make it happen

take me back – rewind

born into a healthy womb

i see clearly now

 

#invokingdrala Day 1

Ameliabedelia

here beside me.  artist, friend,

brighter than the sun.

 

descend/ascend

space beyond pain. earth. . .

we come by choice to become

our soul’s destiny.

 

men of vision

free, open to the public

beer garden at the old tennessee

brew company – live music,

pop-up retail, food trucks

downtown revitalization.

thanks guys for believing

in the impossible and

making Memphis a better place to live.

 

 

 

 

May 22- One Year One Day at a Time – Content

Damn.  Where do I start?  How do I write about contentment.  I only know how to write skilfully about depression, anxiety, sadness and the like so I have a problem.  I do not feel depressed, anxious, sad, etc. Is it worth writing if the subject of one’s writing is “another good day?  I was taught that dram and turmoil at the great subjects of true literature.  Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Reservoir Dogs, Catcher in the Rye, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  More recently Doubt, Grace, Angels in America.  

I have nothing related to pathos about which I am compelled to write.  So I write Haiku. It’s okay, but it lacks the depth I long for.  Perhaps I am hovering over something I am afraid to see, afraid to look to face.  I don’t think so.  I am content.  I feel whole.  I am healthy.  I am happy.  I like the work I do and I believe I am very good at it.  I love my husband and am grateful for my children, their success and their well-being.  I do not feel deprived or helpless or down trodden.  I no longer feel like a  victim of my god awful childhood.  I have no fear about the future.  I have a comfortable life filled with meaningful work and good friends, new friends.  Today I have friendships I value, people with whom I want to spend time.  My friends are no longer just my drinking buddies.  I have girlfriends with whom I share a deep connection and with whom I have never had a drink.  That’s different.  Not even something I went looking for.  They came into my life.  I liked them so we spend time with one another.

I sit here now at 8:00 pm in my bed with my stuffed animals, Fruffy the dog.  That is what Amelia calls him.  And the green Monkey also known as Papa Monkey.  Jimmy, my husband, said this morning that he no longer knew with whom he was sleeping, me or Amelia.  He was referring to a bed full of stuffed toys.  I hold them, at night, next to my breast.  They are for me, the childhood I never had and my connect to the granddaughter whom I love.   They are joy.  She is joy.  I am joyful.

Tomorrow we leave for DC and from there to Little Washington, Virginia for  our friend, Steve’s 60th birthday, a blue grass festival on the lawn of his gentleman farmer’s estate.  I will definitely be posting pictures.

This is contentment.

Near Death Experience and Beyond

Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see
(Do you see what I see)
Way up in the sky little lamb
Do you see what I see
(Do you see what I see)
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

My husband teases me when I say, “Do you see what I mean?”  He laughs and asks, “Did you hear what you just said?  How can I see something you are saying?”  I respond, “How could you not?”

In school, I performed best on tests when I reread the material the night before the exam.  Then when presented with the questions, I could see in my mind’s eye the answer as it was printed in the textbook or in my notes.  People tell me, “You must have a photographic memory.”  Perhaps.  I believe I have second sight defined as ” a form of extrasensory perception, the power to perceive things that are not present to the senses, whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen, or about things or events at a remote location.”  This ability to “see” what is not seen comes and goes. The more I read, the more I write, the more accessible it becomes.

My grandmother was paranoid schizophrenia.  She was institutionalized, so the story goes, after she took a butcher knife out into the neighborhood and threatened to kill someone.  I knew then, what I know now, that that is not what happened.  Go back with me.  I am three years old.  My grandmother, father and I live in a tiny duplex on Miami Street in South Bend, IN.  It is early morning.  Dad has been up all night, reading and drinking.  He is belligerent, pushing grandma up against the refrigerator.  I am in my crib in a sliver of a room behind the kitchen.  I cannot see them, but I know exactly what is happening.  Grandma is wearing her half-apron.  She was cooking oatmeal when Daddy confronted her.  I see her stirring the contents of her favorite iron skillet, the one she never washed.  There are not words, only pictures.  Grandma pinned up against the refrigerator. Daddy pounding her chest with his finger, then grabbing her shoulder and shaking her until her head bounced against door.  She reaches for a butcher knife lying on the counter and points it right in his face.  Stunned, he backs off and she runs outside hoping to get help.

Grandma was never crazy.  She had second sight too.  She had visions of angels and talked to God.

