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Contradictions… III

21 Monday Sep 2015

Tags

Fear, Life, Love, Poetry, Power, Self

female-fragment-1.PaigeBradley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contradictions… III

I am…
…loosely cemented… no, inured and secured… of far sighted vision… sight lines fully obscured… entire… no partial… I cower… no rise… small silly child… no, crone oh-so -wise… zig zag and waver… no, I walk a strong gait… run to a finish line… no (im)patiently wait… emptiness, hollow… fill my bottomless soul… stubborn… no willing… fragmented… no whole… pieces of puzzles falling down to a floor… fall apart… no together… build a wall… no, a door… treasure inside… open it, open it… no, slam it shut… should have known better… Pandora! You slut.

~Myla: unknowingly certain.
September 21, 2015

Image: Female Fragment, with masses of love and gratitude for the art of Paige Bradley

 

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Posted by ~MyLa | Filed under Poetry, The 'L' Word, Unfettered

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Contradictions… II

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by ~MyLa in Poetry, The 'L' Word, Unfettered

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Tags

Contradictions, Fear, Life, Love

TwistedFemale.2.PaigeBradley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contradictions II

I am…
…of a clear mind… and also perplexed… and running… no motionless… brain overly flexed… silent tears flow in rivers… down this young weathered face… each chases another… a perverse little race… I smile… no grimace… and laugh… no wail… quiet refrain… screams fail, epic fail… I see… no I’m blind… I am cruel… no I’m kind… I am twisted… no straight… occupy rooms full of love… an abandoned house full of hate… agnostic… no atheist… tempting fate, tempting fate…

~Myla: unknowing.
September 21, 2015

Image: Twisted Female No. 2, with masses of love and gratitude for the art of Paige Bradley

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Contradictions…

24 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by ~MyLa in The 'L' Word

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seems fitting this moment…

I am…
…a bit lost… and found… and up… no down… and right… no left… and here… no there… and happy… no sad… and sane… no madd… crying… and laughing… and devil… no saint… 4 white walls… in a room full of paint… flower… no weed… they’re one and the same… no fun at all…still playing the game… that is not all, not even close, for I am complex, a house full of ghosts…

-M.Y.F.M. 29/08/2012

Crab-Walker

Crab-Walker

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Eight Thousand Four Hundred and One, Days…

25 Sunday Apr 2021

Tags

life in days not fear

23 years

276 months

1199.29 weeks

8401 days

201624 hours

12,097,440 minutes

725,846,400 seconds, and counting…

These are the numbers representing the back-to-back time I have spent living in my own skin, for better or worse, without the bullet-proof shield of substances to kill the pain, kill the pain, kill the pain; or at the very least, obscure it some, so that I didn’t take myself off the planet.

I am not you, and you are not me, so what is painful to me, may not be to you, and vice-versa, though the experiences I speak of here, are in my personal and professional experience, a source of great pain for many, if not most. We all deal, or don’t, with these things, anything, in different ways, and many folks have barriers that the rest of us will never know about to accessing support, and/or, like me, have experienced more pain, in the pursuit of said support.

So please, read MY (abridged) list of pain, with an open mind, but more than that, use, hone the skill of critical thinking, listen with an open heart, and try not to paint my experience with the tainted and dirty brush, of yours, or others’. For when we do that, we inadvertently, or purposefully, judge another’s pain, measure it, against our own. But when we open our hearts, minds, and eyes to another’s context, the possibility that even the very same experience can be perceived and experienced very differently by different humans, we cannot help but have empathy for any given soul, no matter their circumstance or the ‘choices’ they have made; because choice theory, while a very useful tool, is limited, often severely so, but that is a digression I have neither the time nor inclination to pursue in any depth here. My point: we are not all born, raised, gifted with, the same set of choices, abilities, and ‘fairness,’ is a great theory, but an ill-fitting concept and rarely to never doable in practice, in far too many situations.

I wielded my shield to protect myself from these pains:

-The pain of losing my extended family and the most important pieces of my cultural heritage, to the Soviet invasion of my original home and native land in 1968, becoming refugees

-The pain of losing my hero just two short years into our new life as immigrants in Canada, and by direct extension, any remnants of a childhood

-The pain of watching my mother and barely older brother, take on the gargantuan task before them: leading our little family of 3 in this brave new world, with no money, little to no language, no extended family to speak of, and little to no hope

-The pain of watching a man take advantage of my mother’s position, and when she had had enough and sent him packing, the pain of losing everything we owned, because in vengeance, he set our home on fire

-The pain and guilt I watched her writhe in because she hadn’t understood a detail about our insurance, and we were uninsured

-The pain, the exhaustion, of constantly trying to fill the void, the one that only got deeper as I got older

-The pain of filling the void with boys, and later men, who looked only to their own wants, discarding me by the wayside like so much trash on the bottom of their often ‘well-heeled’ feet

-The pain of Lou, the wealthy ‘hobby pimp,’ with no actual need for the money, who professed to love me by turning me out and then kicking me out at the age of 18, because in his words to my brother, I was “all used up.” I had to force those words out of my brother’s mouth;  he did not want to tell me, to slay me with those words, and they did, slay me. Lou, at the time 32, didn’t possess enough man-balls to kick me out himself, so he summoned my brother to collect my things, but not many of the fancy things that stayed in his penthouse, payed for with my body. He loaded my brother’s valiant and sent him to my ‘day job,’ in a nail salon he (Lou) owned, to have my brother “let me know” that it was over. Chew on all that for a minute or two and imagine what it may have done to a hurt, already lost soul of 18. I was a hurtin’ little girl before I met this man, in one of his salons, getting my nails done, by a friend, who he had turned out… this series of events set the stage for years of choices, which for several decades I did not understand, did not recognize as being related more to Lou’s actions, and what happened in the course of my sex-work career, than to anything I had experienced previous to him. This is the Reader’s Digest version of less than 2 deeply and profoundly impactful years of my life, that unbeknownst to me, would serve as the fuel for too many years of suffering; suffering I acted upon, in a myriad of ways that simply caused more pain, to me and everyone I cared about, everyone who (truly) cared about me.

