JoBiv vs. Dickinson, the Pandemic edition

Isn't this the space where I tell you I'm lucky, just in case you want to judge my anxiety or compare it to your own? Emily Dickinson has an answer to that - I measure every grief I meet - by the way, but I do want to tell you I know I'm lucky.

I'm still getting paid in this pandemic. Most of the preschools run by my company have furloughed all of their staff, including administration. My center expects some proof of life while they pay us, thus we're doing online trainings, Zoom sessions with families, homework of a sort... and up until this week it was hard to keep up with their demands. They required 20 hours of work per week, but somehow that felt impossible. How does one read articles and write responses when your phone keeps lighting up with all the people who are desperate to connect, when your thoughts wander to that catastrophic news article, when you just want to go to the dang store but you're too anxious to leave your block?

This week, the leadership teams from our schools asked for a different kind of work. We still had articles to read and Zoom calls, but Fridays were set aside for "reflection" and "self-care." If those quotation marks feel loaded, they absolutely are. I can't help raising my bullshit shield when a buzzword flies by my ear.

One of our choices for reflection was this prompt:

Self-Reflective Activity: “Developing hope in times of change…” Please answer the following questions:

• What does this quote by Emily Dickinson mean to you? “Hope is the thing with feathers.”
• Where do you believe your sources of hope come from?
• Where do you look for hope in your life? What are three things you hope for?
• How have your hopes changed as you have grown up?
• How has hope affected decisions you have made? How will you use the message of hope in the future?

When I tell you this prompt hit me right square in the Enraged English Major... well, let's just say I was shocked to find boiling anger so close at hand.

First of all, what a trite reduction of Dickinson's already short, very digestible poem. WHY? Why reduce it to this line, which I'm sure appears on many a tattoo and journal cover and inspirational poster separated from its not-even-that-complex context?

I'll tell you my assumption: because they Googled "reflections about hope" or "journal prompts hope" and got this in a little package. Tada! (And they're also worn out and stressed and hanging on from a swiftly unraveling thread.)

Second, we're in that Too Little Too Late period of this quarantine. This prompt, this concentration on self-care and reflection, comes at the same moment that we're hearing about new protocols for reopening.

We're being handled, and I feel the sticky touch of every awkward manipulation.

And I wonder how Emily Dickinson would have coped in the midst of a pandemic. Honestly, I think we know. She would have: 1. isolated, per uzh 2. written a buttload of elegant angst-ridden letters and poetry, per uzh.

Nonetheless, I answered the well-aimed provocation. And you may read it. In the end, did it get me writing? Yes. Did it give me an avenue of expression during a time when I feel powerless and stifled? Kinda. I'm sharing with a sense of cringey self-awareness that I chose to respond with a slap, and somehow still didn't communicate the layers of barriers between myself and any kind of hope.


“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

-Emily Dickinson

I never had a favorite Emily Dickinson poem, of all the pages and pages of poetry I analyzed, critiqued, emulated, shared throughout my undergrad and graduate education. She came off cold and distant, always using familiar words in oblique formations, hedging all of her most passionate declarations with quick self-censure and theological metaphor. It’s not that I didn’t like Dickinson, I just felt she was trapped in herself, winding around in a web of strict morality and this urge to wedge her fierce needs into acceptable forms. Reading her work resonated with me in uncomfortable ways, I know that for sure.

And this poem brings all of that right to the fore. Dickinson speaks of “Hope” - already carefully framed in delicate quotation marks - being something so light that it perches. She contrasts this lightness, the sweetness of its song, with its constancy and persistence, even “in the Gale” - a storm of emotion, doubt, crisis events, who knows? And lastly, she tells us that despite its steadfast presence, it never asks for anything in return. For something that seems so fragile and sweet, how can it also be so permeating, immovable and humble? She also seems to say, this “Hope” is inside her, actually within her soul, and therefore she can always hear its voice, even over the cacophony of her own internal storms.

Dickinson often contemplated divinity and aspects of Christianity in her work (even her odd poetic form is closest to hymn structures) and perhaps that’s where she loses me. But maybe I also simply disagree. I believe “Hope” is a light thing as well, something that wants to rise and pull us with it, and its voice is sweet and strong, but I do believe it needs feeding. In my experience, the cost of maintaining this sweet little bird works against its function, because it often requires the same resources I need to battle the actual crisis. In order to invest in hope, to turn and focus the ray of my thoughts on hope, I somehow have to turn my efforts away from what needs to be done in the moment. I can’t be bothered with setting up some carrot-on-a-stick contraption to motivate myself through harder moments.

Or is “Hope” is too vague and abstract for me, with its “tune without the words,” and instead I rely on what I know for certain: I have survived worse, over and over. I have defied death and disease and grief, and limped onward through life, knowing that every hard thing eventually becomes soft if I work at it. Everything that is heavy eventually wears down to something lighter. Is that hope? Is it pragmatism? Even knowing this for certain - that no circumstance or feeling is permanent - that knowledge has nothing to do with feathers or sweet bird song. It has everything to do with pushing through the storm.

I think this is the point where my personal philosophy brought me to Children’s Literature. Despite assumptions that children’s books are “cute” and “sweet” and safe and optimistic, many of the most successful books - the books children ask for - are full of courageous journeys rife with danger and challenges. They give children access and validation for feelings they know: defiance, frustration, fear, and the inner drive to resolution. I think of books like Where the Wild Things Are, Harold and the Purple Crayon, and of course We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. All of these stories are carefully crafted to show children who take risks, push through, problem-solve, even enjoy aspects of the journey, and find their way back home.

