Tag Archives: help

AWOL

23 Sunday Feb 2020

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I stalk
like an old lady
black t-shirt sweatpants thing
but you don’t notice me
sitting in the marble lobby waiting
echoing
I bring you my offering
Pieces parts
Hope in a bag
Crumpled
The kind that chokes turtles and whales
that somehow carries a can you help me
I am strong
with purpose
Solve my problem
Like an astronaut drifting without hope
rescue me, we planned for this
didn’t we?
His last words to me
I locked them in
I love you more
eidetic sunset, sunrise
Your need. mine.
I’m here always, but you are gone
I don’t want to lose the last of you
the best of you
this is my Graumans’ you
I carry on in a crinkly brown bag
like elder ladies do
hand to pigeon
I love you
I miss you
And that’s okay.

— Kenny’s kid

Suicide Help Is Here.

02 Monday Jul 2018

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I need to take a moment to use this space to talk to you about suicide.  Call it a public service announcement if you wish.

We don’t ask for help when we need it.
We don’t recognize the need in others before it’s too late.
We don’t think about this issue for many reasons, we shun it.

If you need help, reach and ask. People will reach back and help you, no questions asked.  If you need help with someone you suspect needs help but don’t know what to do, reach out.

The suicide hotline is 800*273*8255.   Put it in your phone.

****************************************************

We lost another young man today to suicide.  For privacy and respect I’ll not speak about how I know him.  Everyone tried to help him, but it just seems like he decided to take the worst path and live the hardest life, even though his close family tried to stop him from this way. They loved him so.

Sometimes we are beyond our ability to cope with a situation and we don’t ask for help because we think we got this.  I am asking you today to consider maybe you don’t got this. That you need warm, loving arms that can help you and your person who needs the kind of help that has been out of reach.  Don’t be afraid, don’t be ashamed.  CALL. Ask for help.  Now.   800*273*8255

If you feel so inclined to help support suicide prevention, please visit  AFSP

Thank you.

Bodies In My Trunk, Respectfully, Goodbye.

15 Tuesday May 2018

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I know the blue footlocker didn’t materialize into my teenage life like something that Scotty would beam up to the Enterprise, all magical-like.  I know the footlocker came from somewhere, and I’m guessing I got it either from a friend or from a yard sale. I kept the locker in my room somewhere. I’ve worked hard trying to remember where I kept it. Strange how some memories are present, the kind you can stub your toe on, and other things are just so unclear.   It wasn’t the centerpiece of the room, though. That was my stereo. This footlocker is dinged up, dogged up, gouged blue metal with brass corners and lock. I think I kept stuffed animals on top and glasses of tea.

When I left my teenage home I brought the trunk with me, my strong shoulders unceremoniously stuffed it into my Bronco, hauled it up two flights of stairs, and I kept it somewhere in my apartment. I’m not sure where. It wasn’t the centerpiece, though. That was my stereo.

One night, a man suggested that he was going to bring me, his soon to-be-wife, to meet his mom tomorrow, a backwards proposal. I squealed and we rolled around on his waterbed by the light of his Plasma Ball (look it up), and I hugged him so hard, excited and happy and it all felt so right. Later we dragged a 10,000 pound couch I got from a neighbor I no longer needed to my Dad’s house. Everything else got moved into my future-spouses house via our trucks, including the rusty, dusty footlocker.  I remember opening it on the bedroom floor, exploring old yearbooks and notes from boyfriends rediscovering all those feelings. I did not write down all those things that flooded back, blooded back, as I remembered those high school days. I shoulda. We tucked the locker into a root cellar where my old stereo went. I mean, he had his sound system and mine wasn’t needed, after all, just like some of the stuff that came from my mom’s apartment after she passed, and Dad’s house after he passed along, too.

The blue and brass footlocker pockmarked with rusty volcanoes is in my bedroom now because I asked one of the apartment maintenance crew to help me upstairs with it. If I was a teenager I could have done it by myself, but my rotator cuff says no-go. We pulled the rusty trunk out of my trunk and we lugged it upstairs.  I asked the young lady who reminds me of me (you know, running around after her dad, wanting to learn everything) if she likes the Thirsty Camel so I could buy her lunch.  I’ll repay her as soon as she will allow me. I know she will say yes.  Meanwhile, the trunk where I told my son all the dead bodies are buried sits alongside my bed.  The rusty key is somewhere. I have a screwdriver plan B in case I can’t find it. From memory I know my yearbooks are in there and a shoe-box filled with notes from those I loved and loved me. Not sure what else I will discover, but the focus is that this is where the bodies are, a life left behind and should not be ignored.  How will I reckon them, those notes in ink I can still smell?  What can I do with the past that was part of making the me who is not the same me anymore?