-The pain of violence; of physical, sexualized, verbal, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and financial violence. Vile and deliberate violences perpetrated against my person by various individuals, including some I loved, trusted, individuals who purported to ‘love’ me, who demonstrated their ‘love,’ returned mine, with vileness and violence.

-The pain of violence perpetrated against my person by individuals in the systems and groups I reached out to for support

-The pain of being pathologized, for THEIR violence and bad behaviour

-The pain of being patronized, invalidated, belittled, subjected to too many indignities, and victim-blamed and shamed, for my pain

-The pain of never being ‘enough,’ for anyone, least of all myself

-The pain of being ‘too much,’ for everyone, and conflicted about it, within myself

-The pain of doing the bidding of other’s dreams for me, rather than my own

-The pain of running, back and forth across several countries on two continents, only to find that where ever I went there I was, and there it was, the pain.

-The pain of a large, intensely wild, creative spirit, wounded, broken, silenced.

These are the primary reasons, I say primary because they all had extensions, nuances, bred offshoots, but I digress, how odd… these are the primary reasons I needed a shield. The shield’s chemical make-up and methods of delivery to my traumatized brain and spirit, changed as my needs did, depending on the circumstances of the physical and psychological spaces and places I occupied. The chemical make-up and methods of delivery encompassed an ever broader spectrum, ranging from mild, to wow and fun to holy fuck and almost lethal. All of it, did what I intended for a while, saved my life, and believe it or not, in some ways my sanity. Because the only other choice I felt I had at various points in my life, was to end it.

And at some point in 1997, I stopped making decisions that were related to anything but the procurement and use of the shield, any shield, and my coping strategy, my survival mechanism, my best friend, became my worst enemy, took the meager remnants I had left, of me, and every.single.human I loved in the world, every.single.human who loved and needed, the me now buried so far below the detritus of the pain, that the void had swallowed me up.

Fast forward to September, October, and December 1997, several stays in detox, and a 16 week residential treatment program. And then, April 22nd, 1998, I picked up and wielded that shield for the last time. In the course of those detox stays, and a fairly brutal treatment program (now there’s another story), I had experienced tiny fragments of myself, real hope around becoming a mother again to my child, and at least enough belief in myself that I could build some kind of life for us, to start over yet again, so on April 25th, 1998, I started counting days, and have not stopped since.

I did so with the help of a number of counsellors, a compassionately brutal and very effective day treatment program which went to heart of the matter, the traumas listed above;  went to my very core, helped me start the arduous process of resurrecting a Marcela I could not only live with, but one who would eventually stop caring, so much, about what anyone else thought about her. It was a ground-breaking program really, in its time, pre- the joke that has so sadly become most trauma-informed practice in the ‘helping world, which unless used with the greatest of care and attention to language and human dignity, does nothing but ladle a bunch of pathological symptomology onto people who have been violated in the most horrific ways, and attempts to ‘treat’ them, coming full circle to: it’s on you/me. Watch The Keepers, in its entirety, if you want a painful look-see at an example of that… but there I go, digress again, look, shiny-shiny Unicorns… stop! Revise: I digress because nothing, nothing about any of this, for me, for the women I once mentored in the BaNAclub, for the humans I have supported in the course of my work, for the countless humans struggling with all manner of trauma today, and its related responses (read: coping mechanisms, survival strategies), nothing, nothing at all, about it, is straight forward, no matter its roots and causes.

I did so, kept counting the days, primarily with the support of a group of people I have lovingly called the BaNAna club. I did so by attending countless meetings, and with very deep involvement in its service structure, thousands of hours of volunteer work sitting on committees, supporting people in various institutions, mentoring other women, and a handful of gay men.

And as the years wore on, I did so while trying to remain loyal to some of the individuals responsible for some of the pain, and living, trying to stay ‘part of,’ with an ever increasing, ever more disquieting discomfort, with most of the club’s basic tenets, principles, and a constant push to believe in something I cannot, have not, since I was a small child. Though in all fairness, I tried, really really hard, for many, too many years. False loyalty has been an Achilles’ heel, a constant companion, in the complexity that is I.

And then at some point, I just kept counting them without significant involvement in the club, but for too long, with the ever-present internal struggle of false loyalty, and more and more harmful (to me), attempts to maintain my ‘membership.’  I kept counting the days not because the club told me I had to, not because I believed the rhetoric that I would re-erect the shield if I didn’t practice what had become stifling rote, and an act of psychological and spiritual violence against self, every time I crossed the threshold into one of ‘the rooms,’ every time I heard myself or someone else repeat the tenets.

I kept counting because somewhere along the way, I had come to the conclusion that I did not wish to ‘filter’ my life, my view, my experience of what Salty likes to call ‘damned reality,’ had no desire to filter me, with anything, least of all with the shield, any shield.

