Birthday number twenty-eight. And three days from taking the bar exam. Not the most mixable of substances, but we're pulling it off anyway, nonetheless. Not that time gives us much of an option in the matter.
Things like the essays in this book help: http://www.scribd.com/doc/93144782/Things-That-Are-Essays-by-Amy-Leach
As do sunset sailing trips, and celebratory supportive words, and demonstrative love coming from (almost) all directions of our life. And books, too. Lots of books. (Books that aren't legal treatises.) Promising themselves to us - in now less than five days and counting...
Counting down to being fully present again. Maybe you'll notice when it happens. Maybe you won't. Maybe I can say the same about me.
And maybe we'll just have to wait and see.
-L (7/21/2012)
![[Un]fortunate Philosophies](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwu6S7Pc2oMwWth-cUInhseYn0wmMdJwf7OwNj3AlwmT16FJiUljP8V3yXWTUnNCrlfrMTqvCW9WZq7BaOmi0KBcOCyP-e2huKiWMrDHCyXuOsCFN_xrecCYpFzqyNC1jAJugc/s660/BlogPic2.jpg)
[640]
[One year and nine months later, and today I found myself faking an exam, taking a risk, and getting a re-taste of perspective.]
[I went to my sibling grief group tonight. And A, who doesn't say too much, said this - speaking of her brother, dead at 14: "He missed everything. Everything. All the milestones. So then you just live them alone..."]
[Her voice breaking, right alongside my heart. It fell/twisted/pumped with understanding. Long after his had stopped beating.]
[She was 16 at the time. Seven years later, and her oft-held back tears flowed now just as freely, knowing what she knew. What she wished she didn't. Like how to this day, she said, she'd never been able to picture him as an adult. Or how her parents' ugly divorce had just kept right on going, even right after...]
[The sun this afternoon felt like it had a hot bone to pick with someone, and ignited all who dared cross its crosshairs. Was it you there? There behind the heat? I'd like to think that only your rage would deserve to burn so brightly.]
[-L (7/10/12)]
[I went to my sibling grief group tonight. And A, who doesn't say too much, said this - speaking of her brother, dead at 14: "He missed everything. Everything. All the milestones. So then you just live them alone..."]
[Her voice breaking, right alongside my heart. It fell/twisted/pumped with understanding. Long after his had stopped beating.]
[She was 16 at the time. Seven years later, and her oft-held back tears flowed now just as freely, knowing what she knew. What she wished she didn't. Like how to this day, she said, she'd never been able to picture him as an adult. Or how her parents' ugly divorce had just kept right on going, even right after...]
[The sun this afternoon felt like it had a hot bone to pick with someone, and ignited all who dared cross its crosshairs. Was it you there? There behind the heat? I'd like to think that only your rage would deserve to burn so brightly.]
[-L (7/10/12)]
In considering acceptance. And Sugar says...
"Dear Sugar,
I’m transgender. Born female 28 years ago, I knew I was meant to be male for as long as I can remember. I had the usual painful childhood and adolescence in a smallish town because I was different—picked on by other kids, misunderstood by my (basically loving) family. Seven years ago I told my mom and dad I intended to have a sex change. They were furious and disturbed by my news. They pretty much said the worst things you can imagine anyone saying to another human being, especially if that human being is your child.
I cut off ties with my parents and moved to the city where I live now and made a new life living as a man. I have friends and romance in my life. I love my job. I’m happy with who I’ve become and the life I’ve made. It’s like I’ve created an island far away and safe from my past. I like it that way.
A couple weeks ago, after years of no contact, I got an email from my parents that blew my mind. They apologized for how they’d responded when I told them about my plans for a sex change. They said they were sorry they never understood and now they do—or at least enough that we could have a relationship again. They said they miss me and they love me.
Sugar, they want me back.
I cried like crazy and that surprised me. I know this might sound odd, but I believed I didn’t love my parents anymore or at least my love had become abstract, since they had rejected me and because we’ve not been in touch. But when I got that email a lot of emotions that I thought were dead came back to life.
This scares me. I have made it because I’m tough. I’m an orphan, but I was doing great without my parents. Do I cave and forgive them and get back in touch and even go visit them as they have asked me to do? Or do I email them and say thank you, but letting you back into my life is out of the question, given our past?
