Freewrite for Poetry 090512

Vertigo and Freewrite for Poetry 090512

I have just had an hour-long episode of vertigo that has left me feeling nauseous, dizzy and worried. I made a note of it for my doctor, who I happen to be going to on Friday, Muna Beeai. She's my GP. My neurologist thinks it could be silent migraines. I am afraid to do my normal morning exercises, because I am feeling dizzy and I am worried the vertigo will start up again--it came in two batches this morning, first lasting only 2-3 minutes, and then when I thought it was over, I moved and it started up again. So now, of course, Ia m afraid to move.

Oh-oh, appears my fears were well-founded--I just moved and it DID start up again, with a vengeance. 8:40 start. Room spinning bad. I keeled over to the left. Hit my head, not hard. Curled in a ball on the floor waiting for it to subside. Burst into a terrible sweat. Managed to crawl--literally--over to the computer and get into my chair. It seems to be subsiding again. 8:50 on Leo's clock, seems to have mostly stopped--ten more minutes of vertigo--but I think it is still with me and will return if I move.

OK, so let me start this freewrite again. I'm feeling dizzy, nauseous, worried, frightened. The room is spinning--OK--not spinning, holding relatively still now. But I'm afraid it will spin again. There is an odd dull feeling on my left side. That is, the left side of my head--I think it is starting to hurt. I had a lot to do today, and I am bummed about that as well, but also worried about what causes these spells of vertigo. Dr. Moudgil says it could be migraines, but it was also suggested that it might be a smalls stroke or a seizure. It's very scary, especially when I fall suddenly. That fall was very reminiscent of the time in Hamilton, Ontario where I suddenly lurches to the left and bumped into the wall of the hall. Nothing more happened then, but I did the same thing just now--lurched suddenly to the left.

The sun is shining brightly and I would like to go outside. I need to feed the squirrel, rocky, the wild birds and clean Rocky's cage and Eager's cage and make breakfast and shower and dress and get going on my tasks for the day. BUT I am afraid to move.

I can think of nothing unusual that I ate yesterday, only things I've been eating fairly regularly: steel cut oats, brain, rice milk, pork, calamari, shrimp, scallops, mushrooms, broccoli, yellow squash. I feel pretty sick. I can't do this, I have to go lie down.

10:00 I've had two more incidents of vertigo and still feel sick. 9:11-9:14, 9:40-9:55 accompanied by sweating and nausea. Fairly bad vertigo and nausea--probably not four incidents, but one long one, not over yet. It's been THREE HOURS NOW--I feel like it's wasting my whole day on the one hand and on the other hand, am quite scared. Worried about what it is and means. I got up out of bed because I have to pee and get a drink. I also need to feed the squirrel, but that involves bending over, which tends to exacerbate the problem.

More than 3 hours of vertigo, during which time I was unable to accomplish anything and spent most of the time in bed. Finally got up, made breakfast, sat out in the yard next to the shadow of the silver maple in the neighbor's yard--that is, I was in our yard, but the maples is on theirs. I had a weird experience where a shadow appeared on my hand that did not seem to come from the tree.

Vertigo Shadows

At the edge of a shadow cast by the neighbor's oak,
sun shines on my face, a breeze rustles my hair
and the shadow of the oak shifts and wriggles, restless
and hungry, withdrawing and then approaching
my bare toes, over and over while the whole dancing
shadow with it's patches of sun slides slowly closer.
Shadows of leaves, shadows of branches, shadows
of baby acorns nestled among the leaves. Shadows
of robins passing each other with worms and insects,
shadows of their babies opening wide their mouths.
A touch of cold startles me. I look down to see darkness
on my hands, isolated and with no visible source
from the tree. The deep, cloudless sky throws no shadows,
but the shadow on my wrist expands toward my heart.
Compelled to drink from that well of night. I bend toward
my hands. A black wave engulfs me. The earth tilts, the sky
spins and the tree lurches. I smell bruised grass, damp soil.
Feel tiny pebbles mashed into my cheek. Sweating
and cold, I watch the jonquils and tulips leap jaggedly
in the garden. Jump and twist spasmodically. On my knees,
my body curls in Bala-asana, the child pose, and I close
my eyes to still the jumping. The darkness
behind my eyes turns and jerks raggedly. I breathe
slowly. Feel a passing chill, another shadow.
I open my eyes to see a vulture circling, its shadow
passing over me again and again.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090512-1229-1st

NOTE: This did NOT happen as written, but is a combination of the earlier experience of vertigo with the later experience of the shifting shadows and the mysterious one on my hand.