I could not, knowing everything I know about my life, about myself, and a great deal about the lives of others, buy into something which insists that I view myself as someone with “defects of character,” as “powerless,” and as “self-centered” to the core. I cannot buy into a disease model of substance use or the contradictions in the club’s literature about our ability to recover but to never be cured, healed. I cannot stomach any longer, the notion that I do not have enough power to make decisions for myself, as related to a resurrection of the shield, or maintaining my back-to-back count, and I cannot, will not, have the entirety of my person and the entirety of my life, defined by something that I stopped doing 23 years ago. For that matter, I will not have it define any part of my life, prior to, or following April 25th 1998. I will not define myself, the entirety of my wildly creative spirit and my 19 lives in one skin, by any one aspect of my life, any more than I allow Lyme disease to define all of these things about me. I don’t call myself a ‘Lymie,’ I abhor terms like ‘survivor,’ and the word ‘victim’ has been hijacked for purposes of judgement, so I will not use that one, either. I will not label myself an addict for doing something that saved my life, for as long as something like the shield can, before it turns and consumes one’s life and being.

It comes as no surprise to me that the very thing I relied on to ‘save’ myself, ended up turning on me at some point, too, at least it felt that way. Although when I really think about it, I find that it simply reached the end of its utility for me, and I could no longer ignore the contradictions inherent to it. And it began, at some point, to stunt my growth. I know for certain that it began to harm me long before I walked away, but I believe I was a bit trapped, by the previously noted false loyalty, and by fear.

And that, is what I believe to be at the core of my disengagement from ‘the program’ and most of its members. It, they, limited me to living in fear, which is completely contradictory to that which I believe for myself, have demonstrated over and over again, prior to, during, and post, the BaNAna club years: I have long chosen faith, in my ability, with the help of others I choose to have in my life, when needed, to figure shit out; without having to dig the shield out of its musty, dusty closet. I am quite happy for it to stay there, with the other skeletons I have picked through ad nauseam, and chucked back in to rest in their jagged, now useless to me pieces. For I categorically refuse, to keep flogging the rotting flesh of long dead horses.

It is important for me to articulate that I have the deepest gratitude for some of the people I have crossed paths with in the course of my involvement in the BaNAna club, and for its utility in helping me find enough of myself, to help me figure out that the way, for me, is about healing my wounds, both self and other inflicted, and for moving on. It does not mean that I don’t continue to support people looking to find and heal themselves, it does not mean that I actively dissuade others from trying/using ‘the program(s),’ it does not mean that I stop my own personal work, and it most certainly does not mean that I’m going to run out tomorrow, or the next day, or when Bitch-Slappy decides to deliver her next blow, because she slaps whether or not I am a member, to pick up the shield, it never means that, unless I choose, decide, that it means that. And whether I choose to or not, at the end of the day, there exists no permanent affliction, in any event.

So I continue to count days, because I am loyal to myself, and to a decision I made 23 years ago today, to refrain from picking up the shield, no matter what. At this juncture, that choice is a subconscious one most days, but it is a choice, and despite feeling very limited in the choices I had, and they all felt equally shitty, it is a choice exactly as it was to wield a shield, in the first place.

And if I should choose to pick up any of the legal and/or illegal substances I have long put down, it is because I made a decision to do so, and not for a lack of gratitude or a lack of tenets and dogma in my life, any dogma.  And certainly not for a lack of some of the people who populate the rooms of the program(s).

Francis Mallman is one of my food and philosophical heros, and I’ve had the hots for him for a good long time now. If you watch the episode of Chef’s Table that tells his story, you will understand more about why this me, in so many ways, and you will understand my break-out of many boxes, including the relationship (any relationship) box I lived in for way too long, and you will understand why me and the Sailor… all that said, one of the unequivocally most beautiful things about growing (up), without constraints, into my own skin, is that I no longer need any of you, to understand any of it; though in all honesty, it is still heart-warming when you do. So thank you for the souvenirs and most especially for the deep and lasting bonds that continue to flourish in my life. I am acutely aware that they would not have occurred, without my membership in the BaNAna club.

“I can’t spend time with people I don’t enjoy. I can’t do it anymore as theater. I make choices, and that’s a beautiful thing about growing up, learning to say no, in a nice way, just say no. I have this friend…we just went different ways in life. Once he came to me and said, “Francis, you don’t like me anymore.” and I said “No, it’s not that I don’t like you, we’ve chosen different styles of life. I still have beautiful souvenirs of all the things we did together and how close we were, but the truth is it’s not that you bore me, but I don’t enjoy talking to you anymore and I don’t want to fight with you but there’s nothing in common between your life and mine nowadays.”  I would have never said that but he asked me. So what could I say? I said the truth. Growing up has a bit to do with that, to be able to tell the truth, to show who you are, even if it hurts.”― Francis Mallmann

With all the love I have, and a wish for smoother sailing for all of us, here’s to the next 365, of whatever we are counting, or not…

~Marcela: still counting…

April 25, 2021

Writing and Photo: All Rights Reserved, because sharing is great, plagiarism is not. Things like quotation marks and attribution, are a great way to avoid that…

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Posted by ~MyLa | Filed under Life Lessons & Stories, My World(s)

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8036, of 21, 466 days… Stepping Out

25 Saturday Apr 2020

Tags

Autonomy, Truth

This is not the simple little bit of writing it started out to be, I had intended it to be at 8:30 this morning, because it is too important to me for quick and dirty, and because I am having a very ‘bad brain day.’ The ramifications of Lyme & Co. and the hard-hitting anti-biotic I was taking and have now aborted, my latest effort to keep the bugs at bay, factor largely to above noted ‘bad brain day.’ So unless you have the capacity to finish what I/you have started, I respectfully request, that you refrain from exercising the hubris, the temerity, to comment, chastise or congratulate.

