this service
and call me today? Sleep
with one ear to the night
and you will hear it: I have
been calling for a lifetime,
I have been summoning
my shower wall, I have been holding
out for a sign
of life, I have been home
and back again with a world
of torture in my breast. It sounds,
it sounded, the resonation
of sound sounded but I am far
from the home in your view
and I've been cast
into a home of slender hope,
a sounding in the distant, direst reaches
of my ringless incertitude.

I want to hear what I cannot.
If you're really there,
I want to hear from you.

If you make the call,
I will answer.