I know what you’re going to say, Sugar. I read your column. But I need you to say it to me.
Thanks.
Orphan"
I’m transgender. Born female 28 years ago, I knew I was meant to be male for as long as I can remember. I had the usual painful childhood and adolescence in a smallish town because I was different—picked on by other kids, misunderstood by my (basically loving) family. Seven years ago I told my mom and dad I intended to have a sex change. They were furious and disturbed by my news. They pretty much said the worst things you can imagine anyone saying to another human being, especially if that human being is your child.
I cut off ties with my parents and moved to the city where I live now and made a new life living as a man. I have friends and romance in my life. I love my job. I’m happy with who I’ve become and the life I’ve made. It’s like I’ve created an island far away and safe from my past. I like it that way.
A couple weeks ago, after years of no contact, I got an email from my parents that blew my mind. They apologized for how they’d responded when I told them about my plans for a sex change. They said they were sorry they never understood and now they do—or at least enough that we could have a relationship again. They said they miss me and they love me.
Sugar, they want me back.
I cried like crazy and that surprised me. I know this might sound odd, but I believed I didn’t love my parents anymore or at least my love had become abstract, since they had rejected me and because we’ve not been in touch. But when I got that email a lot of emotions that I thought were dead came back to life.
This scares me. I have made it because I’m tough. I’m an orphan, but I was doing great without my parents. Do I cave and forgive them and get back in touch and even go visit them as they have asked me to do? Or do I email them and say thank you, but letting you back into my life is out of the question, given our past?
I know what you’re going to say, Sugar. I read your column. But I need you to say it to me.
Thanks.
Orphan"
"Dear Orphan,
Please forgive your parents, sweet pea. Not for them. For you. You’ve earned the next thing that will happen if you do. You’ve remade yourself already. You and your mom and dad can remake this too—the new era in which they are finally capable of loving the real you. Let them. Love them back. See how that feels.
What they did to you seven years ago is terrible. They now know that. They’re sorry. They’ve grown and changed and come to understand things that confounded them before. Refusing to accept them for the people they’ve become over these years of your estrangement isn’t all that different from them refusing to accept you for who you are. It’s fear-based and punishing. It’s weak rather than tough.
You’re tough. You’ve had to ask impossible questions, endure humiliations, suffer internal conflicts and redefine your life in ways that most people don’t and can’t even imagine. But you know what?
So have your parents. They had a girl child who became what they didn’t expect. They were cruel and small when you needed them most, but only because they were drowning in their own fear and ignorance.
They aren’t drowning anymore. It took them seven years, but they swam to shore. They have arrived at last on your island.
Welcome them.
Yours,
Sugar"
http://therumpus.net/2011/03/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-66/
(Sometimes I think this is the most beautiful thing ever written.)
-L (6/27/12)
Mental Meanderings & Such
What all, what all...? Graduated law school, now on to the Bar. (If only that meant what it might have meant.)
Meanwhile, M is leaving for Amsterdam and then Switzerland as of the day after tomorrow, to be gone for the next 4+ months. Not much to be done there. We've decided to call it a break-up, since god only knows when he's coming back -- and by the time he does, I'll most likely have disappeared to L.A. (Hard as it is to imagine now, but 5 years and 4 months later, and that's apparently that.)
This week I filled the two empty rooms of our house with roommates -- including the room M and I had been sharing. For the rest of the summer, I'm officially bunking down with Ms. T. (And for the record, I'm still telling myself that this is a good idea. So don't ask.) What's this mean for Bar study? A brief plummet to an unforgivably low production rate, at the moment. But I'm also still telling myself that this will change for the best during this upcoming week, when every lovely little distraction in my life shall be sadly stricken from the record, leaving nothing but myself and my brightly colored Barbri books behind. And only one thing left to talk about.
Also, I started a bi-monthly sibling grief group. Strange meanderings, this be. I skipped the first meeting due to its falling on the same night as the very last exam of my short-lived law school career. Have since attended the two others. Not sure how I feel about being on the receiving end of a support group yet. Strangely enough, I'm experiencing some friction with the older of the two co-facilitators. 'Strange' because I never have friction with strangers...and especially in this context. Or else, maybe it's the context that explains it?
