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Stoicism and Stupidity

16 Sunday Feb 2014

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Stoicism and Stupidity:

Thoughts on Burnout, and my Social-Worky Soul

A few years ago, I was gainfully and happily(?) employed by 2 non-profits, in two full-time human service positions, very different from one another, but challenging, in a great way. I had been with both of these agencies for several years, in various capacities. I had the privilege of direct work with folks in one, and management in the second. Each supported the other by providing insider knowledge of the workings, barriers, and nuances of human service provision, from both sides of the coin. I was also actively pursuing a graduate degree in a demanding every-weekend-for-3-years-program, and was building the beginnings of a private practice. Yes, I had 3 jobs and was going to school. I was putting in about 90 hours per week. Yay me! I had no other life to speak of, and I had moved a very long commute away from my work and academic worlds (and personal supports), in order to achieve bliss during the rare moments, in which I actually got to live in the over-mortgaged home, I moved heaven and earth to possess, in an effort to achieve, said bliss. But that, is a different story entirely, one I will tell elsewhere. Oh, and I had just launched my then 19 year old ManChild. I spent the last 12 of his 19 years at that point, modelling what I thought at the time, was a good way to be in the world: Driven, striving, achieving, setting ever loftier goals, ever more impossible expectations for self, and inadvertently, those I served, including him. It was not pretty.

I was as driven by the injustices in the world, directed at me and the folks I consider my people, as I was by my own burning desire to prove certain people wrong, about whom and what I was, and I had many, many cheerleaders to fuel my passion. Go Marcela, we know you can, we know you can! Go go go, rah rah rah! Pom-Poms flying high, everyone I knew had my back, they were there for me! How I appreciated their appreciation! Adored their adoration! 2010 appeared to be a high point in my professional and academic life, I was already planning for the PhD. I could not, however, for the life of me, shake what had become a constant low-key discomfort, a knowing, that something, was very wrong. I thought out loud, about some of the following for the newsletter of one of my employers. It was never finished or printed, they were afraid, rightfully, for the funding that remained, I was afraid, rightfully, for my jobs. The foreboding, the dread in my heart, was bang on. It always is.

September, 2010 (edited, 2014):

I am passionate about my work. Anyone who knows me will agree with this statement. I am, admittedly, a social-worky type; I care deeply about human beings and human struggle. I want to do something that matters in my lifetime. I want more than anything, for struggling folks to have access to the resources that were available to me when I struggled. I believe, with all my heart, that even the most depraved, desperate and deprived souls, can be redeemed when we treat them with love, respect, and some measure of human dignity, but not, at the cost of losing or giving away our own. This is easier said than done. Humans in crisis are often difficult to love, I was. We must look beyond the obvious, beyond the attitude and defences, to their context, to understand their so-called choices. Our humanity must connect with their humanity, regardless of where they are, what they have done, to whom. This requires true grit, and unconditional positive regard; for them, and for us; who undertake the role of Sherpa, on what has become a gruelling trek, a mountaineering expedition, for too many ill-equipped, bare-footed, often inadvertent, hikers. For me it is not about us and them, it is we, together, trying to navigate unconscionable systems, booby-trapped at every turn with (more) bureaucratic quagmire, than even professional trail-blazers, social-worky types like yours truly, can stumble their way through, without sustaining serious injury to the body, spirit and psyche.

So, I continue to climb ever-steeper hills, traverse ever more treacherous mountains alongside the folks off whose misery I make a living. I try not to vomit every time someone says ‘oh good for you for helping those people,’ in a tone so patronizing and derogatory that the thought of gouging my eyeballs out with a rusty dinner fork, feels like so much fun. Those people; are my people, our people, human beings experiencing human struggle. Not one of them, not a single solitary one, raised their hand and said “this is where I want to be in life, this (insert human struggle of choice here) is what I aspire to,” when they were asked in grade one, what they want to be when they grow up. I know I didn’t.

Staunchly, stoic little social-worky type that I am, I trudge onward and upward, human dignity, social justice and plain old rebel adrenaline fueling my (com)passion and activist engines. The climb is more and more difficult, even for me, the energizer bunny’s jet-propelled twin sister, and I struggle to stay optimistic in the face of sweeping cuts to social (human) services. Cuts cleverly disguised as Community Development Ventures, Service Provision Efficiency Models, Transformation Projects and similarly ridiculous rhetoric and drivel, which at the core, is nothing more than the silo-ing and big-boxing of human services. It comes at the direct expense of society’s most vulnerable, stigmatized, marginalized, and barriered individuals, families and communities, and those of us sincerely engaged in creating meaningful change in their/our lives, and to the systems and structures oppressing us all. One cannot pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps when their boots have been taken away, and glass strewn on the ground they are to trudge on to do something with their lives. And us helpers, cannot help, how I despise that word, because our hands are tied behind our backs with restrictive/prescriptive and victim-blaming solutions, never mind the onslaught of one-size-fits-all of big-box human services. Pass me the rusty dinner fork, please, I am about to hurl!

I think about the young Aboriginal woman on my case-load, the one whose file I was forced to close, who will not see her child, the child who will not see his mother, because a funding contract has come to an end, and no other planning has occurred that will ensure their rights, their human dignity, maintain their mother-child bond and relationship. It appears that not much has changed in 500 years for her and her people; and anyone else who has the misfortune of a life context and experience that does not fit the box. I am tired. Tired of the victim blaming, tired of preaching to the converted, and above all, tired of convincing my people, that things will be OK, and that I will be there for them, that I’ve got their back, when the truth is, a month from now; I might not have a job. I see the steamroller coming but continue to stoically stand in its path, trying desperately to believe that good and evil are but silly concepts in a Harry Potter book, and that justice will prevail. I have to believe that the steamroller will not hit me, us. And I ask myself; stoic or stupid?

Fast-forward to June 2011:

The steamroller hits full on. I am flattened to the ground, melted into a puddle of toxic human-service waste. Lit on fire with the only spark that remains: self-loathing and a personal refrain screaming inside me: You failed! You were not strong enough! You did not know enough, did not do enough, you did not try hard enough! You are not enough! Burn.

One job went the way of a massive lay-off following sweeping funding cuts to the Province’s human service sector, as it pertained to child protective and related community services. These cuts to contracts induced the permanent folding of one of the very organizations that had a pivotal role in my personal success, so many years ago; one of the reasons I am in this work, stayed clean, got the kid back, got letters behind my name, made something of my wretched existence, and similar bla bla… . I know something about personal struggle. I have come through the other side of multiple life traumas (MoP&PP), harmful survival responses and systemic barriers, waded through more shit than many have flushed, all of which had reduced me, for a time, to what much of mainstream culture treats like so much manure on the bottom of their well-heeled feet.