Flash in the Pan

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge #8, for the "Old Flames prompt," for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Flash in the Pan

Barbara screamed, pointed at me, and everyone turned to look.

She screamed and screamed, pointed and flailed. Her face turned

scarlet. The thirty children who had gathered around me gaped at her,

all of us standing as still as if we were staring at Medusa, until my boss

found someone else to teach them and secreted me away with Barbara.

I shrank. Disappeared into a knot of thorns that tightened around me.

In the news, only that morning, a crazed wife had killed her husband

and his lover. But in private, Barbara's maniacal frenzy abated;

she spoke quietly. Fingers released their threatened hold on my neck

and I took a breath and another.

I still wanted her to disappear and take Gordon with her. Forever.

Before our first kiss, I'd asked him: "Are you married,

are you engaged, are you in a relationship?"

"No, no, no," he said, and he lied. I believed him. He wore no ring.

I tend to trust. I'd welcomed him

into my home, my heart and then my bed. But they were engaged,

and then they married. After he lied,

after he cheated, they married. He probably blamed it on me.

If I were her, I'd have been as angry, but never

would have married Gordon. She told me, in tears:

he'd cheated before. Said he saw other woman

when he was with me, too, Cheated us both.

Cheat once, cheat again. I so would not have married

Gordon that he was the first step toward a vow of celibacy

One year, then another and then a third. And on to ten. Barbara married

a cheat. I married silence, peace and a spacious

empty bed.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090415-2212-3b; 090414-1115-2b; 090413-2252-1d; 090313-1602-1st

This poem has long lines which don't translate well into blog format.

I've started seeing a therapist; can't remember if I mentioned that, because I was hoping it would improve my insomnia. I'm dredging up all kinds of bad old experiences. I think I was a MAGNET for bad people.

Snakes in the Water

Snakes in the Water

A woman friend* (?) is visiting me. I seem to be living in Big Sur or someplace like that. We are on a cliff looking down at waves crashing on the beach. She speaks of swimming, but I say we can swim up here, and it's very peaceful. "We can swim to the right, we can swim to the left." There suddenly appears to be a deep clear warm lake at the top of the cliff. The water is comforting, warm, refreshing, pretty. After we swim a bit in peace and comfort, we encounter snakes. They are swimming in the water around us, and my friend is frightened of them. I ignore them and swim right through them, and they ignore me. But my friend yells angrily at them and splashes water to scare them off. Instead of fleeing, they rear up in the water hissing, showing their fangs, and then come at us in attack mode, opening their mouths to bite. I am offended that they are attacking me when it wasn't me who attacked them. I am also put off and a bit frightened by the now angry snakes. And I am upset with my friend for provoking them.

*In the dream, I know her, but when I wake, I can't remember or figure out who she is.

I had this dream several days ago and it has been haunting me.

I often think of water as the subconscious.

The green snakes (they were all green and in a wide variety of sizes) seemed peaceful and harmless at first. They floated in the water like lily pads. Relaxed. But when riled, they went into attack mode.

Snakes can be sexual and represent male genitalia, but also represent female power. The Goddess. They can represent nature and the power of nature.

The snake can be a symbol of transformation. Snakes are often seen as symbols of life, death and rebirth. In North American native tribes, the shedding of the snake's skin is associated with life and a new beginning.

