Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody, Who are you?

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

So many ways to read this, unlike much poetry. Knowing Dickinson's history only adds layers to what appears to be a simple question.

I found the phrasing haunting, having heard the first couplet on SVU a couple of years back and finally googled  to see if Dick Wolf  had such a brilliant mind or borrowed it from somewhere.

 Dick Wolf is brilliant and to have borrowed this couplet to use in a case about pedophilia left me breathless.

Storyline: Two children, now young adults. The girl has escaped, the boy who was trained to rape her as a child, also now an adult has continued to perpetuate molestations on young children. She confronts him as he's just been arrested and interrogated by Benson/Stabler. His former companion begs him to speak about their experiences, help put away the man that kidnapped them, filmed them, abused them and wrote a book explaining how to do it. 

The young man looks up at her, finally realizing who she is...he is so lost in a cycle of abuse/abusing she is only another faceless entity for him until she triggers a memory of their protecting one another as very young children. Almost with resignation, he blankly then stares through her and quietly tells her...

....I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?

Complicated Grief week 4

No in-person sessions until next week (first week 1.2012), so its almost 2 weeks of working alone but its grueling because its alot of dredging up the past through journaling, notes and memory work. So a couple of thoughts, if these are redundant, my apologies..seems I tend to tell the same tales over and over.

1. At the start of this project I was already anticipating being abandonded and grieving for the loss of the study people in my life. I did the same thing everytime a co-worker resigned and moved on. Being unable to process grief probably explains why I couldnt leave the college and job everyone couldnt wait to get away from.

2. It may not be possible to articulate the level of grief involved here-this kind of grief not a part of your life, it IS your life, it is 'I'. If there was a child in here somewhere she's long gone or died early on and I became The Grief itself. This is why I have no idea who I am or who I see in the mirror. A job title was very helpful for the brief time I had one.

And so when there is a question about feeling suicidal I try not to laugh because frankly when you're already 'dead' inside suicide is not an issue, there is no ideation, there is no fear of dying-there is dislike of pain and disability because of the inconvenience and dependence on others, but death? already live there.

What I would like to know or learn is whether there is anything left inside to resurrect, to grow or build to resemble a living person. Just because I write or had a job or had children, these things were done on autopilot for decades-not by choice, I dont know how to break through this pain.

The deeper the excavating of emotions and memories, more washed away in grief, it comes in magnificent waves, hearing Elgar's Enigma Variations on the radio 3 days ago really kicked it off. Release or relief hasnt kicked in yet and I need to ask next session how it is possible to create a human being in 16-20 weeks...we may be in the messianic era but I dont think humans are that evolved yet.

Hemingway

Read this fragment quote from A Farewell to Arms this afternoon-
...The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

Complicated Christmas Grief

christmas was always complicated as a child. it began with my sister and me begging my Jewish father to let us bring in a real tree, a small tree. we had no inkling or knowledge of what a tree meant or of christ, we wanted the beauty of twinkling lights, colored fragile glass bulbs swaying, the icicles trembling and the answer was always no. I cant recall what or if we received presents for chanukah so in all fairness I'll say nothing on that, but my father did make a production of setting up our small bronze menorah with candles, until I got old enough to do it and he helped me with the bracha...which later turned out to be the same one for lighting shabbos candles, so his intention for us was there even if his knowledge was slightly lacking.

ever year sister and I were dressed up as was my mother, she hailed a taxi and we were driven out to Nutley, New Jersey to spend hours at her mother's home where her sister lived. I sat in the back seat the entire ride there thinking how to negotiate the war zone we were sure to enter on returning home the NYC and a drunk and enraged father. Once in Jersey we were all picked up late later for christmas dinner at one of her brother's homes. this was the time is really got bad for the Jews From New York. I had already been through an Inquisition in very broken english by my Roman Catholic Italian grandmother about baby Jesus and having failed exam that even with whispered answers from my mother, was told to sit in the dark living room no one ever sat in with its perfectly intact furniture covered in hard dried out plastic on the couch and chairs. Do not turn on the lamp please, its a waste of money. A seven year old sent to sit in a dark room because she flunked christmas 101. If the test were given today, I'd still flunk.

