Tag Archives: Humanity

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The (evolving) untold story of my hero…

07 Monday Jul 2014

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Kolonáda - Karlovy Vary, CZ - June 24, 2014

Kolonáda – Karlovy Vary, CZ – June 24, 2014

July 7th has rolled around once more, and 43 years, in this moment feels like 43 seconds, for I will always, and forever, miss you. I get my rebel, my power, my wisdom, my ability to see the truth, my stubborn-never-give-up from you, and also the fragility and dandelion fluff inside that we both hid/e from the rest of the world, so that they cannot harm, damage, our oh-so-vulnerable humanity. It never changes for me, this day. Time does not heal all wounds, it simply grows scar tissue over them which dulls the ache, allows me to think about you with some clarity, remember the entirety of your being, and how you still, 43 years after your untimely departure, teach me, guide me, help me keep my rebel on, with some measure of grace and dignity.

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.

I held him 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 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 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. 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 side that makes poor decisions based on fear rather than the belief that we will get what we need if we act accordingly; 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 side of us that ignores our innate intuition, even when the warning bells scream like the sirens in a big city. The hero in all of us, the piece that knows love and abuse cannot co-exist in the same environment, the piece that informs every act of kindness and compassion we have ever given freely 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 compassion 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.

Dad, I cannot help but believe that you were there when recently, I visited the places I have some of my strongest and fondest memories of you from, Karlovy Vary, Boży Dar,  on the journey of a lifetime with your widow, my mother, 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. You came back to life for me in moments of memory so vivid that they caught my breath, and we all got to know you, and ourselves, a little better than we did in the days, the moments prior.

Rest in peace my beloved dad, and know that the lessons of your life, your imperfect humanity, and your true heroism, have watched over me, followed me, taught me, led me, sometimes astray, but always back, to the true hero in me. 43 years 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 43 years later I come full circle to face my own imperfection and humanity, once again.

Boży Dar, CZ - June 15, 2014

Boży Dar, CZ – June 15, 2014

Jelení skok - Karlovy Vary, CZ - June 24, 2014

Jelení skok – Karlovy Vary, CZ – June 24, 2014

Thank you dad for the continuing lessons. You did well; and although my dark side comes out to play and wreak havoc in my heart and life periodically, I believe that my hero always triumphs in the end. I miss your person every day, but I feel your presence, every second.

Always yours, with all the humanity I have,

~MyLa: Unfiltered.

(edited from original written July 05, 2012)

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Runaway: The Decade Long Amok, of an Acutely Human Queen

23 Friday May 2014

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...go on, splash a(muck) on the Nellies...

go on, splash (a)muck on the Nellies

Several pretty penny porches
now mere remnants in memory
the Queen remorselessly
ruminates on these;
the veritable vestiges
of a domain,
duly disheveled
by her perilous pursuit
of the marketed realities,
called success
and
the dream.

Many years many roads,
a number of princes
unveiled
as wart-toads,
the Queen throws an eye backward
wistfully winces
at the folly,
that may well have been
her final undoing,
or was it,
that?

She lowers ear to her heart,
unearths a new truth
owns her sizeable part
with measured grace,
and some couth:
Eyes wide shut to the pain
agendas pursued
with worrisome might;
full throttle, warp speed
hellish highways of fright;
she collected Queendoms and letters
behind her inadequate(?) names,
blindly but deftly
she excelled in the games;
sold to her and the masses
by the predators
of peace,
preachers of pink
glasses
bamboozle the brainwaves
about life’s short-term lease…
the reality
‘tis no more than the blinking
of sightless glass eyes
the pursuit of happiness
sold in the guise
of more, better,
bigger,
fluff and stuff
with which to;
kill the pain
kill the pain
kill the pain.

Pernicious perverts
had her
chasing the dragon
the dream an imposter
the trickster,
approval a need
love an elixir
a name on a deed…
self-deception
false buy-in
the seed,
of her
very own,
personal,
undone-ness.

