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Tag Archives: power

I Lose More Therapists This Way*

06 Tuesday Jul 2021

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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brave, camping, change, Elisa, evolving, exaggeration, fear, friendship, hope, jellyfish, ocean, power, reality, spheksophobia, swimming, therapy, woman

I enter her comfy, cozy office, sink into the comfy, cozy couch and we get all the small talk out of the way. She knows I don’t want to talk about anything, I’d much rather babble on about current events or the weather, so she tries to get me to relax so I can share how I’m really feeling so I can feel better. She asked me to close my eyes. Yeah right, that only took five minutes for me to stay in, and then she asked me to imagine

…..sitting in the deep woods, woods filled with pine trees the breath of the breeze filling the boughs that made them sway, the scent of pine taking me away… I opened my eyes and said, “Yeahno. Nope. There’s bears. There’s bears and there’s yellowjack nests in the bottom of that tree. You know I have spheksophobia, I can’t go there, no bears, no hornets, no.”

May be an image of nature and tree
photo by Elisa Torres

I’m stiff on the couch again and she asks me to imagine the green hillside where Julie Andrews sings “The Hills Are Alive” amidst mountains and a beautiful blue sky, a scene she knows I love and helps me get to sleep. She asks me to sit down on a blanket and watch the moment. But the hills are alive with flowers and things that want flowers like bugs and bees and oh my god it’s all covered in bees and Nope. No. No thank you. I’m stiff again on her couch really wanting to talk about the ballots being audited in Arizona by Cyber Ninjas. She slowly brings me back to where I can see my sneakers on the Berber carpet, and I want an iced coffee in the worst way.

My therapist takes a sip from her coffee mug and returns it silently to the coaster on the side table. She says, “I want you to close your eyes again,” which takes another five minutes and she says “Imagine yourself floating. You are floating in the jade green waters of the Chesapeake, the place you love. The sun is warm but not too warm, the breeze is present but not assailing, you are floating, floating free and safe…” And I cut her off. “Nope. No. There’s jellyfish. Jellyfish. They’re all over. And things that touch my calf and and I don’t know what the hell that is because I can’t see it. I mean, if I can’t see it, then what is even the point of being here? No thanks.”

My therapist sighs and smiles, adjusting tactics and says, “Well ok, that’s fine. Close your eyes again please. And now you’re floating in your bathtub at home. Your apartment where the only sound is the air conditioner. Day in and day out, the world is quiet, as you like it, your most sacred safe place. You are floating in your bathtub, relaxed, thinking about the day, and …” I interrupt her. “Nope. No. I just washed the tub. I mean, I think I got all the cleaner out, but I’m not sure. I rinsed the tub out really good, I probably used more water than I should have, I mean, I really try to conserve water, but I’m not sure all the cleaner is out, so if I try to soak in the tub with that stuff still in there my labia might swell up and my vagina will follow suit and my uterus will *eject* because who the hell knows what’s really in those chemicals, so how about if I try again tomorrow after I rinse the tub out with scalding hot water for like 24 hours, it should be okay then, right? …. Right?


There’s bears in them woods and jellyfish in that water and it’s okay. My friend wrote about her time away and my current being had hackles up, red flags, fear which I throttled back slowly as I imagined myself there faced with a bear in the ferns, or maybe it was a deer, or nothing at all. After putting out my fear fires I felt amused because I can be a dork who can look at my real inside self and hear, “Well there you go. You got some shit to work on.” So thanks, Elisa for your allowing me to live vicariously through ya, and there was probably no bears. I doubt I will ever get over the yellowjack thing, but I’ll hit the water and the woods with you anytime.

*This essay was filled with exaggeration, but….