The other job, the management position, the one it felt as though I had bled my soul into for the better part of 6 years, went the way of complete and utter burnout, and workplace bullying. Both were fuelled in a large part by the massive funding structure changes, the slashing of financial contracts to crucial programs, and a ‘new and improved,’ funder imposed, model of service provision. One that would see the organization morph from it’s against-all-odds-successful-grass roots-methods, to just another boxed program that in no way, shape or form, could work for the folks we trudged alongside, or for us, the professional trudgers with the benefit of lived experience, and privilege of letters behind our names. I was bullied by someone I had hired to help me, and then I was fired because I had fried to a crisp and was too broken to a) do my job well, and b), too tired to notice that I was being bullied and broken, until it was too late, on both counts. I take full responsibility for the parts that were mine, but I will encourage you to think about this from Vikki Reynolds. She is the first person to have articulated, well, my thoughts, position, confusion, about the internally and externally perpetuated myths on burnout, in the milieus and worlds I occupy, as a human helper-type:

Ideas of burnout sound like we’re not doing enough yoga or drinking enough water- and those are important things I do yoga and I drink water- but self-care is not enough to offset the issues of poverty, violence, and basic dignity people struggle with. Self-care puts the burden of working in unjust contexts onto the backs of us as individual workers. Work alongside people with more money, resources and status is less likely to result in what gets called burnout and can make those workers look more professional, when in fact all people’s pain is real, and we don’t want to be pitted against each other as workers. The problem of staying alive in the work gets constructed as a very individual project. Yet the issues are social and require collective actions and accountability.

This, and Vikki’s other various writings on this topic remind me of why I despise the term front-line, as a descriptor for direct work with folks in pain: it implies, rather explicitly, that they are the enemy I, and others like me, are fighting. When in truth, our enemy is a mutual one, regardless of any individual’s, family’s, or group’s personal or collective struggle. The enemy is the systems and structures of a world that is neither benign, nor fair, and nothing like, just.

Fast-forward to February 2014:

The bulk of my income for the past several years has come from self-employment in private practice, as a Registered Social Worker and Family Development Counsellor. My work includes negotiation, access supervision and documentation in child protection and/or custody and access disputes, mediation, counselling, group and individual life skills work, and compassionate interventions. It might, but might not; involve working hand in hand with the Child Protection System, the Legal System and/or Corrections. The only common denominator for all of this work is that the client pays me, not the systems. There is no specific demographic group; my people come from all walks of life and socio-economic statuses, levels of education, in all colours and ethnicities, and from all corners of the world. No, and no, they are not all sex workers and drug addicts. I know you were wondering. I charge sliding scale/income based fees, I subsidize the poor with the rich. Some days I feel like Robin Hood-ette, others, I just cringe that this is what the systems have devolved to: in some instances, I am the only game in town for someone to be able to spend more than one hour per week with their child(ren), and try to prove to their detractors, whom-ever they be, that they are worthy as parents.

There are no benefits involved, I have not been to the dentist in almost 4 years, no sick days with pay, no paid holidays, and other than the amazing woman I pay for clinical supervision/counselling, no support from an organization’s team leader, or team members/colleagues. At times, not even the police have my back when the shit hits the fan. And it does. I have had complaints filed against me to the BC College of Social Workers more than once, always by folks who did not receive the glowing documentation that they thought they were paying for. I am registered with the College by choice, because I believe that everyone in this work, regardless of your academic title or background, needs to be accountable to something other than self. And while I have never feared that the College would find me guilty of the crimes I purportedly committed against these folks, the process is time-consuming, laborious, and one that places the onus squarely on my shoulders, to prove my innocence.

On the flip side, this work is as challenging, in a great way, as any other in the realm of supporting other folks get to a better place, watching someone’s face light up because they ‘get it,’ and my clients’ success rate, is considered high. I attribute this to a very human and pragmatic style of practice, which places human dignity in the number one position in terms of practice principles, and taking context into account in the number two, along with the obvious best interests and safety of children, in cases where little people are involved. My sole purpose and goal in any new client/case I take on, is to work myself out of a job. Not great job security, but as far as I’m concerned, the only ethical outcome possible, is to support folks to get to a place where they do not require my services any more, and not to Social-Work or Therapize them to death for the sake of a continuing pay-cheque.

My job is never the same two days in a row, often takes place in several communities in the course of a day, and sometimes, I even get to do the job the way I believe it needs to be done. The money is better than in the non-profits per hour, but there is a very high financial, physical, and emotional output, and I certainly will not be able to retire any time soon. Most likely, not at all, there is also no pension plan. The cheerleaders refrain (go back a paragraph or two), turned a long time ago, from Go Marcela! to noises like ‘you have taken on too much, you should learn to slow down, have a hot bath, do some yoga, drink more water, you thrive on drama, and that client probably threatened you because you pushed his buttons or you did not write them a favourable report, provide the testimony they needed… .’ Let me be clear: I do not get paid to report, write, counsel, testify about what anyone wants to hear, I get paid to tell the truth, and if that truth sucks, I expect folks to change it, according to the plan we have collaboratively worked out, so that I can leave, knowing they are safer, stronger, than when I got there. Mostly though, the cheerleaders left when I crashed and burned. It appears, that a good chunk of my rah-rah team was a bunch of fair-weather friends, turned frightened-guinea fowl when the flames got too high, and the heat in my kitchen threatened to singe their happy perceptions of what my success and their support ought to look like. How unfortunate, that my reality blew up your fantasy. One of them hung around long enough to help me put out the blaze, start the next rise out of the ashes, but she’s gone now too. Please, do not misunderstand, I am neither bitter nor hurt, any more, just a little leery of what comes next.

For I am feeling it again, rumblings of 2010. I sense an anxiety that I am unable to shake, even when I turn my phones off before I walk into my safety zone(s), and set rigid boundaries around checking work email, doing paper work or making work calls from said zone(s). It, the anxiety, made an entrance a few weeks ago, and has become omnipresent in recent days, and fuelled by an incident with someone I have not even met. Someone I have refused to work with, because everything I know about violence was screaming inside me while talking to them on the phone. Someone who feels it is within their rights to threaten me (and others) to the point where I’m watching my back and looking for a certain vehicle around every bend. I have been here before. Literally.

To respond to the well-meaning but fairly misguided community professional I spoke with about this recently; yes, this is the work I have chosen, and yes, there is some risk involved, but that risk should not include the negative social responses and victim blaming language (Centre for Response Based Therapy) and comments I am subjected to on a daily basis; about the people I trudge alongside, about me and why and how I do this work. I repeat; let me be clear: most days, it is NOT the so-called clients that I lose sleep over, it is the response of so-called normal folks, and the oppressively convoluted systems and structures that shackle my hands behind my back, while they ask me to serve, and then remove the boots off my people’s feet, and mine, as we trudge, the ever more precarious trails and terrain of human pain and (com)passion. It seems to me, that I should not feel the need to defend everyone’s right to human dignity and personal safety, including my own.

Almost 4 years later, I still lose sleep over, I still pray for, I still think, I still wonder, about the young Aboriginal woman, about her child, about them, about their people, about my people, about their chances, about ours, about my part, about doing and being, enough. And once again, I ask myself: Stoic or stupid?

Yours, as always, Marcela: unfiltered.

February 14, 2014.

Postscript: I have thought recently, out loud and internally, that I need to be done fighting against, fighting for, fighting with, need to be finished, once and for all, with survival. And, I need be done supporting others in their survival. I must re-focus my energies on a quieter, gentler (Я)evolution, with a view toward thriving, living and working, guided by an ethic of love (bell hooks). Like her below, my favourite tree, stoic, but not stupid, unassuming, she still stands there, strong, despite, or perhaps because of, the carnage around her. I will visit her again, soon.