How strange is it that this crisis, this journey, took place in our homes? The challenge is more that home itself has changed, that the “beyond” is beyond us, and that we yearn for the most mundane of our weekly rituals. In that sense, this hope - the hope that we will return to some kind of normal - should be within our reach, yet it still seems depressingly distant. My hope, which is more of a knowledge, is that I will show a child how to put on her own jacket again, that I will hear a boy singing his favorite song to himself on his nap mat again, that over months and years I will hear countless young voices declaring “I did it!” with that resounding song of self-accomplishment. I know these things will happen, but it will require a deeper commitment to showing up each day, to being present with each tantruming child, to balancing my own needs with those of growing, hurting humans. My hope certainly needs feeding, and reminding, and perhaps a mantra beyond any “thing with feathers.”

So, I offer you this, from Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt:

“We can’t go over it.
We can’t go under it.
Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”

The Guy Who Called Me Girlfriend

I broke up with the Manboy about three weeks ago, although he doesn't seem to have fully comprehended the news. He texts me to tell me his work is boring today, or to complain about how much reading he has to do. He keeps asking me to join him for dinner or lunch, or Easter Brunch at Eastern Standard. I would, mostly because my weekly grocery budget hovers around $14, but I am pretty much done listening to him talk about his fairly manageable life in overly dramatic terms. And interrupting me. And one-upping every. damn. thing.

I still can't tell you how we wound up dating for six months. This past year has become a miasma of awfulness in my mind. I met The Guy Who Calls Me Girlfriend (after a month of staggered dating) right around the time I was hospitalized for 8 days due to a majorly infected central port. I emerged from that with a PICC line and a visiting nurse and syringes of medication and total exhaustion. My immune system has been utter crap since.

Basically, I was tired, unable to work, automatically ill whenever I did work (kids are germy, you know), and Manboy decided he would take care of me.

I was too tired to beat him away.

Not a stellar start for a relationship, you say. "Yeah, I know. I'm still not sure what's going on," I would say, every time someone asked me about him.

Things got worse with his temper tantrums, his hypochondria, his constant and persistently terrible "advice" to get my life back together. And then came the suggestions for how I could dress sexier for him, lose more weight (while he gained weight), "get over" my depression. Apparently I was supposed to call him and text him to remind him to study for his classes. It was my fault he didn't do well on his exams. And if I tried to introduce a new restaurant, suggested going to the movie theater, suggested pretty much anything outside of his habitual comfort zone, I was admonished and punished with angry silence. I learned to stay quiet and let his constant outpouring of opinions and emotions sweep over me. I learned that all his moods and outbursts were temporary, and if I just hunkered down and became as still as possible, as small as possible, they would pass.

I didn't notice the slow accrual of a kind of emotional silt. I was constantly fearful of the next outburst or indirect attack. Things he said about my body and my capabilities swirled around my head for days, then months... but I believed them already, so it was easy to catalog them with my own self-hating mantras. I knew I had become both more indefinite and more weighed down and it was a horribly familiar state.

But I needed somewhere to be that wasn't my apartment. And I really liked his cat.

I grew used to having him in my life. His gestures became familiar, and it was nice to have someone to touch. I don't let people touch me, especially in my city life. My personal space is sacred. So when I give permission, that effort, that act is momentous and painful. Once I allow someone in I am far too worn out by the process to close him out again.

He loved me. He introduced me to his best friends, his mother, paraded me around his workplace and called me his Special Lady, his Darling.

But I knew part of me had gone dormant. Whatever he loved about me... well, it wasn't me in full bloom. He couldn't know me because I couldn't trust him enough to actually inhabit myself.

And I wasn't comfortable bringing him around my friends. At one point he told me that I need him because I clearly didn't have anyone else in my life. Although that sometimes felt true in my lower moments, I knew I could access people who cared about me and that I had purposely kept them separate.

I was ashamed, not of him, but of how I allowed him to control me.

I noticed, at some point, that part of me had fled. I was protecting and withholding something very dear. I was behaving like a prisoner who had given up hope of freedom. I had taken on the role of a victim. He never attacked me physically, and I kept telling myself (and he kept telling me) that my wariness was my depression taking over. But the ever-present shame and anxiety had grown overwhelming.

It took an incredible effort to end it. I invited him over and I could tell he knew it was coming. He unwrapped his scarf and took off his kermit-green hat and said, "I love those glasses on you. I'm going to make you wear them more." I brought him to the brightness of the kitchen and got us both a glass of water while he complained about his day. I sat and pretended to listen, trying to find an opening.

Eventually, his monologue tapered to a few ready phrases. He took a deep breath and my eyes were already welling up with tears.

"What is it?" he asked. He took my hand and rubbed my knuckles with his rough thumb. I couldn't look him in the eye. I was suddenly awash with the thought that I didn't want to hurt him. To hurt him.

But I had to. I pulled my hand away and found a tissue for myself, mostly fiddling with it.


"This... we're not..." I desperately needed a script. How could I be so useless at a time like this? The tears burned down my cheeks and pooled at my chin, and of course my nose started running. Gross.

"What? What are you trying to say?" His turquoise eyes burned into me as I wiped my nose and chin.

"I can't... This isn't..." I had worked myself up with fear, uncertain of his reaction. Would he jump up and yell? Throw something? Slam his chair against the wall? Would he go through the list of reasons I was mentally unfit to make decisions? Try to convince me of my own feebleness?

