Unusual Summer Clouds During Hot Weather / Broken Person and Broken Guitar / Joni Mitchell's Meditation on the Book of Job / More People Who Are Not Broken

"A mind filled with love can be likened to the sky with a variety of clouds moving through it -- some light and fluffy, others ominous and threatening. No matter the situation, this sky is not affected by the clouds. It is free."
(Sharon Salzberg)

This morning before 8 o'clock I was a few blocks from my home, driving west on my way to SeaMar Community Health Center, a low-income clinic on the north end of town, to turn in paperwork that will have to be filled out by my doctor regarding accommodations that I am requesting in regard to the part-time job that I hope to have soon. The offer letter for the job is problematic. I will not sign it unless I am guaranteed a consistent work schedule and a guarantee that I will not be asked to work on my days off. I have been unemployed on and off since 1998 due to symptoms of PTSD that will be triggered again if my sleep is disrupted by frequent schedule changes that involve working into the evenings and if I am unable to plan anything because of never knowing when I will have a day off or when my work shift will begin or end.

As I waited at the stop light and wondered whether I would be able to get the accommodations I was requesting, I vaguely noticed out of the corner of my eye a nondescript compact person of short stature who was wearing nondescript clothing and a generic knit hat with side flaps with braids hanging down and who was carrying possessions across the cross street to my left. As the light turned green, and I moved forward with the traffic, I was startled to see the person lift an acoustic guitar into the air and smash it hard several times onto the sidewalk, leaving the guitar in pieces. It was like something I might see in a dream. I was shaken, wondering what was going on the mind of that person who was destroying something that was likely dear to that person or someone close to that person. I wasn't sure if the person was a man or a woman. It wasn't Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. It was something else.

I became aware of Joni Mitchell singing from my car's CD player:



On my way home from SeaMar, I had some errands to do in downtown Bellingham, which is on the west side of town. As I drove down Holly Street, I saw someone who appeared to be the same person I had seen earlier and who must have taken the bus into town. He or she was settled on the sidewalk,  not far from the bus station, leaning against the side of a building with his or her possessions. After I dropped off my condo dues at the property management company, I was curious enough to drive back around the block to see if it really was the same person.  Maybe it wasn't the same person, but my gut feeling was that it was. I was still grieving that broken person and the broken guitar. If it was the same person, he or she appeared subdued, nondescript, showing no sign of the anger or grief that prompted destroying an acoustic guitar.















"Take heart and take care of your link with life ..."
(Buffy Sainte-Marie, lyrics from "Look At The Facts")

Listen:

Common sense and a sense of humor needed

Above is "Typists," a painting in gouache from 1966, by Jacob Lawrence.  I've attached a copy of that painting to the drawer on my work desk.  Jacob Lawrence captured the essence and dignity of the nature of the demanding work many of us now do on computers.

I've started working on an online refresher course so that I can find work later this year.  Although the refresher course will be the equivalent of a full-time job, I plan to continue to volunteer one afternoon a week helping take care of babies in the daycare.  The babies inspire me.  I love them.  I like the freedom that volunteering gives me to just be there for the babies and to help the early childhood educators in whatever ways I can.

Funny to think that the only way I've been able to make a living for any length of time is by typing, and that when I took typing in high school in 1966, it was all I could do to get a "D" grade.

Deja vu.  Pretty scary. With Oboe by my side, I'm going to give typing and editing medical reports at home another try.  One day at a time.  I am good at what I do, but I have let PTSD overwhelm me again and again.  Next time I feel like quitting, I'll think twice and get help to put things in perspective. At my age, I'm not going to get many more chances.

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds.  A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

(William James)

Listening / Awake and Alive

Perry McClellan and Judith Gorman read the words of their son Orrin Gorman McClellan who penned these poems while serving with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan in 2005-2006.  Orrin, who struggled with PTSD after returning home, took his own life in 2010.
(Paragraph quoted from here)

Most people have the option of forgetting.  It's a survival thing.  Artists do not have that option, and I think that may of us suffer from hypermnesia, an exceptionally exact and vivid memory and often associated with mental illness, but our whole act of creating ... depends on that memory.  The only way we can get rid of it is to put it down on paper.

(Allen Say)

Train wheels runnin' through the back of my memory.

(Bob Dylan)

I am always doing what I cannot do in order than I may learn from it.

(Picasso)

May my silences become more accurate.

