Category Archives: love

Today is April 10, 2017. I am alive and well.

So I let my friend, Gloria, know that I would be posting a blog every Monday. Letting her know this makes me accountable. I’m a say what you mean and do what you say kind of woman. I will indeed make an effort to post every Monday.

Rather than write, I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of reading. Sometimes I flash back to 1998 and the two years I spent depressed, in bed, wishing I would never wake. When I did wake, I read. It was two years of chocolate cake, cheese danish, and reading. I was so sensitive to sound and stimulation that my grandmother’s feet shuffling down the hall outside my bedroom door infuriated me. I was the stalk of a sunflower who had lost all her petals and could only dream about the color yellow. The stalk I was, rotted. I had to morph into the roots of a potato, a yam, something of the earth that was sturdy enough to withstand long periods of drought. Waking was brutal.

I have an enormous fear of depression. I never want to find myself confined to a bedroom for long periods of time again. I don’t want to rot in my own mind.

I have a friend who is severely depressed. I share with her where I’ve been. I might as well be talking to a snail. She doesn’t respond to things I say, but then, I could not perk up from pep talks, either. I could not fathom that someone else could have been locked in the tunnel, also. No light. Little breath. Short gasps. And me, tucked beneath dirty sheets.

Thank God life has moved on since then. I read today and remind myself I am not chained to books. I can put the book down and fix myself a spinach salad. I can put the book down and shower, allowing the water to massage my shoulders. I can put the book down and wash my sheets, making myself comfortable in the family room. I answer the phone. I put gas in my Fore-runner. I drive to work. And I do work.

I may have a dark night, but I don’t have dark weeks. I am free to roam outside my home. I love being alive the way my cats love watching the wind rattle the bushes from their perch on the window sill. The light pours in. I am alive. I feel my cats rub against me and I do love.

Today is March 23, 2017. I am alive and well.

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I haven’t posted a blog in several months. I was unable to got on Word Press. Thank you to all who have recently become followers. And always, thank you to those who have been with me for quite some time.

I just started looking for an agent to represent my second book. My query letter is as follows:

Emma, the Giraffe at the end of the Hall, follows my book Mind Without a Home: A Memoir of Schizophrenia. Kirkus Review called Mind Without a Home “inventive, jaggedly lyrical, and disturbing.”

Emma is my continued journey away from the crippling effects of alcoholism and schizophrenia. Unlike years ago, I am addicted to life. Life shows up in good form and in bad. The dark isn’t a terrible thing; it’s simply a moment waiting for batteries. My mind is treating me well; dust stops at my ears. I am moving like a swan in sneakers without webbed feet. I am a little beetle surfing the air on a green leaf.

I make a home outside the psychiatric hospital with a lover, Guy, and two Shih Tzus. Seven years go by, and I remain hospital free.

I lose the lover and dogs without losing my mind. Guy was good to me for as long as he could be.

Today, I am comfortably single with many friends to be responsible to. I am loved beyond the edge of language. A great sense of peace occupies my days. This is what this book is about; my journey to peace and love.

I’ve had one rejection stating that she “wasn’t grabbed.”

I appreciate any opinion you might have regarding my query. Hope you’re having an inspiring day.

Kristina

Today is July 15, 2016. I am alive.

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I have never written about world events. Just like Orlando sickens me, the massacre in France sickens me. How can a person hate so much? The TV telecast did say that here is security in many areas where the perpetrator/s are caught before doing damage and taking lives. We don’t hear about those places. We only hear about devastation.

Is it hate that propels the perpetrator/s to commit such heinous crimes? That’s only part of it, I suppose. I’m tempted to use a metaphor for hate here but hate is nothing but hate. Brutal.

Outside my window, the day moves on in Arizona. The heat on my skin feels tender for about thirty seconds after leaving an overly air conditioned room. After that, it’s like touching the bottom of a frying pan, waiting for it to cool down so it can be washed. The air conditioning in my truck washing me in indoor breeze is desired.

Do I hate? Do I hate random things like a scorching sun? Do I hate that my truck guzzles gasoline like a thirsty baby on the breast of her mother? Do I hate the perpetrator/s of violent crimes? Does hate trump a loving heart? The love poured forth for all the victims by strangers is powerful. Maybe demonstrations of love are mightier than hate. It is true that hate cannot strip a person of the capacity to love, emphasize, feel compassion unless hate is summoned like a callused hand; the callouses prominent on a hardened palm.

Seek love. Offer love. Play the ace with a welcomed queen. I don’t want to minimize anything by using poetic language, but poetry is my call to love.

Today is May 27, 2016. I am alive and depressed.

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I am no mother for reasons I can list: one, I’ve never been financially stable; two, I would have to come off all psych medications which would traumatize me and God knows if it would in turn, traumatize my fetus; and last, I would hate to pass on mental illness. I do have friends who have mental illness and have children. They are wonderful parents and their children glow.

My own mother died at the age of 58. Her liver stopped working. She went into a coma and died shortly after. Literally, she was walking around Thursday day and then in the early hours of Friday morning, slipped into a coma. I knew she drank too much but didn’t know that Jack Daniels would chase her into an early death.

I regret time not spent with my mom. Her last year, I was deep into a depression that often stole my mobility. It was like being a stone amongst stones and then being removed to sit on a shelf in a wealthy woman’s home, quickly being covered in a sheet of dust. Occasionally, a person would wipe me clean. The clean wouldn’t last. My shine would be ruined. Being depressed is intense. The world is not welcoming. A fly enters a car. The windows are rolled up. The fly is trapped indefinitely. I am underwater but eventually float to the surface in one big gasp. Depression leaves me. My mother is still dead.