"This needs to end," I said, kind of warbling through the snot and tears.

"Yeah," he said, almost whispering. "I was wondering when..."

We sat there and I cried, ablaze with the shame of crying.

"You're gonna make me cry," he said, and his eyes did grow red and wet.

He stuttered through several unfinishable phrases about his lack of surprise and his sadness about losing me. He told me, again, that I was his Special Lady. He repeated over and over that we would still be friends.

I didn't respond, but I never did respond. He must have decided, as always, that no response was a form of permission.

Eventually he stood up and we hugged in the kitchen. He squeezed me extra hard, held me out at arms length and kissed my forehead before hugging me again. In the foyer he kissed my head again before awkwardly scrambling to put on his coat, locate his hat and scarf.

"I'll talk to you soon," he said as he opened the door. "I'll text you."

God, I need to learn how to say no again.

And I need to wash this silt out of my brain.

Blossom with me

 

I love Blossom Dearie, in case you were wondering. (I'm actually fairly sure you weren't wondering.)

Some talented person with a lot of time on her hands made the above animation to accompany one of Dearie's most darling tracks,"Doop Doo Dee Doop." First of all, that's a genius song title, and the promise of the title comes to full fruition with the first lines: "Why don't you join the group? It's better than being a party poop." Although I have a gorgeous and growing list of replies to that question, the lighthearted joshing of the invitation could almost convince me.

The animation confounds me, however. It seems to depict a dream sequence, or a shopping trip to the local greengrocer. Or it could depict the complicated life of a carrot. Hell, I don't know, but it's charming, nostalgic and makes you wonder if the artist was a Freud fanatic. It could also be complete artistic randomness. I couldn't find much information about the animator. All links led to... well, nothing much.

Back to Dearie... She's one in a list of unapologetic artists who purposely promote a stylized character in their music. Dearie's is quiet but confident, straightforward but playful, naive and simultaneously savvy. She chose standards with heartbreaking stories (Sophisticated Lady) and sang them as a confidential counselor, empathetic and unintrusive. She transformed downright corny Broadway tunes like "Surrey With the Fringe On Top" into salacious, private invitations.

She's been criticized, of course. In an interview Fresh Air's Terry Gross, Gross asks about detractors of Dearie's "tiny voice." Dearie says, "It's very funny to have worked and sung for so many years, and then someone tells you, 'Well, you're not breathing properly.'" But she was unconcerned: "I think that [working with a vocal coach] would probably make my voice more powerful, but at this age, I don't think I'm going to worry about it."

In other words, I'm the one with the career. Buzz off.

As a singer, I find I'm also amazed by her conversational diction. She speaks the words with unabashedly American pronunciation - strong R's and nasal vowels - and rarely elongates a word, even if she slows down the song. She places lyrics, almost talk-singing, and the style makes me feel like she's having a friendly chat, telling a story over coffee. There happens to be a jazz pianist at this coffee shop, but that's just fine.

Actually, I would pour money on that coffee shop. If I had any.
 

Of course, Dearie was the pianist - a pianist first and a singer second. Her sense for rhythm and restraint starts on the keyboard. She punctuates the song with her voice rather than possessing the song with a full-body belt. I envy her musicianship, her sense of comic and dramatic timing, and her minimalist abilities.

In later tracks, she shows off her vibrato a bit more, and this reinforces, for me, the deliberate choice of her delivery; she didn't whisper her songs because she couldn't sing, she chose that character. She laid back on her piano bench, approached the mic with her sweet secrets and became an icon.

I would love to have that confidence. I have no idea whether I even have a signature style, especially since my tastes range from the self-possessed divas (and divos) who came out of the Big Band era to the subdued (and possibly stoned) understatements of Cool Jazz.

Perhaps if I pursue a carrot amidst a rain of fish, it will all become clear. I'm taking a nap.

When in doubt, list.

This March has been such a blazingly shitastic

No, no, that's not the way to start a post.

I want to kill everything, and I'm pretty sure, at this point, I could do it with my raging feral hatred and a piece of silly putty

Hmm. Nope. Take a deep breath, Jo.

Some general advice to self-critical bloggers and diarists: Don't write things.

Kee-riste. Okay, forget it. There's got to be a way to quickly update my meager readership without setting off a three-day emotional breakdown.

Oh yeah, a list! No expansions or deep explanations necessary, just a presentation of facts and events. Those who know me will know that each item has caused my self-hatred and anxiety and isolation to completely take over, and I may be able to avoid my customary proclivity toward dwelling on awfulness. Sure, that's it. (I'll try to limit myself to 12 items.)

March:

1. My Aunt Diane died after a ten-year battle with ovarian cancer. I couldn't attend the funeral.
2. My mom is convinced that I am the only confidant she has left on this planet.
3. Dad is acting strange - sold his car, doesn't seem to be working, calls drunk.
4. I broke up with the Manboy.
5. I am working on all the manipulative undercutting and controlling bullshit I allowed during my relationship with said Manboy.
6. Passing out, or nearly passing out, first thing in the morning has become a regular occurrence.
7. It took me two weeks to complete a phone call to my doctor's office. Appointment scheduled for mid-May.
8. I have no work.
9. I was turned down for a $10/hr job at a childcare drop-off center in a gym. Because, master's degree.
10. My usual references are dead, overseas, or otherwise non-responsive.
11. I've been living with a narcissistic,gun-lovin', fundamentalist Christian bulimic who chews with her mouth open for nine horrific months.
12. Despite efforts to invest in my friendships, I'm alone. All the time. The fact is, I don't rate.

