Entry III.16 (1994)

I ran into a wall of intractability when it came to the troups. I discovered I was at the place where willpower alone could not ensure safety. I wasn’t safe alone. Consequently, I had to resort to some very old technology.

It consisted of a contract written between Rahne and I. Due to the nature of the troup's stunning ability to discover loop holes, the contract had to be very specific. A mere "We all promise not to hurt the body" was not enough.

THE CONTRACT:  Agreement to take effect from 2/12/94 at 3:30 p.m. to 9:00 am on 2/13/94

In exchange for Rahne's special necklace she wears all the time and her spare pinkie ring of a winged heart, this contract equals no harm which means specifically:

1 ) No biting or scratching; no punching or running body into doors, walls or hard objects; no burning; suffocating or use of gas (liquid or gaseous). No hanging; jumping off roofs--no climbing on roof for cleaning without assuring 100% safety. No climbing other objects. No jogging. Walking around neighborhood is okay.

2) No calling 911 unless I have decided to ignore this agreement. Calling the crisis clinic or Barbara and leaving a long protracted message is good. Or call Mary Devlin.

3) No weight lifting, but stretching or meditative breath counting okay. Bath okay, but no holding self under water. No cosmetic surgery. No breaking the integrity of the skin in any manner, shape, or form.

Unauthorized accidents require telling true circumstances including any wounding whether pain felt or not.

It is understood that NO HARM is the overall intent of this contract. No exceptions may be gleaned from semantics or specific exclusions.

SIGNED:

With all my love, Rahne Joceile C. Moore, Et al.

The contract renewal from 2/13/94 at 9 a.m. to 2/14/94 at 6:30 p.m. required the following additions:

4) No stopping on bridges.

5) Traveling from home is acceptable only to locations where:

a) It would be just as okay to have someone with me or who could go for me. In other words, errands. OR 

b) Where people will be meeting me there or by appointment like work or doctor’s appointments. These people must be real with bodies and birth certifications.

SIGNED:

I still love you, Rahne Joceile C. Moore, Et al.

The contact was renewed repeatedly for several days:

From 2/14/94 at 6:30 p.m. to 2/15/94 at 6:30 p.m.

From 2/15/94 at 6:30 p.m. to 2/16/94 at 6:30 p.m.

From 2/16/94 at 6:30 p.m. to 2/17/94 at 11:57 p.m.

From 2/17/94 at 11:57 p.m. to 2/19/94 at noon

I kept the necklace for a week or two after that. But I still had the spare winged heart ring as an ongoing contract of NO HARM. I was safe at least for that period of difficulty. 

* * * * * * *

I just want to say for the record that this stuff is embarrassing to me. I know it is absolutely important. It's just that I KNOW what safety is, but those munchkins in my head DO NOT. The problem arises when they have ongoing dialogue with me about the thousand and one ways they could really get behind hurting me threatening some really mean stuff. After that, a little harm sounds like not so bad a thing to me, and we're off. But when I have something like a ring which symbolizes the above contract, I can point to the ring or contract and tell them it won't wash. They'll just have to move onto something else.

Fortunately for me, they are desperate to not harm my relationships with Rahne, Adrian, or Barbara. I use this to its full extent. It helps that I know Rahne, Adrian, or Barbara have almost no threshold of tolerance for violence. Thank god. Somebody has to.

Entry III.15 (1994)

I have been mildly berserk for several days now. I have had the neurological disease—lack of coordination, poor fine and gross motor skills, and for a while there yesterday, the stunning but always entertaining inability to speak English. Unfortunately, all this trouble has also lead to the harming of my body. All of which leads me to the conclusion that I am in trouble.  Actually, I have been in trouble. I now know a great deal more is going on than I’m aware of.

ONE BIG PROBLEM IS THAT I DO NOT KNOW WHY ALL THIS IS GOING ON.

Okay, I do know that I have been upset since seeing the movie Philadelphia. I do know that I am upset about what is going on between Leslie and Adrian. I do know that I am upset about the stunning number of abusive boss to subordinate relationships that are blossoming in my office. I am current even upset that JB died of AIDS in my wheelchair the night before last. Okay. Okay. Okay. I am also upset about my daughter's seventh birthday, but why?