(Theodore Roethke)

Born in 1949 / We travel like an ox

I buyed me a little dog

Color it was brown

I learned him how to whistle

Sing and dance and run

His legs they were 14 yards long

His ears they were quite broad

Around the world in a half a day

And on him I could ride

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a little bull

About four inches high

Everybody feared him

That ever heard him cry

When he began to bellow

It made such a melodious sound

Until all the walls in London town

Came tumbling to the ground

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a flock of sheep

I thought they were all wethers

Sometimes they yielded wool

Sometimes they yielded feathers

I think mine are the very best sheep

For yielding me increase

For every full and change of the moon

They bring both lambs and geese

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a little box

About four acres square

I filled it full of guineas

And silver so fair

Oh now I’m bound for Turkey

I travel like an ox

And in my big chest pocket

I carry my little box

Sing Tattle O’Day

I buyed me a little hen

All speckled gay and fair

I sat her on an oyster shell

She hatched me out a hare

The hare it sprang a handsome horse

Full fifteen hands high

And him that tells a bigger tale

Would have to tell a lie

Sing Tattle O’Day

Yesterday something happened.  I've been feeling an underlying sense of progressive depression and fatigue for some time now, and yesterday morning I just didn't want to get out of bed and chose instead to enter into a form of meditation and soon drifted back into sleep.   

I dreamed a dream that didn't make me sad.  Because I was dreaming that I was in bed, I didn't completely realize that I was dreaming until I woke up. In the dream, I was awakened from sleep by a frightening commotion and loud voices and a tempest strong enough to force my body to move down my bed in the direction of my open bedroom window. 

For a few seconds, I fought being moved from my bed and then remembered a dream I had in October of 1998 while traveling on the coast of Northern California.  In that dream, I didn't realize that I was dreaming either because the dream also involved me being awakened from sleep while in bed. In that dream, I dreamed that I awoke to the sound of Hell's Angels on motorcycles outside the rented cottage where I was staying on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean in southern Mendocino County. I awoke in terror, feeling myself being pulled by my feet from my bed by an invisible force at the foot of the bed.  The feeling in that dream was similarly and oddly familiar, and felt like a memory from my childhood.  The dream room in that previous nightmare was filled with a subdued golden light which should have been reassuring but was not.

Still thinking that I was awake, as I fought the tempest and recalled that previous nightmare which had seemed to be based on a childhood memory, I noticed that everything in my vision was illuminated by a white light, and my distress shifted to the curiosity of lucid dreaming.  

Understanding clearly that it was within my power to make a decision to relax and see what would happen, I did just that.  Instead of finding myself flying out the open window, it was as if the tempest went through me, and then I woke up.  

I've felt disoriented and aimless since 2008 when Richard died. Or was it when the First Gulf War started in August of 1990 or was it in December of 1970 when Richard returned from Vietnam or was it somewhere way back in my childhood?

When I woke up this morning, I found that I suddenly had the ability to focus my energy enough to sit down at my work table for the first time in a long long time and listen to Another Self Portrait while I prepared a plan for warping my inkle loom and then warped the loom and began weaving.  

Listening to Another Self Portrait this morning inspired me to look through my CDs for the rest of the Bootleg Series, and I found I was missing Vols. 6 and 7 and promptly bought them both on iTunes and began assembling a Bootleg Series random playlist for listening while I am doing creative work. So far the playlist is over 10 hours long! 

After August 1990, as I began to exhibit symptoms of PTSD similar to those which many Vietnam veterans began to experience at that time, I found that preparing to do creative work only upset me. What was once the source of my solace had been transformed into a dark place that I could no longer tolerate.  

Although I had frequently been inspired by listening to Bob Dylan's voice in the past, I haven't been able to bring myself to do that for years when I have sat down in an attempt to do art work. In the past few weeks, I've come to realize that I can listen to the alternative versions and live versions of songs sung by Bob Dylan and can feel something new instead of reliving the past.  

P.S. I'm still playing my ukulele daily, inspired by George Harrison:

PTSD (All Over Again) / Alex and Toggle

Listen

We're all in this together.

We can send love and encouragement as well as experience, strength and hope, to the newest generation affected by American wars, represented in part by Alex and Toggle in Doonesbury in the last several days.

Delayed reactions / Coincidence?/ "Tug on anything at all.."