As I sat enjoying my space and a really great cuppa Joe this morning, I was texting with the Sailor about all manner of personal and global bitch-slappy and interesting, when he quipped about my life being more 🙃 read as: upside down ‘interesting’ since we have known one another, than most people’s…  I responded with: “it has been that way for 58.9 years Sailor, not just since we have known one another, for I was born into all manner of  🙃 and ‘interesting,’ and have also created and stumbled into, a great deal of my own  🙃  and ‘interesting,” and that, is truer than true my friends! And then, in the middle of that communication I remembered the date today: April 25, 2020!

What that means is: I have lived my life, made my choices from the ones available to me, had some made for me, because I do NOT have control over everything that happens, impacts me, only what I do with it, but I digress, how odd… What April 25, 2020 means, is that I have lived my life for 22 years, or 8036 days in-a-row, without the protective plexi-glass wall of alcohol, other drugs, and many auxiliary self- and by direct extension, other-harming strategies, that I learned to use at some point. I know exactly what ‘that point’ was by the way, down to the second, the words uttered at me, the actions that precipitated ‘that point,’ to get through life and her bitch-slappy, for without the plexi-glass wall, my only other option felt like that thing Parker’n Me  have thought about, written about, joked about, were never really kidding about.

What that means is:

22 years of bitch-slappy unfiltered,

22 years of learning how to own what is mine, without suffering through, without taking responsibility for that which is NOT; this piece in particular has been a ‘capital C’ Challenge.

22 years of attempts at navigating the rocky road NOT leading to ‘blame,’

22 years of attempts at avoiding the donning of the grossly unfashionable ‘victim coat,*’

22 years of trying on and pulling off identities, pursuing, completing, abandoning, personas, goals, dreams, achievements considered desirable, assigned to me by individuals and systems/groups I both ‘landed’ with, and chose,

and 22 years encumbered by, trapped in, often held hostage by, the exorbitant number of boxes in the world we occupy, the ones I now take infinite pleasure in blowing up, for the buggers multiply at a rate quicker than bunnies,

22 years, to find myself located rather firmly, for better and for worse, here:

I have done better at it on some of those 8036 days than on others, better and worse at navigating calm and rough seas alike, better and worse traversing goat trails, maneuvering hair-pin turns on precarious mountain roads, and better and worse travelling with grace, on the few and far between straight-aways, the stretches with gloriously beautiful views, literally and figuratively speaking.

Recently, I have ‘enjoyed’ a most eclectic rain-storm, a rainbow coloured nuclear fall-out if you will, of several years in-a-row of WTF have I allowed, done to myself and my life(?), how the fuck did I land here?!? Me, who busted her ass so hard for exactly, NOT this!?!

But: I have done much of that, the bulk of it, on my terms, her (bitch-slappy’s) terms, and for the last several months, unapologetic, truly for the first time in my life, unapologetic for any of it. For I was acting on the often intentionally obscured-by-others information available to me, and in no small part, on what I believed at the time was the right thing for me, along with that all important thing called the context of where/how these things occurred, and the events/people/places I am powerless to exert any manner of control or influence over, regardless of any choice I may have made, to ‘be there,’ whatever that means in any given context, mine, theirs, yours, ours.

That is not to say I am unapologetic or regretful, and more importantly willing to ‘amend,’ in cases where others have suffered as a result of my actions, or even misunderstandings about my actions, not at all. I am unapologetic for who I am, and for being a flawed but most-willing-to-evolve, adjust, revise self and only self, human-woman.  And as I believe is true for many women ‘just like me,’ contrary to popular belief and the often misguided conventional wisdom which has some folks believing to know who I am, what I am about: I have not had the she-cojones, big enough, strong enough ovaries if you will, not to care about what others think, how they respond to me, not to be gutted by how they treat me, who they think I am, who they think I think I am, the truth, my truth, of the inner workings which actually drive the outward me; not other’s perceptions not their assumptions about it, but the invisible layers of my machinery, the nuances of each tiny bolt, the contribution of the older, some rusty, some broken bits, to the entirety of this human ‘mašina,’ and her original ‘culture and tribe,**’ The culture and tribe I identify and find myself planted in more firmly, rooted deeper in, attached more firmly to, as time does that thing it does, marches on, with or without me, with or without my permission, it doesn’t give a shit, so I have to.

What that means is: I was not born tough, or even resilient. I was born wild, creative, funny, fun-loving, smart, painfully sensitive, and with an imagination and heart bigger than big, with a seemingly bottomless capacity for understanding, compassion toward even those of us humans who have committed unspeakable acts of heinousness, the most damaging of wrongs, toward others, including me. I was born to and with, and have honed, a significant capacity for knowing that context is everything, for taking the time to look for it, for it is rarely to never obvious, and almost never pretty. I was born with a view to the contexts which often drive human behaviour, born with and to, a clear and painful understanding of the fact that we do not live in a benign world, one in which all is fair and just. Those are words. Like love. And they are demonstrated, like hate, ignorance, fear and anger, through actions, not utterances. I was not born many things, I came to them, battled for and against them, most often out of necessity.

And I am a realist, and like Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, I know that:

“Life is beautiful in spite of everything! [and that] There are many thorns, but the roses are there too.”