Okay, I can't help it...

13. Shane's deathiversary.

Now just imagine the full-blown pity party. I was thinking I could market Pity Party Packages, complete with sad-face balloons, Elliot Smith albums, half-eaten Chinese take-out from that place that's not as good as that other place, and a massive chocolate cake. (It is a party after all.)

On the bright side, I posted in March.

Snow, Snot and Super Bowls

Is that a great title or WHAT? I mean, really... I almost wanted to change it to Snooper Bowls just for the sake of poetic silliness. But I didn't. Such restraint!


Oh, Boston. Why do you entertain me so?

The hiatus between snow storms will end tomorrow morning, according to the many over-excited meteorologists. The lines at the grocery stores, atrocious on any normal weekend, are amplified by the cataclysmic collision of the Patriots playing the Super Bowl and the storm panic. Shelves are empty; staff cannot keep up with restocking the various items New Englanders require in these circumstances: toilet paper, milk, eggs, avocados, beer, chocolate.

Here I sit, surrounded by piles of dirty clothes, strategizing my next attack on our building's laundry room. Will it be crazy because of the storm? There are only two washers and two dryers for a building of 15 units, about 60 people. Will it be easier once the game starts? I know it will be impossible after the snow; too many concrete stairs exposed to the weather for my limpy legs to handle.

I'm not attempting the world outside otherwise. I have a snotty, sinus-y cold. I have my medicine and plenty of tissues. The Guy Who Calls Me His Girlfriend* brought me guacamole and chips, and then ran out the door before my evil germs could invade his healthy self.

I had to cancel my one steady job, a two-year-old in Belmont (two unreliable bus rides and thus an hour and a half away) because I assumed the parents won't want a coughing, sneezing, green-snotted sitter in their home. I believe the little guy gave me this cold. He was coughing a bit last week and his nose was still crusty and red from constant wiping. I've been waking up (which means I slept at some point - that's nice to know) with my mouth open and dried out and my face just crammed with nastiness. I got up to eat something and take meds and wound up back in bed, curling up with tissues and making myself drink water now and then.

But it's so quiet.

Roommates are gone. The whole apartment is still and nearly silent. The cat sleeps on the big chair, radiator steam whistles and bangs here and there, humidifier gurgles. My fingers tap on the keyboard. I have cups of tea and oranges and guacamole. I have laundry to lug outside and down stairs and back again. I have an impending Super Bowl to watch, I guess.

I have time to think.

Please, God, don't let me think.





At least I like the snow. Without a car to dig out or a commute to worry about, snow becomes a beautiful marvel. I loved watching it fall during the last storm; first the innocent meandering flakes that seem to get distracted on their way down, catching upward gusts and collecting on sidewalks in a sheer, lacy layer. Then the slanting, heavy attack, pounding that first fragile layer and battling every available surface with seeming intentionality. The wind picking up, blowing a fierce wall of snow off of the tall drifts. It's impossible to tell how much has accumulated because it refuses to fall straight. Then the eventual calm... Every little twig holding up a slim pile. Sidewalks, stairs and streets completely buried. All the hard edges we construct, the steel and stone and gravel... all of it softened and encased and conquered by billions of intricate snowflakes.

And the quiet. Snow muffles the city. It stops the traffic and the trains, the frantic walking and shouting and coffee cup balancing, the birds, the cabs, the cash registers, the kitchens. No sirens. No planes passing overhead. The occasional plow comes through, but the snow is too deep for them to scrape against anything. They make this gentle, constant noise, a hushhhhhh.

Eventually people will venture out. Kids break out of their homes in bright snowsuits and throw themselves into the tallest drifts with squeals and giggles. College kids assemble layers of jeans and sweaters and sled down the hills on plastic trays and storage bin covers. Seasoned residents shovel at least the first layer off of their cars and stairs. Some people, like me, venture out simply to witness the transformation of the buried city. We struggle through thigh-high, sometimes waist-high snow just to experience it, just to look around and wonder at it. Everyone smiles as they pass, friendlier than usual, united by the frustration of the weather and a kind of relaxed resignation. Not much you can do in a storm like this. Just exist, witness, play, and head back inside to warm the hell up.

Then we all wait. We start to hear the scraping of plows against salted roads. Then the occasional siren. Then the slush, traffic slowly starting back up and carving into the slippery streets. People return to work, as people must. The piles become problems, shoulder high icebergs on every side of the intersections. Funny little paths appear along the areas we know are supposed to be sidewalks.

Life is almost normal out there, I'm told. When I went out yesterday, every street was cleared and most sidewalks were bared and salted. There were still massive, dirtying piles and slushy puddles making any kind of travel rather uncomfortable. Walking, driving, T-ing, bussing... the city is still putting itself back together and there is simply nowhere to PUT all of the snow. We're forced to stomp it down and press it into icy mush. I truly pity people with cars in a city where there are already too few parking spaces. And the snow isn't pretty anymore. It's dimpled and dirty, lumpy and inconvenient.

So I look forward to this next storm. I can't really say that aloud because I think I'd get punched in the face. But I like these moments of suspension from real life. Maybe I like that everyone, the entire population, is forced to join me in the pursuit of nothing. Maybe I'm jerk that way. Or just increasingly lonely and jealous of functional society, more sensitive to a feeling of exclusion.

Can I learn to enjoy the quiet?