Hunters of humanity
fished for her favor
left her bereft
of power to savor
the very Queendoms and royalties,
she had spent the years chasing
bird-dogging banalities
mind-body-heart
constantly racing
toward a non-existent,
finish line.

The place called success
look at me look at me
she was finally worthy
of their ilk
and decree
that she had arrived,
Broken.
Again.
</3

Jonathan Rebel Seagull
(perfect aerialist and relentless odd ungod)
swoops into her cloud
ruffles her feathers
always stern, never loud:
thought you lost me hey Missy?
Nice try
epic fail,
with you ever and always,
while they stood still
watched you,
flail.

Look neither hind Missy,
nor fore to the morrow
take only the lessons
step away from the sorrow!
Keep that which you need
to live free of their voices,
succumb only
to more resilient choices
than the greed,
widely accepted,
as normal.

Blow up the boxes
of success and their dream
each day every moment
hear the voice of (y)our soul,
not that of their scream.
For you intuit the truth
it soundlessly waits
to show you
to guide you
in a more even gait.
Walk do not run
for you are likely to miss,
the kiss of the Dragon-Knight
hard-fought and won battle,
of and for,
your own
bliss.

You are the Queen of your life
this we know to be true
as said the other odd ungod,
‘no-one’s you-er than you.’
So go out and be You,
truer than true
this ain’t your first rodeo
so please,
no boo-hoo!
Life is a mud puddle
so pull on the Wellies,
go splash about
spray (a)muck on the
Nellies (negative that is).

(M. 2014)

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Marcela Moment of the Month: The Spam List – May, 2014

07 Wednesday May 2014

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because I can only love a man who does not simply tolerate my penchant for playgrounds, he must be a man who gets his play-groove on with me…

This, is the story of a 52-year-old woman with an above average IQ, and the Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EIQ), of a four-year old. I will apologize to all of the four-year olds in the world here and now, they probably would have figured this one out long before I did.

As I believe we all do, I have some emotional triggers and fears, primarily surrounding the people I hold dearest; my child, my mother, my closest friends, and the man in my life, known as the BB-Dragon-Knight (BB-D-K). I live in a different town than all of these, my favourite humans, so one of the ways in which I stay connected, and ‘OK’ in these relationships, is through the various and respective methods, means, and patterns of communication specific to each one. My mother and I phone, she does not do text, my son and I phone regarding most things and text regarding the little stuff, like when I will next come by in my work travels, to receive and reciprocate our weekly drive-by-hugging. The BB-D-K and I phone whenever possible in the evenings, and text often, on days and nights we do not spend together. Always, we let the other know when we will spend time with the other important folks in our lives, and may be somewhat incommunicado. I like this. I do not need to be in contact 24/7 when we are apart, but given past experiences, I like this a lot. Apparently, I am very attached to it. This particular Marcela Moment of the Month (yes, I realize it is early on, but really, it’s a gooder), pertains to him, the BB-D-K, and a complete and utter disregard for what I often advise and model for the folks I work with; critical and logical thinking skills during times of stress, emotional and otherwise. Take my advice people, I was not using it.

The trigger, as they generally do, originates in my past, and the experience of hostage-takings in e-communication by humans I once cared about, as well as a life fraught with some fairly horrific circumstances, events, and much loss. But still, it has nothing to do with the present. Absolutely nothing. I have no evidence what-so-ever, in several months of time spent with this truly soulful, smart, honest, humble, loyal, and adorable-as-all-get-out human being, that logically speaking, would support or lead me to the place I have spent too much time in over the course of our relationship, and particularly the four days preceding this one.

He is, other than my ManChild, the only human on the planet who does not simply tolerate or put up with; my inside and outside crazy, my flying pigs and other winged creature tattoos, my inner and outer child, my intense, at times over-the-top passion about issues related to my work and the world we live in. He is one of two humans on earth, who engage , encourage and indulge  these traits and passions, fully, without reservations. He gets on the swing and climbs up on the playground equipment, and he always worries and admonishes me when I swing too high and make the chains bounce, or when I spin myself in circles until I’m dizzy and wobbly-kneed, just for the amazingness of it all. He admonishes not because he thinks it is silly for me to do these things, but because he could not stand to see me hurt.