I see a bonfire in my future, not an angry one filled with hate and the desire to harm, but one that burns hot and clean.

The Queen Wears Saffron

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

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“They left me. The dogs. The afternoon!”  I cobbled together what she meant. I heard the panic in her voice, but that didn’t stop me from brushing my teeth and buying her a Slushie before I pulled into her empty driveway.

I entered the house, de-pursed and -jacketed myself onto her sofa. I took note of the state of her home. It wasn’t until I reached the second stairway that the dogs decided to make a fuss, but the herd did not murder me as she always fears. The dachshunds are a noisy lot but they know I’m not afraid of their “yeah just you try it” eyes and ivory teeth. They flop over and let me love them like the pussies they are.

She needed someone to take the dogs outside for their afternoon walks because everyone left her. I did my best in shifts and had some success as they relieved their bowels and barked at the breeze inside a plastic white fence. She asked me to stay and of course I did, willing to stay until midnight.

I brought the queen a blue Slurpie because I know it’s what she likes. I walked her dogs because it’s what she needed.  I listened to the queen whose house has been on fire since I’ve known her, Judge Judy playing in the background.

The queen sipped and nipped at food which I found encouraging, her dogs circling her wagon, allowing me on her bed. I complimented the lady on her bedroom curtains not because I felt I had to but because it was sincere.  It seemed to make her happy. I understand now why she says her bedroom is cold: the north wall is one big window that faces the Chesapeake Bay, and it’s hard to keep out the north/northeast wind from your eyelashes this way. The view is beautiful, if only one is okay sleeping under a pile of covers.

The queen was strong enough to ask for help in getting her dogs outside to relieve themselves, yet she wouldn’t allow anyone to delve into why her body is wasting away. I find it hard to ask and receive help, and her cold fingers remind me that I am a fool. She apologized for the current state of her home where she served everyone homemade meals and tried to save everyone from themselves because it was her job. I held her cold hand and noted the “watch it, punk” look in Izzy’s eyes: I told them both, “No worries.”  I left them resting in a nest of clean saffron sheets and a gray throw.

We all let each other down when we do not talk, when we do not speak the real. When we do not truly listen to each other.  My prayer for today is wrapped in saffron and dandelion, tiny pollens stuck to my fingers and nose, that we stop and we listen, and we grant ourselves peace.

Angels In The Parking Lot

03 Saturday Jun 2017

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It was a week full of wear and a week full of wonder.

Let’s focus on the wonder and the joy for the wear is just too wearying.

Here we have neighbors who know how to ask for help, who know how to help, to engage in the help, and one who sits back and wonders.  So my neighbor got a flat tire and asked me for help.  I got her car towed, and I asked another neighbor to help us take off the flat so she could get it fixed, and then he installed the good tire when it was done. (I supervised, of course, because they’re all using my car and my tools and my jack, but at least I provided some cardboard for him to sit upon so he didn’t get gravel in his shorts.) And, amazingly, he torqued the lug nuts in a star pattern without me having to say so, which is a miracle in itself and I want a fucking medal for keeping my mouth shut.  Neighbors helping each other, even if one of them isn’t as independent as she could be, I should not judge, but I hope she learns a lesson here and gets a spare tire and a jack.  Three strangers showed up and asked us if we needed help, and I knew we’re not in New York, Dorothy.   It was wonderful, top to bottom, even though it was a trial for her getting a flat.  We should look out for our neighbors, a message I want to trumpet as often as I can.  It’s where the real world is, angels holding hands as she’s waiting for the ambulance to come.  Work this human thing, people!

You probably live near someone. Do you know their name? Can you wave to them when you go down to get the mail?  Can you make eye contact or smile just a little?  Will you shove a few bucks in the guys hand when he begs in the parking lot, and can you ask your partner for help when you know you’re really hurting and need help, and I don’t just mean washing the dishes?  Ask for help.  Give some help.  All the rest is just noise.

Love.

White Helmets & Thunder

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

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It was perhaps 5:30AM when I was jolted out of bed by metal pounding, great booming concussions of the sanitation truck emptying a dumpster.  It’s not Thursday afternoon, why is this horrible smashing happening now?  How inconvenient.

It was 7:00AM when I heard the sound of thunder, but no, not thunder.  A distant low boom that cuts off quickly. This is the sound of either a fighter or stealth jet.  It growled and boomed several times, and I wondered if they would be practicing around here today, but it’s gone silent now.  There’s no use trying to sleep anymore, thinking about the marvel of our machines, the wonder that we forced our way into the air, and then beyond air.  Aren’t we so clever.