If all the parts of the dream are viewed as part of myself, one could look at the dream as two different ways of dealing with life. If I approach life and change in a relaxed and calm way, I move through it without difficulty, but if I get frightened or angry, yell, splash around, than life becomes a problem and attacks me. I've seen this over and over!

I also wonder if the dream could have been caused by a confrontation with the security guard at Elmwood Cemetery. I can't remember if it happened before or after that. The guard was upset and K was exacerbating his upset instead of soothing it.

In any case, ONE message of the dream is to relax and go with the flow, so to speak, be soothing rather than angry and reactive. Unfortunately, when riled, I tend to attack, just like the snakes. That's the wrong approach. I learned it again today when calling the bank about an issue. Calmness works better. BUT, how do I get a grip on myself when upset?

I hereby ask for a clarifying dream.

Could this happen in waking life? Yes but it is unlikely.

Note: I am not normally afraid of snakes in waking life. But I often am in dreams. But not always.

OK, I have worked ALL MORNING and part of the afternoon Tuesday on a poem about this, 6 drafts so far.

Thin as Our Fingers
(Turning Flowers to Garbage)

A lake appears along the trail, above the cliffs
and pounding surf beneath. Bounded by cliff-side rocks,
it stretches nearly as far as we can see. Huge,
like the ocean below, but calmer. More welcoming
than the crashing waves of the sea. The trail
enters the lake and continues out of sight under the water,
as yellow as the yellow brick road in the Land of Oz.
I plunge in, eager, excited. Warm as air, the water
caresses me. Soft. Buoyant, delightful. I exhale, sink into it,
and rise again. “We can swim to the left, we can swim
to the right!” I tell you. And demonstrate. A smile
blossoms on my face and fills me with light
like the first sunny day of spring. You hesitate, then follow,
slowly. Wade, then swim. Then smile, too. We drift together,
above the yellow path under the water. You laugh,
bob, sway, almost seem to dance, until you see
the snakes. Green snakes, hundreds of them.
Some are as thin as our fingers, some as thick and long
as our arms and legs. The snakes float on the water like lily pads,
hold only their nostrils above water, heads suspended, tails dangling
like the long stems of water lilies. I swim and glide among them,
easy, relaxed, smiling. No clouds crowd the horizon; the sky
wears the clearest, deepest blue robes imaginable. Reflects
the endless blue water. But you stiffen. Hang back.
“Look,” I say, “they are harmless.” Snakes surround me,
and pay me no mind. Still frightened, you refuse
to swim forward. Suddenly, you yell and splash at the snakes.
In an instant, they all rear up, draw scaly lips back
to expose their fangs and hiss. They charge us both.




Mary Stebbins Taitt
For BB and jo(e)
090113-1229-1eb

I wonder if I should attempt a version of this poem that not only tells the dream but also explores feelings and possibilities about it. That feels challenging and frightening to me. Making a good and successful POEM out of all that. And right now I am totally overwhelmed, but maybe I can try it later.

I was up really late working on this last night and have done nothing else including EAT (no food yet today, BAD for me!) exercise chores etc. This has really consumed me but I MUST do other things!

Broken Eggs and Sinking Raft

This all ends up WASTING so much time because nothing WORKS RIGHT! I am getting very frustrated and upset.




The Broken Eggs


I am at Florence Morrison's house for a class she is teaching and she is frying eggs for us--we have to get them from the fridge and bring them to her and she tosses them into the pan--to speed things up. When I go to get mine, the fridge is full of broken brown eggs, and stacks of shells. Everyone else finds eggs, but I find only shells and broken eggs. Florence tells me broken eggs are still good and I say, "remember how I used to have chickens bag then, I know about broken eggs," but I still can't find any that are edible. She tells me I need to hurry and I crawl inside the refrigerator in order to see better. Now, even the cracked ones are gone.

I wake up with images of cracked and broken eggs haunting me. (Broken dreams?)
I feel somehow sad and left out.
I honored the dream by writing that poem, and I ask for dreams of clarification.