When my son died, the paramedics resuscitated him on the floor of a bar in Memphis.  I was far away in Pennsylvania when I awoke suddenly in the middle of the night.  At that very moment, my cell phone began to ring, a very strange phenomenon given that there was no reception in the building where we were staying.  To use our phones, we had to walk a distance away from the building.  Never had there been reception inside.  It was Leah, my ex-husband’s wife on the other end.  “Jordan is dead. I mean, he is alive, but he died.”  She tried to explain what had happened, but I already knew.  I saw him in the ambulance.  I saw myself beside him, holding his hand.

He was in a coma in ICU when I finally took his hand in mine and calmly said, “Jordan, I don’t know if it is your time to go or not.  I know you see the light.”  ( I could see him walking toward the light.  My grandmother was there and my father with her.  They reached toward him, welcoming him into their arms)  “Honey, I want you to know if you are ready to go, do it.  I will be fine.  We will all be sad, but we will be all right.  This is your choice.  But if you want to come back, if you want to live, do not walk toward the light.  I know it is tempting.  It is beautiful.  But if you want to come back to us, listen to my voice.  I am going to keep talking.  You decide.”

The next day, Jordan opened his eyes.  Leah and I were sitting on five gallon paint buckets outside the ICU doors ( the waiting room was being re-built) when the sweet Indian doctor whose name I cannot remember appeared and offered me his hand.  ( I must explain something here. The odd thing about my second-sight is that I have a terrible memory for dates, times, names, and the details of events that actually happened.  My inner eye has 20/20 vision while my real eyes see and remember very little.)   “This is nothing less than a miracle.  We did not think your son would come out of the coma.  We rarely, if ever, see this kind of recovery.”  I threw my arms around him.  Leah cried and ran to tell the others.  The doctor stepped back. Still holding my hands, his eyes piercing mine, he repeated, “This is truly a miracle.  Now we must wait.  There may be brain damage.  Time will tell.”  I knew Jordan would make a full recovery.  He did.  He had decided to return, to come back from the dead.

I have many more stories like this one.  The time I was standing at the kitchen sink and I heard a voice, loud and clear, “It is time to have baby.”  I was never, ever going to have children.  I knew I did not have the skills to raise a child. Nine months later, my first daughter, Katie, was born.  As an aside, I was told I would never be able to bear children because I had a prolapsed uterus.

Then there was the time I walked into the building at 524 South Cooper, an old, run-down beauty school, and instantly saw what would be Midtown Yoga.  It was as if someone had snapped a photograph of the studio, what it looked like in the future, and held it in front of my eyes.  I told my husband, “I see it.  Yes, this is a yoga studio.”  And to this day it is a vibrant, thriving yoga center.

And then there was a time I was at Myrtle Beach, asleep in my bed, when finger tapped me on the shoulder and a voice said, “Wake up.”  I rolled over to see who it was.  No one was there.  The next morning, I received a message from my husband that Jimmy’s father had died.  Odd?  A coincidence?  Maybe.

Or the night I heard from my sister that my father died.  I dropped to my knees next to me bed and called out, “Daddy.”  He came to me.  He was with me in the room.  I smelled his cologne, his cigar breath.  I felt the smooth skin of his cheek next to mine.  “I love you Daddy.”   “I am with you,” he said.  “The past is behind us.  I love you.  Let me know if you ever need anything, anything at all.  I am here.”  To this day, I call on my Dad when I am confused or depressed.  I do not ask him to for miracles.  I just ask for guidance.

The psychiatrist at The Wiillows treatment center told me I was hallucinating when I responded in this way to her questions.  During my intake interview she asked, “Do you hear voices?”

Without thinking, I said, “Yes, of course.  I talk to my father and grandmother all the time.”

She responded, “You mean you call them.”

“No,” I said.  They are dead.  I talk to them when I need help.

And you know what the psychiatrist said?  “You know that is crazy.  You are delusional.  No one talks to the dead.”

I do.

Maybe my ability to “see” is simply a combination highly refined memory, visualization and intuition.  I don’t know, nor do I care.  I see what I see and I trust what I see .  When I sit down to write I wait for the word or phrase or idea to present itself to me.  I have no idea where it will take me.  I put my fingers on the key board and it begins.  I trust more will be revealed.  Thy will be done.

Who is That Girl at the Bottom of the Wine Bottle?

I opened my Facebook page this morning and found a message from a friend who recently moved to Connecticut.

Hey Sarla, I have been sober for 15 + years, but it’s only one day for me!! I really like your posts and brutal honesty.

My response...

Oh thank you so much for reaching out.  That means so much to me.  Tell me what you like most about being sober as opposed to drinking.  I am so close.  Wish I had never started again.  So much harder to quit now…..not as desperate as I was in 1990.  Drinking much less than I did then.  So much easier to rationalize my drinking, but I know in my heart of hearts I am missing a part of me.  It is lying at the bottom of a wine bottle.

