about the lilting house

New Beginnings...and Choices

I have a week to decide if a) I want to go be an Au Pair in Italy for a family I know and have been working with for two years in Boston, or 2) I want to be a nanny for a wonderful new well-to-do family who owns and operates a toystore and will be having a new baby in July to add to their 6 and 4 year-old girls. Family A drives me nuts in some ways, but those ways are known to me. There will be few surprises. Family 2 is still idealized. I meet them tomorrow. Option 2 is more lucrative, Option A is more...foreign.

I don't know what to do.

Fortunately, I have Amanda:

"We should master fear, instead of cultivating it. We cannot build safely on false foundations. Mind produces all action. If the action proceeds from Truth, from immortal Mind, there is harmony; but mortal mind is liable to any phase of belief. A relapse cannot in reality occur in for you because you have already done such tremendous work in Boston and you will always have access to your network of support. I will come visit you, you can have phone appointments with Edye and Paula. You can do this work in Italy with them over the phone but YOU, my love have all you need within yourself. You are the most courageous, compassionate, intelligent individual I know and your depth of understanding of yourself will continue to deepen regardless of whether you pursue this opportunity, stay in Boston to be with newborns.  It all depends on what you want the most at this point in your life (i.e. do you feel you need to be around youth, fresh life in the form of a new born baby or do you feel you need to cultivate your understanding of Italian and European culture, music etc.)  My beautiful wifey, you must never fear the mental malpractitioner, the mental assassin, who, in attempting to rule us, tramples upon the divine Principle of metaphysics, for God/Truth/Divine Love is the only power. To succeed in healing, you must conquer your own fears but this may involve the fear of staying. Fear is truly a negligible concept because it can be too easily applied in every instance. I love you fully and unconditionally. I will always be here for you my love and I trust you more than any human on this Earth, which is why I ask that you look into yourself, wipe away the fear, and trust what you discover.

Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and become new. Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces panic or anxiety, whether it be memories, projections, or circumstance, then perform your beautiful room as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them. These thoughts cannot touch you my lovey.  The issues of pain or pleasure must come through mind, and like a watchwoman forsaking her post, we admit the intruding belief, forgetting that through ourselves, we can forbid this entrance. Mind, not matter, is causation. You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness or fear. I love you so so much."

Amanda, I love you too. Thank you.
I'm dreaming on it.

Thank you.

To a friend half a world away - Thank you so much for your email. Because of you, that last post is still up, and I'd really intended to take it down and put it away. An emptying of the mind like that, a cascade of words without pausing or edits is not usually something I consider good or generous or benevolent to share with the world. With my therapists, of course. They've got training to rely on. But I've always seen the world as more fragile than it really is. Thank you for encouraging me to place more trust in anyone and everyone who chances upon this space. My voice is here, stronger and braver and stranger yet more mine each day.

It feels wonderful to be heard, and even better to know that I've made a difference. Thank you.

With peace and love,
Elizabeth

Feel the feelings

I just came out of an Ann Baltz masterclass and all I want to do is play solitaire but I must make myself feel these feelings. they're good feelings and i don't want to feel them so i'm typing instead because if i keep typing and stay present stay here in this moment then i won't go away and lessen the wonderful effects. I always want to distance myself from significant experiences or any kind of connecting experience good or bad so i can look at it later -- after half an hour or so of solitaire or cell phone games or eating or frowning or whatever -- objectively. it takes the feeling out it. It puts me back in my rational brain, my non-feeling safe brain where I can say: I learned a lot from that class and i got a lot of good feedback and my wasn't she nice...but i don't really process any of it through and through. It's so hard not to play solitaire right now. so hard so hard so hard just keep typing and wait for the wave to pass. these are good feelings and feelings are ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok keep thinking don't go away i know your jaw hurts and your stomach's tight and it's hard to breathe and all because something good happened. you stay in the moment and sing and then sing better but you can't really hear their comments, not really, you're aware of the feeling of singing with freedom, more freedom but they're talking out of a vaccuum anyway even though you did soul singing and they don't know you do that. gibberish soul singing with piano...what an adventure. how i would like to do that every day. i would do that every day. if every day i got to sing whatever came to mind without words, anyone's words, just noises and sounds, if i could do that with someone else! with a companion at the piano, in a format i recognize but have made my own. oh i would. i would do it every day. i would sing every day. i'd never run away from that. ask me if i want to improv? i'll say yes no matter what state of mind i'm in, no matter how sick or tired. i'd leave my house for that. because when i say what i have to say without words but with music in my own voice i can be honest, so honest so so honest with everyone, and even myself. i can't plan or execute feelings. they just happen. and when i get to listen to the music of someone else -- on the piano or in a group of voices -- and join them, then i'm not alone. then it's not scary to sit with the feelings. to go there. i never wind up sobbing or any silly and unprofessional thing like that, but i do get to feel like for a moment i made a real human connection without trying. without trying trying trying trying trying trying hurting hurting smiling grinning grimacing stretching pulling pushing making making making happen. groups are the worst for talking. one other person is better. one other person i know and love really well is even better. but speaking without words in a language that no one knows but everyone understands, a language that is only my own and therefore can never be wrong no matter what words i choose or what statement i make, speaking with music and sound and conviction and power and breath and wholeness and spirit and listening to all the beautiful sounds around me that make this sound mean exactly what i mean for it to mean....that is the best. there is such freedom there. when will there be freedom like that in life's speech? when will there be freedom like that in smiling? when will there be no-judgement (keep typing keep typing stay here you're safe it's ok ok ok ok) speech? no problem speech? no wrong music, no wrong words? i want to speak NOW as though it IS now and not as though every statement i make just might be the wrong-est statement i could ever have made -- that dad was abusing me, sexually, it was incest, it went on forever and ever and ever, and i know it's wrong but i liked it or parts of it but i hated it too and "it will kill your mother" and destroy the family, the whole family, your little brothers you have to protect them so keep it in swallow it down compress it away and learn how to speak from your jaw, not your throat, not your heart, not your soul, your jaw - that hinge that keeps the bad words back and the censored ones through. improv is freedom from my jaw, from sense, from judgement, from pain, from error, from destruction. it only ever is beautiful noise. such beautiful noise. i want to make beautiful noise and say things i've never said and not be afraid ever ever afraid ever ever ever afraid every day afraid every day sad and mad and grossed and gruesome and please make that go away so i can make beautiful noise and say things i don't know i have to say but i want to say i so want to say them and get them out and not have them in here anymore i just want them out of me out of me out of me get out of me and let me sing and speak with the freedom and ease of improv everywhere always always always.

