Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Sophie and Me in Blue



When I was a small Catholic girl like most small Catholic girls I was enamored of the saints. I knelt in church (and sat and stood and sat and kneeled and stood and sat and kneeled) and stood and saw spots or tiny lights and then I'd blink, sweat would bead, roll down the nape of my neck, the priest's voice a drone, I think I'm going to faint, I'd think and blink, my hands smooth and brown on the pew in front of me. Helen who carried the cross will be my name, I said when I was twelve. Twelve! I'd kneel then and think of the saints. Yesterday afternoon, I was drifting, I was angry, I was drifting and angry about the day, the day after the show about weed and seizures, the day that began, again, with seizures. I was angry about my cousin, my age, dying of cancer far away, a cousin who I loved in my childhood, who loved to read like me, who wrote me letters sealed with a kiss. Her name is Maria. I drove my car to the bank in the little village just down from the church where I used to go (to stand, to kneel, to sit, to stand, to kneel) and I was angry when I got out of the car and walked, a beautiful day, it's always, always a beautiful day, and four beautiful people sat in front of a restaurant and spoke what was that? Italian? Yes, Italian. Italian rolling off their tongues like saints. Jesus Christ, I thought, this town is impossible. I walked into the bank and then out and the Italians were getting up from their table and walking, walking in front of me, two women and two men, all beautiful, the Italian still rolling off their tongues like saints, one woman had a band of smooth brown skin, naked above her ass, and I was still drifting, angry, when I got into my car and drove back home. At a stoplight, I looked over into the car next to me, a woman in full Muslim garb, her head covered, sat at the wheel, her daughter in the back seat covered as well. The light was still red and I was still angry, and the daughter was young but not young enough to sit in a booster seat. She looked ridiculous in the booster seat, stupid in her veil. Take off your bullshit cloak of modesty, I might have hissed, your daughter is too big for that car seat. The light turned green, I looked away, I drove away. When I got home I sat with Sophie, I stood with Sophie, I stood and sat and kneeled. I blinked, a bead of sweat rolled down the nape of my neck and down my back, I was wearing a blue dress. I am not a saint.

23 comments:

  1. I agree with Michelle. You are a saint, if only because you are both aware of and willing to admit your anger and frustration, to be in touch with those parts of yourself that are real and messy and embrace them. That is much more my definition of a saint than those dusty, musty old Catholic edicts that require you to sitdownstandupkneel when they tell you to and not before.

    Love.

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  2. “The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future. ”


    ― Oscar Wilde

    Still holding onto hope for you, friend. For what it's worth, as I visited the large cathedrals in France and England, seeing them more as museums than a place of worship, I tucked aside more than once and whispered our children's names. . . just in case.

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  3. I learn from you each and every day I come here, how to be in this world. It's all here. Anger, hope, fear,deepest love and devotion, saints and weed. Thank you.

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  4. i'm very sorry about your cousin, Elizabeth.
    it's probably the italian in you that make you not aspire to sainthood. just saying :)

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  5. The saints. Another thing the church has come up with to make us feel like lesser humans; a goodness we can never ascribe to. They were real people with unreal lives. Even Mother Teresa had huge doubts and was very unhappy. I am sure she had days where she raged at the world.

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  6. I love Maria too and I don't want her to die, the world will not be the same without Maria in it. She is the closest of your relatives that Domenick and I am to and she is wonderful to us and has given us so many wonderful memories. Don't be angry, be glad that you got to love such an amazing woman like I did..

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    1. 2 girls mom: Thank you for your heartfelt comment. I am not angry that Maria is dying but terribly sad. I am so glad that I knew her and only wish that I'd been able to live nearby for longer than our childhoods. That being said, I think acknowledging anger and the days when we might be consumed by it, is natural and even healthy. I know that anger, like all the other emotions we are subject to, comes and it goes.

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  7. You aren't a saint. You are a flesh and blood woman with fire in her veins and magic in her writing.
    Another in a long, long line of incredible posts.