Upon Seeing The Word “Waves”

12 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Tags

impossible, Mermaids, ocean, poem, Polaris, power, waves

Sentient explorers
rogue shoulders
wild breathing
last gasp upon the shore, hammerhand, quartz-carver
cloak of invisibility
keeper of secrets
Mistress
impossible blues
Polaris gleams upon her black spine, hope for men aloft on Poseidon’s foaming mares
and dreams for little girls wanting to be mermaids.

Image

Rest.

01 Monday Jan 2018

Tags

clock, hope, life, New Year, power, rest

20171231_203836Too often the ticking of the clock informs our lives.  Do not let the ticking of the clock inform your life.  It is loud and constant. It is easy to fall into the march of time, that everything must be done before it’s too late.

It is the day of the next year. The night before it all falls apart. We hinge our everything on the ticking of the clock, a countdown. Where have we been, what have we done, what have we yet to do? Lists on paper or chilled on ice in the back of our minds, all we failed to do, and we fear we’ll never do unless we state a resolution, loud and proud, in ink, on TV, on Twitter, that we will achieve that thing we’ve been chasing.

Do not fall prey to the ticking of time.  The clock is loud, but our love and lives should be louder. Forget measures. Forget time. Your magic doesn’t stop at midnight, it doesn’t begin at midnight, it never has. We are beautiful and powerful and hopeful and wonderful every night of our lives. Don’t fall prey to the ticking of time or trickling of bubbles in a glass. Forget the promises you forced yourself to make last year and the year before.

What if, just for tonight, you were here, hearing the ticking of the clock, and just felt happy that the wind is 16.5 knots, the sun will rise tomorrow, and whatever you wish will stir at your command when you are ready. Not tonight, or tomorrow, or maybe next week.  The world doesn’t begin or end tonight. So celebrate the changing of the guard, the return of the light, and give yourself power over your life.

Posted by Kristine | Filed under Uncategorized

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Jim Nabors

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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childhood, choir, don't give up, holy, Jim Nabors, memory, mother, music, passion, poem, power, sing, tears, voice

Jim Nabors has left us. I am glad he is in peace. I can’t say that he’s the reason I wanted to be a Marine. It’s too complicated for that. (It’s certainly more complicated than the unyielding call of the jets flying over the warehouse where I toiled.)  His most recognizable character, Gomer Pyle, was simple in nature, kind of heart, which seems antithetical to being part of the war machine. He was part of my childhood thanks to Mom and his voice… oh. Jim Nabors’ voice.  I learned about passion by his voice alongside Andy Williams, Johnny Cash, Cher, Barbra Streisand, so many more. I heard his voice sing the hymnals I recognized from church, and it moved me, a girl of impressionable age.   Jim moved on, and I am grateful to the internet for sharing his performance of Impossible Dream (The Quest).  I dare you to listen and not be moved and reminded that the world is the life and we are stewards of it all, and our voices are holy. Our voices are holy.  (don’t waste it all.)   He is with my mother now, who introduced me to black and white TV. Shazam, and Golly, and Surprise.

Oh, by the way.  Tell me how you feel after reading the lyrics to this song. How does one bear it, how will you learn to bear it, where does your strength come from to sing those notes he sings effortlessly the power of that poem, to find the will, and the will, and the will to do anything at all, in those years that I didn’t know I had any power at all, little girl? Jim’s song seems effortless. I will never write or live or be as effortless as the victory of his voice… but it sure does give me something to strive for.

I may or may not stop weeping on the sound and the voice of his memory. And that’s just okay.