At any rate, RoboB0b released the Alpha version of Gnomoria to the public, two days ago. (!!!) He's been working on it full-time and nearly non-stop for the past eleven months. I'm so excited for him, and I relish every positive word the world casually tosses his way. So much so that between this, my house's new living situation, and M's impending departure, I've been more or less useless in every other imaginable way...
Of course, it's also the 10th today. Meaning that we're now at 1 year and 8 months, to the day. Not much to say, except that I never have much to say on these indelible days. (Though these attempts shall I continue to make.) The 10th burned into my psyche, like a fire dancer burns symmetrical shapes into the darkness. No thought to atonement.
I started a more stable site to store her beloved, now forever limited memories -- but have yet to return to finish the migration from 1,000 Memories, what with everything going on. So I wouldn't have got much done today either way, is what I'm saying. Even without the temptation of ephemeral distractions. And aren't they all?
-L (6/10/12)
Meanwhile, M is leaving for Amsterdam and then Switzerland as of the day after tomorrow, to be gone for the next 4+ months. Not much to be done there. We've decided to call it a break-up, since god only knows when he's coming back -- and by the time he does, I'll most likely have disappeared to L.A. (Hard as it is to imagine now, but 5 years and 4 months later, and that's apparently that.)
This week I filled the two empty rooms of our house with roommates -- including the room M and I had been sharing. For the rest of the summer, I'm officially bunking down with Ms. T. (And for the record, I'm still telling myself that this is a good idea. So don't ask.) What's this mean for Bar study? A brief plummet to an unforgivably low production rate, at the moment. But I'm also still telling myself that this will change for the best during this upcoming week, when every lovely little distraction in my life shall be sadly stricken from the record, leaving nothing but myself and my brightly colored Barbri books behind. And only one thing left to talk about.
Also, I started a bi-monthly sibling grief group. Strange meanderings, this be. I skipped the first meeting due to its falling on the same night as the very last exam of my short-lived law school career. Have since attended the two others. Not sure how I feel about being on the receiving end of a support group yet. Strangely enough, I'm experiencing some friction with the older of the two co-facilitators. 'Strange' because I never have friction with strangers...and especially in this context. Or else, maybe it's the context that explains it?
At any rate, RoboB0b released the Alpha version of Gnomoria to the public, two days ago. (!!!) He's been working on it full-time and nearly non-stop for the past eleven months. I'm so excited for him, and I relish every positive word the world casually tosses his way. So much so that between this, my house's new living situation, and M's impending departure, I've been more or less useless in every other imaginable way...
Of course, it's also the 10th today. Meaning that we're now at 1 year and 8 months, to the day. Not much to say, except that I never have much to say on these indelible days. (Though these attempts shall I continue to make.) The 10th burned into my psyche, like a fire dancer burns symmetrical shapes into the darkness. No thought to atonement.
I started a more stable site to store her beloved, now forever limited memories -- but have yet to return to finish the migration from 1,000 Memories, what with everything going on. So I wouldn't have got much done today either way, is what I'm saying. Even without the temptation of ephemeral distractions. And aren't they all?
-L (6/10/12)
"You learn to live on less."
The Crow
by: Dessa
That old crow came back today.
Sitting in my window, like a prophet,
out on the fire escape to say,
"Anger is just love, left out, gone to vinegar."
You wake up a stranger to yourself
and then you learn to live with her.
Sit in her clothing 'til you fill out her figure.
You know life's no bella telanovela,
the tightrope bows with your weight in the center.
The slide show, don't put all the pictures together.
You try to do it right though,
right though, until you let the kite go.
Death and romance, the riddles of our lifetimes.
Tryna get a slow dance, middle of a knife fight --
you get up and you, you give blood,
even on a good night. Even on a good night out.
You send signal, you listen for an echo,
and at the first splinters you run to tell Geppetto.
And in the worst winters the whole thing feels untenable.
Crow took me by the shoulder
and he told me, "Honey, don't let go."
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
He took me to the workshop,
showed me where they built the bodies.
A blacksmith, a mason, a carpenter.
And in the darkroom, where the whole assembly started,
all the clothesline where the hearts hung to harden.
You come as fragile, soft machines,
and you're bound too fast, you're bound to grieve.
But you're built to balance on two feet,
so why you living this last year from your knees?