I think it's a good sign that I'm writing a bit, but I'm always worried that I'll wind up exposing something... too fragile, I guess? Something that I can never hide completely after exposing it to the air. I have this sense that I'm looking out over my thoughts and witnessing them, fascinated as I am with the snowstorm. But if I voyage out into them I will either wind up smothered completely or sullying something that cannot ever be made pure again. And then what? Is it wise to navigate any of it while I'm completely on my own?

For now, I have cold meds and tea. I have laundry. I have the tangible, physical world to deal with. I will surely have hollering neighbors at some point tonight as the game gets underway, and I'll be grateful for my seclusion.

Right?


*Current Manboy, in constant danger of being fired. Long, intensely boring story.

Italian Lemon Cookies and the Mindtrap of The Culinary Graveyard

Picture me standing on a kitchen chair with my arm elbow-deep in the top shelf of our kitchen cabinet. Each item I move requires a little extra muscle to unstick from the peeling, likely lead-rich paint of the shelf, especially the molasses jar. All the necessary ingredients are present: lemon extract, shortening (one large container, one small), various bags of white sugar and flour, baking powder, sprinkles.

Also present and accounted for: panko crumbs (never used), almond flour (opened but barely used), crystallized honey - maybe two tablespoons-worth, and half a bar of Trader Joe's milk chocolate. I chalk these up as a perk of the roommate cohabitation experience and shove them aside for someone else's enjoyment.

Despite the plenitude of foodstuffs, a short grocery list forms itself in my head:

Shortening
Sugar
Sprinkles...

A glance outside reminds me that it's snowing steadily, great big fluffy flakes that melt as they splat on any surface like half-assed snowballs from heaven. Do I really want to go out there? Is it worth suiting up and limping eight blocks to the local StopNShop?

A glance at the "use by" dates on the shortening cans assures me that it's unavoidable. The big can: July 2012. The small one: March 2011. I'm not certain that the use of yellowing vegetable lard will harm my project or my friends' stomachs, but it's not quite in the spirit of the holidays, is it?

Upon closer inspection, the opened bags of sugar are all about one-third full of crusty, hardened clumps. The sprinkles are crumbly and the white ones have taken on a pinkish hue.  While I'm absent-mindedly sorting I find several shakers of sprinkles, all of them sticking to themselves in permanent candy colonies  or badly depleted (who decided not to use the last 8 chocolate sprinkles on her last project? Does this really absolve you from the duty of replacing them?).

And so I find myself zipping up my sweatshirt, stretching my knit hat over my haphazard morning ponytail, wrapping my scarf twice... and thinking.

Dammit! Not thinking!

The whole point of this baking adventure was to avoid thinking. And doing. And calling. And filling out forms. And, most of all, worrying.

But everything leads back to this place in my brain lately. I could be saying to myself, "Good for you, Jo! Go out into the world and get groceries! Get baking! Do something cheap and kind for others and join in the holiday celebrations with some kind of happiness!" The circle of thoughts (really, the Circle of Thoughts) at this point) pulls me away from those self-wishes and turn me back to the questions: "When was the last time you did something good? Why haven't you been useful at all? What is the point of you? Remember the Jo who used to do things? Make things? Enjoy things? What have you done to her? Do you even deserve to enjoy ANYTHING?"

My journey through the graveyard of the baking shelf seems to prove the self-doubt: it's been so long since I've baked anything. It's been years since I've even wanted to try. I used to love trading recipes and having friends over for dinner. I used to save my pennies for culinary treats, especially around the holidays. This time of year used to bring on a mess of cookie sheets and mixing bowls, not to mention sketch books of Christmas card designs and piles of stamps and ink pads and embossing powders.

Where the eff did JoBiv go?

Here's my promise of this moment, and I know it will require reprinting and repetition on my part: I will try, and I will remember that trying itself is progress toward something... more solid, I guess? More familiar, at least.

So I'm buying the damn sprinkles. I'm buying the tub of Crisco and the big bag of sugar. I wish I were getting paid for something at this very second, but I will fill this space in time with lemon cookies made for sharing. And, knowing me, I will probably wind up enjoying myself, even if it's just a leeetle lemony bit.

The cake incident of 1982

cake incident
Originally uploaded by JoBiv!.

People are always clamoring for pictures of JoBiv. Why, clamorers? Why?

Well, the day has finally come. I chose an oldie but a goodie, and I hope you like it. There I am in the middle, with Cripps on the left (funny, he's left-handed) and Smacks on the right. This telling photo comes from what was likely to be someone's birthday, because we didn't have cake often in our house. Can you imagine, three boys and a little girl in one house. Would you give us sugar? And you shoulda seen Smacks on sugar. Alarming, I believe, is the most accurate term.

Anywaysss, my evil mother always kept the camera on hand just in case we broke down in tears, or this is what I've come to believe after sifting through our albums. Many a life-affirming moment has been caught on Kodachrome - Smacks' head stuck in the next-door neighbor's deck rungs, Smacks post blue chalk-eating experiment, JoBiv giving herself a bath in the bathroom sink and getting stuck there... etc. Okay, Cripps and Tom didn't cry as much. Cripps wasn't on Earth with us, and Tom was high. Or somewhere else.

In this case it's impossible to know the true prompt for this bout of tears, but my brothers sure do look guilty. Happily guilty. I mean, could I really be that miserable when I was given a piece of cake and free reign - sans utensil or parental help - to shove it into my mouth? And my ear canal and nostrils, apparently. Perhaps I was protesting the busy wallpaper, or the hand-me-down pants, or maybe I was simply being a two-year-old pain in the ass. If it weren't for those smiles and the strategically hidden hands, I could believe it was just a moment of artistically inspired tempestuous moodiness on my part.