It was 7:30AM when I read the that civilians are being marched out of their homes and shot in Aleppo, Syria.  Technology allows us to stay in touch with little Bana Alabed via Twitter or CNN, a human family stuck in war.  The US has amazing flying machines that boom over the bay, but what have we done to help the people who asked for freedom from a tyrant?  Silence. Our country is war fatigued and tired of being the world’s police. Our government condemns and sanctions Syria and sends help piecemeal because it’s not in the interest of our country to start a world war over ideals.  It amounts to silence. The world watches as Russia sides with the tyrant and suppresses the rebels who only asked for more democracy five years ago. I watched the uprising and the refugee crisis in the news for years in silence, hoping the world would do something.

I’m hoping to redeem myself as a human being by writing letters, Tweeting, and donating to the White Helmets  , and asking others to do the same. Revolution cannot be silent, humanity must make a joyful noise and do the right thing.

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My Nightmare*

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

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It’s time to take a stand and more of us are standing but the word isn’t getting out enough because the media is too PC to print the facts, the truth, and the Word from the other side.  We are no longer the silent majority. So I am writing and sending this letter to every “news” place.  I wonder which ones will take the time to really hear us, to learn the truth and put it on the air.  I want you to put your porn and your Pokémon down long enough to take a look at our American history and by the end you will know we were right.

Our poor country went to hell after WWII.  Our brave soldiers sent off to fight come home to women suddenly wanting something “else,” as if it was better than what they had right here in the comfort of their homes. They wanted to keep working. Then they wanted to go to school where they learned about “equality” from liberals, people who told them it was okay to not want to be women but men in disguise.  Who encouraged the men to burn their draft cards, burn bras, burn flags, but the women?  Who stuck up for the coloreds when they wanted equality, like they didn’t have it already, to provoke the men into marching? That it’s okay for boys to kiss. And that we can’t be America anymore but a “global” community.  What’s wrong with just being America and let the rest of the world take care of their own mess?

Our poor country went to hell when we let women think they can decide for themselves what’s right for them, but even THEY don’t know what’s right, and we have to help them.   That’s why Roe must be overturned.  But somebody let women on the “Supreme” Court and now our country is paying for it.  They’re not practicing the law, they’re playing with politics, playing God, like they know what’s best for us?  Tearing babies out of a woman’s body is inhuman, and only an insane woman would want do such a thing. We need to put women back in the home, ask them to tend to their babies instead of killing them and calling them mistakes.

You think women are angry? What about all the men who want to work but they can’t find a job? You know why? Because the women and non-Americans have them all!  And don’t give me this crap about “immigrants” cleaning our hotel toilets and pulling tomatoes when no American wants the job–plenty of people will take the job, ask anyone!  There’d be more jobs for us if illegals and women would stay where they belong.  You think women are angry because nobody wants them in the service, but I’ll tell you the MEN are angry because we cannot fire back on our enemies in the Gulf even though we’re being missiled!  How about telling our men that we trained you to fight but it’s better if you just walk around the desert and fix schools for terrorists?  It’s NOT okay and our men must have the chance to fight the evil and make our country safe.

You know, a long time ago Charles Manson said he did what he did to show the coloreds what to do. He wanted to start a civil war between the races, so he murdered to show them how to do it.  Well guess what? Our civil war is coming and there is only one person who can help us make this country amazing again.  I will say what no one else will say because the media and liberals have taught everyone that it’s not nice to say what we feel because it might hurt somebody’s feelings.  One person will stand up to the PC garbage. One person will get this country back on top again, with help from the rest of us God-fearing men who DO know better. He may not speak the best way, but he knows deep down how much trouble we’re in and he knows how to get the job done.  Make way for the man who provides for his family, who works hard to earn his living, and cares more for this country instead of all the others.

We are the shepherds of this amazing country.  We will hold our heads high. We will hold back the flood tide of illegals and terrorists from coming here. We will hold our families, true families, together and they will never have to worry.   We will get rid of the criminals, the enemy, put them back down into the dirt below the serpents bellies where they belong. They will fear us and our country will stand strong and be ready for any enemy!  There is no such thing as equality because that implies there are unequal parts.  There is no equality, as God intended, and we will stand on the strength of that message.

God Bless,

X

*to be clear, the views expressed in this nightmarish letter are not my own*

10/13/16 Update:  Is this my country?  #Defendthe19th

10/14/16 Update: No, this, and this,  is my country:  Class and Decency  #Humanity