Our first teachings are our real religion-- they are what guide us on our way. Jesus loves me this I know but what love feels like I’ve come to feel as fear, as judgment, as not good enough, ever. Would you die for your fellow man? So I make myself small. We are all dressed up complete with lacy veil upon my head, as my mom’s head is covered, too. We are women and not allowed to be in the church with our heads uncovered. My dad’s head is uncovered, his words unfiltered as we drive to and from mass. He is swearing, and I am scared and wonder how his mind throws so much anger about. The car is full of anger, and again, I am full of fear. If I can’t sit still in church my mom will give me a dirty look. I want to cry, again, to overflow with the things that I have no words for.
Just last night, when my sister spoke back, he struck her and I lay in my bed, in the room I shared with my sister, too scared to intervene. In my head I want to run down the stairs and scream at him to stop it, but I don’t. I stay small quiet. Pretending to be asleep has come to be part of my survival repertoire. Would you die for your sister? Would you be able to spare her life? I would not pass the test, I may not get into heaven, anyway. But still I try to be good, be quiet, not have any needs that might exasperate anyone.
Who is in charge here? My mom feels confident that my dad will never strike her, and he doesn’t, yet us children are at his mercy, and at times, at her mercy, too. She yells and hits and threatens, too; but sometimes hums and talks about better times. She talks with her sister on the phone, maybe she’ll come for a visit and the yelling and hitting will subside. Hail Mary full of grace, where are you really, when I need you? You are holding baby Jesus in a way I’ve longed to be held, cradled, safe.
Look at the pictures of the Holy Family, Joseph, teaching Jesus at his carpenter’s bench, so peaceful, so loving, before Jesus goes off to his gruesome death. I go down the basement to my dad’s workbench and get out my paints. I feel safe down here, connected to dad stuff, work stuff, important stuff, my dad shows me how to clean my brushes with turpentine. My mom hangs my still life of rose in a vase on the wall on the staircase landing. I am a good girl; smart and talented.
I want to be like Jesus and travel around, making friends, making statements, being controversial, but I don’t want to die a horrible death. I want to be happy. By the time I am only 11 years old, my oldest sister has become pregnant and married to her boyfriend. She used to tell me that our parents should get divorced, this just confused me too. The fighting starts to end. It is only me and my younger brothers in the house. My dad isn’t angry enough to hit us anymore. The older siblings tell us how lucky we are. My dad still scares me, my mom still confuses me. I try harder to be smarter, better, a good girl, waiting for Mary’s embrace, approval from my lord Jesus, a smile from Joseph.
Angel of God,
my guardian dear,
To whom God's love
commits me here,
Ever this day,
be at my side,
To light and guard,
Rule and guide.
Amen.
I am never alone. God, and his angels, see every, every, little thing I do. I need to be guided, because I on my own know no good thing. Every day there is something that confuses me. Dodging slings and arrows. I secretly start to disbelieve or believe that perhaps I am crazy. Just a little bit crazy.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Sunday, January 3, 2016
New Year
"They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold. I deem them mad because they think my days have a price." Kahlil Gibran
Since I’ve been on the other side of 50, I have this feeling that I’ll never quite have time to do all the things in life that I’d like to do. If at 20, I had no clue of all the things that were possible, I now see possibilities everywhere, and know that I mostly just have to choose. I used to see so many obstacles; gender, class, money, location. I now know that those things are entirely constructed and therefore, can be deconstructed, and moved through or around. That I did not know at 20.
So, how do I structure my days, “spend” my time? I am learning the opposite of what I believed to be true about money and the arts. It is that not only can you make money in the arts, you can make money doing what you like to do, and create more time to do what you love to do. It is actually less risky than I’d come to believe, in that you learn to trust yourself and the universe to support you, rather than a hierarchical institution. As I write these words, I almost can sense the pushback, there must still be some vestiges inside of me, of the belief that we can’t actually have what we want. Like it is wrong of me to even tell myself and others that. But I know we can, because I continue to get more and more of what I want in life all the time. Now, it's just choosing how I want to spend my time.