Or perhaps this is early proof of my disdain for posing for cameras.

Go outside!

Can't claim ribald health when I have to carry this card on me at all times.

Also, I now have a plastic port-a-cath in my chest. And a massive bruise on my boob, and two areas with super sticky bandages that are meant to keep the stitches in place. And a general, all-encompassing confusion when people say, "You look great!"

Bullshit.

And my ex (Sir Knight) decided we should get together to catch up and talk. About him. We did get together. We at least went to see Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever it's called - amusing, big-Hollywood style theater enjoyment - and that soaked up some time from my infinite, underutilized day. We talked, or rather he talked, about his upcoming schooling in Massage Therapy. I'm having difficulty comprehending... Well, he didn't like touching me, after all... I don't know. Something doesn't connect.

Not much connects at the moment. I'm just not capable of anything heroic, even in my own interest, and going outside seems heroic at this point. (Thus the reminder.)

I'm so easily hurt at the moment. I think hibernating may be wise.

Oh, manboys.

The manboy I'm trying not to love was sleeping with everyone. EVERYONE. I have been trying to salvage whatever was salvageable, discussing misunderstandings (apparently I wasn't clear about expecting him to reserve his body for me), attempting to spend time together, and it seemed to be going well. I tried to reach him yesterday, suggested hanging out, and lo, he was unavailable for hours. He tells me today, "Sorry about that. I was with someone."

"I'm thinking of giving up on you," I say.

"Honestly," he says, "I think you should. The more chances you give me, the shittier I feel about the whole thing."

The shittier HE feels. Hmm.

But, the timing... I had finally trusted him enough to talk about some Big Scary Things (psych history). I trusted him enough to talk about my family a bit (forced to, due to an impromptu trip to Rottenchester to see my brother who had drunkenly fallen into a fire pit and required surgery). I let him keep a toothbrush here. I let him keep deodorant here. I introduced him to friends and invited him to parties! Me! I did!

So, what now? Oh, right, obviously, stop talking to him forever.

But, what if the rest of your life is pukey (totally a word) and your friends are all distant and you have no steady income and your Dad is harassing you about abandoning the medical supports you have? What if you haven't left your apartment in three days and your symptoms are worsening and you're avoiding your roommates so you don't have to speak to other humans? What if you're getting a subcutaneous port surgically placed into your chest this week and already feel like you don't have much support, even a ride home from the hospital? What if you just need someone to hold, just for a minute... Just for a second...

Doesn't matter. Stop talking to him. Forever.

Or at least until he grows up. (Which could be Forever.)

Lists help.

Since firing the family I nanny for (doesn't that make me sound empowered?):

1. I've written most of a short story! Fiction! Creative-like! And I've been drawing, and mostly NOT crossing it all out in a self-hating fury!

Yes, that's a cyclops standing in a rudimentary rendering of the Frog Pond. Yes, it's gotten a bit beat up from being toted around in my journal. Yes, there's a story idea linked to it.


2. I've pulled out a ton of my own hair. Subconsciously, usually while watching Netflix. Don't blame Netflix, however. I do have strategies I should be acting on to prevent and/or reduce this nasty habit.

3. I have had phone conversations (note: plural) with my brothers and Mom. The phone rings and I answer it! Like an adult!

4. The man-boy I'm growing attached to has gone on a trip and I have noooothing to dooooo... besides tear my own hair out, paint my nails in needlessly elaborate patterns, weed through my entire wardrobe

4. I weeded through my entire wardrobe, which needed a good thrashing! I have picked out all the junk that was too big, was made out of that polyester blend that makes me sweat in public, or that I simply never wore, consigned about half of it and donated the rest. Aww yeah!

5. Dad and I are emailing and texting, despite his persistent attempts to make me abandon all the psychiatric support I receive in Boston. His latest evangelizing crusade; Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic, a book detailing how dramatically mental illness, and disability status, has increased in the United States, and positing that misuse of psychiatric medications is at the root of this epidemic. Considering one of my main hurdles in the course of my treatment has been the feeling that I lack the support of family and friends as I attempt more difficult - and life-interrupting - therapies, my father's rather loud proselytism is decidedly unwelcome at this very moment.

6. I had an appointment with my foot doc. He's leaving MGH forevs. Jerkface. But, I did get my brace refitted, and had a new one cast (by a veeery sexy dude who had no qualms flirting with me while casting).

7. Why not have 7? Hmm... now I have to think of something...  I'm missing Shane lately, and trying to work against my natural proclivity to doubt the friendship we had. Trying to simply celebrate and enjoy what we had. I made this to share for his birthday:

Yay lists!

The end.

Because who doesn't love rhubarb?

Oh yeah, lots of people. But isn't it beautiful? And the aroma is just lovely... Yes, I do have strawberries, but I feel it's somehow unfair to the rhubarb to force it to share the recipe with strawberries. I think of Rhubarb as the nerdy older sister, dependable and forthright, perhaps a little opinionated, while the Strawberry is the pretty little sister with natural talent; she gets all the praise and attention, and Mom insists that Rhubarb let her tag along every time she takes the car. Folks dutifully come up with semi-sincere praise for Rhubarb, but they go on and on about Stawberry with unsuppressed enthusiasm. How cruel.

Well, Rhubarb, I appreciate you for your own beauty and value, and I believe you can stand on your own. I've spent some time with Strawberry and can tell you; she may be pretty on the outside but she's only available at very short intervals and not consistently sweet.