What that means is: shit happens! People do good shit and people do bad shit, and bitch-slappy has played a very strong game in my world. And while outwardly it has appeared as though I have kept up with her, the inner working parts, my inner working parts, are often battle-weary. For I have willfully or willingly, at times not-so-much but stoically, waged too many wars, engaged in too many wars, on my own and others’ behalf over the years, and on a handful of dubious occasions, I have waged war against and upon myself. Most often, however, I have picked up arms in the name of those ubiquitous but rare-in-real-life philosophies; fairness, justice, human rights, human dignity, love; I have gone into battle against and with individuals and/or systems, that I had not the slightest chance of emerging as anything other than slaughtered from, barely limping away with my wits and life, a handful of times, literally so.

And while parts of that ‘wild child’ have never been vanquished,  the child who was always heard singing aloud, the one who loved nothing better than to try different tastes in her mouth, the sound and impact of different words on her tongue, the one who still lives to find new and exciting ways of putting conventional words and other life and real food ‘ingredients’ together in unconventional word- and real food recipes, loves nothing more than feeding them to others, people I know and love, and people I have never met and love, and even people I have never met but love to hate and hate to love.

And like so many of us who care to, are awake enough to know, are not so beaten by it all that a flicker of that human child remains to find back to, I have had to battle relentlessly, repeatedly, to find my way back to her. And in this context, 8036-days-in-a-row, have been a key component of that war. For as much as I want to be a pacifist, I was born into a war-torn rebel’s world, and contradiction is as irrevocable a piece of me, as are intensity and softness, just some of the many cogs’n gizmos in my inner workings, along with the night visions, which often call upon me to see, to examine more than simply one, flipside.

And so today, April 25, 2020, at 8036 of 21,466 total days to date, I make the decision, out loud that is, for it has been resolute within me for a very long time, a decision I have been avoiding for the better part of a decade, and since a particular set of momentously important to me flashes of introspection, flashes so hot that they took my breath away. The fire started burning 10 years ago, along with one in 2006 which served as the original kindling. These moments, this blaze, burning over the past 14 years, are about a deepening understanding, awakening to that thing I have mentioned here, and in other articulations: context.

It is, has been about, using the cognitive abilities I was gifted with, to think beyond the obvious, the easy, the overly simplified. For complication and complexity are not one and the same thing, and while simple may suffice in some instances, complex problems and issues are rarely-to-never solvable, with simple, surface-level, easy, band-aid if you will, solutions and fixes and with punitive, self-deprecating, other-worshipping practices and beliefs.

So I made a decision in 2006 NOT to make a decision about continuing involvement in a movement I have been a more and less active member in since April 25, 1998, a movement I have incredible gratitude for, but the core tenets of which I have ‘bought into’ less and less, the more I grow into me, and my ever evolving world view. I know that I made that decision not based on my own needs, wishes and desires, but because I was afraid. Afraid of what others told me would happen if I didn’t go, afraid that I was too bad a human do deserve anything better, because those messages, had been beaten into me repeatedly, literally and with words. Afraid to rock the boat, because while one half of my original people spent his life doing just that, and it is in my blood, the other half spent a good piece of hers running, having to hide, from her and her mother’s violence-inflicting tormentor, and rocking the boat was a life-threatening endeavor for them, also in my blood. So for years, I continued to make a decision I was not happy with, but kept convincing myself I could ‘live with,’ because other people’s tapes, other people’s history, other people’s choices and thoughts about what I should do, who I should be.

And in all fairness, over the years since 2006, I was able to at least in part, ‘take what I need and leave the rest,’ but the truth is, my truth is, that I cannot buy into most parts of it at this point, and believe strongly that some of the ‘instructions,’ and for lack of a better word dogma, are so damaging, that it is not possible for me to continue on as even a part-time participant, and live comfortably in my own skin. My own skin happens to be the only one I have to be, need to be, comfortable in. And so I wish most fervently that you are picking up what I am putting down, though I already steel myself against potential backlash from lack of exactly that.

Because people will read and interpret the articulation of this decision as all manner of things I am NOT saying, and because people will inject all manner of things I do NOT believe, and will NOT do, and people will discount the fact that I will continue to ‘count,’ because I have no desire to be anything but Marcela unfiltered, Marcela undiluted by anything but life-pure, with internal and external vision clouded only by age and the bacterial war inside me known as Lyme & Co., NOT by the survival tools I put away for good, 22 years ago today. Because please, know that there is more than one way to skin a cat, sober up a horse thief, more than one way to find and keep, self.

And while the one person who has been with me in that movement since before April 25, 1998, including through several years of physical and other separations, the one who would have remembered the date before I did today, but is not in a position to think about anything but her own battle in this moment, the one other really important one, the human I started counting for in the first place, did remember, and called to let me know.

And because of his context, and something beyond my control, our relationship has taken a most unexpected turn, but after the initial shock and pain, in an odd way, I am beginning to see the parts that are for the better, though I haven’t quite worked out the exact bits around much of it, yet.. but my point, and I do have one, is this: that human my son Thomas, understands, deeply, far beyond the surface, why I stayed, and why I cannot at this juncture; why my world views, my belief systems, my inner ‘mašina,’ no longer allow me to consider myself (and others) in the terms and labels ascribed us by our culture, in regard to so much of life, but specific to 8036 days, in regard to human responses to trauma and general bitch-slappy, and that not everyone comes with the same set of ‘resources,’ or choices, or birthright, to deal with said traumas and H.R.H., bitch-slappy.

And that, his ‘getting it,’ his remembering, is gold that no medallion will ever give me, though along with counting, I may still collect them too, because we can buy all kinds of fun’n fancy ones online, just not all the work and battle, that is not available on Amazon, in case you were about to google that shit.