Stoic-Heroic-She.2

References:

http://www.vikkireynolds.ca/

http://peakhouse.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Unpacking-Burnout.pdf

http://www.vikkireynolds.ca/documents/Reynolds2011ResistingBurnoutwithJustice-DoingDulwich.pdf

http://responsebasedpractice.com/publications.htm

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bell-Hooks/22762902634?fref=ts

Posted by | Filed under Commentaries: On what matters to me, In the Service of Other Humans, My World(s)

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Slave

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

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For.You.Pic.4For you…

…I hung suspended in time, until the arrow of (y)our essence punctured my heart, and it bled, like a red candle, hot, languid, to the centre of my humanity, into my soul…

For you…

…I have waited, poised, with the faith of one blessed with the knowledge that when you breach(ed) my armour, I would see you, know you, and encounter precisely, whom I intuited you to be…

For you…

…I wear, with the deepest humility, the open shackles of (y)our love, black for the darkness you embolden me to embrace in the profound absence of shame, white for the light, the surrender of my heart to (y)ours, and any vestige of ill-will I harbour toward those who came before you, us, you are not them, we are not they…

For you…

…I will bare my true face, devoid of the pretense and painted masks we both disdain, knowing, that trust is earned with honesty, and love, is at the core of your desire to see me stripped, of the tattered remnants of defense that remain, to shield the nudity of my core, from (y)ours…

For us…

…I will, at liberty, be a slave to (y)our love, barring only that my enslavement, should begin to take precedence over my respect for, and love of, self, and threaten to subjugate, my own soul…

With reverence, for you Affy, and for me, and for us, and with all the love I have,

~Yve.

(Photo: Craig Morey)

Edited February 12, 2015

Posted by | Filed under Poetry, The 'L' Word

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Junkie

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

bottom is…
a cockroach infested hell-hole
freezing sweat
dripping from pores
a body’s unwilling response to a greed for more
junk
 
single-minded purpose…
replaces life
darkness replaces vision
demonic drive replaces purpose
perspective
is
lost
human being
becomes
human
waste
 
can’t feel…
anything
but crawling, and
fear
death
by overdose
could be welcome
dark, lonely, and
cold
so very very, cold
can’t
make it
stop
 
in some foreign room, I…
sit down, shut up
the chair, as cold as my heart
numb
from years
decades?
of toxic freezing substance
numb the memories, fill the void
in a constant refrain, of
kill the pain kill the pain
kill
the
fucking
PAIN
 
look at, listen to…
the junkies
trying to  
kill the pain, killing them
killing me, just kill me
and
make it
stop
 
stories of…
wimps and whiners
need some stupid program, get a grip
on yourselves
shivering cold disgust, at the weakness
theirs, mine
losers
go to hell
more sickening than
junk, would feel good
need junk, now,
to
make it
stop
 
the alternative…
dereliction, dehumanization, (more)demoralization
dirty alleys, dirty needles, dirty men
cold endless blocks, score
junk, warm
in an instant, then
sweating ice
one foot in front of the other, too sick
too tired
too cold in drizzling wet
walk fool walk, don’t think
about selling a soul
to the devil junk-man
so very cold,
when
he touches you
there
 
junk…
makes it
stop
go back
run
to the room, where
the frozen tundra
of your core
thaws ever so slightly when
a whiner, a loser
a junkie
tells a story
yours
 
a hand reaches in…
holds your heart
safe
for the first time
ever
understanding
hope flickers
warm
don’t
let it
stop 
 
~M.  February 17th, 2004 – reflections

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Manifesto of Pain and Personal Power:

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

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Manifesto of Pain and Personal Power:

A Response to False Assumptions and the Reduction of Human Trauma to Personal Pathology and Defectiveness Or: Where the Fuck Were You When…?

M. City University of Seattle, December, 2008 (Edited, January 27, 2014)

Context:

Class in a Masters of Counselling Psychology Program; 2008. Gloria is the therapy-subject-patient in a very oppressive – in my view – psychotherapy-teaching video, by one of the old-white-boy-masters-of-psycho-therapy. I comment about my perspective of the video and how I believe Gloria has been completely shut down, patronized and invalidated by the master. A female classmate notes that it does not appear to her that Gloria is ‘the kind of woman,’ who would take any shit. The comment triggers a profound internal response for me; I think about the limited information people base this type of judgment, and other ludicrous assumptions, generalizations, and perceived knowledge(s) on, specifically, in that moment, assumptions I have heard ad-nauseum, about me, about my life experience. The Manifesto; is my immediate, and deeply hurt, internal response. Until today, I have shared it with next to no-one, and when I have, almost without fail, regretted doing so. I choose, in this moment, to let all judgment of it, me, my truth, go.

If I offend you with my reality and profanity, if you “cannot hear me because I am angry” (Lorde, 1984, p. 125), please, stop reading now.

The First Point

Your Assumptions: Cleverly Disguised as Acronyms

So, you think you know who the fuck I am? While I have been working on it for the better part of 50 years, your brilliance has deduced, in record breaking time, that I am a certain kind of woman; with negative, self and other harming behaviours and tendencies. According to you I have A.D, A.D.D, A.D.H.D, A.D.A.D, P.T.S.D, P.M.D.D, GAD, DID, and DEPS, and you want to treat me with E.M.D.R, C.B.T and R.E.B.T (MedHelp), so that I can de-sensitize, think straight, and emote rationally. Oh, I probably still have B.P as well, because you haven’t come up with a way to cure me of my obsessive-compulsive motor oil fixation. I should defer to your genius. Surely you came to your infinite wisdom in the Cracker Jack Box of Pop-Psychology; I think Dr. Phil lives there too. Do not bother saying hello; he doesn’t like me, either.

The Big Question

Where the Fuck Were You When…?

Are you ready? This is the real deal baby, the Full Monty of my life, as lived by me, M.Y.F.M (aka Kubač, aka Turjančík) live and in person, last call for those easily offended by profanity and (my)truth, to stop reading, now. Once you start you cannot stop, at least that is what Al told me as he proceeded to give me a sexuality I did not ask for, so I request that you, afford me the respect of finishing what you have started, also. Still reading? Well then, let us begin.

1961 – 1971

What the fuck do you know about who I am, where I come from, what I have survived, endured, been subjected to, and as you so quaintly put it with your patronizing pats on the head, overcome? Where the fuck were you when I was six years old, and in the name of liberation, the Soviet Union rolled their tanks into my home land, onto my street, forcing my family to flee our home under the darkness of night, and a threat of murder to my conscientiously objecting father, with his delusional hopes of democracy and a better life in this country? Where were you when I cried for my grandmothers arms? Where on earth were you when I cried because I lived in terror that they would find him; and where the fuck were you when he died, under extremely curious circumstances, 12 days before my 10th birthday?

Where were you when they came to tell my mom that he was dead, and where the fuck were you when she went down to the basement to find his hunting rifle, so that she could take us all out? So immense was her grief that it seemed possible to kill herself and her children, so immense was ours that we wouldn’t have cared. Where the fuck, were you then, hmmm? Not beside her, not with my brother and me, I did not see you, because you were not there.