I just watched the movie below with the voices in American English. Wonderful to find this beautiful film in many languages!

I have to say, though, that I was startled by the scene in the bath in this film, given that in American culture it is not a typical scene except perhaps in early childhood when the mother is absent, as in this movie where the mother is ill and in a hospital. I am not sure of the ages of the two girls, but the older girl appears to be about 10 years old. I do realize that this is traditional in Japanese culture, although I don't know much about this tradition, and the traditional personal boundaries that must be connected with it.

I do know that when I expressed concern in confidence to a mental health counselor on a crisis line that a 10-year-old was still taking showers with a parent of the opposite sex (I later learned that both parents thought this would be fine until the child was 12), the Mandatory Reporting Laws in the State of Washington required the crisis line mental health counselor to contact Child Protective Services, and there was an investigation and a confidential Educational Intervention to ensure that the parent stopped taking showers with the 10-year-old of the opposite sex and that she understood that what she was doing was not appropriate in American culture and not in the best interests of her child growing up in the context of American culture. The showers with the parent stopped, although the mother was, of course, angry about the intervention and argued that she had done nothing wrong. The child has grown up and is excelling in everything he does. Still, I do not like to think what would have happened had the showering continued until the boy was 12.

I wonder what the outcome would have been if I had expressed my concerns to the parents only. I do not have children of my own and, within 12 hours (delayed reaction) of learning of the situation with the showers, woke up in the morning with a sick feeling inside, and talked with a mental health counselor on a crisis line because I wanted professional clarification of my instinctive concern. The mother may never talk to me again, thinking that I was the one who called in Child Protective Services, and "tried to destroy her family."

My delayed reaction that morning, upon awakening and calling the crisis line, was that I did know that I couldn't imagine myself taking a shower or bath with my father when I was 10 years old.

And I do know that when I was 4 years old, when my mother was in the hospital giving birth to my youngest sister, my other sister and I were left for a week with a younger couple who were friends of my parents and who had two adopted sons close to my age, and that I was in the bathroom with my sister and with the man without his wife present. All I remember clearly is being in the bathtub without water, with my sister, and being angry at the man. I can see the 4-inch square bathtub tiles in my mind, and the man sitting on the floor next to the bathtub. This is one of my early childhood memories.

Many years later, a few months after Richard and I separated, I was in a department store at the customer service desk, and the woman who was helping me recognized my name. She was the wife who wasn't present when my sister and I were in the bathtub. She asked me about my life. I told her that I had just separated from my boyfriend who had just returned from Vietnam, and that the relationship had ended in violence. She said that she had just gotten a divorce from her husband who had become severely mentally ill and had been locking her in a closet when he would leave the house.

I get a chill today, this morning, just thinking of that. I have no memory of being hurt by that man, just of being angry at him. Now I am wondering again what happened in that bathroom that day in 1954 when I was 4 years old.

Coincidence or not, I am only beginning to thrive at age 62. It is never too late to heal.



(The painting at the top of the post is "Calendar Series: 15th Month/Night." I had it removed from its frame and scanned recently. The Calendar Series began with the 14th Month, inspired by the John Lennon and Yoko Ono Calendar of 1970, to which they had added a 13th Month. Richard was in Vietnam in 1970. The 13th Month was the month we were to be together again. I felt that I was lost in the 13th month for years. Now I am recalling that I starting the Calendar Series as a way of healing in the same way that I started this blog. Yesterday was the birthday of John Lennon and Sean Lennon, by the way)

"Tug on anything at all, and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe."
(John Muir)

TRAUMA AND RECOVERY

Click on the following quote which begins an essay well worth reading, written by David Murphy and found in The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest:

Recovery is based on the empowerment of the survivor and the creation of new connections.

-Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery

("Woman Trying To Remember What She Is Trying To Forget," painted and drawn in gouache, watercolor and chalk pastel on Arches Watercolor Paper in 1986 by Old Girl Of The North Country)

BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER THE WAR

Now I know, at least a little bit, why I am so resistant to drawing and painting. Once I start, I find it difficult to stop.

This morning, when I woke up at 4 a.m. which has been my chosen waking time recently, it occurred to me that, as with my yoga practice and my blog/writing practice, if I don't make time in the morning to draw, the chances of doing a daily drawing practice diminish as the day progresses. So, a complication arises. I want to do yoga, writing and drawing, but once I start drawing I don't want to stop to do writing and yoga. Actually, it's not that I don't want to do writing and yoga, it's that I need to figure out how to stop drawing in time to do writing and yoga before I enter the responsibilities of the day.

