Thank you in advance for the read everyone 
For years after they gave me those electric shock treatments up at the mental hospital ashes came out both of my ears.
That never happened, I told Aunt Marguerite who was only eight years my senior, half giggling to myself that her stories were the same as when she was in her twenties before she met Wanda.
After that my aunt’s chaotic life changed. She finally belonged somewhere and meeting Wanda was undeniably the single best thing that ever happened to her since Chunky Marlow left her at the altar. Actually he never even made it to the altar. Aunt Marguerite immediately began suffering nervous breakdowns that escalated in both frequency and duration until Wanda.
Known as the Larsen Ladies, they lived over forty years together in a benign neighborhood of charming bungalows originally built as army homes. Everyone outside of relations assumed them sisters until Wanda died of a heart attack and Aunt Marguerite came right unglued at the funeral. Nobody would even care about it today but back then, it was as good as having an unwed pregnancy. All I know for sure and will attest to is their love for me, giving me safe haven from the havoc of drunken parents arguing yet again or handing me a birthday gift when no one else appeared to even remember my birth. Looking out for my beloved remaining auntie was the least I could do out of respect for both of them.
How would you know? You weren’t even born yet when I was poisoned by all those rotten smells in that drafty old boarding house.
Marguerite’s words peeled me back from the layers of memories to her room where dust motes danced in the air, brought to life by her expressive hands to play in the sun for a few seconds more. Her eyes were focused on me so sharply I remembered her telling me once “I am the hawk, I see everything.” Her hands rested on the book she was reading when I entered. I read the spine as it lay on her lap “The Last of the Crazy People – Timothy Findley.” I smiled and looked at my aunt’s outfit, her heather grey skirt her favorite garment in winter months.
Aunt Marguerite wore dresses all her life, always looked nicely put together even if she was only going to fetch some turnip for one of her aromatic soups and stews. Even now where no one but myself and the nurses would see her, her hair was bobby-pinned tidily back above each ear, her earrings matched her bright red sweater and her knee high stockings bared their tops below the hem of her wool skirt.
You were the only one affected by those bad smells, remember? I said, pouring some water in glass and taking a long cool swallow. Water is the only thing people can’t fool with, I thought, it always tastes so good. I held a glass out to my aunt who shook her head no at me.
The rest were a hardened bunch, that’s why it didn’t affect anybody else in that boarding house, she said, her eyes daring me again.
Listen to the planes overhead, they go all the time now, she continued, calmer, I can hear them crashing right through the sound barrier.
I thought of all the things I could say. It wouldn’t matter what I said really. Wanda was gone. My Aunt would never be the same again. Death changes you. It leaves you double bound. You don’t want to go on without those you love. And yet you know you must. Somehow.
I can hear the planes too, I said softly, though her care home was a good two hour drive from any airport. When she smiled up at me her eyes went from being small and fearful to become huge orbs of violet love just for me.
Aunt Marguerite, I’ll see you next week, okay?
I said this while kissing the top of her soft white hair, the fragrance of roses wafting up to me.
Don’t let me detain you, she said, her nose already back in her book.
JAM 12Feb2013
”In the shadow…you can see your own shape… taking shape… as you watch those in the sunshine thinking they are free of darkness…nobody ever is… crossing that line out of shadow to the warmth of light sometimes takes more courage than there is inside you… but you do it anyway because you know there is no other way.”
AuroraMorealist (c) 15May2013 (c) photo AuroraMorealist
NOW EVEN NOTHING IS SOMETHING
Lyrics © AuroraMorealist (Janice) May 11, 2013 all rights reserved
Before you I decided
Life was best alone
Now I can’t imagine
That old world of cruel stone
Before you nothing seemed
Like anything I’d want to do
Now even nothing is something
Whenever I’m with you
Your kind heart proved trust and love
More than just a scam
I don’t need you more than want you
I already found the best man
Before you everything
Was hard- oh how I’d try
To put the brave face on
Never let them see me cry
Before you nothing seemed
Like anything I’d want to do
Now even nothing is something
Whenever I’m with you
Your kind heart proved trust and love
More than just a scam
I don’t need you more than want you
I already found the best man
Now I cry proud I still can
No more rising floors
Though sad tears happen too
I’m just so happy to be yours
Before you nothing seemed
Like anything I’d want to do
Now even nothing is something
Whenever I’m with you
Your kind heart proved trust and love
More than just a scam
I don’t need you more than want you
I already found the best man
Lyrics © AuroraMorealist (Janice) May 11, 2013 all rights reserved
If anyone wishes to buy this song, please contact Aura M here or Aurora Morealist on Facebook via private message, thanks!