We usually piled into my uncles blue sedan and went to her beloved brother N.'s house with his Irish wife that no one liked-tight ass-she was titled. She relished the times I was left alone with her as everyone went to a late morning Mass because it gave her some strange pleasure to land some zingers. Told to give me toast and milk she would toast half an english muffin, put on margarine, peacch preserves and placing it in front of me asked if my Jewish father wasn't feeding me? When everyone came back she had canadian bacon, eggs, toast etc ready for them and announced I had already eaten so I could sit in the living room and wait for the presents to be opened.

This relative always had a floor to ceiling tree that filled 1/3 of their living room, red and gold balls, twinkling lights and no icicles but something called angel hair, a thin glass fluff with sparkles that was pulled from branch to brach as if 'angels' had shit snow or angel crap over all the limbs. My uncles kids were my age, all of us around 7-8-9 and I sat as each name was called out and gifts were handed in red paper with green cowboys or green paper with red bells and gold ribbons were passed around. My mother once passed out envelopes of cash to the other kids, assuming this was my father's money since that was her fount of wealth. So it was fun to ooh and ahh over everyone's pajamas, scarves, new catcher's mitt or bat, toy drum. Dinner was always a baked ham, yes, baked ham. I see living where I do now that pork must have been a traditional meal for Jesus or eaten at the last supper with matzah because every form of ham was on sale last week, you couldnt find a piece of chicken on sale no matter how I dug around in the case.

I had this brief encounter with myself during a complicated grief session where M. asked me to suddenly think if it were possible to change my life what would I imagine for myself. My stupid remark was to eat a meal of hazerai and integrate the two sides of my family within myself. But on further ruminations, I dont know why the hell on the earth I would ever want to integrate the half that so rejected us as kids, including my mother, the aunts that told us how our mother suffered and gave so much up to have us kids (that's all the details I got, who told her to marry the old Jewish man? Her twin brother borrowed thousands to open a restaurant from my father, her other brother borrowed money for business, she spent money on her nieces and nephews-my father was unwelcome in everyone's home, he was just the investor for whatever was needed.)

There are no relatives to be found to renew or begin a relationship with and I know all my father's side are deceased. If they had children I cant find any and Ancestry is not the help it purports to be for Jews, even with the Mormon archives.

Let the dead rest, I'll see them all soon enough. Better to finish things here in a neat way with no loose ends as my parents left us.

so many things....

One might think that living in a frozen zone the brain would shut up, but thoughts continue to pile up for sorting out. A second radiant heater in the main room has helped alot, at least it can be turned on like a tiny fireplace, totally silent and so warming to be near. I've decided that to move somewhere else is not an option for now at least. Too many other practical concerns to deal with; that I have shelter that is accessible to shop and doctors and a bus line 3 steps away is not something to dismiss because of cold. I'm also not strong enough to pack up, look for another apt and move, unpack again and learn new territory again. This might be a 'starter' apartment, I'm a little tired.
Hope to buy a rug for front room before the cold becomes worse, that might ease the chill I hope.

Something is brewing with me and relationship with therapist with complicated grief study. I find myself disliking/distrusting him simply for being male. This was not my initial reaction at all, I think its rising out of the 'blue bra' incident in Egypt and the general dismissiveness of certain males in my immediate family. While its displaced emotion, its distracting. I've made notes but we're on a 2 week hiatus and he has no idea about this issue.

I had mammogram done a few weeks ago that PC declared to be 'within normal range' just as I received a letter from mammogram office requesting that I please return to have another one done, something was questionable. I have a 2nd mammogram done and get escorted directly to ultrasound for further inspection. Cysts...come back in 6 months, please check in with high risk program for counseling and to see whether a long term program is suggested in terms of treatment, diet etc. No point in draining, they only fill again, say doctors here.