My counselor, who is known for knowing about this sort of thing, does not think I am merely mental, suffering purely from poor brain chemical interactions. She is certain I have been triggered into some memory backlash. She is certain that my troups (alters by any other name) are riled up, stirred up, reacting out of the past, and thinking even now they are experiencing the past.

All I get from them is anger, more anger, and a stunning number of ways to hurt myself without using weapons. Here, it is very important to define weapons. Is jumping off a bridge using a weapon? We have already determined that biting and scratching is within the bounds of no weapons. But is raising the car off the floor and dropping it on your hand using a weapon? And, let me just say that not using weapons, i.e., only those body parts that god intended be used to alter an environment, can still make really horrid wounds.

I know it is important here for me to carry on about what they are angry about...if I knew. But I am not quite ready. I would also like to add that I have been shaking/convulsing on and off for three days. Today, I noticed that my eyes are not focusing on distance well. Of course, my head hurts, and I haven't a clue as to which drug is doing what to me which in itself makes me angry. But now to that other venue…

* * * * * * *

They ask us why we're angry. As if we know. As if we can think. The roar is deafening. No one can hear anyone speak. It is too loud. It is the noise of 25 years of rage. It bounces from all the walls and corners, crisscrossing itself until even pictures are muted.

I (One Blink/John Thomas/David) can say there was killing, meanness, anger, and blood. It was unforgiving. There was hurting that never quit, couldn't quit, and can’t quit now. Everywhere we look we see it. We know it has not stopped. We know it will not stop.

Usually, that pain in the butt one makes us not look too closely, because she knows that we will leave the planet and take her with us. 

But, resolution, what is that? We do not know. The killing and hurting is continuing. We cannot stop it. We only know how to be a part of it.

That woman she pays money to says, "It is not happening now. You are remembering that which was but is not happening in this reality, right now, for Joceile. You are remembering.” It does not feel that way to us. We are hurting. We want to hurt back. We do not understand how we can stay here. We want to hurt back. But that woman and Joceile do not want us to hurt back. But staying here is not tolerable. I (One Blink/John Thomas/David) can still hear the screaming. I hear it now. It makes me want to lash out and hurt. There is only one person I am allowed to hurt. It would be the corpse I live in.

There is nothing new here. There is no reason to go over it again. That woman thinks there is something. Something about more meanness that I am remembering but my experience is that it's happening now. I feel it in my body. It hurts. I am hurting. I do not feel safe. I feel imperiled and now that I have written this, I feel more so. So that stupid corpse I live with will take a pill (“Another one?!” I say.) and crawl off to bed hoping to stave off the nightmare that does not end. Hoping to keep talking and walking and being a productive member of society. But that is only one side of her. The other side lives here and takes control when one no one else can. 

I hate you. 

L'Claim.



* * * * * * *

"So, I am wounded," I say. "Isn't that enough?"

"It is never enough," they say, "as long as blood flows.”

Entry III.14 (1994)

All right. I am finally having some peace with it now, but it took many days. The lesions, the sleepless nights, the self-harm…

* * * * * * *

My eye had been hurting me. My right tear duct kept getting clogged. Warm compresses made it better but it kept coming back. Finally, it occurred to me that it might be be my night time anti-depressant, Elavil. Elavil dries out my body’s systems. It is called a something… I’ll think of it later. My mouth gets dry. I get constipated. It affects my vision. My eyes temporarily lose some flexibility. Sporadically, I have a hard time reading.

I’ve tried to go off Elavil several times due to one irritating symptom or another. But there’s one thing Elavil does that hasn’t been duplicated. It lets me sleep, deeply, and reduces the extreme impact of my nightmares. This is no small thing. I can’t go many nights without sleep assistance without getting weirder and weirder. The good thing is now I recognize the weirdness as different than my normal state.

OK, picture this. I had to cut down the Elavil because my eye was bothering me which leads to increasingly difficult nightmares. I wake up with “convulsions” (I’m trying to get away from the euphemism of “shaking”) several times a night. This alone is enough to make me not want to go to sleep.

Then, I think somewhere just before or just after I saw the movie Philadelphia I quit taking Elavil all together. The images of the lesions triggered a memory or multiple memories. My ability to deal with the triggering was impaired by my sleep disruption. (HEY, DON’T EAT PIZZA ON TUESDAYS. “You are just trying to distract.”) This is heady stuff. I’ll elaborate… in a bit.