So what happened? Well let me tell you! I spent a full day and two lovely evenings enjoying him and his surroundings, and left refreshed and energized early Friday afternoon to go into what are my most gruelling workdays, the weekends. We communicated via text message at approximately 11:00 a.m. on Friday morning prior to my departure, LOL-ing about the crazy goings on in our respective work worlds that morning. I went about my work, sent him a couple of texts, photos of interest from my day, and the ritual good-night-text in the evening as I lay in my own bed and counted him as one of the all-time best blessings in my life. I did not get one back, since early in the day, or the ritual good-morning-text, but I have some idea of what his work world looks like so I did not fret, too much. Yet.

By Saturday evening I was somewhat anxious and memories of e-communication-hostage-takings began to creep into my mind, and fear began to grip my oh-so-vulnerable heart. I am a human service professional after all, and so I counselled self: self, remember to examine, very thoroughly examine, the evidence:  1) Do you have anything to base this anxiety and fear upon where this human is concerned? No, I do not self. Thank you self. 2) Do you realize, self, that you are likely projecting historical events into your present, and that there is likely a logical explanation for the ‘dead air space’ you fear so much? Yes, self, I realize that, but I cannot think of a logical explanation, I have right out asked him why the dead air space, and told him in several texts that I am concerned, worried that something has happened to him, or someone close to him. 3) Seriously self, relax, you know he is likely with one of his children, or just sleeping a lot, the last several weeks have been gruelling in his world too! 4) Ok, I’m certain he will say good morning, I will try to sleep. Fail, epic fail. No visions of sugar plums dancing in this self’s head, just horrible accident scenes, and worse, a ‘Dear Marcela’ letter in my snail-mail box.

The brain ran on and on into Sunday morning, all that day at work, and through the night while I frantically tried to finish a very important court report involving some very important little people in my work world. I was to to be in court, a nasty commute away, first thing in the morning. The report completed, tired, anxious self dressed and mostly together enough to testify coherently, I went to do my job. And then I drove another two hours to look for the BB-D-K, and find out what horrible life tragedy had befallen him, someone he loves, or be-still-my-heart, to hear what I knew in my core had to be the real truth; he is done with me. He will kick me to the curb the way others had, but gently, for he is not like them. I will take it like the proud woman I am, drive home crying like a child once he is well out of sight, and begin the process of grieving, immediately followed by a bout of workaholic feelings-stuffing, and bacon. Large quantities of bacon, when I was able to stomach food again. I knew exactly how it would go.

I reminded my tortured self during that drive, that my BB-D-K was not anything like anyone else I had ever dated, been married to, or in a relationship with, so far from it in fact. But the thoughts and fears that had tumbled in my head for the better part of three full nights and almost four days now, had taken such hold that it was impossible to counsel self logically at this point, and the panic grew and eventually took over, as I neared my destination. So I re-focused all of my energy on driving safely, no point in arriving dead, it was already such a mess!

I arrived in front of his house to find his parking spot empty, and my heart sank. It was his day off, where was he? I knew it, he was in the hospital, haemorrhaging to death, or tending to someone he loved in a major crisis, and he was unable to let me know. Or worse, he left town because he could not bear to hurt my feelings face to face, and I would receive the dreaded ‘Dear Marcela,’ letter in the mail.

I left a note in his door, and almost started to drive back, broken, to my own town and abode, but decided to take a final swing on the swing set with an ocean view, at the end of his road. It was the saddest swing, ever. I could not see the view for the tears, and could only think about when he stood on the play set directly in front me, several weeks ago, when we were still together, BB-D-K and Myla. My BB-D-K. His Myla. It was tragic. I sent a text to let him know that I had been at his home, that there was a note in the door, and that coming to look for him was no more of a choice than when I was worried sick about my ManChild recently, and hunted him down, also.

