Christmas stories

Scully is now telling the story of the mystery shitter during her tenure as a hall director.

hold tight

My youngest kid is quite a bit like me and also not like me.

They are attuned to other people's emotions.  They are scrappy & sometimes insist on a place for themselves.  They have a very harsh inner critic.  They take the stress and anxiety they feel and turn that pressure inward.  They exclude themselves from their own kindness. 

This leads to some harmful coping skills.  There are a wide variety of harmful responses to anxiety.  Sometimes they scare me.  Sometimes they scare themselves. I don't want my child to be burdened with fear about my mental health but I did share that I, too, have a cruel inner critic.  I, too, need to work on kindness to myself. I did tell my youngest, "My wellness is connected to your wellness." This statement is true, may be unfair, could be manipulative and is definitely rooted in my own fear & need.  It is a tether, a safety.  The thing we have & never hope to use.  

We are apart for the month of July.  I will miss both of  my children and my partner.  I will miss seeing their faces & touching them & hearing how the day has been.  The hardest part of it, though, will be not really knowing if everyone is okay.  And if someone is not okay, if they are okay in the way they aren't okay. 

As my family was leaving, Scully was going over her checklist one last time.  There was a marker & my youngest child had shorts so I wrote on their leg, "Mommy loves you"  My youngest wrote on my leg, "Lp/Lo love mommy."  We had one more moment and my youngest pulled me towards them, taking my hand.  "My wellness is connected to your wellness," I reminded them. "Please be kind to yourself."  They nodded and then scrawled out on the back of my hand, "Then I will stay well for you."

I know this is not the right, final answer.  I know being well for themselves is the answer.  But this is a tether & I will hold on to it. 

should have

I should have grabbed more poetry

before the library closed.

now all I have

are loose words, syllables

where letter sounds bend or tip

but no magic to hold them

to the page.

all I have  is

regret

which really

makes words scatter.

now they'll never settle down.

It's just that I could've used some poetry

instead of this mess of

sounds & feeling.

jaf 4/1/20

Covid-19 edition

I miss hugging my friends

We need to talk about Khubz

We need to talk about Khubz.

I never read or saw "We have to talk about Kevin," but it lingers in me like horror movies I never saw.  

The message from the social worker was vague but urgent.  The phone tag was beyond tedious.  It was painful.

Finally, we connected.

" I am very concerned about some of the things Khubz said."

Deep breath in but I held it.  And so everything she said next felt like a stream rushing by. 

"Has no memories before 2 months ago. Thoughts of hurting people. Animals.  Hit a schoolmate at a bus stop."

Do you think she was trying to get a reaction from you?

"Maybe. And that's possible but trauma. anxiety. evaluation. Beat a raccoon until it was dazed. Of course, not all of these stories may not be true.  Cannot remember. Distinguish.  Feels foggy for hours. For days at a time. Dissociative symptoms.  Trauma. "

When I exhaled it was really to expel her. A long, repellant, pushing breath. Which is to say, she heard my distress but understood nothing.  "She is not dissociating. . ."

"I didn't say she was dissociating.  I said dissociative symptoms.  Psychological evaluation. Schedule next appointments."

I am having a very strong reaction. 

"I understand." 

I do not worry she is going to hurt someone.

"I don't either which is why I am calling you instead of having taken her directly to the hospital."

Whoosh.  The wind in me began howling. Any string of tolerance left me.

I need to get off the phone with you. Right now. Right now.

"Schedule. Ok. Follow up. Evaluation."

Right now. I am having a very strong reaction.

"Acquiesce." 

*hang up*

I was still grippiing the last bit of air inside me.  Sally was beside me in the van, shocked & horror-faced.  It was as bad as I'd imagined, insufficiently captured here.

4:35

25 minutes before we begin our volunteer shift at Sally's first (and Iowa's last?) presidential caucus

I really needed my breath.

25 minutes.  25 minutes to pile in the mom bed with Scully and Khubz for a  "no, you're not in trouble but we need to talk" conversation.

"Honey, did you tell LIlly that you don't have any memories?"

"I don't, mom! She asked who my second grade teacher was and I said, Mrs.  Sparks? I think? And she asked me if I would recognize her and I said no--I wouldn't! And I wouldn't, Mom!"

"That's because all white women look the same to you, honey."

"Mom! I have a terrible long term memory!"

"You have a terrible short term memory."

"No--Mom! Its not just that.  I don't have any memories!"

"Do you remember driving out to the farm when we picked our chickens up?"

"We got them from the post office."

Oh.

"Mom!"