Truth To Power

05 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Tags

Disturbed, Iron Maiden, music, power, silence, Simon & Garfunkel

…. and then someone posts a link to a song that “Disturbed” covered, majestically, forcefully, and relevantly “The Sound of Silence,” by Simon and Garfunkel.  I was this close to shutting down my writing for the morning, getting ready to move on into some kind of useful action for the day like taking a shower and writing Christmas cards, but up pops that post.  I don’t know when he saw it, and I don’t know why he chose to post it today, but I only know it affected me this morning as it did the first time I saw it:  I cannot sing the song without tears and clenched throat. I imagine myself some kind of “Americas Got Talent” contestant, sturdy in my creative beliefs, but then the music cues and when I try to sing it, everything turns to waterfall, my throat choked with rocks and my soul wanting to heal the rifts, and I croak tears instead of strength.   I’m not sure how anyone can sing that song and not become puddle.   Simon and Garfunkel recorded the song in 1972. I was four. Did I know what soul was, rifts, waterfalls, pain, passion, or tenement halls were back then?  Surely not.  But I remember that song, that whole album, along with Andy Williams and Cher, Perry Como, Johnny Cash.  You know, my mom and dad never sat us down and said, “Here, boy, listen to this song, it will change your life. This is literature. This is passion, this is what it’s all about!”  Music was a background to things like washing dishes or erecting the Christmas tree with Bing Crosby. Loretta Lynn taught me that unless I stood by my man I am not a real woman, because only real women weep for their absent men, shuffling room to room, tears dragging at their cheeks, searching for their dignity, keeping their children in line and dinner on the table because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  (Poetry.  Lurking.)  And then I started to grow and understand not everyone has my Freedom, and the power in the cry for it!

I am moved to tears this morning because of a song, not because I am sad, but because of power.  It’s like the emotion the church wishes it could elicit from me, that eyes-closed, hand gripping dress rapture they wish they could incite from us every Sunday.  I read poems, dusty words on a yellowed page by authors nobody cares about, and they push me farther and farther down into disbelief, but so much wanting to believe that I was born with a sword in my hand and the fate of the world lies on my skill, cunning, and resolute in the power that I cannot fail.  I laugh in the face of your certainty.  Songs like this one, sung on street corners for change in a garbage poet’s voice, lowly, unhelpful, occupying a flash in a rebel’s mind teach me where the real people come from, their songs dark and misunderstood, but they never for a moment waver in their faith and belief in the song.    There is hope behind the neon gods we made, and it won’t take much to show it.  We just have to keep on keepin on.

PS:  Just got back from running errands and played the song again, this time with the window open, mindful of the time, one must not Disturb one’s neighbor after all,  and I sang this baby without a catch.  Yeah!  \m/

Disarming and Sorting Dream

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Tags

dream, fight, my power, power, sorting

I am in charge of guarding an entryway. My clothes are plain, not in uniform. I am carrying a heavy staff the color of yellow lines on a newly asphalted road driving in the dark. I am serious but not zealous or afraid.  Another guard comes to meet me at the entryway. I know him (both in the dream and in the waking.)  He also carries the staff. He challenges me, and I cannot understand why, but I disarm him without hesitation, without asking why, in three movements. His staff is on the ground.  He picks it up and walks back the way he came, and we’ve exchanged no words.  Some time later he comes back and challenges me, and once again I disarm him, staff on the ground, only this time our leader sees it.  There are quiet words among the three of us.  I drop my staff to the ground, the other guard picks it up and walks away. He does not speak or look back, eyes ahead, on task.  I am shown where to go and what to do.

I am inside the building now.  Industrial. Dimly lit. Quiet.  Rows and rows of metal racks with all manner of objects on them, those nearest me are covered in folded clothes. Someone had tipped over a machine that leaked diesel all over the rack and clothes. I right the machine and begin cleaning up the mess.  I separate the soiled clothes from the clean ones, but the leader comes back and says it’s not necessary, do not sort them, leave them as they are, the smell and the flammability will evaporate on its own.  I am appalled that we would try and give these clothes covered in diesel to others who need them.  I keep sorting the clothes in secret, and while I do, I look at stained sweaters and shirts that are nailed to the gray cement walls.    ###

This dream is clear for me, and I will share it :  Do not surrender your power to anyone.  Do not surrender yourself to yourself when you are weak.  Keep sorting what shall be kept from what needs to be put away, what is ready to be put away, what shall be put away.

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