"Oh, please put me down again."
I know you lost a bet,
you had to catch your breath,
but when the worst relents
you learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You duck some, you take some square.
Your luck runs out, you're there in midair.
And when the big one comes
you'll know by the snare roll --
you can be too careful,
ignore all the scarecrows.
Time flies like the crow does,
no regard for the grid.
I can't ask you to show love,
but would it kill you if you did?
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
-L (5/10/12)
by: Dessa
That old crow came back today.
Sitting in my window, like a prophet,
out on the fire escape to say,
"Anger is just love, left out, gone to vinegar."
You wake up a stranger to yourself
and then you learn to live with her.
Sit in her clothing 'til you fill out her figure.
You know life's no bella telanovela,
the tightrope bows with your weight in the center.
The slide show, don't put all the pictures together.
You try to do it right though,
right though, until you let the kite go.
Death and romance, the riddles of our lifetimes.
Tryna get a slow dance, middle of a knife fight --
you get up and you, you give blood,
even on a good night. Even on a good night out.
You send signal, you listen for an echo,
and at the first splinters you run to tell Geppetto.
And in the worst winters the whole thing feels untenable.
Crow took me by the shoulder
and he told me, "Honey, don't let go."
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
He took me to the workshop,
showed me where they built the bodies.
A blacksmith, a mason, a carpenter.
And in the darkroom, where the whole assembly started,
all the clothesline where the hearts hung to harden.
You come as fragile, soft machines,
and you're bound too fast, you're bound to grieve.
But you're built to balance on two feet,
so why you living this last year from your knees?
"Oh, please put me down again."
I know you lost a bet,
you had to catch your breath,
but when the worst relents
you learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You duck some, you take some square.
Your luck runs out, you're there in midair.
And when the big one comes
you'll know by the snare roll --
you can be too careful,
ignore all the scarecrows.
Time flies like the crow does,
no regard for the grid.
I can't ask you to show love,
but would it kill you if you did?
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
-L (5/10/12)
[572]
[Learning how to live with death is like learning a new language. It's a lesson in immersion. One must use every medium to get herself there -- that is, to the place she's now living -- and to do it consciously. Deliberately.]
[It's true that the language of death feels awkward on the tongue, sounds ostracizing to the ear. But even when you're in a place that's surrounded by strangers and ghosts, time plays the game of familiarizing, even with you.]
[Now all songs you hear sing it; all sights you see show it; all words you read say it; everything you feel tells it. Somehow it's happened, and suddenly you're fluent in a foreign language. And looking around you notice, now you're the foreigner.]
[-L (5/3/12)]
[It's true that the language of death feels awkward on the tongue, sounds ostracizing to the ear. But even when you're in a place that's surrounded by strangers and ghosts, time plays the game of familiarizing, even with you.]
[Now all songs you hear sing it; all sights you see show it; all words you read say it; everything you feel tells it. Somehow it's happened, and suddenly you're fluent in a foreign language. And looking around you notice, now you're the foreigner.]
[-L (5/3/12)]
"Happy Katie's birthday."
Beautiful,
I've lost your pink pen somehow. Sometime during the last move. I'm using the small silver one now, with "The Ritz-Carlton" written along the side. The one I ended up with after your memorial -- our celebration of your life -- from the hotel where we'd held it. I live in fear that the ink will run out; this is only the second time I've ever used it, here a year-and-a-half and seventeen days after your death.
"Your death." So wrong. Still. I keep envisioning the following exchange: "How are you today?" "Okay. Just a little sad since it's my sister's birthday." "Why should your sister's birthday make you sad?" "Because my sister's dead." ("... Oh. I'm sorry.") I'm not sure how to avoid both this scenario, and also the alternative, which would be me not mentioning it at all. So instead, I've set a little red blanket out in the back corner of the yard, and am lying here in the intense sun with its occasional breathy breeze, writing to you. Thinking about you. "Not forgetting." I've set-up that water-stained, not too old photo of you to my right, in my line of sight, and am listening to the songs which have by default and best guess become yours. I'm wearing clothes you gave me, which I can remember you once wearing yourself, and am drinking air-cooled, sun-warmed morning coffee. Trying my hand at allowance. Faking it 'til I make it.