And then something told me to turn my head toward the road, and I as I did, I spied his Pathfinder coming down the hill! I listened for where the motor went off, yes, just down the road, where the Dragon lair is! I waited, surely he would see my vehicle and come find me, apologize, explain what horrible fate had found him or someone else, why he was unable to communicate with me for almost four torturous days.

I walked toward his house but he was not on the road coming toward me, so legs shaking, I made my way around to the back, to where he always sits, enjoying a stunning ocean view. He was there. My BB-D-K, alive, not bleeding, looking tired but very well indeed! He said “hey you,” I said “would you like me to leave,”? he said “no, of course not, what do you have to say”? I said “don’t you have anything to say to me about dead air space for almost 4 days”? He said: “I sent you texts on Friday to let you know I would be with my son, and Saturday, and yesterday, and I wondered why you were getting all upset.” I was stunned, I told him I didn’t get any, showed him my phone, our thread, there was just me to him in there since Friday morning… what the hey!?! I asked him to send me a text, he did, I saw it go out, but it never landed in my phone… what the hey?

And then: a few minutes of poking around in contact settings, the settings for his contact info specifically and I find this option: ‘Remove this number from SPAM list.’ Seriously??? I had accidentally sent his number to the SPAM list, a function I did not even know existed, but now remembered seeing, and ignoring, some weird little message about SPAM coming up, right after I sent the Friday morning text before I left. Not once, did it occur to either of us that I was not receiving his messages. His phone showed them as sent, my phone worked, I tested it, several times a day over those four days, by texting self, obsessively, and then getting irritated every time it landed in my phone because it wasn’t from him.

OMG, really!?! My three sleepless nights, my four unable-to-eat or focus-on-anything-else days, my very own, personal hell, all of it, was entirely and utterly, self-imposed. I had been outsmarted by my very own Smart-phone, and tortured, by the EIQ of my inner four-year old. Wow!

So, the moral of this story has several key elements: 1) do not, under any circumstances assume that simply because you have sent a text, the recipient has received it. 2) Understand your equipment’s various functions, and most importantly 3) do not, like me in this series of unfortunate events, paint your present with the dirty paint brush of the past. It makes for a muddy and diluted painting. It did not serve me well, never has, and this hard won lesson is just one more indication that it never will. I have worked very hard to understand my past, forgive those who harmed me and others I love, and move on. I am not perfect at it, yet.

I sit now, this moment, with masses of gratitude for the man known as BB-Dragon-Knight, for he had a choice in the perspective from which he could view my comedy of errors: 1) She’s bat-shit crazy or 2) she really cares about me. He chose 2, and added that he quite likes my crazy. Further; he was less irritated than worried, about me getting so upset, kind of in the same way he worries that I might hurt myself when I swing too high, or spin myself in circles. Because he cares about me, and he does not like to see me hurt, let alone be the cause of my pain.

With all the brilliant insight I have at this moment, tongue firmly implanted in cheek, and so much deep, honest caring, yours as always,

~Marcela (Myla): Unfiltered.

 

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Open letter to my child

23 Sunday Mar 2014

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Me'nSunnySwinginMarch 22, 2014

Dear Sunny, SunnyBoyManChild, Babycakes, number one and original MarsupialBaby, yes you, my heart and soul, my son, Thomas George Raphael Turjancik:

I woke up in Ruswil, Switzerland, at 5:00 a.m. on this day 23 years ago, and said to your dad: “George, wake up, our son just made me wet the bed.” Your dad, whom you will finally see/meet again for the first time in 20 years, a few short weeks from now, was ‘tired’ from our wedding only two days earlier, rolled over and said: “you’re funny, go back to sleep.” At that point, my not-so-inner-mama-bear came out and told him to get the fuck up, we are having Baby-Thomas today! He got up.

We drove to the neighbouring town of Wolhusen, for Ruswil was too small for its own hospital, and it turned out that March 22nd 1991 was a busy day for their tiny maternity ward. In a normal week they have one maybe two babies make their planet earth appearance. On this day however, there were three of you at once, and all three with mothers in varying stages and severity of real and perceived emotional and physical distress. It was a bit of a cluster-fuck.