Also, I'm crazy.

But! Writing about rhubarb has successfully distracted me from manymanymany current (and damaging) difficulties. So while I'm at it, let me report the following positive realities to which I am choosing to direct my attention:

1. My bed is covered with clothes that are too large and have volunteered to be donated. I'm losing weight. Somehow.
2. I have a new roommate who is lovely! (And makes life in this apartment far easier and generally happy.)
3. I am back in touch with several dear and positive people from my strange life, and I am enjoying being semi-social. Whodathunk?
4. I have additional nannying* gigs!
5. I have impending writing gigs!
6. I may not have to sell my body to keep paying rent!

Okay, back to baking. The rhubarb has soaked in sugar long enough, and I need to get my ass in gear for today's nannying gig.


*Nannying is a term I use to reassure myself that I have grown up to be something more than a babysitter. Yes, I am aware that it's a semi-pathetic self-deceptive triviality, but I'm fond of it. So there.

Longevity and brevity

Buying a new bedspread. Why? Because the current quilt has stains of depression all over it, literal and figurative, blood and tears. How do you explain that to the next man you allow past this threshold? Ha, like you'll be around long enough. Just make a gesture to live cleanly, away from these things. But what's the point? It will come back, in a fierce wave. It always does. Don't spend too much, because you may need money if you are to continue living, possibly without much income. Might as well get a nice one, though. the softness on your skin... that will feel good. In the moment. They're always saying to be in the moment. Don't be reckless. Don't screw yourself. Take the next step, knowing there are millions more to take. That's right. Don't do anything to alarm anyone. Act as though you're planning for life, for living. Just act, in the moment.


Buy a calendar, at least a new insert for your daily planner. To pretend to be living? To plan what you have so far. January work dates. Should you really be working? Yes, I guess... it makes the moments pass. Makes days pass, little breathers from solitude. You could sustain that! Maybe you could sustain that! But maybe you can't, and a little kid would be depending on you. A family would need you. Being needed sucks. Being needed is salvation. To be saved for what? Buy the damned calendar. Live and plan and see it all visually stretching out. Birthdays in April and May and July... Of people who keep forgetting you exist. Stay forgotten. Don't let the roots grow. They want me there for birthdays and graduations and weddings. I should be there for celebrations. Artificial celebrations that are actual torture. Does any day matter more than any other? Make it matter. It's on you to make it matter, to notice the bigger patterns and consciously enter into them. It will be easier once you decide to join in. Easier for a while, but the long-term always disappoints. I always disappoint.

Make dinner, enough for leftovers. Seriously? Why? You need to eat something, even if you don't feel like it. Sure, cereal maybe. Why cook? You need meals for the week, especially if you're feeling this way. I should just use up what I have. A cup of Rice Krispies is fine. But you should eat something green, something with protein. Why? To nourish a body I don't want? To encourage this disgusting mass to keep growing? I don't think so. Your nails are splitting. Your hair is falling out. You can't keep this up. I'm not planning to "keep this up." I'm not PLANNING. You should be. Just let me get a handle on the current moment. Let me breathe a little bit and see what it's like. You let a whole year pass while you were trying to breathe. It just passed, and you're still struggling. Start with something little. Make yourself dinner. I can't. I need to breathe. You can. Make some pasta, something easy. I can't right now... just for right now, I think. It's so easy and small, considering things you've accomplished, things you WILL accomplish. Just boil water and you'll have food for the week. The whole thing strikes me as pointless. As pointless as putting one foot in front of the other.

Home is where the ______ is

If I tell you about my annual journey home for the holidays, I will:

1. Cry

2. Hate myself for crying

3. Feel terribly guilty for any written attacks (direct or subconscious) that would inform you on the difficulty of being around my family

Instead I will tell you things (hopefully benign) that I remembered while I was home.

1. We used to have nougat at Christmas. Apparently this is an Italian thing, according to shops around Boston. My parents don't remember.

2. My mother developed a brilliant system for socks and hand-me-downs that she should have patented. It's not too late, actually.

3. Sunday mass, and waking, dressing, and getting there on time, was a predictably epic battle of Kids vs. Dad. Dad always won but he fought dirty. (So did we.)

4. Our phone would ring off the hook on holidays. Relatives and friends would call and whoever had the phone would call the next person into the kitchen to take a turn talking. It was torture, but it was explicitly forbidden to dodge the two-second conversation. Reluctance was tolerated. Hiding was not.

5. After we were already off to school, Mom would make herself a mug of tea with milk and a little sugar. Presumably she would carry it around the house while she put away laundry or cleaned, because we would find it on a closet shelf or a windowsill, half-full and cold. I use to love sipping it before I brought it downstairs to the kitchen.

If McLean Hospital would open up a Gift Shoppe...

Remember when I made things?

Tiny Oil pastel, circa 1998, found in the artist's closet

Oil on canvas paper, 2013 (with glare), made during an art class my roommate teaches and which I did not pay for.

I'm trying, dipping my shy little toes back into the pool of creativity. Can't say my orange is that creative, but it's loosening up the joints.

I had a friend basically yell at me because he saw my robot and toaster from last fall. He thought it was just a cute avatar, didn't know I'd painted it.