For many of us living in tall castles the parental celebrations loom as painful barbs, reminding us we no long have our loved one to celebrate with. But celebrate, I do. I celebrate what courtisans and courtiers cannot not teach a soul no matter their well intentioned gestures.
Celebrating my mother’s life with memories of what we endured together, she the queen and me the princess, later me the maid in waiting and she the royal child of not knowing better than she did. Of this, we are guilty, all. What can come from this unsteady ground is a love and understanding beyond all castle walls. It is an abiding love for one another and an infinite understanding that even with royal flaws, we can love one another fastly. Perhaps even more fastly than if we overlook the chinks in our armor, pretending to ourselves that humans are or were ever perfect is not something we did.
Our love was the real kind of love where you could stray out of bounds off holy grounds and return to one another with a bond that you know is eternal. My Queen mother and I went through so much together, apart and yet found our way together again that for the last fifteen years of her life, we loved one another better than ever before. Woman to woman. Female to female. Sister to sister. Daughter to mother and Mother to Daughter.
A favorite aunt visiting from afar on iron horse was key to the understanding for what my mother went through before she was my mother; of that, I knew little. They say humans want only one thing, to be understood. From her words to me, I knew she understood. From mine to her, she knew I understood. She also knew I was telling her story before she fell ill. When I am strong enough I will resume writing the story of a Queen whose biggest mistake in life, perhaps, was following her heart.
Who among us cannot forgive such a mistake… I daresay none. Some day soon I will tell our full story of life in our tiny but most loving kingdom. Queen Mama knew how to love past the trials and flaws and this is her legacy: love, pure love.
Baby pink roses will soon be blooming…once again…time changes everything… if you are present enough to grasp your moments fastly… love is all.
“When it was the last Mother’s Day, I knew. I knew when I wrapped her gifts and had to stop to take crying breaks while doing so. I knew even as we chatted on the phone and she called me to say how happy she was with the gifts. I knew she would not be “present” for another Mother’s Day. She did not. All she had was constant nausea, felt sick if she ate and sick if she didn’t. I urged her to go to the Doctor. She couldn’t get in right away for one reason or another and would not see the Doctor on duty in her own doctor’s absence so it took some time. She did not know until summer set in brutally. Nor did anyone else. How do you tell people things you “know” and you don’t know why you know certain things yet not others… You don’t. You just watch life unfold and do your grieving before the real world grieving sets in with the realities of aggressive cancers. Happy Mother’s Day, Angel Mama. Fly High.”
(c) AuroraMorealist 02May2013
(c) AuraM May1-2013
The father was born so long ago, he would be nearly eighty now but his life was cut sharply in half of those decades. The daughter misses him still. Hears, sees and loves him everywhere she is, in everything she does. Happy Birthday, Father. Your life is celebrated daily, she says. The father’s leaving left a hole almost filled in by love everlasting. (c) JAM 29April2013
A story of just three paragraphs, each beginning with the same sentence was the challenge, this was my immediate response, written in flash fiction time of 5-10 minutes:
(c) AuroraMorealist 28 April 2013
(c)AuraM 25April2013
(c)AuraM 23April2013
~dusk to dawn to dusk~
frayed ropes dangle life to and fro
~laughing last tyre hangs still~
(c) auroramorealist April16/2013
~
dreamers adrift love seize all
mighty visionaries raising beings cloud high the
once invisible hearts of two
~
JAM (c)9April2013
~
Hounds circling wide moat
Vultures scouring from on high
Hope of feasts beyond water
Falling not from the sky
Arrow sights displaced
Troops high hopes misled
Eternal starvation for
Hearts that never bled
Over a tall princess who wasted
Nary a second freeing her soul
Her last tears banking moat
Whilst fleeing far away whole
~
JAM (c) Apr5/2013
JAM 03/Apr/2013
JAM 02April2013
~
melting snowfall vanishes on striking
tumbled weeds bluster across eight freeway lanes
mother’s nature lives in me
~
JAM 22Feb2013
~
centuries bowing one by one
staggering successions felling leaves and limbs askew
pages fashioned two by two
~
(c) JAM 19Feb2013
(c) JAM AuroraMorealist 2013
~
“Writing is both mask and unveiling.”