Where the fuck were you when she struggled to give us a future without him, bereft of any financial or emotional support, in a culture that belittled her for not understanding their language and corrected her when she (mis)spoke it with an accent? The $8000 that the mine paid her for ‘his accident,’ barely covered a funeral, and unfortunately she could not have understood, that the conditions of payment included that we leave sleeping dogs, or rather, my dead father, lie. Where were you then? Where were you when she realized she was trapped here, for to go back meant that she would be imprisoned and her children would end up… where? Not with you, I did not see you, for you were not there.

1972 – 1981

Where the fuck were you when they taunted me for my ‘uniqueness’ at school, and the pain was so great that I had to leave the only thing I ever thought I was good at, or die? And where were you when 32-year-old Al plied 13-year-old-me with wine, and obviously lost his grasp of the words NO and STOP in the English language, proceeded to teach me a lesson by helping himself to my virginity? And where the fuck were you when 30-something Ed, upstanding attorney, fed 14-year-old-me MDA and told me as I lay paralyzed on the shag carpet, that a body like mine was made for fucking, while his drunken wife lay passed out upstairs, and I dared not scream for fear of traumatizing the children I babysat (theirs), in the fucking hell house I lived in with them, because my mom’s ex, Reg, had set our place on fire, because she booted him out for being an abusive asshole, and we were fucking homeless? And where were you that summer when the one person in my life I thought I could trust, decided to get a sex education on my body?

Where the fuck were you when 36-year-old-Jeff W., limo-driver to the stars, thought that it was a good idea to have 14-year-old-me as a girlfriend and tell everyone that he was fucking me and my mother, while he fucked every stripper at Circus-Circus? Where were you when my choices were limited to staying there or moving in with 17-year-old-Jeff L., who sold dope for a living and thought it would be a good idea if 15-year-old-me got pregnant and we could play house? And where were you when I consented to the sexual proclivities he forced upon my body and soul, by drowning it out with lethal quantities of alcohol?

Where the fuck, were you when Doug left me pregnant in Vancouver at 17 because I wasn’t the right of kind of girl to settle down with and take home to his upstanding parents in Alberta?

Where were you when 33-year-old Lu, wealthy upstanding business man and hobby-pimp, turned me out with promises of riches and eternal love, and then threw me out because now, at 18, I was dirty and all used up?

Where were you when Shane introduced me to cocaine and a needle, and where the fuck, were you when I realized, that it would save my life for a while? Where were you when his fist broke my nose because I wouldn’t sell my ass to buy his dope any-more, and where were you when I chose to sell it so that I would have a choice in the matter? Where the fuck were you when I left my home to get the fuck away from him, and where were you when I ran all the way to Switzerland so that he wouldn’t find me?

Where the fuck were you when RK, the man I married so that I wouldn’t have to go back to Canada, held me hostage with promises of eternal love, a permit to stay in the country, and by beating the remaining soul out of me for 3 years? Where were you when the police brought me, black and blue from head to toe, to my mother’s house and begged her not let me go back, and where the fuck were you when he dragged me back, again and again, because legally, financially, and emotionally I had no-where else left to go? Where were you when I escaped from my home, to have nowhere to go because he had all my money?

1982 – 1993

Where were you when I desperately needed to believe Honza, Alois, Francis, Jano, René, so many more, when they told me that they would love me forever, only to take my money, fuck me and walk away? Where the fuck, were you when Jano picked up where Shane and RK left off, because I wouldn’t provide him with refuge when he got out of jail?

Where were you when George promised that he was not like them, and then cracked my head open while our baby lay in the next room, and where were you when he broke my nose, because I stood up to him? Where the fuck were you when I was detoxing in a bug house in Switzerland because he spent our health insurance money on his friends, and where were you when I had to come home to a house full of drunks and alcohol to try and stay sober, and couldn’t? And where were you when it started to eat my body and I had to be hospitalized for the DTs so I wouldn’t die? And where on earth were you when I was so tired that I lay down on my kitchen floor to die? Where were you when the benzos and booze wore off and I awoke to the horror that I was still alive? I did not see you, for still, you were not there.

1994 – 1997

Where were you when I left my home, and brought my baby back to Canada to get away from him/them/it, to be told by the Welfare man and my own family that I need to get over it because, really, it hasn’t been so bad? Where were you when I walked into my new Dr.’s office armed with a letter from a Swiss Dr. who got it, got me, only to walk out knowing that the new one didn’t, armed with a head full of pathology, and a pocketful of prescriptions for the next phase of my healing?

Where the fuck were you when joining my old best friends alcohol and pills, food became my new best friend, and I lost any remaining vestige of identity or self-worth (my body and my looks) in 70 pounds of fat? And where the fuck were you when Bobby and his magic crack pipe seemed like a good idea because at least I wasn’t sticking it in my arm, and at least I wouldn’t be fat any-more and feel like (more) shit? Where the fuck were you when the pit of despair and self-loathing became so deep that when Dwight showed up with the needle, I welcomed my oldest, truest, best and most loyal friend, and the only question that remained, was how was I going to do this and not lose my mind and my child? Where were you when those losses became inevitable, and I was told to take care of 3 decades of violence and trauma, in 30 days or else; and a piece of shit like me chose the streets of this city over willingness to change, and my own kid?

Where were you when I walked 66 blocks in the rain, weighing 72 lbs, wanting to live, despite you, and got 6 weeks of treatment that endeavoured to cure me of my disease, and ease my pain by opening the can of worms that held decades of violence, abuse and you-inflicted self-hatred, self-doubt, shame, guilt, blame, but forgot to show me how to put the fucking lid back on, when the worms turned into snakes, which then slithered out and began to eat my soul, again.

Where the fuck were you when the people who were looking after my child while I cleaned up my mess, told me, and him, how fucked up and sick I was? And where were you when despite all of the systems that tried to help me, I got him back, to be left alone in it? I still did not see you, for still, you were not there.

1998 – Present

And where the fuck, were you when I asked for help, to be told that I’ve had enough help, and to pull up my boot-straps? And was it you that cut my boot-straps off every time I tried to pull them up, and then just took the fucking boots right off my feet? No, I didn’t think so, because still, you were not there!

Where the fuck were you when I went out barefoot to get somewhere, and the Feds decided that I can’t have student loans and the scholarship I worked my ass off for, threw nails under my bleeding feet and raped me again by cutting me off until I paid it back??? Where were you for the next two years while I waged a war against them, to win, at a personal cost beyond these pages, and very likely, your capacity for understanding?

The Next Point

Your Assumptions: Cleverly Defined as my Defectiveness

I will take your lead and assume, that by now you have surely recognized my negative, self- and other-harming pattern(s), including attraction to, unwillingness to let go of, or comfort with, abusive males. Well let me enlighten you Einstein: Not one of them, not a single one, introduced himself to me with; ‘Hey baby, come on out with me, and in a few days, weeks, months, I’m going to start tearing you down, piece by piece, very methodically, under the guise of my charm and attention, so that by the time I’ve gotten to punching your ugly fucking face in, you won’t know what hit you.’ Not one of them, not a single one, asked me how I would enjoy having my head kicked in, my nose, my jaw, my arms and ribs broken, my vagina, my anus and my throat, violated with their penis, and mostly, my spirit crushed with their love, on the day that I met them, the week after, or even a month later. No, they were very charming, attentive, charismatic, kind to my family, and full of promises for a bright and happy future. This then, is what I was attracted to. Wouldn’t you be? My mistakes were obvious, my mistakes were craving love, and believing them when they told, and showed me, that they had some to give. I am quite certain that you would have been more astute, and figured it out; because you are not ‘a woman like me,’ you do not attract losers. Back to me though, because clearly; I am the one who is fucked up and defective. You keep telling me so, it must be true.