* * * * * * *

My head hurts and my body feels weird. Doesn’t it just always seem that way? I get sick of it. I’m sure everybody else does too.

I am also suffering from marginal self-esteem. I’m good enough; I’m not good enough. I work hard enough; I don’t work hard enough.

Am I going to say anything more exciting than that? Am I going to lead the reader into my Byzantine world? Open the swinging door to my consciousness? I think not. But then again…

* * * * * * *

Angry. I was profoundly angry. Always angry. Every Damn Day. Angry. Angry even as we speak. Angry in the morning. Angry in the night. (I’m sure this is a good thing but it seemed excessive.)

Coupled with that, I had the perpetual headache and body nausea. At this very moment, I’m probably the angriest about work.

I had started my brilliant career innocently enough as a typist with insurance companies. Naturally, insurance companies are not known for their high wages. Consequently, I didn’t made a fortune and couldn’t hang in there for the long haul.

I quit and landed a state government job at the tender age of 20 as a file clerk. Would you believe, the pay was better? Really, my dream of finally bringing home $100 per week came true. For a long time, I was fairly content being a file clerk especially after I was able to work part-time and got the rest of the time to enrich my life. (YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING. “Mental health treatment, dim-bulb.”)

Eventually, the day came when I quit being a file clerk and became a clerk typist for the Human Rights Commission. I was content with that too. After awhile, I promoted to an investigator with the Commission. That’s where I was now.

Being an investigator was compelling. I liked the work, got along well with coworkers and the public, and felt challenged. In fact, things would’ve been perfect except for those very little things like bureaucratic management bullshit which waxed and waned like the tide.  Currently, we were in a wane phase. I’d worked for the Commission for ten years and ridden through many of these times. However, I’d reached too high a level of awareness to ignore them with any degree of success.

This particular night was the night before a unit meeting. “ I hate meetings,” I told my coworkers. “All I want to do is the work.” Unfortunately, the current management was of a mind to have meetings to discuss the content of future meetings. What the meetings provided in the way of assistance for my work could be reduced to two paragraphs in a memo. Other than that, they were what several coworkers grimly described as “fluff” and lacking any real substance.

“Do you know what we discussed in the last unit meeting?” I told an ex-coworker. Without waiting for an answer, I said, “We had five agenda items. The first two, we tabled for further discussion after much discussion. The third required further study. And the last two, we couldn’t get to because we ran out of time.”

I ranted and raved. It was clear to me we were on a downhill slide and had yet to reach the bottom. In any case, it made me blisteringly angry and disrespected as if my time and energy meant nothing. Oh, of course, these idiots meant well but since when did that help anything.

The Commission had a one-year backlog of cases. This meant that from the time a person filed a discrimination complaint we would not get around to investigating it for a year. How would that make you feel especially if you were working the same job all this time? “But don’t worry, the Commission has devised a new mission statement. We are working on new policies and procedures all the time. We are buying computer equipment, attending meetings, and traveling to and fro. But don’t worry, we’ll get to your case eventually. But we can’t agree on the definition of customer service so we’ll have to set up a task force. Are you free next Tuesday?”

I had nothing but rancor for the madness and the night before unit meetings gave me headaches. All I could think of was just surviving it and getting on with my work. “Oh, and just for the fun of it,” I’d say to coworkers, “I’d like to be distracted by work.”

I knew this cycle would pass. I had already lost many friends though I kept in touch. The process of attrition had not left a lot of people I had started with. I was never quite sure when a cycle would take me too. I assumed not until I left voluntarily, but one could never be certain with the Commission.

Upon returning from any kind of extended leave, I would always enter the office by saying, “ Okay, has anyone been laid off, fired, demoted, promoted, or transferred?” If so, I usually hoped that it wasn’t me. Most of the time, I was right.

* * * * * * *

(“Okay, I feel like I can go on now for a while.” HOW’S YOUR HEAD? “Better, I think.” THANK GOD, I CAN’T STAND ALL THAT WHINING.)

Entry III.13 (1994)

When I look at someone, I can’t tell what their orientation to the world is.  When they look at me, they can’t tell either.  Right now, I am hurting and angry.  It is deep inside.  On the outside, it doesn’t show. It’s a feeling part of me and not usually a functional one.  Although, I have that too (see below).