And please, make no mistake: the difference between now and the years I speak of, is not that I am going to do anything differently in maintaining a back-to-back count, it is that I am telling you I won’t be coming by anymore, to eat cake, for counting back to back, and to be told how great I am, or to have my dignity affronted with assumptions/conclusions and uninformed opinions by people who have met me less than a handful of times, some for less than 5 minutes. Really, it comes down to where/with whom I want to expend the precious time, exert the precious little energy and other resources I have available to me, and it does not mean I am not grateful, or that I will not always cherish the ‘beautiful souvenirs,***’ please do not make that mistake, or do if you must, but do, please spare my oh-so vulnerable heart.

I picked up my plexi-wall on April 24th, 1998 for the last time, and I have as little desire to raise that battle shield again as I did in my most fervently ‘in’ days of service and ‘movement’ involvement, but pretending to be part of it, knowing I have not bought in for more than10 years, is not something I can, not something I want, choose, to live with anymore.

Thanks for reading, it has been a laid back, eat too much, and do whatever-the-hell-I-want-kinda-day, and the neighbours’ fence panel, is the only bit that turned 🙃 ‘interesting,’ during a big-ass gust of wind this afternoon. I, have been unwell, but calm as the proverbial cucumber. I think I’ll make a Czech, Okurkový salát outta that!

~Marcela: Stepping out, gracefully, with gratitude, and bereft of a single dram, of maleficence or even resentment.

*A very different phenomenon from true victimization, something I am also familiar with.

**This is a vast topic for me, to be investigated and noted in a different context than the one in this piece of me, and it includes my original home and native land, its food, customs, belief systems, ways of living and being, my original tribe, their history, and their influence on my deepest self.

***“I can’t spend time with people I don’t enjoy. I can’t do it anymore as theater. I make choices, and that’s a beautiful thing about growing up, learning to say no, in a nice way, just say no. I have this friend…we just went different ways in life. Once he came to me and said, “Francis, you don’t like me anymore.” and I said “No, it’s not that I don’t like you, we’ve chosen different styles of life. I still have beautiful souvenirs of all the things we did together and how close we were, but the truth is it’s not that you bore me, but I don’t enjoy talking to you anymore and I don’t want to fight with you but there’s nothing in common between your life and mine nowadays.” I would have never said that but he asked me. So what could I say? I said the truth. Growing up has a bit to do with that, to be able to tell the truth, to show who you are, even if it hurts.”
― Francis Mallman

 

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The Bright Red Freighter  

16 Monday Mar 2020

Tags

Humanity, Life, Power, Truth

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There have been others since I came to live here, but you commanded and kept my attention, from the first time ever, that I saw your extraordinarily bright, red paint.

And since that moment, when you dwarfed everything around you and obligated me to see you, I have wanted to get closer, wanted to get a better view, and always wanted, always yearned, to see you again.

I needed to experience your power, relentlessly, and with great fervor. And for weeks now, I have been captivated by you, visually, psychologically, emotionally, and with irrevocable commitment.

And I have compulsively sought you out, with the diligence and precision of a skilled stalker, from every vantage point, in this hilly town.

For weeks now, each and every morning, I have clambered groggily up to the step-stool view in my sleeping chamber, because knowing you were there allowed me to face another day, and I have been awed by the turmoil you create, deep, so deep inside me.

For weeks now, each and every evening, no matter how fatigued, I bid you good night, because you give me some measure of consolation, succour, in my solace-less world.

You have represented all that is true about me, the contradictions, and I am as contentiously conflicted about you, as I am about most things.

Your intensity screamed to my own; and like the others in the bay, like me, you are a political and personal hot-potato, and I love you-I hate you, come here-go away, fuck-off, no! fuck-on!

And you present me with a familiar quandary: what is right for the world around me versus what I get, what I need, from you, from the world around me.

And so by direct extension, you have been a secret, conflicted indulgence, analogous for me, to beautiful footwear, but made in China by slaves and their enslaved children.

And I have viewed you with my naked eyes, and through binoculars, and I have captured you with my camera over and over again, from my step-stool view, from the highway coming home, from my excursions on the hilly trails, and from my perambulations about the town.

And this morning, when I opened the curtain to greet you, you knocked the breath right out of me, for the light had you glowing in shades of gold and pewter, and I was mesmerized, shaken to the core, by the beauty of you, and the light, the indescribable, iridescent light, and the way you played together, with, and in the sea.

And I remembered Barrett-Browning, and knew I will do well to concern myself with, fly toward the light, despite additional bruising of my oh-so broken wings.[1]

And my despair collided head-on inside me with the memory of who I am, the shine and vibrancy used to describe me for decades by others, now hoarded away far too long, by me, recently, because: pain.

And I wonder; if like me, despite meticulous maintenance of mechanical parts and attention to aesthetic details, you may meet an undignified, rusted out, abandoned, demise?

But your light rouses me from the melancholy of this early morning reverie and while you are neither Sunflower[2] nor Water Lily[3] on a A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte[4], van Gogh, Monet, Seurat alike[5], would have been as awestruck by that light show, by your radiance, as I.

So it is little wonder that this evening, upon reaching the place on the highway, the place where I always spy you first, returning from my hated-reality, hot tears burned my cheeks with a vengeance that took me by surprise, but at the same time, not at all.

For I realized that you had left me, as I knew you would; suspected this very morning, that today might be that day, the day I find you gone.

And all that, in a painful morning stupor, while bedazzled, so very smitten, by your glow, your nod to me, to heed Browning’s wise words, to keep fluttering my wings, toward the light, toward my light.