How fast can body parts fall apart? What happened to all those vitamins my mother stuffed into us as kids? Those mornings of having to gag on A/D fish oil capsules.
Its not as though I wasn't expecting this considering my parents or the wrath of G-d come to roost, so a quiet chuckle at the pace of disintegration is just that, private except for here where the walls alone have ears. Bless you if you hear any of these thoughts. But these issues are playing a primary role in not moving, just doesnt make sense when I have so much going on medically.

Actually, found out that since the shingles issue has been chronic for over a decade and left untreated-through no fault of mine, not until recently did I put it together and realize its a weeks long body process and pushed for medical assistance-but its actually developed into post herpetic neuralgia now and so the symptoms are more severe and different. But no vaccine is effective the literature writes for those who have already had Shingles although anti viral meds are effective to ease symptoms if taken early enough.

Had birthday dinner for oldest son. Fascinating how my adult children come, sit down to have a meal and often talk as if I'm not in the room. I realize alot of that is my fault since for decades I was NOT in the room, but I detect some intent in this now as conversations will regress to childish code language or mention of relationships I know nothing about, that havent been shared with me. While I write about it here to note it, its not my loss anymore, I hope everyone can look back and see they passed up a chance to mend fences, heal and move on. As for me, not really well enough to fight that fight anymore, it is what it will be.

"ego-driven drivel..."

...such as most blogging was defined by Hitch, but continue I must:-)
Well, I have a diagnosis for the endless internal chills that now are quieted only by sitting next to a hot space heater. I've found you can be so cold as so be unable to sleep. I didnt realize how tense my body is until lying down near the living room heater and immediately the warm relaxed me, I was asleep in minutes. 

Thinking of his death, after speaking with my oldest son, who said arrogance was the defining word for both Hitchens and Jobs. Arrogance that took the form of dismissing traditional medicine on Jobs' part and Hitchens loud fast talking over every opponent so that no one stood a chance against him. Well, no one did stand a chance but loud and fast talking can be heard from every protesting senorina in the 'hood' with in-your-face head bobbing and fake nails pointing, so being loud and fast proves nothing. Hitchens had, what Schama and most others who were genuinely close, termed a great desire to debate, understand as well as speak the truth of what he observed of Life, much like Twain, Hume and Orwell. If speaking Truth to the fatuous who prefer to mouth PC or tell us black is white when its obviously not, is arrogant- we suffer very little in our current society of such arrogance, but pompous PC bloat can be heard from  virtually every talking head and politician, incumbent and running.

I'm watching the sad developments in Egypt, notably the beating of a covered woman. Heartbreaking it is knowing how people looked to the military as their safeguard against government tyranny, and they were that in the last days of Mubarak's reign. But something else is going on now that the media is not able to define. I humbly suggest that the' military' (defined as all elements not aligned with the Brotherhood etc) is refusing a takeover by Islamists or to have Egypt become another sharia ruled country. Egypt, with all its wanting, was a country apart from anyplace else in the arab middle east. Not simply because it absorbed so much Western money but because of its people, their nature, humor and general innate intelligence. Egypt has lost tourism, a mainstay of its economy and essentially the illiterate majority who have voted conservatively, did so in fear of Western style traditions overtaking their world-there seemed to be no middle ground, no leader to galvanize the people as Nassar once did, and in this vacuum the Brotherhood in its various incarnations has always thrived, patiently waiting to step up, take over. The military knows this...which doesnt excuse their current behaviour, but I think they're as frightened as the people they once protected, they are now fighting for their own continued existence.
While my relationship with Egypt will always be bittersweet and in some ways regrettable, I am glad I was there before the current morass destroys what remains of class structure and society.  Even sadder is what they are creating for the students who had, for a moment, some hope of a country reborn where their work would bear fruit in an open and uncensored society.

I'm not out of words, but strength to write further.