Orientation. Is the world safe for me? Am I safe for the world? No one can tell without a careful peer inside which can’t happen casually. I want my mom. You can’t tell that by looking at me, can you?

* * * * * * *

I vacillate between which is the more overpowering: the hurt or the anger. A moment ago, I seriously contemplated killing my cat. But I know she's harder to kill than she seems. Everything is. And once I started, I'd have to finish and would probably be thoroughly overwhelmed by the time she was finally dead.

("Hey this must be that awareness of reality thing that keeps people from breaking laws. YOU ARE SOOO SMART.)

* * * * * * *

So, I say to myself, being nearly intelligent, "Oh, this is going to help a lot.” I was referring to an issue casually dropped by Adrian regarding inappropriate touch. In no way do I wish to imply, I did not want Adrian to tell me what was on her mind. It was just a case of "timing is everything.”

Anyway, Adrian told me that she hated school, everything about school. I found this unlikely and said, “To coin a phrase, Adrian, there must be a reason.” Well, the reason turned out to be Beth. A kid that was a little older in Adrian's multi-grade class. Adrian haltingly told me that Beth had stuck her finger up her tush and did not stop when Adrian repeatedly asked her to until Adrian sat down on a chair and that this happened

last week.

Hey, I know that maybe all the details aren't right, but the feeling of being inappropriately touched had to be addressed. Consequently, I got on the phone to Leslie to ascertain what Leslie knew and when. Leslie said she knew only that Beth had pinched Adrian, but she agreed this more serious concern needed to be addressed. A meeting was set up with Adrian's teacher and hopefully some clarification could occur which would be good and useful.

Like I said, it helped the general upsettedness a lot. But that’s what being present is all about.  I got to do something about a problem while it is happening not twenty years later when the trail was a bit cold.

* * * * * * *

We are experiencing a moment of technical difficulty. It is not clear to us how long this moment may last. It has already lasted longer than we like.

What are the elements of this moment? It is called Planned Upsettedness. Let me explain.

I know, you know, and they know that there is more work to be done relative to the term “lesions.”  However, there was the distinct impression that “time” needed to pass before any of us had the strength to confront “lesions.” Of course, we all know that once the little box currently known as “lesions” is opened we will not be such a happy tribe.

Ah, the problem:  When to schedule an event as unfortunate as the “unhappy tribe.”  Logically, it occurred to the driver of this ungainly ship that the Night of the Counseling Appointment would be a very good time for this to occur.  As always, our captain is just a little more hopeful than reasonable. Consequently,  we are in the last nine hours of waiting for the Counseling Appointment and…it might be just a little more time than we have.

Hence, the writing of this missive.  It is called a Buying Time Devise. Wish me luck.

Entry III.12 (1994)

Once I started noticing things in the world around me, it became a flood. There were dazzling images in the world. I had a multitude of feelings about all of them. I had to be cautious with the overwhelmedness of it because that was when I started having really serious headaches. Reminiscent of migraines, these headaches demanded a total halt to all physical activity nor were they impressed by emotional activity. Once again, I had to learn to STOP and just quietly be a non-sentient being for a few minutes or hours whichever the case may be.

* * * * * * * 

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO BE A ROCK IN A PILE OF GRAVEL?  “Not hardly, it doesn’t ascetically please me.”  YOU SHOULD TRY IT SOMETIME. IT'S NOT AS EASY AS IT LOOKS.

* * * * * * * 

I was learning to take the time to observe the physical world without judgement but only recognition. At this point, my employment became very taxing and occasionally required me to attend meetings in downtown Seattle. I had a hell of a time pacing myself so I did not become dysfunctional due to sensory over stimulation. I marveled at my need to just sit after walking a couple— ("Do you actually mean two?" YES. REALLY JUST TWO! SHE'S SUCH A WIMP.)—blocks in the city, noticing what I could notice, and slow down the stream of input. This made me feel slightly inferior to other people I knew. But feeling less than others didn't really matter because it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that I didn't have a choice. And of course after the Great Wheelchair Scare II, I never quit being simply grateful I was walking regardless of the speed. I was beginning to notice I was alive and that was a lot of stimulation in itself.