Has it occurred to you, genius, that the so called losers are the ones who end up back in the dating pool because smart women don’t let the good ones go, or did you convince yourself that you have to explain my behaviour and responses by convincing me, and you, that I can’t handle a nice guy? That I am stuck in a comfort zone, that I am a creature of habit and patterns? Have you ever asked yourself how comfortable abuse and violence really are? I invite you to invite it into your very own living room today, and take them for a test drive; comfy? I didn’t think so.

Have you for a moment considered the options for women and children who are trying desperately to survive and/or leave abusive partners, parents, husbands, siblings, friends, room-mates, uncles, cousin, and did you know that research and statistics exist to prove that more women are murdered by their former abuser after they leave? Or do you actually give enough of a fuck to ask yourself these things, because after all, it is much simpler to hang onto your comfort zone of putting me and everyone like me, in a stereotypical box of your making, than to critically examine your culpability in our misery?

The Big Question: Part Two

My Very Own Personal War: Cleverly Disguised as Your Spectator Sport

Where the fuck, were you all of the times I tried to get out and had nowhere to go, and no money to get there? Where the fuck, were you when my choices, were welfare, minimum wage, selling my ass, selling dope, and selling my soul? I didn’t see you there when I made the silly, silly choice of staying home to raise my child, instead of pursuing a career so that I would have better choices when I finally did escape.

Were you sitting pretty on your judgment and assumption throne, condemning my survival responses to acts of deviance, self-harm, maladaptive behaviours and a host of other pathologies; an observer of my very own, personal war against violence and oppression? Were you cheering me on from the spectator seats of your world when my response was correct in your view, through the lens of your life, and did you self-righteously critique my performance, when it wasn’t?

And where the fuck are you now, that the system I have used for years to survive, in 12 easy steps, has turned on me by joining you in a refrain, which tells me that my character is defective, that I am self-centered to the core, and that I gave you my power. Let me set the record straight: I NEVER gave you, or any of them, my power, every one of them, every single one, decided they were entitled to it, as did you. Where are you now that I have no-where to go? Are you watching me flail, again?

The Revelation of Truth

I Know Where You Live

There you are; I finally found you! I see you up there in the bleachers; it must be you because I have never seen you come down to my very own, personal, front-line, to ask what happened, how I got there, to get some fucking context! Oh but forgive me, for I have forgotten that you already knew all about me, you decided who I was, and what I was all about, and all of this, based on an interaction that is comparable to buying Sushi at the Great Canadian Grocery Store, and becoming an authority on Japanese cuisine, culture, norms, customs, geography, and how these things interconnect and work together. It is apparent that you are that insightful and wise, or perhaps just smarter than the rest of us, but especially, smarter than an abuse-attracting-junkie-whore like me!

The Final Point

Me: Cleverly Disguised as a You!

There you were then, and here you are now. I see you, you’ve been circling my war zone for a long time now, and you didn’t even notice when my war zone became the life you lead: the College, the University, the work place, the grocery store, the park… The spaces inhabited by normal people like you. I’ve invaded your territory now, and you can’t point the junkie-whore finger at me without 3 fingers pointing back at you; and without a damn good fight from my corner. You cannot know me without hearing my truth, and that is worrisome for you. For it makes you part of my world, and could mean that you have a part in my suffering. This is disturbing.

So, you make the next assumption: an assertive woman like me can take your shit, so now you vacillate between shovelling it onto my back and telling me how strong I am for taking it, or subtly ingratiating me with it, through passive-aggressive sarcasm and thinly veiled as snippets of humour, cleverly designed to take me back down to where you think I really belong. After all; who the fuck am I to tell you, that who you think I am, is so far off base it left the fucking country? Are you shutting down because my anger feels unsafe, is it threatening to you, does it hurt to feel attacked?

Don’t be silly, you shouldn’t feel that way, I can’t make you feel, and you are not like me! This is worrisome, but I finally know for certain where you were, and more importantly, I know for certain where you are now. Peek-a-Boo, I see you! Know that I will keep you closer than my friends; for my hard-won victory has come from understanding, from knowing, that you do not know. I know where you live. But please do not fear me, for I aspire to live by a principle that could be foreign to you. I will continue to live by an ethic of love (hooks, 2000), and in so doing, endeavour to do you, and me, no harm.

Postscript

My Victory: Cleverly Disguised as a Way to Oppress Others

I am sad, for my victory feels hollow when you use me as a poster-child for overcoming hardship and struggle, and throw me into the face of those who are where I have been, without taking their context into account, without asking yourself where was I when…, and what do I really know about what happened…, what would it be like if that happened to me?

I am not the template, I am not the norm, and though many have prevailed, too many continue to writhe in a pain that appears to be beyond you, for if you do not see the barriers that are blatantly visible, how can I ever hope to motivate you to look at the ones that are not? Too many have died, and too many will, unless you become open to the idea that what you think, don’t think, do, don’t do, say, and don’t say; matters in someone’s life. It mattered in mine, and still does, but only to the extent that I allow you in. Don’t forget, I know where you are now, because, contrary to what you have decided about whom and what I am, I know now, who I have always been. I also know your modus operandi, for it is the same as mine: survival(?). But, mine includes love, does yours?

The Last Word

Done Surviving

For those who have in the past, continue to, or presently, love me unconditionally, those who don’t simply tolerate my uniqueness, my disparity, my tattoos, my passion, my anger, my hurt, my humanity; in the spirit of bell hooks, thank you, because it is, ‘All About Love.’

And for those who surely mean(t) well, but harm(ed) more than help(ed), I owned my part a long time ago, made my amends, continue to live in a way that does not generally require too many new ones, and have said sorry to you, too many times. I am truly sorry, that many of you, to this day, do not know who you are, that you are oblivious to the fact that my pain and that of many others, is, wrapped up in your words and actions, and yours, are wrapped up in mine. It is my sincerest hope that one day, you recognize me, in you. So; in the words of Lilla Watson; “If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting our time. But if you come here because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us begin.”