E.B. WHITE
*
moss drapes trunks once live
branches circling centuries anchored in truth lore
pride never survives human nature
*
JAM 8Feb2013
~
road thrice traveled deviates anew
bowing trees merciless roots spring innocent shoots
sorrows ceding todays into tomorrows
~
JAM (c)27Jan2013
*
good hooks swing me high
above
myself
*
emotional eating disorderdisorderdisorder
up down too much too little too far
looking pretty in my coffin
*
dust ignored weaves thick creatures
trusted broom bristles gather sweeping sweeping sweeping
electrical circuit bound shadows remain
*
(c)JAM 10Jan2013
“Solid ice ‘neath rosy sky, no churning turning burning spurning only learning, happy we were to fly.” (c) JAM 7Jan2013
forgiveness (Photo credit: cheerfulmonk)
Tonight I was talking to a friend about forgiveness.
He said his new religion is me and we laughed.
That was not long after I said, “The priest in Les Miserables did what I or you or anyone else would do for someone who was just released from prison, hungry and trying to make a new start and try to show the con a better way, give him a start to a better life. (Bear in mind I saw the live production at the QE theatre 3x so I am a sucker for the goodness the priest showed.) Wouldn’t we do the same? (My friend didn’t answer so I kept going.)
But think about this, does anyone really, honestly believe we should forgive Charles Manson or Hitler or the 911 bombers… I mean if that’s the case, why do we think of things as such tragedy and have a need as humans to debrief, process and come to terms with terrible crimes against our person or psyche or loss or … why can we not simply pull up our socks and get on with it – isn’t that what separates us from the animals? But even animals mourn and grieve… have you never seen it? I have.”
We both agreed we do not believe in bearing grudges or continuing to walk in anger, only that there is no “certain time” to be at peace with a situation that is grossly unjust, unfair or inhumane. I said that Chris Isaac came into my head and his interview where he, in jest, said something like “just as long as you say I’m a Christian…” because I think this massive idea of forgiveness was religion sprouted. Some things in life are simply unforgivable. They are too horrific to even speak of let alone forgive.
But that does not mean that we are not free to carry on loving others, free to trust others and move on, move forward away from the pain as best we humanly can. But sometimes we are haunted until we die. Or still have a legal process ahead of us to survive. We are not automatons nor are we clones, each of us is entitled to a different idea about healing processes because they are as individual as the person surviving them.
Sometimes there is no forgiving because, even though you probably would save that person’s life if you were called to do it in a moment of collective humanity, you wouldn’t want to be put in that position. Just in case.
Okay, I’m nuts, I’ll admit it. I was laughing when I wrote ‘just in case’ just now. But do you see what I mean?
I can’t make right wrongs others choose to do or forgive them when they aren’t even sorry and likely never will be due to that high horse they jumped on and won’t dismount.
For example, could you forgive an abuser and keep on forgiving them for incessantly abusing you further making YOU wrong every time they didn’t want to deal with the FACTS of what they had done and/or continue to do to you without any sign of regret whatsoever, all the while deeming YOU crazy while they did so?
I didn’t think so.
Neither can I.
