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It's Different for Her.

I move through my grief over my brother's death. I notice so many things I've never noticed; I feel so many feelings I've never felt. I've never experienced grief before. Three of my grandparents died in my lifetime; I had no real grief. Uncles, an aunt passed; I had no real grief. I felt separated by miles and time from these people, few if any really shared my life with me. I came upon a forum created by a woman whose brother had died; the forum was specifically for grieving siblings. Her "mission statement" is what caught me. She writes: "It is said that when your parents die, you lose your past; when your spouse dies, you lose your present; and when your child dies, you lose your future. However, when your sibling dies, you lose your past, your present, and your future." This moved me to tears - for days.

I know I'm not alone in my grief, and I don't really need a forum to let me know that. My whole family, tens of relatives and friends, we're all grieving for my brother. My mother, however is the only one I know of that still weeps inconsolably, day in, day out. I tear up everyday, I'm sure my sister does too. I'd bet my life that my father cries every day for his only son, his future. My mother, though... My brother was their last born child, their baby, coming a full seven years after his two sisters. His sisters were born so close together to my mother who was barely out of her teens. I can only imagine how overwhelmed she must have been with no one to show her how to handle these impossibly delicate and devilish baby girls, with her husband in Thailand, her siblings all much older and scattered to the four corners of Massachusetts, her parents from the Old School, her friends just as hapless as she. When my brother came along, things were totally different. Here at last was a child she knew how to hold, how to care for... here was a child she could raise while breathing at the same time.

I've been reading "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, and this passage from a mother's point of view who just lost her youngest child halted my breath, tripped my little hairs, made my heart ache for my mother and not for me or my sister, or my brother, or even my father.

It's different for her.

"As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.

"The substance of grief is not imaginary. It's as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things it can kill. My body understood there was no safe place for me to be.

"A mother's body remembers her babies -- the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has its own entreaties to body and soul. It's the last one, though, that overtakes you. I can't dare say I loved the others less, but my first three were all babies at once, and motherhood dismayed me entirely. The twins came just as Rachel was learning to walk. What came next I hardly remember, whole years when I battled through every single day of grasping hands and mouths until I could fall into bed for a few short hours and dream of being eaten alive in small pieces. I counted to one hundred as I rocked, contriving the patience to get one down in order to take up another. One mouth closed on a spoon meant two crying empty, feathers flying, so I dashed back and forth like a mother bird, flouting nature's maw with a brood too large. I couldn't count on survival until all three of them could stand alone. Together they were my first issue. I took one deep breath for every step they took away from me. That's how it is with the firstborn, no matter what kind of mother you are -- rich, poor, frazzled half to death or sweetly content. A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world.

"But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after -- oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking in the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.

"My baby, my blood, my honest truth: entreat me not to leave thee, for whither thou goest I will go. Where I lodge, we lodge together. Where I die, you'll be buried at last."

from The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

Posted by Bullyland at 03:39 PM | Comments (10)

I can only avoid it for so long

What, you ask? What is this thing I can no longer avoid? Ugh - New Year's resolutions, that's what. I've avoided the topic thusfar and I could probably avoid it for a little longer, after all, it's still January, right? Ugh.

I'm so ornery, I'm so set in my ways, that my gut reaction is to ignore the new year's dawning. What is this business about making resolutions to change, improve, begin a new chapter? Why is it so ingrained in our culture? It's just another month. It doesn't mean anything. Or does it? There's nothing like a whole new digit and a blank calendar to inspire the list making optimist in one.

As I was telling my sister blogger Internet Geek, I can no longer hide from the fact that at best, my life is half over. I know it sounds alarmist, defeatist and pessimistic to proclaim, but it's only the bald faced truth. I have another forty years on this planet *if* I'm lucky. And as this fact hovers in front of my consciousness like a swarm of no-see-ums on a muggy day in August, I am forced to confront the reality. I'm in a rut. I've been in a rut. I need to do something, and fast, to get myself out of this rut.