References

hooks, bell. (2000). All About Love, New Visions

Lilla Watson, Australian AboriginalWomen’s leader

Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider: Uses of Anger. Berkeley: Crossing Press

Med Help http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Mental+Health/Know-Your-Code—Acronyms/show/4?cid=60 retrieved December 06, 2008

 
 
 
 
 

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Back in the Box: Response to ‘The Good Wife’s Guide’

25 Saturday Jan 2014

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,

B A C K   I N   T H E   B O X

From Bombeck to Steinem
T o     B u r n i n g     B r a s
Brave — Bouncy — Women
Demanding    Fresh    Laws
B o o b i e s      B o p p i n g
F r e e  i n  t h e  B r e e z e
Hubbys’    Jaws    Dropping
Well  – Past – the –  Knees
How  dare they act F r e e?
INGRATES  and  WENCHES!
How  dare  they  be “ M e “
Get Back in Your Trenches!
Back to Your Kitchens now
For H E A V E N F O R B I D
Y O U should  B E anything
Save the bearer of Kid (s)!
B A C K  in Y O U go N O W
G E T   back in that  B O X !
All  –   Safe  –  and –  Cozy
Just     Like     Fort     Knox
There    there    now   Dear
R e- t i e  YOUR    A p r o n
of    Gingham    and     Lace
Like  a  Good   Little  Wifey
You(should)KnowYourPlace

~M.Y.F.M, 2004

The Good Wife’s Guide

From Housekeeping Monthly, 13 May, 1955

GoodWife

  • Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
  • Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
  • Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
  • Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dust cloth over the tables.
  • During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
  • Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
  • Be happy to see him.
  • Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
  • Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
  • Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.
  • Don’t complain if he’s late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
  • Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
  • Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
  • Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
  • A good wife always knows her place.

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On recovery and the dreaded ‘R’ word…

24 Friday Jan 2014

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No, it is not (drug)- Replacement, not even Relapse, though perhaps they both fit, also. The ‘R’ word I speak of; or words rather, are Romantic Relationship. Double R-whammy! You know; that thing you are told from your very first (recovery) meeting to stay out of.

Let us be clear on my position: No-where, to the best of my knowledge, in the primary book, in its many incarnations, of my preferred 12-Step Program,  does it say to “stay out of relationships.” That little tid-bit of life-advice seeped in from various unaffiliated treatment programs over the years, and was adopted, by many, as program dogma. It says somewhere in that same book, that relationships are often a difficult area of recovery. That is all.

I heard for many years, from various program (power) couples, how I needed to focus on myself and stay out of these silly, silly relationships. For too many of these years, I did not actually have the voice to stand up for myself. To let them know it did not seem right for folks who had used with someone, got clean with someone, and went on to (re) build a life with that same someone, to pontificate on the topic, to folks like me. To lecture me about staying out of a relationship, to roll their eyeballs at me whenever I shared in a meeting (or privately), about how difficult it often was to function in a pathologically-partnered world. To bring me to tears of frustrated invalidation with self-righteous tirades on how to love and accept self, to be a proud single parent, and other similarly stupid bla bla. To patronize me to this day, almost 16 years and much personal work later, about how I need to focus on self. And all of that, while, they tell me about how they could not have made it through this that or the other major life event without the support of the other half of their twosome. Addiction left me utterly alone. Bereft. Abandoned by self, community, society and family, my child removed from my care. A woman in her mid-thirties, forsaken, just before Christmas, in 1997. Sick, sad, hungry, tired, beaten, broken, deeply wounded and ashamed, on the streets of a city, literally looking from the outside in, through the windows of Starbucks, thinking: I do not belong to this world any more; or to anyone in it. I am completely alone, disposable.

Again, let us be clear: I have waded through more shit in life than most people have flushed and come out smelling like a rose. So if you wish to get loaded again because your other human did, or because they turned out to be an asshole, or because your mother died, or your dog ate your shoe, please, by all means. Using drugs, or food, or gambling, or consumerism, or sex, or or or, are always options. So is going outside my back door at night when I hear Mr. Bear out there, but I won’t be stepping out, to make his acquaintance any time soon, either.

So here’s my deal: I made a commitment to myself and to my child when I got clean, that I would not use, no matter what. No matter what is all-encompassing for me, and since April 25, 1998 I have honoured that commitment. I have also honoured my need and want as a mature, wise, intelligent, well-educated, funny, energetic, passionate, loving, accomplished, human-woman, to pursue love, and my very own, personal, version of the romance fairy tale. Interestingly enough, I have actually spent more time being single in recovery than ‘coupled,’ though I have enjoyed, as well as suffered a number of shorter and longer term relationships and/or dating scenarios. Every single man I have dated, slept with, been in a serious relationship with, had the same choices I had, in regard to the relationship as well as recovery, if he were a member of this not-so-exclusive club; many were not. It is not a pre-requisite.

How does this all relate to my recovery and continuing personal growth, my argument that it is not the place of well-intentioned program members, to tell me what to do in my personal life? In a nutshell: I have continued to do my work, within the parameters of this program and well beyond them. I am not stagnant or stuck in never-ending cycles of abuse and/or patterns that I could give you a hundred ridiculous victim-blaming-physcho-babble names for. I am human, and I long for another human in my life. One that is capable of the same kind of fun, commitment, craziness, passion, Madd-love, that I am. Had I been stuck or distracted from my recovery and personal work, I could not possibly have a) stayed clean, and b) come to the following stunning insight, one of many, in the days following an entirely unexpected, heart-wrenching and cruel ending to what I believed, with everything I had, was my final romantic relationship: I have a deep and compassionate understanding that we all come to our shit honestly. Along with a life well lived, and multitudes of horrific life events and barriers triumphed over, used as opportunity, this makes me really good at my job. I get it, but can usually stay detached enough from the person/family/issues/circumstances/systems to see it all clearly, the good, the bad, the ugly, the indifferent. I have realized recently, that the same compassion and understanding about how humans get how they get, makes me really bad at navigating the bad, the ugly and the indifferent in various personal relationships. I am learning that just because I get why people behave like ass-holes, does not mean I can continue to provide them with permission and forgiveness when they dump their neglect, shit and abuse on me, treat me like human waste, without consequences. Primarily, the consequence that they miss out on a really cool, really smart, really loyal and loving friend, lover/mate, sibling… Period.

This insight translates as well to many false-loyalties I have continued to hold in terms of friendships. I should never be working harder in any relationship than the other party, to maintain the quality of said friendship. So; the point? The program has taught me much over the years, including, how to get better at relationships, all relationships. Not by watching others have them, not by reading about them in self-help or Social-Worky and Psych text books, not by listening to my counsellor expound on how-to, or not, but by having them. By being real, 100% unadulterated, unfiltered, pure Marcela. Because that, is what the program, has given me the most of. Unfortunately for the 12-Step dogma-sheeple and related literature, pure Marcela comes equipped with critical thinking skills and the capacity to take what I need, and to dissect and disseminate the rest, as I wish.

Gratefully yours, always,

~M.

November 10, 2013

 

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On Love and the wounded heart…

23 Thursday Jan 2014

lovepinklight

If-I-stopped-believing-in-Love-because-my-heart-has-been-wounded-I-would-need-to-stop-believing-in-everything-I-do-and-if-I-stopped-believing-in-everything-I-do-I-would-need-to-stop-doing-everything-I-do-and-if-I-stopped-doing-everything-I-do-I-would-cease-to-breathe-because-Love-is-the-basis-of-all-human-and-life-connection-and-human-and-life-connection-are-the-basis-of-everything-I-do-and-must-be-the-air-that-I-breathe-or-I-will-suffocate-on-hate.