My drawing today is based on a recurring dream that was dreamed once again last night just after I first fell asleep. Ever since sometime in 1970, when my boyfriend was in Vietnam and I was living in my parents' home, I have had a recurring dream that has taken many forms over the years. In the original dream, I was startled awake by a Viet Cong who was lunging towards me, trying to kill me. It took a few seconds for me to realize that I was dreaming because the vision of someone beside my bed was so vivid. My heart was beating in that frightened way that sounds as if everyone in the house can hear it. It took some time before I was able to return to sleep. I was afraid that my boyfriend had died in Vietnam.

It was only in the first dream that the person was a Viet Cong. In the recurring dreams, the shadowy figure by my bed has taken many forms, usually as a man, but also as an unidentifiable woman, as my mother, as my father, as a quiet curious child I don't know, as a dog, as a wolf, as a fox, as a cat. Usually the figure is threatening my life, but occasionally it has not been threatening. On the occasions when the figure is not threatening, I still wonder what it is doing in my bedroom. Always there is the loud racing heartbeat. Over the years, the fear became mixed with anger at the dream appearance of someone uninvited, no matter now benign they might be.

At one time I had hoped that I would never have this dream again, believing that when I stopped having the dream it would mean that something in my psyche was healed, but gradually I came to see this dream as an unusual gift. I am struck by the fact that it occurred again on the night before I planned to start drawing again and that this time there were two people, a man and a woman.

Although the dream was of the frightening kind, when I tried to draw it a shift occurred, and it became "Before, During And After The War."

Now it's almost 7 a.m. The sun won't rise this morning until nearly 8:30. Time to do my yoga practice. Not sure how I will be able to do yoga, writing and drawing once I start my 8 a.m. classes in January, but anything is possible.

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to draw something today!

The photo below was taken through my living room window on a cold clear morning before sunrise a few days ago.






















A Lifeline Home

and

wood s lot.

"SKY FULL OF FIRE, PAIN POURIN' DOWN" / SEPTEMBER 11/ WAR IN IRAQ

When the attacks happened, I was at home in the Pacific Northwest, sleeping. September 11, 2001 was a day I had been looking forward to and had marked on my calendar because it was the day that Bob Dylan's album "Love and Theft" was going to be released. For many years, my days off had been Tuesday and Wednesday. I worked until 2:00 in the morning and usually slept until noon. When I woke up half way through the day on September 11, I had a phone message from a friend. She said, "You might want to turn your television on. Today is a sad day for our country." I don't have cable service but, at that time, for some unknown reason I had been able to pick up the network stations and a few cable stations. For the next several hours I watched in shock at the surreal footage of two planes flying into the towers over and over and over again. I remembered standing at the foot of one of the towers in 1982 with my mother and father and looking up at the impossibly tall building and then taking the elevator to the top where there was a Rodin sculpture exhibit which was closed, although the "The Thinker" was visible from where we stood at the entry to the exhibit. Late in the afternoon I went out to get some groceries and to buy "Love and Theft." Everyone I saw looked fragile, as if some of the blood had been drained out of them. When I got home, what a shock to hear Bob Dylan singing these words in the song titled "Mississippi": "Every step of the way we walk the line Your days are numbered, so are mine . . ." "Sky full of fire, pain pourin' down . . . " A few days later I learned that a friend with PTSD from the war in Vietnam had been diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer and that he had three months to live. He said that he felt like his body was one of the two towers. I flew to California from Washington State to visit him two weeks later. The atmosphere in the airports and planes was extraordinarily subdued. My experience was that everyone appeared to be kinder than usual. How do I feel about it all now? The same way I did during the war in Vietnam. On a daily basis, I feel a measurable level of sorrow, of which I now understand anger is a part. Along with countless others, I have a clinical diagnosis of PTSD. Mine dates back to the five months after my friend returned from the war in Vietnam. My friend is still alive. All lives are a mysterious gift. I wrote this in response to robin andrea at Dharma Bums who asked these questions a few days ago. Where were you that day, and how do you feel about it all now? As one of the commenters, wren, at Dharma Bums wrote, " . . . may all those who mourn be comforted." ("Witness with Courage," pastel image, 1984, drawn by am)