Chosen

There is a great clamoring down here
Christopher
snow falling
rain flooding
Death lies taxes
continue as moths appear
suddenly everywhere signalling with
flicking wings a fleeting intimacy
a post coital word, glance, photo or less
having warmed themselves
by your constant fire

this distant heart feels
strange loss puzzlement
no, it is joy that you are
were
unencumbered
free

Prayers require no permission
I pray kaddish will be said

12.17.11
r.singer

Shingles

12.16.11

After 2 months of symptoms that had a rhuematologist and PCP ping ponging me back and forth, incorrectly prescribing antibiotics because each one thought the other should be tending to my symptomology and was dismissive of my flulike chills, intense joint pain and even worse fatigue, while knowing my medical history, finally was referred to a gastroenterologist who saw me on an emergency basis Friday morning.

Once you have chicken pox as a child, the virus is dormant and in strong immune systems, remains dormant.
Shingles occurs mainly in older adults with weak auto-immune systems (I have multiple rhuematoid issues) and can be extremely painful and exhausting. I get 2-3 attacks a year that were attributed to be rhuematic flares.

In 2011 before leaving NY I had the worst attack that paralyzed me from the waist down, total body rash for 5 days with mad itching and unable to use legs or walk. Thankfully my landlady wrote down everything as a record for my former doctor, who read it and shrugged. I kept the letter detailing what happened, the doctor this morning read it and after examing me put the pieces together.

Triggers that make Shingles reappear are certain medications (none that I use) and severe stress.

Good, intelligent doctors are rare and I see good medicine often has little to do with bedside manner. My PCP is handsome, great 'bedside' manner and an idiot who is focused on how many diagnostic codes he can slap on my insurance forms to milk as much as he can in payment. I think he needs to be replaced.  As well as my Indian rhuematologist who only speaks with patients every 3 months and lost patience when her Bactrim prescription did nothing. "Please followup with your PC"
On a whim, he prescribed CIPRO "I've prescribed antibiotics for less than whatever you have, so if it works, it'll tell us one thing and if it doesnt, that will tell us something else" 
Sounds like great doctoring doesnt it?
But the dummy here felt so sick, she took the pills until the cure was worse than the illness.
I'm still recuperating from the side effects of Cipro.

A simple thought (doubt he would appreciate a prayer) for Christopher Hitchens who passed away Thursday...that the G-d he denied and scorned, blasphemed and blamed as the cause of much human suffering, embrace him as the prodigal son come home at last.

Session 2 Complicated Grief Study

We clarified why my daughter is being asked to come in. Its not to ask her to be a caretaker, but to share what this work is, what I'm doing and why. This part of my life is not something my children ever knew about other than my father died when I was relatively young and they had a grandmother who never actually acknowledged them, she refused to be called a 'grandmother.'


I was also reminded she IS an adult aside from being my 'child' and can be expected to hear, listen and respond as an adult.
Something that came up was my need to actually define 'grief' and what I am grieving about. My assumption all these years was that it is about Father, but I wonder if the actual issue precedes his death, that the grieving is about the emotional isolation and lack of attachment by both parents to my sister and me.

My mother was a first class narcissist, Grade A+ Prime.

My father was in his 60s trying to hold onto a much younger wife and 2 young children while drinking heavily, worrying even more heavily and grieving his aging self, he was chronically depressed.
So its noted that my primary aim as a child was just to survive in this atmosphere, but I've never left 'survival mode'. Or crisis mode, or being on constant alert and overdrive, while simultaneously being terrified of people,distrustful of just about everyone and throw in social anxiety and agoraphobia now. I would say distrustful about everyone but I'm usually comfortable with doctors.