"That's the way memory works.  We imprint and keep the important stuff.  That's why you remember the name of Hermione's cat but not what we ate for dinner last Thursday." 

"Um. Did you tell Lilly that you think about hurting people?"

"I do Mom! I think all the time about what it would look like if I injected molten hot lava under someone's skin.  What would it be like for a body to burn from the inside out??"

That gets me to inhale.  And exhale.

And inhale again. 

"Remember at church after the endless mass where we thought the priest was wrapping up three separate times but he kept going? We had gone through all the tic tacs and you were completely over it and the bordeom felt like it had become painful?"

"It was painful.  It is a physical pain in me."

"Agree.  And you told Mama you were thinking of something terrible happening to everyone in the church?"

"I *was* Mom."

"I believe you.  Because that is the degree of pain and discomfort that you were feeling.  Pain short circuits our idea brain.  When I was in labor, the contractions were so painful that I tried to climb out of the bed, away from the pain.  It wasn't a logical decision.  It is that the pain was making me feel desperate."  You were feeling desperate to escape what you were feeling.  That is different than actually wanting something terrible to happen to the people."

----Mom in context: We were in church in dsm at a spanish language mass 2 days after a white woman was arrested for purposefully running a 14-year-old Latina girl with her car.  She told the police that she "wanted to kill Mexicans." The girl lived.  I watched the church door throughout the mass wondering if someone would come in sharing that woman's intent.-----

"So," I continued, "Lilly doesn't know you.  When you told her you had a friend that you told your inner thoughts to and your friend called you a psycho, Lilly hears that you are disturbed.  I hear that you are so happy to have a friend, a friend who really listens to you & paid attention to you and stayed your friend. "

"I *am* so happy to have amazing friends.  And most of the time, people ignore me.  I'm invisible.  But now I have friends.  Really good friends!"

Breathe.

"Um," Scully has been quietly listening to all this.  "Just checking in, because we have 7 minutes to get to the caucus."

Breathe again.

"Ok, Khubz, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is: you're not broken.  You're not ill.  There is nothing wrong with you.  You have a very powerful brain, ADHD and anxiety and it impacts your memory.  We already knew all of this.  The bad news is that all paths lead to mindfulness.  Meditation and mindfulness.  Some people have the luxury of not attending to their mental health but we are not those people.

4:55

"We will talk more later."

That was two weeks ago.  Two weeks of worrying if Lilly would call me back or escalate or call the school or request a welfare check.  She has not.  This absence of action is the only gap in her total incompetence.  We had asked her to work with Khubz on project planning, organization skills, and time management.  But she had been trained use a hammer and so Khubz was her nail. 

Tomorrow I go to meet with my own therapist who is in the same practice.  She will get to condense my feedback and rage to Lilly who will never see my Khubz again.

Wish me luck. 

It's just that sometimes, I find myself giving in to the dominant linguistic and cultural paradigm, because I just dont have the creative power necessary to generate my own description of events without falling back on cliches. sjp 11.28.07

Thumper

Came in from playing in the snow and said they were "freezer burned." Omfg. So funny

Happy birthday, Thumper

Scene: slumbering mommies. One with a CPAP mask on because I love my brain cells more than others horror I feel about becoming a cyborg.
The other, in two overlapping pairs of socks because Iowa in January. It is 4:25 AM but no one knows that yet.

Enter: Thumper at the doorway.

"Um. Mom? We have a little situation. The dog."

"Was there an accident?"

"Yeah. A poop."

"Where is the dog right now?" (Mama becomes immediately alert. Dog is a poop eater.)

"He's down stairs."

"In his kennel?"

"Khubz is with him"

"Where is the accident? On your blankets?" (Thumper sleeps under a jumble of twelve assorted blankets—this is not hyperbole)

"Um. That's where it gets complicated." Dramatic Thumper pause. "You know the spot behind the door? Well, you can't actually open the door without. . . " continues talking about the radius the door required for opening. I heard none of these actual words as I anticipated the punchline. "And so, now it's all over underneath my door. "

Whew. Okay. "Whew. Okay. Spray. Paper towels. And a garbage bag taken right out to the dumpster. "

"Whew. Okay." Thumper turns to leave.

"WAIT A MINUTE. ITS YOUR BIRTHDAY." happy birthday, Thumper. "DONT WORRY ABOUT IT. ILL DO IT. "

"Wha—really??"

(Unhappily) " yes. Happy birthday."

"Thank you, mommy!!!" Dashes off to join his dog and his sister downstairs. I glance at the time. It is 4:25.

"I feel like this is a good argument for the dog sleeping in his kennel"