The one doctor on duty was running back and forth between the three of us, as were the midwife and a couple of nurses, and they were all very relieved when I finally said yes to the laughing gas. That is, until they saw just how happy it made me. I had said no to pain-killing drugs, odd when you consider the dope-induced crash and burn we experienced later on, but at the time, I wanted to feel everything about you, your arrival in my life. I was so giddy that it got hard to push, and the doctor (a male) yelled at me and said “come on! haven’t you ever done this before”? I responded, not so gently with “NO, have you asshole”?!

Your father had had a traumatic experience at the birth of your half-brother Roman, so he kinda gave up on us when it got real. It was a bit of foreshadowing, no? Not a dig at him, not at all, just my reality, and (y)ours I think. Not everyone can stomach reality and truth the way you and I have all these years. But I digress. So, at 1:29 p.m., that time zone, that place, in that moment, you made your début, and my life changed, forever. It changed in a way that is so profound, so beyond my capacity to articulate, well, in these or any other pages, I have written, or will write in the future.

I have often thought about that moment when I realized I was in it alone, as the moment our bond became absolutely bullet proof, for life, no matter what. And so it has been. Through the good, through the bad, through the very very ugly, and painfully, through the indifferent (or ignorant) attitudes of those, whom to this day, feel it is their job to judge and critique, me, and Universe save them from my motherly-wrath, you.

And just as you know and accept my humanity, I am not under any illusion that you are a perfect human, or child, but you are the perfect human-child for me, and truly, had I had the option of choosing, I would have chosen you. Why? Well I am so very glad you asked!

Why do I love thee Thomas? Let us count the ways:

<3 I love you because you have given meaning and purpose to a soul broken, too often, by the cruelties of those with no connection to self, no conscience, no heart.

<3 I love you because no matter what ‘they’ say, you saved my life when I did not believe it was worth saving, but you were/are.

<3 I love you because like your birth, relatively short and painless in the grand scheme of things, parenting you has been a gift and the singular greatest blessing and experience of my life.

<3 I love you because you shine Thomas, I do not wish to set you up for a fall by placing you on a pedestal; but you shine! I knew at 1:29 p.m. on March 22nd, 1991, in that little Swiss hospital, I know it now, and everyone who takes even a second to talk to you knows it, they tell me, all the time.

<3 I love you because you have a deep and profound understanding of my humanity, my imperfection as a human, as a parent, as a ‘helper,’ and you are the only human on the planet who loves me not despite it, but because of it, unconditionally, always; In the same manner that I know and love you, and your perfectly-imperfect humanity.

<3 I love you because you never made me park around the corner to drop you off at school, you always thought I was a cool mom;  I imagine a foul mouth and tattoos help with that, but hey, I’ll take it

<3 I love you because you never stopped skipping across parking lots with me, hand in hand, or ‘walking THIS way,’ in grocery stores.

<3 I love you because even when you said that Sunny, SunnyBoy, Number one Marsupial, and ManChild were one thing, but BabyCakes quite another, you never got pissy with me for all the crazy nicknames I have for you. I do, by the way, know that your name is Thomas ;)

<3 I love you because despite, or because of, my fairly strong beliefs about the world and resulting influence in your life, on your beliefs, you have managed to find your own truths, and never been afraid to debate these things with me. I will high-five self for teaching you how to think, not what to think.

<3 I love you because despite me, and my influence, you have become the deeply thoughtful and kind human that you are.

<3 I love you because you really and truly are, the Sun that brightens my worst days, the Shine that makes the sunny ones even brighter, my one and only, always unconditional cheerleader, my one and only child, the best one for me, by far.

Don’t let the darkness in the world make you jaded and broken, the way I was for too many years Sunny, focus on what is good and on doing good, surround yourself with others who are good, and do good. The other is simply too painful, and such a horrible waste of time and breath. Such a horrible waste of time for your compassionate soul.