now i'm going to play solitaire and then i'm getting gelato and greek triangle sweetness and then i'm going to see edye.

Cerulean screams

This sound if I could name it
Would be my shark's screaming,
Suffocating cerulean in a plexiglass cage.*

This sound if you could hear it
Would not whisper lies
Or soothe like mother's lullabies,
But still abandon China's girls, their
Howling eyes, haunting ceaseless deathly cries.**

(This sound I'm sounding I must keep sounding
If silence shall not eat me all away with each decay.)

Plunged and sucked, shark's treat, shark's teeth,
Till rotten core no formaldehyde completes.
An impossible death in dying rooms still living,
Pristine torment of new jaws, same caged cerulean screams.

Toss my carcass out to sea
Drift, descend, and be devoured.
Sustain his, their, your life, my flesh.

It was here you were conceived, and here you must return.
It was here he did conceive, and here he must return.

~~~

*The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, by Damien Hirst
**The Dying Rooms, a documentary investigating China's orphanages in the wake of China's "One Child Policy" made by Lauderdale Films and broadcast in June 1995.

changes

I don't expect this blog to be around much longer. It is time for a change. If you look back through the history, you will find that 80% of it has been deleted, and fewer than 50 posts remain. All of these posts dating back to January 2005 have been edited. They are the best of what I've written here. I think it's time to compile these thoughts into a more cohesive narrative in a more formal setting. Perhaps once I've finished graduate school, I'll have time to post about whatever I want! every day.

Or perhaps not. You never know, my next website could be a fancy schmancy opera singer one! Welcome to EE.com!!!

I hope anyone who still comes to check out this blog is doing oh so well.

Love,
E

A Pause

Sometimes there is nothing else to do but pause. Stop everything. Give in to gravity, space, grief. And pause. Not forever, not for too long, but for a moment out of time.

And after this pause, life in the world resumes.

Little Things

I do little things.  Not with my friends and family, it's true, but I suppose that's because I trust that they love me; they don't need little things and I don't need to give them.  Sometimes I lose the balance of the right sorts of little things and then this trusted love gets out of sorts, but by that point I've realized, or they've told me, and we make it right.

I do little things for the right reasons: You're stressed?  Have a backrub.  You're sick?  Here's some soup.  You forget that you're loved?  Read a love note.

I do little things for the wrong reasons: I don't feel worthy?  I buy you dinner.  I feel guilty of bringing up unpleasant subjects?  I clean your room.  I forget that I'm loved?  I call and I call and I text and I text and I do lots of little things.

Someday I won't need to do little things anymore.  I'll know that I'm worthy, and I won't think twice about living every day balanced between where I've come from, where I'm going, and where I am.  I'll trust that love is love is love and we share it and we show it in different ways, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.  Someday.

Today, I do little things, and I wish for them too.

The problem with doing

What do you do when you're a do-er and everything you do is wrong, but everything you don't do feels wrong too? What if not doing is what someone else wants, but what terrifies you? If you define yourself by doing, gain control by doing, make things happen by doing, and then one day someone says, "The more you do, the less you'll get," what happens to you? How do you remain defined?