We did an exercise of imaginary thinking and what would I want if I could have anything right at that moment? And I came up with something that surprised even me. I would like to go to the Italian neighborhood in the next town that has all kinds of food shops and buy all the forbidden things I ate as a child, that I cannot eat as an adult (pork anyone?) hard salami, capacola, proscutto, sharp provolone, some peasant bread, olives, uncover my hair and get a decent hair cut, maybe color all the grey, learn how to use makeup (yes, at age 58, pathetic isnt it?-my mother was a MODEL and couldnt find the time to teach these things, like you learn it from the air) maybe get a wardrobe that is flattering. I'd ,like to add lose weight but the likely hood of that happening, its been a life long fight.

I felt like wanting to throw off the restrictions and integrate both halves of my life, both sides of my family to complete myself, stop feeling shame about so many things or what people say or who the hell cares anymore.
This week's homework is to delve into that subject, write about it and think about making it happen, what steps can be taken to start the process.

BEfore Session 2

Thank you all who read and post here, its gratifying and appreciated.


I think they randomly assigned me to actual medicine because a number of things have changed; The uncontrolled weeping stopped, like a boulder of black clouds lifted. Before I get too excited, just being careful and watchful that its medication and not anticipation. But my sleep has changed as well, its deep and restful. Seems previous AD had lost its effectiveness-it was given to me to quit smoking but worked as an antidepressant for 6 yrs. By the time I was weaned off and put on study med,  looking back I realize how under medicated I was. Seeing the difference in my outlook, mood and ability to function, I dont ever want to hear from anyone, and I do, about the sins of dispensing mood drugs to people with emotional/mental illness. The only 'sin' is the years spent trying to find the right med to fit people who suffer needlessly and lose hope of ever feeling human.

I can't take my sleep meds now and stay up for another 3 hrs (my dirty secret) because the celexa is taken at night with them, so within an hour I'm out cold. I woke around 5am 2 days ago, a large furry Mr. B was walking on my chest sniffing my face looking for signs of breakfast. I saw the lamp was still on, my glasses had fallen down and my book was open where I left off reading. It feels like I'm sleeping for all the years I got up at 5am to leave for work at 6 to arrive by 7:30, all to get a seat on the train so I didnt have to stand for 45 min.



What I wanted to note here was something I wrote something about not being able to understand people who hoard yet have good homes, spouses, furniture, everything material to make a comfortable good life and they f8kuc it up by buying and buying and never using stuff until their residence is in shambles, unliveable, filthy, sometimes condemned & alienated family members. I'm not judging, I just dont get hoarding.

A woman following this blog once commented "a person can hoard feelings that can be just as destructive-" indeed, its time to clean The House.
I was asked to bring a family member to my 3rd session. One daughter is suitable but I dont want this to be a burden in any way on my children, so altho I invited her I dont want this to be "we have to take care of Mom because she's losin it or lost it"-this is my work to do, they've all been through alot and dont need to take this on, so while I want to cooperate, I remain concerned about family involvement.

Session 1

Since I was accepted in the study area that uses medicine, I saw the psychopharmacologist first. He asked me questions about me and my father which is the core subject of my participation in this grief study. Frankly have to say because my thoughts are all over, everything is so connected and unsorted, that it is hard to recall alot of what was asked because my answers were so drawn out... not unfocused as much as for me, one thing is related to another and another...its like a domino life. One incident triggers the world crashing down.


Triggers include a night of drunken screaming and accusations about my mother
next morning she might be beat up or they're not speaking and I have no clue what the cause is-I realized I wrote "cause is" and erased it to put "cause was" but that's indicative of how immediate 40 years ago remains for me.

And the crashing down is how the followig weeks would entail whispers in the kitchen with my mother-who suddenly found her 6 yr old useful or helpful-on how to resolve the standoff and get the family funds flowing again. Sometimes it involved me baking something my father liked or her making a dish of food he loved...there was always days, hours of thinking out to manipulate family members to get back on the dysfunction track=normal again.



So one thing I realized today is that I cant separate out one issue from another-everything is related. To make things worse, I found this was compounded by office politics were people say one thing to your face and gossip behind your back, thereby you never know who to trust, who's a friend and colleague and who's actively working to stab you. And then they say, "its not personal"

But its ALL personal...isnt it?