These past 4 years, including your 22nd, have been fraught with challenge upon challenge, and much loss and pain for both of us, individually and collectively, yet we have proven to one another, and the ever hovering detractors, over and over again, what I have said here: our bond is bullet proof. For we have both taken some shrapnel, at times from one another, only to come out stronger, than ever before, our family of two.

I love you Thomas with something so fierce that it defies mere words.

Always, with everything I have, got your back! No matter what!

All my love, and then some,
~Mama: Unfiltered

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Through the scary…

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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Hold my hand
and I
will hold your fear
hold my fear
and I
will hold your pain
hold my pain
and I
will hold your heart
hold my heart
and I
will hold your love
safe
with mine
hold my love
safe
with yours
and I
will walk with you
through the scary…
 
~MyLa.
 

It went on for weeks, with little to no reprieve, day and night. Triggered, unknowingly and unintentionally, by a completely unrelated, but to my still raw heart, similar circumstance, and by what the man known as Dickwad-what’s-his-name (and others) inflicted on my mind, body, heart and soul. For so much longer than I ever ought to have allowed.

It, was an anxiety and spiritual pain too profound to articulate well, at this point, while I still stabilize. I took action yesterday, that for some reason I was terrified to take. It was a phone call, a question, and it wasn’t because I got the answer I wanted to hear that it began to subside, it was because the terror of not taking action, and enduring another moment became too much for me to bear, for another second.

It has been one of the most frightening times that I remember in recent years, but the silver lining is, I thought about escapes, of every ilk, variety and severity, and even utilized some that directly contradict the way in which I strive to live my life, free of the consumeristic traps of the ‘marketed dream’ (stay tuned for that one). I bought art, Banksy ;) one dress, books and a pair of shoes, but chose what I believe to be the lesser of all the evils I could subject myself, and the people who love me to. I rescheduled some work appointments when it was too much to keep my people safe, after all, I make a living directly off the backs of the suffering and pain of others, but no-one was cancelled, and to the best of my knowledge, I did no harm.

I got up every day and survived, hating every moment, and savouring every millisecond that I was able to think about, focus, pay attention to, see, hear, feel, touch, taste, experience, something, anything, beautiful in the world. The real tragedy of it, is seeing how much I hated myself. I thought about the person I love most in the world, and when he told me about punching himself in the face until it was swollen almost beyond recognition, because he hurt so badly, about what someone else did. I thought about that when I was driving down the highway and caught myself smashing my head into the head rest of my seat because I couldn’t stop the fear, kill the pain, kill the pain, kill the pain. I thought about the suffering that this truth, the truth that led to the trigger, has caused me, and I thought about how I should have acted differently 34 years ago and wouldn’t be here now had I not been so desperate, then, when I was 18, and broken.

He, Dickwad-what’s-his-name, or anyone like him, should not, will not, ever get that kind of power over me again. Some day, I will give you the details, and pray, that this particular lesson is learned, for real for real. Funny thing, it all started because I cannot live (with) a lie, I had to tell someone about something that has caused me untold pain for 34 years. I did not hear the words I got back, I did not examine the evidence against my fearful thoughts well enough to see and believe what was real. I allowed white space and the past to inform my thoughts and feelings. I believed my own (mis)interpretations of what is happening. I allowed
F alse
E vidence to
A ppear
R eal.
It could very well have cost me a very beautiful thing, the next great thing. It is here. I will cherish it more than ever. Thank you for being there through it with me. You may not know the details, and you may not realize how you helped, I may not even know you personally, but you were there, I felt you. And for that, I thank the God of my understanding, and you, always those of you, that know, me, my humanity. Thank you, for not letting me get lost in the forest, thank you, for holding my hand, through the scary.

Yours, as always,

~Myla: Unfiltered. March 16, 2014.

Posted by | Filed under My World(s), Poetry, Unfettered

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there are days…

10 Monday Mar 2014

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nanaimo-jan-4-6-2014there are days I wish:
I didn’t feel(you)so deeply,
didn’t love(you)so completely,
could love on(with you):
so sweetly in ignorance –
of your pain,
and mine.
 
~Myla, here and now.

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

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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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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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