 Acrylic on canvas, 2013, baby shower gift for friend who teaches math

Then it went like this:

Unnamed friend: You should write a story about those guys.
JoBiv: I am, in fits and starts. Still working out a plot or two.
Unnamed friend: I could find you an artist to work out a few boards with you.
JoBiv: Yeah, that'd be nice. Painting in the buttons every time gets tedious.
Unnamed friend: Umm... are you saying YOU painted that?
JoBiv: Yep.
Unnamed friend: (Lecture on wasted talent, blah blah, "I never knew you were an artist" blah blah, "You HAVE to work on this story!" blah blah.)
JoBiv: Wow. I mean, thanks.

Of course, I look at this little piece and say, "The robot's sitting in the wrong place, and his femurs are too long and his tibias are too short. The table looks like it's made out of spongecake. The value of the gray robot and the blue background are much too similar. There should be a dot after the zero, because calculators don't work like that," etc.

Regardless, I bought a sketchpad, a cheap one. I dug out all my old art stuff and made it visible in my room. I'm staring at all of it now, and it seems dimly possible that I may be creative. Soon?

Status variabilis

Tell me how this melody can break out of white noise. How can an entire chorus stop a busy station in its... um... tracks?

My psychiatrist bought a used copy of the Carmina Burana and knew I'd be amused that he found it far more colorful than he'd expected. He also took a Lactaid in front of me, added milk to his coffee, looked at the expiration date on the little carton and read aloud "July 3, 2013." He looked into his mug. "Well, it didn't curdle." I'm in good hands.

He told me that the "Echay Grahtoom" is his favorite track. I resisted a lecture on Germanic pronunciation of Latin texts. Not that he would have minded; the man's a nerd of the first class, but by then my brain had corrected him and moved halfway through the piece at a nice gallop. Iamiam cedant tristia! Sadness has ended! Spring has come again!

I still get excited when I see those first green shoots of crocus and tulip and daffodil. I still feel my heart thudding in my chest when I hear a beautiful melody spun out of thin air. I have to believe in change, at least in a cycle, that sometimes plunges me under but will eventually raise me up again. Maybe my "up" is still below the surface, I don't know. I have to hope I'll be able to poke a finger through to the sunlight, that that will be enough.

Too soon?

Things that maybe one should never joke about:

1. Suicidal ideation
2. ECT treatment
3. Psychiatric inpatient stays

Well fuzz that shiz, I'm crossin' the line, people!

(If you haven't seen Mary and Max, perhaps you should. It has chocolate and insanity and poo-colored birth marks. Need I say more?)

I have been assured by many, nearly all, that Electroconvulsive Therapy has come a long way since, say, The Bell Jar (although it isn't portrayed terribly negatively in that novel). I will not be lobotomized, will not have my memory wiped, will not be communicating with aliens, etc. I have better chances of having SOME benefit, whether it's infinitesimal or not, than having any kind of bad reaction.

The doc asked me lots of nosy questions, most of which I couldn't quite pinpoint for him. Dates, admissions, prescriptions, attempts... I spend so much time batting all of those things away. They exist together in a kind of gnatty buzzing cloud that follows me around, the kind that makes me constantly fearful that I'll swallow a piece of it or breathe it in or have something get stuck under my eyelid. Gross. Bat, bat, batting away.

My patient psychiatrist is taking my latest dip a tad personally. "What's the point of me if I don't make you feel better?" he asked. I shrugged. He told me I usually laugh at his bad jokes. I told him I laugh at the good ones and he didn't have any this time. He took this as evidence that my sense of humor is still intact.

But there's another reason to live: so my psychiatrist will not see himself as a failure. I like the dude. How was he to know not to take me on? That I'm impervious to treatment, apparently? How could I make him believe that, but then how would that belief alter his sense of adequacy and effectiveness? How do I, Hippocratically, do no harm (and why do I adopt this as an oath)?

All of this aside, and sensing that this cloud is ever descending, I will try to be cognizant of others while I'm slipping away from myself. I will, perhaps, send postcards from the hospital. "Shocked to hear from me?" Or how about, "Thinking of you... and guess what Freud thinks about THAT." Or, perhaps the meanest of all, "Wish you were here!"

The Monologue (Dialogue)

I am capable of creativity. But only in sputters and starts. 
I have some natural talent. But I'm mediocre at best.
I have ideas to share still. But nobody wants to hear them.
My sadness isn't me. But it continually consumes me.
I'm blessed in ways others aren't. And I squander my blessings daily.
I can use resources to get help. But others deserve them more.
My family feels they still need me. But they don't know how poisonous I am.
Keep looking at their faces. They'd be better off without me.
Keep looking at their faces. I'll only continue to hurt them.
Keep looking at their dear faces. The little ones are young, they'll forget me.
Keep looking anyway.
Keep looking.

Adventures in Humiliation

Turns out I didn't have to worry or prepare for work nearly as much as I did. I suppose that should be a lesson to me. It would be if I hadn't been blindsided by an unforeseen (redundant, I know, but I'm shocked) demotion.

That's right. After four years of reinventing a system that was inherently broken, the very few but loud voices of the insecure win out over the many who offer logic and praise. 

It's the kind of thing that could send a girl to a mental hospital.

So here's the damage control mantra of the moment: They're paying me the same hourly wage. They're paying me peanuts, but still, I'm getting the same money for less demanding (I hope) work. I'm basically working the front desk, which seems eerily similar to working for the Bux. You can imagine, my master's degree keeps me up at night with its baleful sighs.

Or was that me keeping myself up with self-indulgent pity parties? Enh, six o' one, half dozen of the other...

Stepping forward, back up the down escalator for eternity, or to open doors, shining with light and possibility. We shall see.