All politics are local, national, global...arent they?



I dont know that my domino defense is so far out in left field.



Feel free to write anything or say anything at any point, no hard feelings.



I've been asked to bring 1 family member in for one upcoming session.



This is nothing like conventional therapy-the first 3 sessions are preparatory for the 10 weeks following where intense grief work is done. Plus I was given reading material and homework to do each day. I keep a brief daily diary or worst sad/grief episode and least and then note what was going on that triggered a sense of grief, be it a thought, an actual incident, a person or whatever.



Laugh, cry, drift off in thought constantly...I had to pull myself back into the present tense over and over.



I went in at 1, left at 5:00pm. But I dont think the sessions will continue to be this long...I can take it...dont know if my doctors can LOL.

Complicated Grief

Where to begin on this subject, other than to say my life has two parts; 1953-1972 and 1973 until present day. My father died February 16, 1973, a week before my sister's birthday and no one was home except my mother. When an event is so defining, no matter the base feelings, the physical reaction to it sometimes feels like you got hit over and over, then chills, numbness, relief...and for me the most stunning thing, the same thing that happened on 9/11, was the change in the light. The natural light, the air around me suddenly became like sheer glass and clear like it had been washed in rain, crisp, clean so I suddenly saw things as if for the first time. The taxi I jumped into was such a bright mustard yellow and the driver was kind. I told him to hurry because it seemed my father had just died and when he pulled up in front of the West End Ave apartment he refused the fare and wished me good luck.
It is very hard to recall most of my childhood except in fragments and most of those images contain strange figures, catastrophic fires, pits of devastation and buildings collapsed (these are childhood dreams), the voices in German and hiding along a wall in a forest, feeling hunted, walking under water, walking on water, walking on a ladder in the sky, watching angels simultaneously ascend and descend on a revolving wheel.

My life was affected by the loss of my father and his death defined the direction my life took afterwards. So basically he lives with me in everything. However, this is not a sentimental attachment of benign love and easy emotion. While I never doubted how much love he stored for me, the dreams he wanted for me (lawyer), the money he spent to teach me music, his drinking and profound depression over took any ability to live a normal life for anyone in the family. His favorite expression was "dont do as I do, do as I say" and so he had a standard for himself and one for everyone else whom he expected to obey. He used drinking, violence and money to manipulate everyone to do what he needed and wanted. Particularly the women in his life. My sister was younger and terrified of him and avoided him at every turn. My mother used him, bled him dry instead of saving money knowing how old he was, how sick he was and she shoved me at him to be the mediator between them, his caretaker when barely out of childhood, his companion because she couldnt contain her disinterest or disgust at his age, gambling and drinking. In the end, she sat it out waiting as he took his daily sleep and pain meds, waiting and waiting as he got weaker, more feeble and then needed help even getting to the bathroom. She waited, then called me to say she couldnt wake him...yeah.

I became religious because I wanted a life that was the antithesis of everything my mother was. She broke his marriage to a Jewish woman and blasphemed the poor woman anytime she mentioned what was lost in the divorce. She accidently mentioned a daughter once and then denied she ever said anything. But she had said my father had a first daughter named Ruth. It wasn't enough to have taken everything from someone in this way, she then made herself comfortable with men her own age and ethnicity, breaking my father's heart and the cheating was at the core of every battle, screaming match, threat to her life and whatever lover of the moment she was involved with. Imagine going to bed and listening to your father threaten nightly he was going to kill your mother, "I'll kill you M." and then afraid to sleep because in the morning she might not be there. So for years, he was the Monster because he was older and hard to understand, he drank and was morose. He worried and I didnt know why because he showered us with money and we wanted for nothing, housekeepers, chauffer, I was nine years old and walked around with a $20 bill all the time for treats or books sold at school.
My mother loved to encourage hate for him, disdain is perhaps a better word while at the same time pushing me to care for him when he was drunk or wanted something special to eat she didnt want to cook. Friday night he demanded to say kiddush, asked me to say the bracha on the candles with his help, he handed me a yalmulka to put on, told me when to say 'amen' and always went to Cake Masters Friday afternoon from work to bring fresh challah, a huge box of mixed cookies, orange frosted sponge cake and a strawberry tart for my sister. His relation to Judaism is similar to mine-the thread is food. He had no family, they disowned him for marrying a shiksa. I grew up similarly without family, my mother liked me as much as she liked him, when we served a purpose she would be civil.