* * * * * * *

Forty-eight hours later… Can you tell I've been gone? No, of course not. For you, it was just reading from one section to the next. For me, I have lived lifetimes between these two entries. I wrote the above then went to a movie. Was it a special movie? I don't know. I didn't think so. But perhaps I was wrong. It was Philadelphia. No big deal. A lawyer dying of AIDS gets fired allegedly for having AIDS and sues in court with a homophobic attorney. So what? I don't know…so what?

I think it is the first movie about gays I've ever seen made for straight folks. Therefore, I am not a very good judge of it. I became aware early on that it was written for straight folks. I also became aware early on that it was filmed in what I'm sure will become a terribly 90’s tradition of hand held cameras and roving around the room pictures. I’m certain this is a play to our home video age. Nevertheless, it made me instantly motion sick. In fact, to my dismay, the entire movie was filmed that way. Within twenty minutes, I was so sick that I couldn't watch the film. My head hurt so bad I took a muscle relaxant and thought I would have to leave the theatre. Just closing my eyes wasn't enough (I could still see the flickering lights) when I happened upon putting my hat in front of my face with my eyes closed and watched the movie by just listening.

So far, all this was, as you might expect, irritating but tolerable. Occasionally, I got to see a fixed frame shot or two. But visually, something about the Kaposi Sarcoma lesions on the man sent an internal somebody or several somebodies off the deep end. At the time, I, myself, was unaware of it. All I was aware of was crying, emotional pain, and an unclear understanding as to just why the movie was making me hurt so bad. (Just because everyone else cries at a movie does not necessarily make me think I’m crying over the same thing or am even required to cry.) 

Oh well, it turns out between Rahne and I there was a great deal of crying and more crying. I could be okay with that. Then, there was the issue of dinner. We had to get something to go. I noticed that, although surely somewhere in there I was hungry, the idea of food made me want to throw up. This, too, I attributed to some emotional discomfort but nothing requiring serious notice. So, we got take out food for Rahne and went home.

I was okay with that too. We got home. She started to eat. We watched the last twenty minutes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. You with me so far? All of this is fairly normal and not something to raise eyebrows.

After Star Trek, I went to the bathroom to wash up before I rewound the VCR tape and watched the rest of Star Trek and maybe Deep Six Nine (my name for it). I hadn’t decided for sure yet in which order I would watch them.

I went to the bathroom. I did the most common things there that most people do. I washed my face. I combed my hair. I idly...(I cannot emphasize this enough, IDLY, not planned with intent, not deliberately, not forcefully.) I idly pondered the issue of lesions. Before I was through with my IDLE PONDERING, I noticed I could not move.

Now let’s talk about this: "I noticed I could not move.” Just what does that mean? I noticed that my hands were both outstretched to open the medicine cabinet to take a stomach pill. I simultaneously debated about the state of my headache and additional pills for that when I noticed that I had stopped moving. I was fortunately facing the mirror so I was able to clearly observe that I was not moving. At least, I was able to observe that by my peripheral vision because my eyes had locked onto a point somewhere towards the bottom left corner of the mirror and did not seem to be moving either.

For a moment, I stood there, like I had a choice, and took note of this process and wondered about its possible duration assuming as I did that the process would end fairly quickly. I noticed my arms were not moving; my hands were not moving; nor my eyes, head, torso, nor any other part of me. I wondered why. I tried to move. Nothing responded. I noticed I was taking regular breaths. I thought this was a good thing. I pondered the possibility of talking. My mouth did not move. Again, I wondered exactly how long this might take.

It took a long time. I figured there was not much else to do but sit around, figuratively speaking, and wait. I waited. I wondered if this was catatonia. I waited some more. At last, I noticed that my right leg was getting tired. I wondered what that meant.

I noticed that my right leg started giving out. I now knew this meant that things were likely to change fairly soon. I wondered in what way. I fell against the left wall. This was different. I simultaneously tried to turn to my right as if I were going to walk out of the bathroom. As I collapsed, everything got very blurry. I suspected this was from the handheld camera moving too fast. I closed my eyes. I was on the floor with my eyes closed unable to speak or move. Now, of course, that my eyes were closed I couldn’t reopen them.