But that’s really okay. It’s really okay not to forgive sometimes. Because sometimes forgiving just puts us right back under the wheels of the bus.
And I’m just a little more than totally exhausted from ironing out all those tire tracks on my hide.
Permission to be human and permission to not forgive if that’s what we need to do. It doesn’t mean nursing hatred or hostility because that is harmful to the self. It just means being at peace with the fact that it really is okay not to forgive. Because sometimes, you just can’t.
Oh I know holy and holier than thou people every where will likely disagree. But that just means they don’t know exactly what I mean.
No more harping at people in pain that forgiveness is the path to freedom. Or telling those unable to forgive that they are negative! That is a supreme form of abuse of someone who has already been hurt or abused in my opinion. The real path to freedom in my world is, as author and clinical psychiatrist David Burns, MD, says in his Feeling Good Handbook, getting rid of all the shoulds.
No more shoulding all over myself. No matter what the shiny, happy never-even-rode-in-my-canoe people say I “should” do. Try telling the Sandy Hook parents what they should do right now. Myself, I think I should shut my mouth and let those mourning folks do whatever it is they need to do because this is a life long healing journey and I can’t even begin to imagine how to tell others they should heal when I am still struggling myself over issues not even close to theirs on the richter scale of pain and suffering.
You should forgive, they say. They being so many who think they have or actually have or are in a far different place of wellness, having finished their own healing journey, to judge others anyway. If they really knew what they were talking about they should be quiet and accept me just as I am, wherever I am in whatever stage of the process I am in or whatever I choose to do or not to do that is best for me.
The next time somebody says “you should…” or “you need to…” to me, I will remain silent and trust that what I should really do is forgive them for their arrogance and … walk away. Quietly. I resolve not to let them disturb the peace I have found in not forgiving. They could never understand what I mean if they haven’t been here anymore than I can fathom how they preach freedom in forgiveness while walking with such loud invisible chains.
But that’s okay. We are not all the same. Different – just the way I like people.
JAM(C)3Jan2012
~
frigid fires
freckle
fair flesh
slivery moon beckons
purpling wagons circle
lassoing
rosy horizon
I jump through
~
JAM (c) 18Dec2012
PHOTO CREDIT:
Purple clouds (Photo credit: toastforbrekkie)
mama cardinal rules chickadee girls
little boy wren musical rooster daddy trailing
back home now and then
feathered species take root dropping
age of branched years limbing minds heart
entwined salty tears born apart
Momma said birds are angels
winged ones reach, bestowing on me more
angel love borne El Salvador
what Momma foretold – oh lo!
behold those bearing wings wrapped as flower
friend’s christmas gift angel power
pink and green shades love
crocheted snowflake hers, angel hearts ensuring fast
Momma’s love will never pass
JAM 11Dec2012
P triangle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You failed him, Jino said.
Janet couldn’t hear Jino.
She loved Jino, trusted her, would never fail her bestie of two decades.
He just needs the right woman, Jino said.
Janet never suspected Jino meant herself.
Betrayal would have been nothing, such a small thing to overcome if Jino was nobody.
~ ~ ~
Alex’s rage eventually escalates into violence. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
She didn’t have to mock her friend. The plotting, betraying liar didn’t have to further destroy her friend. He’d ended it. Again. She didn’t have to kick her friend. She didn’t have to avoid the clear exits. Right things to do are often the smallest.Why didn’t she just leave?
~~~
The Madhouse (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Everyone watched the man sobbing. One woman held his hand. They muttered and sputtered around.
Sheesh, look at him in public office and all. That’s the end of his career.
Another woman shouted, Are you people crazy? He is not a criminal, it’s just mental illness!
~~~
Prisoners Cell. Alcatraz (Photo credit: Daniel2005)
Don’t think keeping quiet erases your crimes. The memories are as etched in my mind as if you had actually taken a knife and carved them directly into my grey matter. Despite hollow justifications, there will be no righting your criminal commissions against my heart, a pounding small matter.