When he died, my only ally in this life, left me. I not only felt the light change but as if I had no arms and legs. I began to live on auto pilot trying to think what next step was next as my mother had no interest in either myself or my sister. Her obligation to being a mother was no longer, the reason for becoming one had been served, he was dead, she was free and decided to sell everything of value off and move back to her mother, good luck girls. Without blame but simple fact, the choice to run to Israel seemed the only path after losing NY residency. I didn't have work skills other than short order grill work and being a grease monkey was okay as a necessity while he was alive, because he was sick and old, but all my life? From pillar to post, thinking religion was the answer to cleanse myself, to purge myself from inexplicable pain and what I had lived through. But you cannot become 'religious' to cure mental illness, although religion often teaches just the opposite, pray to heal thyself, all things are with G-d and from G-d. Yes, and G-d gave us hearts and brains and when either the body or soul He meted out becomes ill from another human, it takes human care to fix the vessel. Prayer can help, it does, but sitting back and waiting for G-d to fix what humans have destroyed is stupidity at its peak. So of course I spent almost 14 years trying my darndest to be a frum happy Jewish woman when there was nothing but terror inside and a wall around me. And this was after conversion, in fact, everything was worse after conversion and kept getting worse as I had no one to help choose a suitable husband or help with anything to set up a kosher home, raisse kosher children. I jumped into the deep end
and doggie paddled to save my life until I couldnt anymore. Had I married a gentle man, it might have worked but I married someone with a violent abusive nature, a depressive. Although I would like to blame the shaddchun, I wanted the marriage and thought if that man wouldn't have me, no man would.
So many times I thought, my father was right, the cure is education. If I can get to college I can support my kids and be free of the domestic violence and lack of financial support. After a father as mine was, a man who worked until he could barely walk with a 3rd grade education, who gave his word in business with handshake and was good to his word, after a life with such a man, to live on charity for over a decade and watch my children being scorned as playmates by neighbors because their mother is a convert, their father was itinerant...maybe some women have stronger stomachs or spirits.

I moved to PA and 2 months ago was in the market and picked up a local paper. I dont buy newspapers because there's so much news online. There was an article about an ongoing study of 'complicated grief.' This type of grief is different from mourning the loss of a loved one, this is grief that alters a person's life, you become frozen in time and indeed I still am.
So I applied and the intake was long and intense, approval had to be from all doctors from each site and there are four study sites. Participants are randomly selected for 1 of 4  possible studies and I lucked out with the best, receiving weekly sessions with a therapist, medication (amazing how one medicine can help when another doesnt and you had given up all hope of ever having any hope)a weekly session with the prescribing doctor about how the medicine is affecting me and weekly assignments, I have to keep a journal that is brought in each week, so I'm forced to write which is most important for me to get me going finally.

There was alot of hesitation in posting this because it has to do with mental health and I was always the one to counsel students and alumni to remain in the closet on the subject, its the last frontier of intense prejudice. But I could not pass up this opportunity, its like a gift, alot of work and I hope to come out of the tunnel at the end of this, lighter and brighter for myself and my children.

Long times...