I am grateful for

• enough sleep to dream.
• a husband who seems to really love me, in spite of the wretched poem I just wrote about him
• a husband who is handsome and sexy
• the fact that I lost some weight! YAY!
  
  OK, here's the poem I wrote based in part upon the dream:
  
  
  
  The Sinking Raft
  
  Slowly, my husband unloves me. He stops
  putting the clean laundry in the drawers, then stops
  fluffing and folding it. Brings it up and dumps it
  in a tangle. Stops greasing my feet, rubbing my back,
  making love to me. "I will do everything,"
  he said, when he was courting. I dream of Florence,
  wife of John, my botany professor. More than forty
  years ago, John tried to get me into bed. I refused,
  despite his gifts and constant attention, but Katra caved
  and fell that long dark fall where you know you'll die
  when you hit bottom, and she wasn't dreaming.
  Katra didn't die, she became a lesbian, after John.
  Who could blame her? And Florence had an unfaithful
  
  husband. I hated John for that. "I'll do everything,"
  my husband said. "You can't," I countered.
  He tried, but couldn't. Of course
  he couldn't. No one could. I can't
  do anything. I rarely sleep, stare, zombie-like
  at the increasing chaos I can't control
  with my exhausted brain and body.
  But each time he stops, I see him turning away,
  turning his face to the wall, inching toward the farthest
  edge of the bed, away from me. He does that, too.
  Leaves me in sleep. I leave him, too,
  get up and pace the dark for hours, too tired
  to be useful. I finally sleep and go
  
  somewhere he's never been, without him.
  When I dream of Florence, her refrigerator is full
  of broken eggs. She fries eggs for all the women
  her husband courts, and everyone gets eggs
  but me. But why go back now, forty years later?
  Menopause? Dashed hopes, broken dreams?
  Is, like John, my husband unfaithful? "Remember
  when you used to love me?" I ask my husband.
  He tries the same on me. "See how it hurts?"
  He clings to me in bed, before he turns away,
  clings as to a life-raft in a stormy sea.
  I cling to him. We're not unfaithful, only old
  and getting daily older.
  
  
  Mary Taitt
  081205-1026-1c; 081205-0945 1st
  
  I'm always making BB sound like a jerk. Actually, I'm the one that's a jerk, probably.
  
  I had a terrible night last night. Did not get to sleep until well after 3:30 AM. When I don't sleep well, everything looks bad to me.

The Hangover From Hell

A couple of Saturdays ago, my sister had a reception to celebrate her marriage [she eloped]. Caught up in all the festivities, I drank four glasses of wine. Granted, it was two more than I usually do, but it was over a period of seven or eight hours, which included dinner and dancing. I was sick for three days! Now, I did not stumble, vomit, pass out, or have memory blackout at any time during the evening. In fact, I can remember everything, and although I remember having a good time, I did not have enough fun to warrant a three day hangover. On Sunday, my brains sloshed so bad that I could not sit vertical without getting sick to my stomach. I was forced to remain horizontal for most of the day. Even on Wednesday, my eye lids still felt like lead balloons. To apply any pressure was painful. The worst part, though, was those day after voices that stab you all over with insecurities, telling you how stupid you are. I prayed that God help me to never drink again, because I well know that even though those voices are the most painful part, they are the easiest to forget.

The hard part is that I don't usually get sick like this when I drink, only every once in a while, and then I won't drink again for months, sometimes years. The last time this happened, I had kidney problems and went for about four months before having a drink again. It starts out slowly with only a drink or two socially, occasionally, maybe once every other week. It doesn't affect me, so after a while, I let my guard down; usually on a special occasion like this, where family comes in town, then we drink a couple of nights in a row, and I get sick. It causes my RA to flare up and joints to hurt, exasperates my chronic fatigue, screws up my kidneys, and drives my sugar levels crazy. The worst part is emotional, and what it does to my self esteem. It's obviously a problem.

So, I'm admitting that this problem has become unmanageable, and that I need God's help in avoiding alcohol.