And I am so very grateful, to me, for all the times I hunted you down, from yet another place and angle. I am richer for having enjoyed you, and you fueled, no, you ignited, new fantasies of leaving, to live my art, whenever my eyes, my heart, the core of me, met your steel girth, your vibrant and vivacious red coat.

And I never coveted you more than this morning, never appreciated you more, than in those parting moments, when you willfully, boastfully even, occupied that space, your space in the vast vast sea, wearing the gold,

of the Queen you are.

~Marcela: one skin, 58.7 years, life/version 19.9, and counting.

March 04, 2020

[1] https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/03/05/elizabeth-barrett-browning-happiness/

[2] https://www.vincentvangogh.org/sunflowers.jsp

[3] https://www.claude-monet.com/waterlilies.jsp

[4] https://mymodernmet.com/georges-seurat-a-sunday-afternoon-on-the-island-of-la-grande-jatte/

[5] https://www.oxfordartonline.com/page/impressionism-and-post-impressionism/impressionism-and-postimpressionism

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Forty-Seven Years In…

07 Saturday Jul 2018

Dear dad:
This day has rolled around once more, and almost 5 decades,
in this moment, feels more like 5 seconds, for I will always,
and forever, miss you. Forty seven years are but a breath,
a single thought, a single wistful tear rolling down my cheek.
Forty seven years of reaching in to find you, forty seven years
of letting you go. The contradiction of you/me, is ever present.

This  apple never fell far from your tree, just as I see in my
own sapling, and for better or for worse, some bits are still 
hanging on. I get my rebel, my power, my wisdom, my intense and
sometimes impulsive from you, as well as my ability to see the
truth, and my stubborn-never-give-up. The fragility and 
dandelion fluff inside, the stuff that we both hid/e from 
the rest of the world, so that they cannot damage our 
oh-so-vulnerable human core(s), are also saplings of the 
gnarled old apple tree I see, the one that represents 
you in my visual mind, in my heart,in my very core.

It never changes for me, this day, when we lost you.
And I know, that it has never changed for her,
you were the one and only love of her life.
Time does not heal all wounds,it simply grows scar tissue over 
them which dulls the ache,sometimes, allows me to think about
you with some clarity,remember the entirety of your being,
and how you still,47 years later, teach me, guide me, help me
keep my rebel on,with some measure of grace and dignity.

So here we are, July 7th 2018, and I want to tell this story
again. The evolving, always newly told story of a hero, my hero. 
The day never changes, but the story does, as I do. 
Through the never-ending process of growing up. 
He, my hero, had to be seen, by me, as human, before he could be
my hero, for real for real. He was my first and biological 
father, Tomáš Mrnka. He was born in the country formerly known 
as Czechoslovakia on October 24th 1935, and died, under extremely
curious circumstances, in a mine shaft in Stewart BC,
on July 7th, 1971.

It was 12 days before my 10th birthday. He was 36 years old,
and when he died, everything I ever hoped for, and dreamed of,
died with him. For a while… a very long while.
I held him hostage on a pedestal of my own making for many,
too many years after his death, and only ever thought about him 
in a haze of golden glory and undeserved persecution. 

I only ever told stories of his heroic actions: his undeserved 
imprisonment in the old country for a democratic cause, 
his valiant battle to get us, his children and wife, out of the 
clutches of communism following the Soviet invasion of our 
original home and native land, and into the country that he 
wanted more than anything to provide us a new life in. 
I knew this story so well I could recite it at the mere whisper 
of his name, and expound at length on his virtues and sacrifices; 
for his beloved country, for his beloved family.

The parts I left out of the story, the human bits, are as
important a contributor to the true nature of his hero-status 
as his me-created perfection. He was the first man of many, 
to hit me and tell me he loves me in the same moment. 
He did not do this because he was evil, he did it because that 
is how children were disciplined; it is what he learned in the 
environment and culture he grew up in.

He was unfaithful to his beloved wife, my beloved mother, 
and considered somewhat of a Casanova. He was a catch: 
he had one of the few motorcycles in the country at the time, 
and a full set of leathers, a rebel with a chip on his shoulder, 
but he had a cause. He had attitude and the inimitable grin, wit 
and charm of Rhett Butler, and all the girls wanted him. 
My mother got him, and forgave him, over and over, to keep him.

She had endless discord and conflict with her beloved mother
because of him. He was not only imprisoned for voicing his 
political beliefs against the status quo, he was imprisoned 
for shooting a law officer. I tell you all of this not to 
be-smudge his memory; I tell you this to illustrate the full 
context of his humanity, he was so imperfect, so human, 
but still a hero not despite it, but because of it. 
He worked very hard to redeem himself when he brought us here, 
to make it right, to atone, to take responsibility for the things 
he did not do well, those things which caused harm and pain.

I tell you this because we all have a dark side, a side that side
which requires constant work and effort to keep in check, 
to make certain that it is not given more priority than the hero 
in all of us. The side that makes poor decisions based on fear, 
the side which is driven by the outside, all the world’s 
influences, rather than the inside, the core of our humanness, 
our hearts and souls, the piece of us housing the belief that 
we will get through anything, not necessarily with less 
suffering, but through, if we are diligent and ethical 
in our work. 

That piece, the hero in all of us, lets us know that 
love and abuse cannot co-exist in one environment, and is the 
piece which informs every act of kindness and compassion we have 
ever given freely because that is what gives us the most true 
happiness.It is the piece that would die for the people we love, 
and sometimes for those we don’t even know, but feel true human 
compassion and empathy for. That piece, is the one we must 
nurture, nourish, and encourage to grow and empower.