The floor was very cool. It was ceramic tile. Rahne and I had picked it out. Some deep forest green color. Although I couldn’t see that right now. Once again, I was reassured by my steady, even breathing. I wondered, because I didn’t think I was gonna get up and move anytime soon, how long it would be before Rahne took a pause in her television watching to come and find out what had happened to me.

I was not terribly concerned about how long this would take, because I had nothing better to do than lay there anyway, and there was always the possibility that I would start moving before she came in and found me.

I was wrong. While I was wondering, I thought about whether she would call 911 and what they would do and if that would be helpful. Sometime in there, she did come in and was dismayed to find me laid out as such.

Because she is a thoughtful person, she talked to me while she pondered her approach. She noted right away I was breathing. Clearly, this was just generally reassuring to anyone who came in the room. Hopefully, she was going to assume that I had not had a stroke or heart attack. In my own mind, I was thinking that regardless of the circumstances, she was going to need help dealing with this.

Again, I was wrong. She pulled and tugged and gently laid me on a foam pad that Adrian liked to play with and put a pillow under my head and started that long process of reinitiating contact. (I'll bet you're curious as to just how that's done.)

She talked to me and touched my fingers and face looking for a response. My job, of course, was trying to find some way to respond. "Can you squeeze your eyelids together?" No response. "Okay. It's going to be all right.”

I vainly tried to make my eyelids do something. In the course of that, I swallowed. "Can you swallow when you want to? Once for yes.” I busily tried to swallow and not dwell on the fact that “no” was going to be much harder to indicate. (Note: Always suggest one for no and two for yes because it’s much more important to be able to say no then yes.)

"Ahhh,” she sighed. I knew this meant she thought she’d established contact and things could progress from there. "Okay. Do you want me to touch your fingers? One swallow for yes.” I tried a couple piggy back swallows for no. The best place to start, really, in this kind of circumstances is with my eyes.

"No, okay. Do you want me to touch your face? Once for yes." I swallow. “Your mouth?” I attempted two swallows which felt more like choking. "That wasn't very clear to me. Your eyes?" Gratefully, I swallowed once. And then, baby, when you get those eyes to stay open and blink on command and then focus, you are halfway home to deliberate movement. Give that woman a cigar!

Unfortunately, shortly after deliberate movement came very bad what I call “shaking” which is some form of convulsions. But, hell, that's another story.

* * * * * * *

I just want to add here that any discussion about what the the issues were surrounding contemplating the lesions themselves tends to cause me or all of my parts to want to self-harm. Therefore, I’m taking a break from that.

Entry III.11 (1994)

("Are you in pain?" WELL, THAT DEPENDS. DEFINE PAIN.)

* * * * * * *

Barbara: "So, how much pain are you really in?"

Me:  "Good question. I haven't a clue.”

* * * * * * *

My body hurts. I am absolutely almost certain I'm in a lot of pain. Though I'm not sure why. I am having trouble walking. I am having trouble vocalizing. I am having trouble coordinating movements. Although right now, I am still a good typist if I don't try to talk at the same time.

I assume something is hurting me. I assume it is not limited to physically. In fact, I assume that the physical response I'm feeling is undoubtedly related to something hurting inside. I do not know what it is. Of course, I can think of lots of things it could be. But that doesn't lead me any closer to what it is. Is it work? Is it Adrian? Is it a bad dream? Is it a memory? Is it the accumulation of stress? Is it my mom?

I don't know. It is not a conscious issue. It is unconscious. My body knows and is responding to it. Is my body itself the issue?

Do I require rest? Entertainment? Focus? Labor? Sleep? Meditation?  A massage? A movie? To be held?

All I have is wandering around inside my body wondering. All I can really do about the way that my body feels is FEEL it and know it will pass.

* * * * * * *

I'm not sure where to go. I feel the wind in my face. Standing on a precipice, knowing I will not jump. Looking at the view. Trying to soak in the awesomeness of it. I have worked so hard to get here. No one can make me leave. I have earned every step I take.

Unfortunately at the moment, my legs hurt. They are somewhat stubborn about that. They feel slightly numb and cold. The pain is mostly from the knees down or just slightly above the knees. I stand. I walk. I try stretching this way or that. I take a painkiller. I wonder what secret they hold for me. I wonder about the origins of this pain.