~M.Y.F.M, January 14, 2013

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The Love Stories of a Queen; at the Hand of an Odd God…

23 Thursday Jan 2014

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The Dissolution of Illusions, of the Queen of Balconia; at the Hand of an Odd God.
High above the thoroughfare
that is the highway to hell
perched on her pretty-penny porch,
the queen of Balconia eyes her empire
with the denial
of one recently dethroned,
but unwilling to admit defeat;
or is it,
that?
 
A
point;
to ponder perhaps,
nothing is new and all in its place;
in this, her getaway from the everyday
where fantasy is a right of freedom
responsibility is the right to rebellion
and chaos the only order of the day;
defeated?
Not she,
but different…..
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
(an odd kind of god)
jaunts by on a jetstream
dismembers her daydream;
silence is severed with a screech
in a tone that tells her,
“make note missy;
my view is better,
than yours”!
 
Really,
the royal realm
below her pretty-penny porch
is still the same as it was yesterday
and the several since,
she bid farewell
to a love,
that outlasted many
and outshone them all….
It is an odd god
who sneaks into her soul
in a moment of memory;
(a big blanket on Balconia
on the night of a thousand stars),
and pierces perilously close to her heart
but heals the wound with the thought:
she has grown
a little more….
 
It is,
an odd god;
to provide the prince for a while
the boy-toy of Balconia
and odder still;
to let her – let him go
smoothly with serenity
deprived of the drama;
that long was the benchmark
of the queen of Balconia.
 
An odd god indeed,
that led her on an ocular odyssey
a surveillance of her situation
from this, her pretty-penny porch
high above the highway to hell
as a ruse, a ploy, the prelude;
to the dissolution of illusions
of the queen of Balconia,
in the stunning supposition:
that “Love,
has many
gentle
endings….”
(M.Y.F.M, 2004)
 
The Reinstatement of Faith, to the Queen of Balconia; at the Hand of an Odd God.
Perched on her pretty-penny-porch
still above the highway to hell
but from a more poignant point of view,
the Queen of Balconia surveills her situation
devoid of the denial
that may have dethroned her,
derailed the mission;
or was it
that?
 
The
next point:
Power: she ponders it well;
Was it his, hers, theirs
or was it in the tattered remnants
of her disheveled dignity?
A mission? Perhaps ….
but poles apart
from the one previously in place.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
(an odd kind of God)
perched high in his Aerie
rouses her from her reverie;
quiet is quelled with the admonishment;
“Make note Missy,
the big picture
is still
mine”!
 
Still
the same view,
just slightly askew
from days previous to this
and the several since;
the April Fool darned her tattered dignity,
with the loving hand,
of one who had stitched too many incisions
inflicted by
the slaughterers
of souls.
 
It is an odd God
to provide one April Fool
golden silk on his spool,
there in the moment
at which the wound is most gaping
freedom emerging,
still clawing and scraping;
at the prison walls
that had closed in
on her
soul.
 
The
demons
released now,
the April Fool mended
her mishandled heart;
and gingerly tended
to the restoration of the being,
of a woman massacred:
by the machismo of men.
 
It is an odd God;
who brings her a King,
puts the writing in place
with a silver-tipped wing:
“This Fool is worthy of her highness’ heart”
Not a boy, not a toy, no prince and no pauper;
The April Fool is her King
with the power to stop her
senseless
self-
destruction.
 
An odd God
indeed,
though he knew of the Fool,
let her dissolve the illusions
with her own set of tools.
The reinstatement of faith
to one so horribly wounded,
for the Queen of Balconia
the truth finally sounded,
in the stunning supposition:
that Love;
has many
strange beginnings.
(M.Y.F.M. April, 2005)
 
The Dawning of Reason, for the Queen of Balconia; At the Hand of an Odd God.
Perched back on her porch
of pretty-penny fame;
the Queen of Balconia
calculates the carnage of this,
her most recent journey
along the highway to hell,
on a mission of love:
a quest for equality
or was it
that?
 
April,
now May,
and the Fool far away;
a memory so distant
she is highly resistant, to the idea
it was even real…
Real though it was
and her heart it did move;
for the Queen of Balconia
the Fool missed his groove
His mending and tending
a thinly veiled ruse
a means to his end,
to dump shit and abuse!
She is wiser today though,
saw right through his ploy
For one April Fool
This Queen
is too
Coy!
 
Self-
respect and her dignity,
still firmly intact
The Queen of Balconia
Enters a pact:
To self and her Deity,
she solemnly vows;
never again will I settle
for a mere facsimile,
the thin veneer of a fraud,
Nothing short of the perfection
Of my very odd God
(M.Y.F.M, unfinished(?): 2007)
 
Next: Runaway Queen (coming soon…)

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the hand i used to hold…

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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the hand i used to hold…

when the knife went in my heart it was not the blade that tore it open – it was seeing your hand grasping the hilt…  it was the nonchalance of your words… the indifference in your demeanour… as though you forgot, child! Yours, was the hand i used to hold…

~M.

October 08, 2012

Context:

It was Thanksgiving Dinner, 2012; a tradition which is not normally celebrated where my people and I hail from, but randomly upheld in our family, in an effort to try and bring our motley and far-flung peeps together.  Seeing my one and only child for more meaningful interaction than what had become what I call ‘drive-by-huggings,’ was/is generally, my primary motivation for attending/putting on such a gig. This particular dinner was of great import to me. I had felt for some time, that my relationship with this, my favourite human, was devolving into something I was painfully uncomfortable with, and very, very sad about. So, when he came to this dinner at my mother’s home, and announced a few moments later that he would not be staying, with little explanation, I expressed my hurt and, really, more than anything, bewilderment, in the words above. Secretly, silently, at first… for I knew that something dire had occurred somewhere in his life to bring about this uncharacteristic behaviour, and that he would tell me when it felt safe for him to do so, but the hurt was acute, none-the-less, and I had to let it out, before it consumed me…

May 11, 2020

8 years and as many lives later, we are here again, because of an other’s influence and actions… I am more bewildered than ever, that we have landed, here.

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No Shrinking Violet

02 Thursday Jan 2014 

Your big box ways

            Cannot shrink wrap Me

into a submission

            that makes you comfortable

with who you think I Should be!

I am not here,

            to provide you with comfort

Au contraire!

            I am here to make you squirm;

For I am Not neat and tidy

            a packaged femme of your oppressive vision!

I am every single woman

            You ever abused;

Suffocated in your shrink wrap world,

            and I have come Undone,

you Cannot, wrap me back up!

 I am messy and I am Loud;

            I will regurgitate your vileness

and spit it back at you

            with a clarity so undeniable

that it will shatter your frozen soul

            for you know it, to be the Truth!

 I am all of them, every single one!

            and you Cannot win

with mere cling wrap,

            for I am No shrinking Violet!

~M.Y.F.M May 07, 2008

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Ideastumble…

02 Thursday Jan 2014

cropped-20170927_162917-2-e1571076151158.jpgIdeastumbleoverthoughtstumbleoverfearstumbleoverfeelingstumbleoverthestones
inthecreekthatleadstothecoresmoothingeversmoothingtheroughedges
making space in-between for thecoolcoolwater
thatisLoveforMeandYou.

January 30, 2013

 

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I Win?

02 Thursday Jan 2014

You win, because I didn’t even know it was game on…

I lose, because you created the rules…

You win, because when I figured out the rules, you changed them…

I lose, because you speak the language of fear, hate and blame…

You win, because my heart and soul can’t translate that shit…

I lose, because I can’t play the game…

I win, because I won’t play the game.