I could not see my father, Tomaš Mrnka, as the authentic hero
he was and is, until I could see the full extent of his humanity,
without judgment, or the childish notions I carried about the
perfection of a hero. I tell you this story because I have
experience with imperfection and humanity, and because I miss my
hero today, because even 47 years in,this day, is the day that
informed the rest of my life, like no other.

Back to you dad:

Despite myself, my atheist and anti life after death beliefs and
world view, I could not help but feel your presence, when my own 
off-shoot and I visited the places from which I have some of my 
strongest and fondest memories of you in 2014; Karlovy Vary, 
Boží Dar, Plzeň It was one of those trips, the journey of a 
lifetime with your widow, my mother Marcella (with two L's ;) 
and my son, your grandson Thomas. We told him stories about you 
that he has likely heard a thousand times before, but it was 
different, for you had walked these streets that we were walking, 
you held my mother’s hand there, you held mine, my big brother 
Tom's. You came back to life for us in moments of memory so 
vivid that they caught our breath, and we all got to know you, 
and ourselves, a little better than we did in the days, 
the moments prior.

And then 2015: I waited 44 years to go back, to the places we had 
you last. The place we loved so very much. It was so wild then, 
so gloriously out there in the mountains between BC and Alaska, 
it still was 3 years ago. Just like you, just like me.
Rest in peace my beloved dad, and know that the lessons of your
life, your imperfect self, and your true heroism, have followed
me, taught me, led me, often astray, but always back, to the true
hero inside me. 

Forty seven years ago, my life and world changed
in a way that I spent too many years trying to numb, to feel,
to figure out, to forget, to remember; and 47 years later
I come full circle to face my own imperfection and humanity,
in a way more painfully profound, than ever here-to-fore.

Thank you for the continuing lessons. We have done well.
And although my dark side comes out to play and wreak havoc in my
heart and life periodically, I believe that my hero generally
triumphs in the end.

I miss your person every day, but you live on, in me, 
every second.

Always yours, and with all the flawed humanity I have,
~Marcela.

July 07, 2018.

Writing and photos: All Rights Reserved.

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One fine day, child… A Birthday Poem

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Tags

Family, Motherhood, Poetry, Relationships

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that the single fiercest battle you will ever wage,

the only one from which you must emerge victorious,

is the one against and with,

yourself.

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that the only human behaviour,

which you ought critique in any great depth,

the solitary one you possess any capacity to revise,

is your own.

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that in order to live a life you want,

you must tune out the auditory barrage of the box and masses,

ignore all but one voice,

that, of your deepest self.

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that to err is the essence of humanity,

and risk is the singular path upon which you must tread,

in order that you become,

your truest you.

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that failure lies not in mis-steps,

but in lack of trying,

and that success is yours to gauge and judge,

yours, and yours alone.

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that we occupy a world laden with the land-mines of our own, and other’s planting,

that detonation will pain you but you will suffer less,

for you will have learned to navigate,

the rough patches.

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that ours is a culture cancerous of spirit, and bereft of critical thought,

that no action is benign and the choice of impact,

as detriment or contribution is yours,

solely, yours.

One fine day, child,

you will know,

that love without labour is something else,

that joy cannot be known in the absence of sorrow,

and that contradiction is at the core,

of a life well thought.

One fine day, child,

you will, of-a-sudden realize,

that our time here is indeed finite,

that procrastination is a drug as powerful as heroin,

tempting as a sea siren and equally deadly,

heed not, her call.

This, is one fine day, child!

Happy 27th birthday Thomas, I love you more than life, and we know that’s a big-ass bunch, because even in the middle of life’s biggest bitch-slaps, I have a fairly healthy love affair going on with her, crazy bitch that she is… I still love you more, there can never be enough, or the (w)rite, words…  Thanks for your limitless patience with my human folly, a loyalty defying description, and for providing me with that most ubiquitous of concepts, hope, for our species…

Fully yours, with every ounce of everything I am, and always with some awe and madd gratitude that you turned out to be you, despite me.

Love,

~Mama.

March 22, 2018

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Your Chainsaw Voice – a nod to unruly work-folks… and others…

18 Sunday Mar 2018

Tags

Burnout, Humanity, Life, Personal Power, Poetry


Your chainsaw voice  
has dismembered
the last vestiges of sanity
in my human shell
severed the final tendon
connecting compassion to my heart   

Your rusty-grater words
have shredded
the final ounce of patience
in my once limitless hoard
corroded beyond salvage the walls
containing my desire to be your ally

Your atomic bomb behaviours
have irradiated
the remaining molecule of hope
for your salvation
jaded this now impermeable spirit
to anything but its own voice.

It is a brutal irony, that as my desire to exit the work-world I so grindingly (yes, that is a word!) and lovingly built grows with a vehement vengeance each day, the place and space for which I pay such a hefty premium to escape to, has been anything but peaceful in the oh-so-limited time I have to enjoy(?) it, of late. The level of human disregard for others in some of my neighbours runs deep, the ridiculous human folly of my most inglorious work-folks, along with our culture’s obscene systems and structures, follow me home for longer and longer stays, and the gargantuan contradiction that is my life continues… on the flip-side, I have, without fail, only ever built anything meaningful, to me, on the foundation of strife, struggle and/or suffering… it appears that a skyscraper is in the making here…

~Marcela: corroded and unchained

March 18, 2018

Writing and original images: All rights reserved.

Chainsaw image from google search.

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