~~~

I used to be a very cheerful person. I did well in school. I did lots of activities. I did nice things for people and I smiled a lot. I didn't need help on schoolwork, or phone calls from friends, or deep chats with Mom. I didn't need love: "It's ok, people don't think of me like that." I didn't need.

When bad things happened, I made the best of them. My body would freeze, take the blow, and my mind would rationalize. Criticism? Helpful feedback. Name-calling? Juvenile stupidity. Sex? Oh, I want it.

Then my Mom found my journal. And she brought it to me at the breakfast table. And she asked if it were true. And I said yes.

Now, I'm intense. I work through stuff all the time. I need reassurance. I need lots and lots of help. I talk about sad things, bad things, more than most of my friends. And every time I do, my body lets go a little bit.

Now, I'm cheerful. I do well in school. I do lots of activities. I do nice things for people and I smile a lot. I need help with music, phone calls from friends, deep chats with Mom. I need love and affection and frequent little reminders that I'm ok, this is now, I am me, not her. Now, I need.

~~~

Someday, I'll realize that who I am is so profound I can never be too intense. Someday, I'll finally understand that I don't have to do anything to deserve love. Because I already do. And someday, my definition of self will not be dependent on the viewpoint of another. And then I will always be defined.

chocolate valentine

I knew a girl who was abused by her father. (she was me). She believed all daddies taught their daughters how to kiss and how to screw. She knew it was her flirting, her coy looks that made him come at night into her room. It was her desire that made his milky white stuff shoot out into the air. She thought all little girls had secrets that, if told, would make the sun explode and all life cease on earth. She believed that all girls worried always they were pregnant with the wrong man's child, or were terrified they'd hurt their own insides. Yet she was sure that she was bad and different, corrupt and diseased, broken and disgusting, all the same.

I knew a girl whose mother read her journal. (she was me). She gave over her burden without protest and, as if a light long-extinguished had finally flickered on, she saw her mother for perhaps the very first time. She sighed with awe and distant relief as no one blamed her or pointed out her flaws. She watched her father admit his guilt, leave his wife, buy a condo, refuse therapy, tell his siblings, throw himself into his work. She told them all she knew she was the victim, he the villain. She didn't feel a word of what she said.

I knew a girl whose father, well before the end of life, became a child. (she was me). Before, he was husband, father, breadwinner, respected family man. After, he was workaholic, loner, miser, delusioned dreamer, pathetic beast. Before, he'd never sent a card, bought a gift, wrote a letter. Now, that's all he did. He mailed  the odd, the impersonal, the too-personal, the mundane, the horrifically symbolic. He courted her without knowing that he was. He tried to win her back.

I knew a girl who became an abuser when her father became a child. (she was me). To protect herself from harm and fear and damage was to prevent him from acting as her father. To prevent him from acting as her father was to thwart, deny, challenge, confront, attack, refuse, ignore, expel, and abuse him. To thwart, deny, challenge, confront, attack, refuse, ignore, and expel a child was to abuse a child. And to abuse a child, to become an abuser, was to die.

And so she died.

.

This girl I knew, she was me, and she died. She died until she realized she had killed a man who was already dead, who had been dead her entire life, and would be dead until he died.

And she didn't feel so badly anymore.
She sent him back the valentine chocolates and the card.
She mailed it in the same box, with a note.

"You began abusing me, infecting me, inscribing me with your dull lead mark, on the day I was born. You didn't stop for twenty years. You have not stopped yet. But I will no longer stand here and watch you ink whatever remnants of me remain. I'm sorry, daddy, but I hate you. You can keep your goddamn fucking chocolate valentine."

(me).

Three, then four, of me.

Goddess of the Seven Sins. Queen of the Night. Clytemnestra of the Fatherlust. Gluttonous, vengeful, jealous, greedy, enraged, torrid, proud, envious, bitter, lazy, lusting, treacherous.

More reaction than action, more show than substance, more effect than cause. Prickly, tunnel-vision, consuming chocolate bitter. Behind the smokescreen, a howler monkey.

****

Baby Caitlin. A wet, glistening, red pulp of creation. The most precious, most vulnerable, most defenseless life. The youngest child. The most beautiful. The most good. Red blood, blood red, pulse, ooze, pulsate, flesh.

Hold me. Love me. Protect me. She likes her little marble world.

***

Hillary. Short, sinewy, tough, fierce, Hillary. Dirty blond hair, watches windows, pacing mistrust. Jeans, bound, long-sleeve T. Impassive, wary, loyal, granite girl. Circling hyena with an iron stare.

Carbonite shield.  Fear purse. Doorman morning. Tightest spoon. She doesn't trust me but she loves me and she wants to get along.

**

A healer. An artist. A mind. A beauty. A gift.

*

Me. All four of us.