~~~
Christmas Tree with oil paint effect from Paint.NET (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Your hands are in every treat I eat, your voice in every merry I hear. Your face in every card I write. Carols choke my heart, albums in my mind so silent in the night, I can barely bear up. Christmas without you will never be a small thing.
~~~
JAM 10Dec2012
~
Friday feelings, excitement air light
Breezes blasting Wednesday, Thursday better still
Loneliness freeing all Sunday night
~
JAM (c) 27JUL2012
"Oh, look, boob cakes!!! Who'da thunk it???LOL LOL" Image by mayhem
Recently I learned that, thanks to genetics, I have a physical deformity shared by some sisters and nieces alike.
Apparently, through no fault of our own, we were born with one breast larger than the other. Now, because I’ve already posted a piece about the merits of breast massage, I know what you are thinking.
This woman is “breast obsessed.” That would be wrong.
But I do have a fond attachment, even a newfound respect for ”my girls.” It’s amazing how much we can so dislike something in high school as I did my generous chest and naturally curly hair, only to find ourselves appreciating those very features later in life.
Today while shopping for another bra in the midst of fifty percent off sales (yes, 50% which is a lot in the land of quality bras), I had a lovely woman assisting me and we wound up in a conversation about how one side of the body tends is a bit larger than the other. Usually the right or left hand or foot or both are slightly larger than the other. However, her chest lopsidedness was not at all noticeable.
On a recent shopping trip with a niece to spend some quality time together celebrating her birthday, she bemoaned her uneven chest through the walls of the change room. I’ve never noticed, I said, you look great to me.
Seconds later, she said, unlock your door. She stepped inside, shut the change room door, lifted her top and said, “Look, I wasn’t kidding!” We laughed together but she looked so stunning in the aqua halter-top she was trying on, I assured her no one would notice. I know this because they don’t seem to notice it with me either. But I do.
When I was in my twenties, I used to suffer upper back pain and several times, my doctor suggested reduction surgery. Instead, I worked out harder to strengthen my upper body. It worked. I no longer have the shoulder pain and upper back pain I used to suffer. And I am so grateful I didn’t have surgery.
Jacket and dress shopping are challenging because the waist is often a 6 or 8 but the 38 DD top just won’t stuff in no matter how I rearrange my flesh. I do not share to brag but to illustrate the shape that has often mistakenly resulted in the assumption by others that my sexuality is always ”on roar” or more readily available just because of my physical shape. It really is quite insulting to your intelligence.
“The girls” have often garnered far more attention over the years than I was comfortable with. Dark tops in brown, black and navy are helpful and I seldom wear anything showing any cleavage at all, just to downplay that element because everyone except little children seem to notice “the girls” first, then look into my eyes.
Sometimes they don’t even look at my face at all. Especially some men. They “talk” to my chest. I hate that. But then, people do tell us who they are, don’t they? These are some of the things that have caused me to envy my less endowed sisters.
Once while trying on a dress in a local boutique, Lotus, I think it’s called, the owner was helping me but I lamented that the dress wouldn’t fit my boobs at all. “They are beautiful,” she said, “did you buy them?”
I burst out laughing and said no, I was born with them. You are so lucky, she said. I consider that a compliment on high because, I suspect, in all her years of fitting women, she’s seen enough boobs to know. Men often say anything just to try to have their way with you but I figure she’s a “sister woman” without ulterior motives so she, as Alanis Morissette sings, ”oughta’ know.”
Lopsided or not, they are mine, they are attached to me and the only thing I detest anymore is when people use the word boob to describe someone foolish. That’s because I find it an insult to breasts but other than that, I’m good with my ”girl boobs.” At long last.
Regions of the brain affected by PTSD and stress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: signs and symptoms ptsd (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Well, what can you do for yourself?
Oh, Sensitive One, don’t you think if I knew the answer to THAT, I would not be in this situation at all.
This will pass, in a couple of months, things will improve.
Duh.
You should be over that by now.
Over what? It’s like grieving. There is no certain time frame. It takes as long as it takes.