Celebrate Small Successes (Spring at Shangri-La)

Celebrate Small Successes I am a hard task -master to myself (and sometimes to others, though I don't mean to be.) I have high expectations, at least about certain things. But Sonja Lyubomirsky says, "Celebrate small successes. Celebrate steps along the way." She says, "Make a goal, and then make subgoals, and then, if necessary, subgoals of those. Celebrate each success, small, medium and large."

So, here is one of my goals: to complete and publish the Geraldine manuscripts. This is a cycle of poems about a retarded (brain damaged) girl/woman who I once knew. In order to complete the manuscript, I first have to finish writing all the poems as first drafts, and revise them.

The poems I am attempting to write are about pivotal points in Geraldine's life, as well as some representative daily poems. So, I am celebrating a small success by sharing this early (essentially first) draft of my new poem I just wrote this morning with you.

It is odd to start in the middle of the book, especially at such a pivotal point. So, before you read this poem, which remember, is not done yet, let me know if you would like to read the earlier poems FIRST so as not to spoil the surprise. LOL!

Anyways, I choose to be happy because this one tiny milestone in a vast huge larger project is completed--the first draft of a new poem.

I choose NOT to be discouraged by the fact that there are many more steps to go, but to take ONE DAY AT A TIME and do what needs to be done. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and I have already taken many steps (though many remain to be taken.)

Spring at Shangri-La (How Geraldine Returns to her Lifework, May 1990)

Aunt Geraldine places a ball of warm fluff in my cupped hand.
Tiny. Cheeping. She beams. In the box, eleven more. Ricky
stands proud at her side. Beaming too. Their faces shine like twin
headlamps in the dim coop. And Ricky, so oddly familiar.
I study him, puzzled. Geraldine adjusts the light
over the box, adds fresh water. Scoops out some messy shavings
and adds new. Slow, deliberate, careful. Chickens again,
her lifework, perhaps. Future eggs for the Home and neighbors.
Future dinners, too. Hard to imagine this mite as dinner.

I follow them out to the garden. Ricky's plot and Geraldine's
lie side by side in the patchwork of resident gardens.
Here is Grandma Ethel's plot, beside Geraldine's, on the other side.
Their three are the neatest. Their three have the most plants.
Tomatoes, squash, peas, beans, carrots. Potatoes. And more.
Lacy leaves, round leaves, hairy leaves. All small and newly
sprouted or planted and watered, from the look of them.
Some of the other plots have nothing but weeds.
Or a few straggly, wilted plants.

I wonder how Grandma Ethel works from her wheelchair
until Ricky confides that Geraldine does all three. He helps.
Sometimes, Grandma Ethel gets pushed out to supervise.
Today, she is inside playing bridge with Marjorie, Ellie,
and other residents. Her memory for card games has survived
her dementia so far. Strange workings of the mind.

Now we head out beyond the gardens. I follow Geraldine
and Ricky follows me. We walk single file down the narrow
path between the long rows of baby corn plants. This row
is well-trodden. They've been here before. Geraldine walks
with amazing grace and spryness for her size. She seems
to be getting younger. The house, barns, coops and woodshed
recede, grow evermore distant, lost in vast flat fields.
The hugeness of space here no longer feels as barren as it did
in snow. We walk and walk. Now through a wheat field. Now
through oats. A field of alfalfa. Another of corn. Woods loom ahead.

Ashes oaks and cherries are bare, maples have tiny leaves.
The forest floor is a sea of trilliums and other wildflowers.
We sit on a glacial erratic to admire them. Aunt Geraldine
and Ricky smile and smile. Sun streams through the tiny leaves
overhead in rays though a faint mist in the trees. I think I hear
the angels again, but perhaps it is only the birds. Geraldine
and Ricky hold hands and look at me shyly. "Al, we want
to get married," Ricky says. "Marjorie says we can, if you let us."

Mary Stebbins Taitt

---

-------this line and everything below this line is not part of the poem------ 080604-0929-1b (Keith, earlier drafts, in "current work" looseleaf.)

First things FIRST! I need to EAT breakfast. I started this first today.