As excuses for a long writing absence, I have several. My new laptop has a different Windows and until R.K. posted a comment I actually could not find my blog. As it's listed above, its not listed on Blogger...so it "doesnt exist" much like I do not exist on the Anash list, so I'm invisible or 'dead' for Chabad.
Second, it hasn't been a really smooth adjustment from NY to PA, I prefer PA after so many years in NY, but the move was interrupted by a sudden diagnosis for the need to have surgery. That required alot of doctor meetings, discarding doctors and finding new ones and I am picky on the subject. This is one area where if the shoe doesnt fit, move on to another pair. Especially for women, who for years had to listen, and still do it seems in PA, to doctors tell us what we feel in our bodies is actually in our minds.

As I write this, my tiny apartment is so cold, the house is an old victorian and my apt runs along the outside walls and there's no insulation whatsoever...my breath mists. The thermostat reads 59 degree inside and its 30 outside. I ran the central heating one month before I got the bill of $178 and no longer use the central heating. I bought a raddiant heater, but nothing can fight this kind of cold. Except I learned you have to dress in layers, 2 pair socks, sweaters, run the gas oven while I'm home and I have the radiant heater now set up for the cats who were so cold had stopped eating and just huddled. They're snapping at eacch other. I have to get a 2nd small heater for the other cat, these two are in such a fiddle right now they dont want to eat next to each other.

Since my daughter told me everyone is too busy with their own lives and dont expect them to come by or call too often, I've had to readjust my brain and life. It's as alone here as in NY. But people seem nicer here overall. Things are slower and often dumber. Every once in awhile I meet someone who'll excitedly ask, "You from NY???!" and then conversation always begins with How do you like PA?
'I was in NY and its nice to visit, but I couldnt live there' Yeah, at least half of NYers might say the same.
But as I wrote somewhere else recently the New York signposts of my own life and more prominently, my father's era, are completely gone now. I was on the UPWS about a decade ago, the only thing that remained were the pre-War buildings on West End Ave, Ansche Chesed etc. Walk down to Broadway and its all gone. My father used to take me erev Pesach to the fish monger whose name is lost now as well. But it was 3 steps down, like a basement store and everything was cut, filleted and ground to order. The fish monger was a huge man who loved to take a large fish and whack it on the wooden plank before him, maybe it stunned the fish so that the knife went in without resistance. But my father was always particular about this tradition, whitefish, pike, fresh ground with onions, send the heads and bones ina  separate bag. The chinese restaurants Ling Nins, Harbin Inn, Murray's Fish Shop, William's Bar B Que, small dress shops like Ardsley where every season my mother sat as dresses where brought out for her to look at...gone. L'Oreal cosmetics where my mother's custom blend of foundation and powder where made to order as we waited is now a billion dollar prepackaged business. David's Shop that was filled with revolving glass cases of things for women like needlepoint compacts, men's tortoiseshell combs in slip cases, barrettes, handbags and the Riverside, Embassy, Rialto movie theatres. Right between the theatres was inset a Barton's Candy store where our neighbor Edith Bass hand boxed chocolates into their shiny black boxes covered with doodles of pink poodles, green buds, yellow ribbons. You could buy a piece or a box, or bridge mix that was filled with such an assortment of chocolate covered brazil nuts, toffee crunch covered in white chocolate, rum balls, plump raisins, pecans and walnuts all in either milk or dark chocolate that melted slowly as only real chocolate does.Viennese Crunch...2 words that say it all. Sometimes around the holidays Edith would bring us a large box of Bartons fancy chocolates.

 I never went back to the Garment District but venturing to 34th street to Jack's .99 Store it seemed most of 34th and 7th Ave had changed with Jews departing and replaced with Indian importers, Iranian rug sellers, knitting shops, fabric emporiums and Chinese junk shops of every variety Wholesale Only Please!
Crown  Heights is much the same...in one sense good that the community expanded with new buildings, but for me it didnt feel like a cozy home anymore. A new front was slapped onto 770 which is an architects nightmare of no design, almost mimicing the ugly extruded new front placed on the Brooklyn Museum by Diller Scofidio.

Anyway this is much too long for anyone to read...but that's as always. I've been accepted into a study for complicated grief, but that'll be another post.