(A spider just crawled up from the grass onto my leg and paused to cackle at me. Then she sped back off again.)
Sometimes I feel misunderstood. Which is typical of me; of anyone, really. The sadness in it only strikes at me now when immediately following this not-so-new feeling, I begin to feel with an awful new certainty that you would have understood. My eyes tear up to attest to the truth of this, because I miss you so much as it is... Why'd you have to be so utterly irreplaceable? To leave me feeling so suddenly sister-less, so much of the time; like an irredeemable tragedy before we even got started. You know the kind. The kind that began as a fairy tale, making the dark twist of an ending that much more impossible, and altogether disturbing. And yes, tragic...
But of course, this is the story where I play the lead. So what about your story? Jake texted this morning to all of us, "Happy Katie's birthday." 23, would be. (Should be. Still not over that old resentment of mine.) "Your life was 21 years long." Your beautiful life... 21 years long. (For better or worse.) But I wish I knew how your death is treating you. Especially on the day that marks your sweet birth.
(Later I will run along one of our beaches with Sierra; buy you pink and white balloons; Skype with our little nephew and most of our brothers; cut the crook of my finger while cutting a mini cake that should have been for you; and release a bright orange-colored Sky Lantern into the California night sky. On it read the generic but almost fitting inscription, "In Memory Of ______. In memory of those who have left us, may this light rise to the heavens to shine with you through all eternity." And then this, of course. A place for the hopes we had.)
Happy birthday, beautiful girl. Our well-loved, and greatly-missed, little sister. <3 <3 <3
-L (4/27/12)
I've lost your pink pen somehow. Sometime during the last move. I'm using the small silver one now, with "The Ritz-Carlton" written along the side. The one I ended up with after your memorial -- our celebration of your life -- from the hotel where we'd held it. I live in fear that the ink will run out; this is only the second time I've ever used it, here a year-and-a-half and seventeen days after your death.
"Your death." So wrong. Still. I keep envisioning the following exchange: "How are you today?" "Okay. Just a little sad since it's my sister's birthday." "Why should your sister's birthday make you sad?" "Because my sister's dead." ("... Oh. I'm sorry.") I'm not sure how to avoid both this scenario, and also the alternative, which would be me not mentioning it at all. So instead, I've set a little red blanket out in the back corner of the yard, and am lying here in the intense sun with its occasional breathy breeze, writing to you. Thinking about you. "Not forgetting." I've set-up that water-stained, not too old photo of you to my right, in my line of sight, and am listening to the songs which have by default and best guess become yours. I'm wearing clothes you gave me, which I can remember you once wearing yourself, and am drinking air-cooled, sun-warmed morning coffee. Trying my hand at allowance. Faking it 'til I make it.
(A spider just crawled up from the grass onto my leg and paused to cackle at me. Then she sped back off again.)
Sometimes I feel misunderstood. Which is typical of me; of anyone, really. The sadness in it only strikes at me now when immediately following this not-so-new feeling, I begin to feel with an awful new certainty that you would have understood. My eyes tear up to attest to the truth of this, because I miss you so much as it is... Why'd you have to be so utterly irreplaceable? To leave me feeling so suddenly sister-less, so much of the time; like an irredeemable tragedy before we even got started. You know the kind. The kind that began as a fairy tale, making the dark twist of an ending that much more impossible, and altogether disturbing. And yes, tragic...
But of course, this is the story where I play the lead. So what about your story? Jake texted this morning to all of us, "Happy Katie's birthday." 23, would be. (Should be. Still not over that old resentment of mine.) "Your life was 21 years long." Your beautiful life... 21 years long. (For better or worse.) But I wish I knew how your death is treating you. Especially on the day that marks your sweet birth.
(Later I will run along one of our beaches with Sierra; buy you pink and white balloons; Skype with our little nephew and most of our brothers; cut the crook of my finger while cutting a mini cake that should have been for you; and release a bright orange-colored Sky Lantern into the California night sky. On it read the generic but almost fitting inscription, "In Memory Of ______. In memory of those who have left us, may this light rise to the heavens to shine with you through all eternity." And then this, of course. A place for the hopes we had.)
Happy birthday, beautiful girl. Our well-loved, and greatly-missed, little sister. <3 <3 <3
-L (4/27/12)
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