I brought these observations to my shrink. She suggested I make a list of things I want to do before I die and choose the one thing I can work on right now. ( Why didn't I think of that? What a simple but incredibly astute suggestion.) If I want to be repeating myself 10 years from now, when I'm closer to fifty than forty, I'd better take the bull by the horns (snort!) and get busy. I know once I get started doing new things I'll break out of this terrible state of suspended development for good. I want to absorb all the culture of this planet that I can possibly absorb. There are things I want to do - things I've always wanted to do, and I need to get started doing them. As terrible lessons have taught me this past year, I've only got one shot here in this life. I need to start making it happen.

So here are the beginnings of my list.

I want to learn Spanish. One of my best friends is planning on settling in Argentina - her fiancee has purchased a winery there and I would love to mete out my golden years assisting her with the place.

I want to travel to Alaska and the mid- and southwest, the sections of America that I have either never seen or only driven through; I want to see the vast portions of wilderness that still exists in this country (before they're gone).

I want to be able to jog 5 miles like I used to. This may seem petty but it's really not. When I was jogging a few years ago I had so much more engery, mentally and physically. I don't think I will accomplish much else on my list if I don't get into that kind of physical shape again. I used to live for crystal winter days, chilly fall days, new spring days, all SORTS of days when it was perfect weather to jog. Now, when one of those days occurs, I just get melancholy thinking about how pumped up I used to get with anticipation of my lunchtime jog. I want it back.

I want to learn more about the arts & humanities, subjects I adored in school and still do. I want to study individual artists and study different eras of humanity's development.

So, that's what I have so far. There are more things to...mundane things like, keeping my house in order and getting out of debt, but those are boring and predictable so I won't bother listing them.

I haven't made any progress toward any of these lofty goals yet; I figure my first lofty goal is to finish the list which will take a lot of thoughtful effort. I don't want to haphazardly throw a list together that will end up under a leaky coffee cup or something. I want it to mean something. I'm going to print it in 18K gold when I'm finished and frame it.

I have started working toward the jogging goal, though. This is one thing I can do in the meantime, while I complete my list. I upped my effort on my daily walk yesterday, going another 5 or 10 minutes and never slowing down. Today I plan on doing the same, only actually break a sweat. That'll be new.

Happy New Year's, y'all.

Posted by Bullyland at 11:27 AM | Comments (2)

Fuck off, I'm reading

Zoiks! Lots of attention being given today to a Seacoastconnects.com forum thread regarding partner swapping. Not so much to my own little thread about book swapping. I guess it's just not as titillating. I for one would rather talk about book swapping than partner swapping, since I have an overabundance of the former and not even one of the latter.

I love books, I always have. I remember carving out a little hole in my closet when I was about 11 or 12 - complete with tiny bookshelf, battery-powered hurricane lamp, and snack box - just so I could read and read and read (and snack). This stressed my mother out to no end and she tried to abolish my little hidey-hole, but it didn't work. Eventually she just limited my time in there (I would have been in there every waking moment if I had my way). I have no reading hidey-hole anymore; but hey, I am the mistress of my entire house. I can read anywhere I care to and don't have to worry about being snatched from my book in order to clean my room or something.*

I've read a lot in my lifetime, but I do tend to go in spurts. I've been on a bender lately. It's reminiscent of my short-lived affair with Blockbuster.com. (As predicted, my movie splurge ended abruptly with the second or third payment after my free trial was over.)

I've been working my way through Oprah's entire Book Club with a determined zeal, thanks to Paperback Book Swap, an online free book trading service. It's awesome, totally free except for postage (you pay postage to send books to someone, but no postage when books are sent to you). As I get most of my books from the Goodwill anyway, this has worked out enormously. My little boy is an avid reader as well and we've already swapped out some great Berenstain and Beverly Cleary books. I've passed on a few to my older son as well (he really got into "A Million Little Pieces," as did I).

In the past few weeks, I've managed to polish off the following:

The Reader
A Million Little Pieces
Rapture of Canaan
I Know This Much is True
The Book of Ruth
She's Come Undone
Mother of Pearl
The Deep End of the Ocean
The Lovely Bones
98 Reasons for Being
The Queen of the Damned
A Lesson Before Dying
The Corrections

And I've unloaded quite a few books as well. As soon as I've finished a book I post it. The more books you post, the more chances you have that someone will request one of your books. You can't request a book unless you have credits, and you get one credit for each book you ship out (two credits for audio books). And yes, hardcover books are more than welcome. I'm so besotted with this new club that I've even written to suggest this blog entry's title as their new slogan, but oddly enough, no one really warmed to it. Oh well.