I’ve been asking myself, then what do I want to do the most going forward? There have been a few projects on my mind. 1) Getting my memoir, Mother Love, polished and published. I wrote this around 10 years ago, in response to people asking how it was that Kathleen was able to be such a young mom, and still go on to get a graduate degree; and also as an encouragement (manifesto?) that young parenthood is not really that different than parenthood at any other age. 2) Creating and teaching courses for other therapists for continuing education, and/or creating courses for people in general. 3) Finishing the Etsy site I started nearly 2 years ago and build a website to sell my handcrafted jewelry.
Instead of focusing on one of these things, I just keep kicking about all three of them in my head, and end up not doing any of them. I haven’t even really been writing much this past year. I didn’t realize that being a full-time therapist is actually very time and energy consuming, and even though I love it, I also have other things I want to do, too. So, if I own my time, and if I can do what I want, how do I choose? Well, somehow, crafting my memoir has become my priority. I have gotten enough feedback from people to know that I need to start the rewrites, and I’ve started to think more about it, and soon, soon, I will just open up the pages and start the process of editing and visioning the whole project. As I write this even, I find it a bit daunting.
The daunting part is quieting the voices that tell me it's too late, that I'm too old, that ask how much do I think I can have in life. That tell me a quiet life is ok, that I don't need to imagine book tours and speaking about being supportive of our kids, no matter what. It's a trip I started on years ago, and I've had a chance to rest a bit. It's now time to get back on that road, and just see where it takes me. I want a chance to say, in my own voice, that when we love each other, imperfectly, of course, it still makes a difference.
Since I’ve been on the other side of 50, I have this feeling that I’ll never quite have time to do all the things in life that I’d like to do. If at 20, I had no clue of all the things that were possible, I now see possibilities everywhere, and know that I mostly just have to choose. I used to see so many obstacles; gender, class, money, location. I now know that those things are entirely constructed and therefore, can be deconstructed, and moved through or around. That I did not know at 20.
So, how do I structure my days, “spend” my time? I am learning the opposite of what I believed to be true about money and the arts. It is that not only can you make money in the arts, you can make money doing what you like to do, and create more time to do what you love to do. It is actually less risky than I’d come to believe, in that you learn to trust yourself and the universe to support you, rather than a hierarchical institution. As I write these words, I almost can sense the pushback, there must still be some vestiges inside of me, of the belief that we can’t actually have what we want. Like it is wrong of me to even tell myself and others that. But I know we can, because I continue to get more and more of what I want in life all the time. Now, it's just choosing how I want to spend my time.
I’ve been asking myself, then what do I want to do the most going forward? There have been a few projects on my mind. 1) Getting my memoir, Mother Love, polished and published. I wrote this around 10 years ago, in response to people asking how it was that Kathleen was able to be such a young mom, and still go on to get a graduate degree; and also as an encouragement (manifesto?) that young parenthood is not really that different than parenthood at any other age. 2) Creating and teaching courses for other therapists for continuing education, and/or creating courses for people in general. 3) Finishing the Etsy site I started nearly 2 years ago and build a website to sell my handcrafted jewelry.
Instead of focusing on one of these things, I just keep kicking about all three of them in my head, and end up not doing any of them. I haven’t even really been writing much this past year. I didn’t realize that being a full-time therapist is actually very time and energy consuming, and even though I love it, I also have other things I want to do, too. So, if I own my time, and if I can do what I want, how do I choose? Well, somehow, crafting my memoir has become my priority. I have gotten enough feedback from people to know that I need to start the rewrites, and I’ve started to think more about it, and soon, soon, I will just open up the pages and start the process of editing and visioning the whole project. As I write this even, I find it a bit daunting.
The daunting part is quieting the voices that tell me it's too late, that I'm too old, that ask how much do I think I can have in life. That tell me a quiet life is ok, that I don't need to imagine book tours and speaking about being supportive of our kids, no matter what. It's a trip I started on years ago, and I've had a chance to rest a bit. It's now time to get back on that road, and just see where it takes me. I want a chance to say, in my own voice, that when we love each other, imperfectly, of course, it still makes a difference.
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