I suppose it is close enough to the heart pain or the soul pain I used to feel so much to be the same in a different form. I heave a big sigh. But I am not certain. I remember. I remember. I repeat to myself as a mantra. 

I remember how to walk. I remember what I've forgotten. I remember that my legs are remembering another time when they were being hurt. When I was being hurt. No one is hurting me now. I am just remembering.

* * * * * * *

(LISTEN, THERE IS NO WAY I'M GONNA WRITE THIS FUCKIN' THING IN FIRST PERSON.  "Why not?"  WELL, IT'S JUST FINE TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT BEING ALIVE, BUT I DON'T WANT TO ADMIT IT. IT CANNOT BE ME. "Why not?" BECAUSE I HAVE CREATED A WHOLE LIFETIME, MAYBE SEVERAL OF THEM, BEING SOMETHING OTHER THAN I. "So?" IT WILL CONFUSE THINGS. THINGS WILL NOT BE CUT AND DRIED. "I thought that was the point.”  WHAT DO YOU KNOW? NOTHING.)

* * * * * * *

I have that neurological disease again. Why? When I ask the troups and try to feel what the problem is, I get swept up in this feeling and images of self-harm. Why?

The feelings attached to the images are: "act now;” "emergency;” "something is terribly wrong;” "hurt it, it's the only way.”

* * * * * * *

A couple more days have passed. My legs had stopped hurting, but now they are back at it. What I feel most is the desire stretch and challenge my physical self. I don't want to hurt myself. I just want to feel myself and all my power physically. I want to run like I did as a kid and feel that pumping motion without fear.

But my feelings are locked away inside my body, stifled by a nameless pain tonight from the knees down. I don't know why. I only know I want to be in all my living forms simultaneously and feel them safely.

Entry III.10 (1994)

Sometimes, I felt this tremendous pressure about Leslie and Adrian as if I was going to blow up. Right now, I thought, Adrian is struggling with contradictions that on the one the hand, she gets everything she wants when she's with Leslie, but she doesn't get her needs met. On the other hand, she gets her needs met when she's with Rahne and I, but she doesn't get everything she wants.

I found the same contradiction everywhere in my life. On the one hand, I had enormous pain about sharing a child with Leslie. But on the other hand, I would never give up having Adrian just to not have to deal with Leslie. On the other hand (how many do we have here?), I would never have had a kid with anyone but Leslie, and the only reason I knew that was because of the tremendous emotional work I’d done. But I wouldn't have done the emotional work without having a kid, and I couldn't choose a better coparent until I'd done the emotional work. I knew thoughts ran around like that with no end short of a firm, "Enough!"

"Is anybody listening out there? How can this make sense?"

It was something I noticed about life a lot lately. It was this incessant need for contradictions. Apparently contradictions and contrasts were actually the very fabric of life. It was clear to me now why people who liked things cut and dried tend to be crazy. Mental health was not cut and dried. I figured that was one of the things that made it so damn hard to pin down.

* * * * * * *

I called my brother.  I’d been dreading it. I had just a small matter of a bill that needed to be paid.  He was ok with that but then decided to ask me a question. "Remember I signed a piece of paper awhile back about an adoption?"

"Yes," I answered cautiously.

"Well, I woke up the other morning wondering if it went through.”

"Yes, it went through quite a while ago. I have the new birth certificate.”

"Well," he continued, "I thought I should find out because it would be bad if I had left her without a parent.” 

[Please, everyone in the audience roll your eyes for me.]

"It went through, no problem, and besides they wouldn't have removed you as the parent unless they replaced you with me.” I added, “It’s all taken care of.” 

I rang off and marveled. It was probably a year to the day that he signed the adoption consent papers. In another year or so, he might ask when it became effective…or not.

* * * * * * *

On a completely nearly unrelated front, Barbara called me to share that the powers that be (I think we're mostly talking China here) have extended the separation of her and her infant child for another two to three months. Making an additional year of the time her daughter had to live in an orphanage before she got to be with a mother who wanted her. I wished I could say this had never happened before. I wished I could say it would never happen again. I wished I could say it’s over now for everyone. But I knew that just wasn’t the way the world worked. 

(Oh, I suppose I'll run out of things to say here now. But stay tuned, I'll be back.)