January 14, 2013

~M.Y.F.M

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Commendable, but…

02 Thursday Jan 2014

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arnade/sets/72157627894114489/

I think that this is a commendable effort to get to know the ‘humanity’ of addiction, but I am concerned that it also perpetuates the stereotypical view of many, that addiction only impacts ‘those’ people. It also connects substance use to sex work, which at times is, but just as often is not, connected, and implies a correlation. There are as many reasons why folks get into sex work, as there are sex workers, and the same is true for addiction. This story depicts ‘addiction and the addicted’ (and by extension sex workers) in an impoverished New York City neighbourhood, like so many others across North America and other parts of the world; this is NOT a realistic picture. Addiction impacts people from ALL walks of life, ALL levels of education, ALL genders, ALL cultures and ethnicities, and above all, ALL levels of socio economic status. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard a well-off (educated and/or employed/housed/well clothed/well fed etc) addict tell me that they are not an addict because they are not like ‘those’ people I could probably pay off my student loans… The same is true for folks making ‘hierarchical’ comparisons regarding sex work… What we ‘see’ on the streets, in this, and other neighbourhoods like it, is roughly 10% of the actual battle/issue. It is the stereotypes and stigma that keep the other 90% hiding in their cozy suburban and upper class neighbourhood homes, and prevents them from being honest and seeking help/support; thus keeping addiction and the addicted in the margins of our culture, and fueling the victim-blaming agenda of the status quo, at the political, and personal levels. Again, a commendable, and sincere effort from what I have seen/read/researched about this project, but not a realistic picture. And unfortunately, for all of its good intentions, the project inadvertently strengthens the ‘us and them,’ mentality, and takes the systemic issues (context) right off the canvas.
~Marcela.

~M.Y.F.M

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The path narrows: A resolution, for now.

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

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December 27 – 31, 2013
As another difficult calendar year comes to an end, I find myself thinking out loud, reflecting on, several relationships in my life that may have run their course, perhaps a long time ago. There is little or no animosity (left) for me in this process. What remains, however, is some sadness. A sadness that reminds me of why I was so hurt in my last romantic-love-relationship: A relationship with me was not worth that person’s effort, time or energy, in terms of talking about, and getting through, the hard-shit. Notice I say the relationship was not worth it to him, not ‘I’ wasn’t worth it. Because I know better, than to believe that shite, at this juncture.

These other relationships I speak of are so similar, in that it feels as though to some, a friendship with me, is not worthy of any maintenance efforts, the maintenance that any meaningful relationship requires. Again, little or no animosity, or resentment, just reflection and sadness. Many of these relationships sustained me through some very difficult, as well as some amazingly fantastic times, and I am, often to my own detriment, eternally(?) loyal. To these folks, who had some instrumental role in my survival of self, in my evolution, but whose (mutual?) benefit and utility have devolved to what now amounts to a false allegiance, and creates suffering, for me. Not by virtue of any fault on anyone’s part, rather due to the divergence of our respective paths, and by virtue of changes to our internal and external geographies. And while I understand, on a profoundly deep level, what I must do, in order to honour self and my friendship needs, it is difficult to let these people go.  I am tempted to hang on, again, with nail-beds bleeding from my over-extended grasp, and a number of potential fears come to mind about where my struggle originates. I do not fear change in and of itself, it has been the only constant in my life to date. I do not fear a void requiring filling, essentially, they have been absent, neglectful, for some time, some for several years. So I am curious, about what the struggle is, but not enough to keep me stuck here. Perhaps by letting go, I will create the window I need, to see…

What I actually believe to be at the core of it, is the mind-numbing realization that I have truly blown myself wide open, and understand what I need more than ever before, during my tenure to date, in this life and persona. I understand that via the very process of opening, the path has narrowed, again. There is only enough space on it for co-adventurers whose intellectual, spiritual, physical and emotional needs, and world views, are in closer alignment with my own, than at any point in time previous to this one. This does not mean that my mind and worlds are  closing to other perspectives, ways of being and believing, it means that I recognize the core of me, now, at this moment in time. It means that I can only provide space in my immediate circle for those who will help me keep it, the core of me, safe. Safe, while I function in and navigate the vast and diversified roads and worlds of my life’s works and passions. Worlds laden with conflict and human suffering, individual and systemic oppressions of every heinous ilk and variety. Safe, and loved. Fed, not hungry and suffering, for my truth and passions. Here it is again, hey Pema Chodron? That entire fear-truth-letting-go-of-attachment-and-permanence-thing, I say that smiling, broadly, and with eyes, heart, wide open.

It feels allright though, really, it feels better than that, it feels like me, 100% Marcela: Unfiltered.

For the coming New Year I resolve:
1) to keep, welcome, in(to) my life and the spaces I occupy, only that and those whom nourish and sustain well and dignify, my heart, my mind, my body, my spirit, my soul.
2) See 1.
That is all.

Fear is a natural

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On: The Hero in all of us…

23 Monday Dec 2013

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The untold story of my hero

I want to tell you this story. It is the evolving story of a hero, who through the process of me growing up, 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 long while.

For too many years after his death, I held him on a topple-worthy-pedestal of my own making, and only ever thought about him, told stories about him, in terms of heroic actions: his undeserved imprisonment in the old country for a democratic cause, his valiant battle to get us, his beloved children and wife, out of the clutches of communism following the Soviet Invasion of our beloved land, and into the country that he wanted more than anything, to provide us a life in. I knew this story so well I could recite it at the hint of his name, and expound at great 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 too 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 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 at a law officer. I tell you all of this not to mar his memory or to diminish his heroic nature; I tell you this to illustrate the full context of his humanity, he was so imperfect, so human but still a hero. He worked very hard to redeem himself when he brought us here, to make it right, to atone, to take responsibility.

I tell you this because we all have a dark side, a side that 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 dark side makes poor decisions based on fear rather than the belief that we will get what we need if we act accordingly; that side is driven by the external, all the world’s influences, as they are marketed to us, rather than the internal, the core of our humanness, our hearts and souls. The darkness ignores our innate intuition, even when the warning bells scream like the sirens in a big city, ignores, the hero in all of us. That piece, which knows love and abuse cannot co-exist, do not, cannot by nature, live in the same environment. The piece that informs every act of kindness and compassion we have ever given freely, without expectation of reward or need for recognition, because that is what gives us the most true happiness. The piece that would die for the people we love, and sometimes for those we don’t even know, but feel true human empathy for. That piece is the one we must nurture, nourish, and encourage to grow and empower.

I could not see my father, Tomáš 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. Rest in peace dad, and know that the lessons of your life, your perfectly imperfect humanity, and your true heroism, have watched over me, followed me, taught me, led me, sometimes astray, but always back, to the hero in me.  More than four decades ago on July 7th, 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 more than four decades later I come full circle to face my own imperfection and humanity, again. Thank you, dad, for the lessons. You did well; and although my dark side comes out to wreak havoc periodically, I believe that my hero always triumphs in the end. I miss your person every day, but I feel your presence, every second.

M.Y.F.M. July 05, 2012

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