 His reply….

It’s mostly about self-respect for me, I grew up in an alcoholic environment with incredibly low self-esteem and was full if fear. In my old fearful low esteem state I would make stupid decisions surrounding work, family and friends. They were not my real emotions, I spent so much time trying to protect my drinking that it just wore me out. Do I miss a cold beer? Yes, I do! Drinking just became all-encompassing, it ruled all of my decision-making. So now, years later I have respect for myself and it also gave me the spiritual tools to grow.

One story: my sister was living in Sausalito in a container cooking meth 13 years ago and she called me for help, I told I would get her into a 1/2 way house but it’s all I could do, I was spent, she did it she got it, she had nothing, today she has a good job, practices yoga and is the light of my life, if she could come back from that, I know I can stay sober on a daily basis…but it’s all about today, tomorrow, who knows??! To thine own self be true…

 

And I said…

 

Just spoke with my husband. Making a commitment to go to AA on Monday night December 2. We are leaving town today to stay with friends in Virginia over the holidays. Thank you for your words of encouragement. I sometimes wonder if I would have sold Midtown Yoga had I been sober. I guess that’s the hardest part about stopping drinking….forgiving myself, owning my mistakes, and moving on. I know God has a purpose for me, but when I am floating at the bottom of a wine bottle, there is no way for me to see what that is.

 

He continued the thread….

 

You can do it, don’t look back look forward. Sometimes you just need to tell yourself that my way is not working, surrender and ask for help and I know you will be amazed…

 

My last response….

 

I know. I just have to do it. It is time. I also told Jimmy that getting sober must be the most important thing in my life. It must be my first priority. I have to put my sobriety above all else. That is how I did it before and it worked. Anything less will not do.  I will send you a message after my meeting on Monday night.  I will send you a message after my meeting on Monday night. Again, thank you so much.  Funny how God works…you reaching out to me and me finally being ready to hear you.

He finished with this. ….You have helped me more than you know, god bless

I am moving toward the light.  Writing in to the Light.  I see the light at the surface.  I will make it, one day at a time.

I am stone cold sober and loving every minute of it.  Thy will be done.

Resurrecting the Past

I am  in our bed snuggled up next to my grandmother as she reads stories from the Bible.  This nightly ritual gave me a deep respect and reverence for the miracles that Jesus performed.  I believe that He did turn water into wine, that he fed thousands with a few loaves of bread and that he did raise Lazarus from the dead.  Do I call myself a Christian?  No more than I call myself a Democrat or a Republican.  I believe in what I know to be true in my heart.  I do not need a label to prove my faith or my politics.

Back to the story of Lazarus and what his resurrection means to me today.  I am working to recover long-lost memories from childhood.  I recall many things about my first 4 years, but I have little recollection of the time after.  My next full screen memory appears at age 15 when I started dieting.  I measured  5′ 4″ and weighed 115 pounds.  I deemed myself grossly overweight and proceeded to starve myself for the next 30 years.  But that is a story for another day.  In my effort to retrieve my lost past, I am pouring over pictures, reading accounts of national events from that era and talking to people who I knew at that time.

Why am I doing this?  Good question.  I believe that I must resurrect the past if I am to live fully in the present.  In one of my recurring dreams, I know there is an unfinished room in the house where I am living.  I am not aware of the lost room until friends come to visit and I need more bedrooms to accommodate my guests. Haunted by the idea that there is a lost room, I go search the entire house-top to bottom.  I always find the mystery bedroom at the far reaches of my house.  It appears to be an addition, but it is old and rundown.   The roof leaks.  Broken floor boards reveal gaping holes that prevent full access to the room.  A dilapidated, unmade bed leans against the far right wall.  I think the room holds potential, but I am overwhelmed by the work required to fix it up.  I inevitably leave the room as it is, closing the door behind me.  When I leave, I feel terribly let down.  I know I am leaving a part of myself behind.

Can I. like Jesus, ever resurrect this room? Can I make it whole?  Why has it been abandoned for so many years, left to languish?  I must find the answer to this questions, because I know this room is the master-key that will unlock my lost memories.

In his book, To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’Donohue writes a blessing,      For Someone Awakening to the Trauma of His or Her Past.

Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning.

And  your memory is ready to show you everything,

Having waited all these years for you to return and know.

Only you know where the casket of pain is interred.

You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering,

And according to your readiness, everything will open.

May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide

Who can accompany you through the fear and grief

Until you heart had wept its way to your true self.