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  8. Thank God you're not a saint. Saints aren't real. They're a mythology, only part of the story, something to hang on to, but don't hang on too hard, it won't hold. You, on the other hand, can absolutely be counted on to hold. You hold Sophie. You hold us. And I am thankful. And the anger, it is perhaps deep sadness turned inside out. Anger always feels safer. I love you.

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  9. Superb visionary goddamned writing I hope you're submitting theses pieces to literary journals you are so freaking good. You won't make any money at it but it would be nice to have it out there and you have the goods Sister Helen of the Cross.
    love,
    Rebecca

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  10. How do you know you aren't a saint?
    BTW this is a how we do it post and that is an absolutely stunning picture of two very beautiful women.

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  11. Michelle is right. Your writing alone makes you saintly. Plus, some other stuff.

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  12. You are not a saint, I am not a saint, we're all just people stumbling along and doing our best. Your gift is that you can describe your struggles in artful, brave, interesting ways. Thank goodness for that!

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  13. A beautiful, wrenching post. And a beautiful mermaid header. And a beautiful photo.

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  14. I was just reading your post from yesterday and from today. Got me wondering. Are we, most of us, destined to carry the weight of guilt and anger our entire lives? I feel often that I will. I read so many blogs and that is the recurrent theme. I speak to friends who have kids with severe disabilities and the theme pops up.

    Got a question for you and I want you to give it some thought and maybe you can answer it, maybe you can't, because lately I have been wanting to drive my car into the local reservoir, and I'd like a reason not to. Not sure that the answer will be a reason, in fact it won't be. But it gives me something to look forward to.

    Why can some people seemingly have circumstances similar to our own, and I'm talking some really heavy shit happening in their life, or to their kid or kids, and they don't experience that same reaction? They actually seem to go the other way with it...a way of somehow nuking the negativity of all the bullshit that surrounds them and always finding something positive about every single thing that they encounter?

    What is their secret? I need to know. I've always been told how negative I am. I stopped blogging last December, partly because I was told by people close to me that all I ever do is talk about negative stuff. But to me, this life can be SO FREAKIN' NEGATIVE sometimes that I do not know how to be positive anymore. And I am only in year five. My fear is that I am going to forget, particularly if I cannot get my son's violently aggressive behaviors under control and things just keep getting worse and worse.

    Sorry I hijacked your blog for this, but it has been eating at me, and I promised myself not to write in my own blog for at least a year. And you have the ability, like a few others, to sometimes be both positive AND negative. Or to at least write beautifully about feeling negatively, if that makes any sense. Your insight would be tasty...

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    1. Blogzilly, it's so nice to see you here, again. I've missed you. I chose to make a whole post about your comment and my reply.

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  15. Your writing just slays me with its vulnerability.
    You and sophie captured in this beautiful glow - you two are 'love.'

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  16. OK, one thing is how awesome it is not to be a saint, because then you won't have to die gruesomely as a martyr, which I think all your children will appreciate (your not doing so, that is). Also: the rage is just there, how can it not be? I hope it flows out of you soon, because it's so hard to be fully there loving and hugging people (though look, right at the top there is photographic proof that you still can). It's not fair. I am using all my positive energy, and a few hopeful inquiries, to try to make sure that the right weed finds its way to you. Maybe at this point you will both benefit from it....

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    1. I could certainly have used some weed the other day in the car! Thanks for your kind and funny words, The Diamond in the Window!

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  17. Of course, you're not a saint. You're a human being and as only a human can do, you have just written one of the most beautiful posts I've ever read. But I can only imagine the pain, the pain that motivated that post. I would trade my privilege as a reader to read your well-crafted posts for a much better life for you and your daughter and better understanding in the world. I re-read this article today by Alison Lapper and it cheered me up just like it did a few weeks ago when I first came across it. I hope it does the same to you.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/needs-make-us-human-love-be-loved-be-accepted-and-be-respected

    Take care. Hugs for you and your daughter.

    Greetings from London.

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    1. Great article, A Cuban in London! I so appreciate your kind words, too.

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