If it keeps being retriggered by the nastiness of others, you are already into the symptoms before you can think straight… when I stammered on the phone the other night, my ex said “N-N-N, Jesus, (myname), here we go, poor (myname) the victim again.” No. Not victim. I survived all my ex’s BLAMING ME for all his alcoholism, smoking, gambling and internet addictions while we were married. I also survived him and her mocking me yet again when I am in such a weak position although I shook like a leaf for hours afterward and can lose several night’s good sleep if triggered badly. HE triggered me again the other night. He phoned from a blocked number and I don’t get those calls so said, “Hello?” “Hi it’s me.” “Who is this?” “Well who do you think it is for fucksake?” “I don’t talk to you,” I said before I hung up. Never picking up unidentified numbers again.
Kindness also helps me because it confirms there are still some kind-hearted people in the world.
Writing on as best I can.
More later, my friends.
Related articles
Ptsd and me Part II –
It was freezing outside, I had no protection from the elements in my thin summer jacket while I waited for the bus. On the bus I boarded some people had guns and looked very threatening but for a change, he and she were not among the passengers waiting to attack me. The bus was full of strangers, stony-faced strangers and as the driver sped toward the city, everything went foggy, you couldn’t even see the road at all. It took me a while to jostle my way to the front of the bus to say “you must stop, you will kill us, please stop” and he said, “don’t worry about it , I always know where the road is.” I took a seat behind him and fretted not about the terrorists on the bus who were all waiting to get you alone to torture you but about the fact that the bus might crash and kill me. Why was I so afraid of death, I wondered to myself, when life was this… this constant running and fleeing the bad people who wanted to always hurt me. Why was I not seeing death as a relief, I wondered as the bus wheeled closer to the city, the tall buildings coming into view above the dense clouds of fogginess closing in on the bus. My shoulders began to hurt, they were starting to tear at my flesh with their fingernails, I had to get off of this bus. I began to cry but that didn’t stop them, the terrorists were gouging at my shoulders with their fingernails, warning me of what was to come. The bus driver wouldn’t stop them either. He was one of them. Everyone on the bus was one of them, wanting only to hurt, hurt, hurt and refuse to be kind or even try to understand. Their clawing at my shoulders was smarting, stinging, burning, becoming unbearable. Why did they always claw at me like that?Unable to immediately comprehend why I was crying, shaking and my shoulders were bleeding again, I fought for consciousness. I got out of bed, wiped away the blood, applied some cream, orienting myself to the fact that I am safe, safe, safe in my little apartment, safe from anyone and anything. Again. None of them can harm me here.
Still, they do. There is a court process ahead of me that nearly kills me each time I see her face there. Why must she come and torment me so when she knows what harm, damage and destruction she has already caused. They know full well they thrust me into PTSD, I told them many times and she works in health care, so she ought to know what this is better than anyone. The court matters are not even any of her business and they never were. But I digress.
The terrors born of betrayal after betrayal from 2011 – 2012 by friend(s), three of my own sisters who asked no questions, just decided a whole lot of things for themselves as per usual, along with some of their adult children who followed suit and other trusted persons who I was always there for, all on the heels of four consecutive losses in four weeks in July 2010 which I was still healing from when shocked over an edge I never saw coming. Who could see such utter abuse and betrayal, who would know people capable of such abuse while claiming they love you…
I had no one.
Parents both gone, I was truly an orphan. There was no safe person in my world any more. They all meant me harm. Sometimes they still do. Just because people smile to your face doesn’t mean a thing.
Mostly the torture is in my dreams now. Rather, my nightmares. Because I cannot allow unhealthy, addicted or harmful user/abuser people in my real world any more. But it is taking time to heal me.
Sadly, when I awaken each day, PTSD is still alive and well in my world. Imagine self-harming without knowing you are doing so… until you awaken…
From 2011-2013 and still fighting and clawing as hard as I can to keep my head above water… to breathe instead of drown.
More next time, my friends.
The nightmares are not over yet.
© AuroraMorealist 14May2013
(all rights reserved by writer and photographer AuroraMorealist)