Anyway, give it a shot, whether you are a bookworm like myself, a self-help junkie, a history buff, or just a casual reader it's a great website.

*I do most of my reading after my son is asleep so there is no one to distract me anyway. My cats, usually possessing full domain of my ample lap, know and obey only one command..."fuck off, I'm reading."

Posted by Bullyland at 02:47 PM | Comments (1)

Snort, stamp, gnash teeth...or not

Oy, I've fallen on hard times. Seems my little blog has slipped to the #4 position on blogthecoast.com from a respectable #2 a little over a year ago.

How have I come to this lowly stature? I guess I'm just not fashionable enough. Seems like Runway Ready is eating up all the page hits lately. Who knew I just had to get my "fash-on"? Isn't being Bully fashionable enough?

Hmmm. Guess not.

If only I could be as funny and random as Funtime Sindy and Terribly Happy...

Or as controversial as Kelly...

Or as smart as Internet Geek...

Or as hip as Beth...

Or as entertaining as Mallory...

Or as cunning as Union Jack...

Or as disgusting as Kung Fu Mike...

Or as brave as Chris...

Hey wait a minute, I just guaranteed some page hits for all these people, further edging myself out of the running. Oh well, at least they have some talent. I've never been exactly one to "excel" at anything. I've always been a fast and impressive starter, only to fizzle out when real effort and/or little payoff were involved.

None can beat me at mediocrity, I guess. I have that.

Whoops. Looks like these two already did. Damn!

Posted by Bullyland at 02:12 PM | Comments (5)

[White] America Runs on Dunkin's?

I am a regular customer of Dunkin Donuts, even though I love my own coffee even better*. I usually have at least two cups from DD every week. A friend I work with was addicted to their Dunkaccinos (sp?) and was crestfallen when she learned that DD has recently replaced their Dunkaccino offering with the "New White Hot Chocolate." (Moreso because she'd just received a gift card).

To make matters worse, the little placard that they have by the register screams: WHITE. THE NEW BROWN. What? It seems positively...Aryan. Do they realize how bad that sounds? Well, probably not, and I'm sure the white hot chocolate is tasty enough. But I wish they'd bring back the Dunkaccino PDQ. My coworker is also the boss' favorite, and he was in the habit of bringing her a Dunkaccino in the morning - and of course so as to not betray his secret little crush, he'd bring us all coffees as well. Since Dunkaccino left, my friend no longer wants anything to do with Dunkin Donuts, and thus me and my other coworker suffer Dunkin-less mornings and that is not cool.

Dunkins, what are you thinking taking away Dunkaccino? What are you thinking with this NEW BROWN campaign!? You don't have to eighty-six the Dunkaccino just to bring out some white hot chocolate.

I should mention that my Dunkaccino-jonesing friend is also BROWN, and a lovely CHOCOLATE shade at that. This is like, a double insult to her. Bleah!

* My friend Sharon returned from Australia for the holidays and informs me that after drinking the delectable European coffee found there, Dunkin Donuts is now "swill."

Posted by Bullyland at 01:53 PM | Comments (4)

The Cutest Boy in the World

I hope everyone got a chance to play in the snow with a child this weekend. It sure did wonders for my soul. I finally figured out the video on my digital camera and managed to take a few of my little boy while we were sledding. You'll see for yourself how the boy deserves the title of Cutest in the World:

This clip is the first one I shot - after he and I had completed several successful runs. Goes to show you can't figure on anything 100%.

Let's try this one more time:

Following is the only clip he managed to get of me - he forgot to push the on button until I'd already made it down the hill. There are mysterious forces working toward keeping my identity a secret, I tell you.

Posted by Bullyland at 01:36 PM | Comments (4)

RE: Reincarnation

Would you be
the poorest
of the poor
and all it entails
in one life

And what if being
the richest of the rich
meant you had to give it all up
to achieve Nirvana
or else start over as
the poorest of the poor?

Posted by Bullyland at 08:55 AM | Comments (1)