Astonishingly, I was at my mom’s hospital bedside and she sat up and looked at me. Rather than tell her I loved her I said, “I know you loved us.” She smiled, huge smile, then laid back down disappearing into the folds of white cotton sheet.

I miss my mom daily. Sometimes, I will write a poem just for her. I choose to believe that when my cats eye a certain spot suddenly in my room, it is her looking out for me.

Today is March 25, 2016. I am alive and well.

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In this blog, I have heavy opinions. I get concerned that I will lose readers when stating opinions whose weight are more than five pounds. I told myself to get over it and simply write. It is never my intention to upset anyone.

Kick-Ass Creativity and Assisted Suicide are books that were side by side on the book truck at work. I found this curious. I found this right. I believe in assisted suicide when the person wanting to die has already lost their life.

There was a show, which I never watched, titled 100 ways to die. I was appalled. I have attempted suicide at least nine times. I am terrible at dying. All I need is someone teaching me ways to die.

Suicide for the mentally ill, when the body is healthy, is to me the ultimate in self-centeredness. I do know that people, such as myself, are sick also when mental illness rears its ugly head. I don’t want to imply that suffering is any less than a person who is physically ill. I actually think in many cases, the suffering of people with mental illness is greater, but then, I have never had a debilitating physical illness.

Kick-Ass Creativity with assisted suicide is unnecessary. It seems pills are the only way that allows a person to die peacefully, with no pain. Or maybe through an IV like they do death row inmates. Or maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Kick-Ass Creativity is great for those with mental illness. When I was at my worst once again, I got thrown into an art studio with others whom shared common experiences. I began painting and picked up drawing with charcoal. Creativity can come in the form of gardening or cooking, handshakes or smiles, art of all kinds to include mosaics, ceramics, etc., or writing; anything that takes one out of their self, placing them in the zone.

I have chosen the pen to be my axe and words to be my wood. The fact that I don’t dip into darkness that often is mind blowing. When I stared into my window at night only to see my reflection staring back at me, I was empty and tired and alone. At eighteen, I was done. No one could pull me out of the pit that surrounded me. The walls of the pit were made of packed earth. I could not claw my way out. Soft dirt did not exist.

This Sunday, the 27th of March, I will be 52-years-old. My life is full with spirituality as my guide. I love the people in my life and they, me. Seeing my reflection in a window does not bring me to the feet of despair any longer. I walk in light. I may not be able to hula hoop, but I can make soft boiled eggs. I can feed another person. Life is good to me and I to it.

Today is March 13, 2016. I am alive and well.

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The following is the first pages of my book in progress, tentatively titled Emma in the Corner: A Spiritual Quest of Someone Living With Schizophrenia and Alcoholism.

Foreward

This book follows on the back of Mind Without a Home. Much of Mind Without a Home was written when my brain felt sick. The writing is imagistic, metaphorical, not always lucid. In this second book, my mind feels healed. I still hear voices no one else hears. I still think things like “there is a plate in my head I need to dial into.” And yes, the other realities still exist.

When I write my mind feels healed. I have not been in a psychiatric hospital for seven years. I have held my same job with the library for five years. I have been in a relationship with one person for fourteen years, and am just recently newly single. Guy left me for someone else and I did not fall apart.

Because of this change in mind, my writing is more lucid, hopefully not to the point of being boring. Here is where I don’t necessarily know the difference between chaos, lucidity, and freshness. I really ask myself if I’m misrepresenting myself as having schizophrenia and alcoholism because I am doing so well. Then I am reminded to take it back a notch and remember that I have two illnesses that tell me I don’t have them.

If you are meeting me here after reading Mind Without a Home, welcome back. And if this is your first experience of me, hello and I’m glad you came.

Prologue

Emma. I named her Emma. The baby giraffe stands poised at eight feet, 250 pounds, in the corner of the psychiatric hall. I see her as clear as the lines on my palms. She is not able to hide among the Mimosa trees from which she eats. Her body, camouflage. A spotted stick at rest against a peeling barn.

Trees do not pop up from the gray industrial carpeting. I am the only one to see this stately, serene presence at rest in this tumultuous world: the world outside this psychiatric unit with its loud honking cars, kids on the playground bullying the fat boy, adults bickering over bills, hate crimes inviting real artillery, artillery being used in seemingly random acts of violence.

My brain is dialed in. Emma is beautiful. I believe she winks even though I am fifty yards away at the other end of the hall.

Emma sees farther than other creatures. The Egyptian hieroglyph for giraffe means “to prophesy,” to “foretell.” I’m sad that I won’t always be dialed into Emma. But I will remember how she made me feel safe, feel cared for, feel loved. A ninety-year-old woman having her toes clipped by her granddaughter.

It is giraffe magic the way Emma can disappear among the trees. In the open, Emma stands out like an exclamation mark. It is too bad others are not dialed into seeing her. They too would feel a tremendous amount of peace radiating from her tail.

Emma’s cloven hoofs the size of a dinner plate can kick a death blow. However, giraffes almost never harm another being. They are devout pacifists with neither aggressive or territorial inclinations. They never lock the door to their home they do not have.

Giraffes have no tear ducts, but have been seen to cry.

Emma can spot a person more than a mile away with her bewitching softness of eyes, high gloss and sympathetic, framed by movie-star-lashes.

She moves as a galloping mare, and as silent as a cloud. I imagine her nibbling on stars when not taking care of me. I grow calm looking at her; my smile as large as a split watermelon.

She’s a symbol for people who just don’t fit in: they may be too tall, or too eccentric, or simply too different from everyone else. She’s my omen of good fortune.

My six foot body reflects off her eyes. I am in love with Emma.

The nurse announces medication time. I will leave my vision, step into the common reality, assured that Emma will be in the corner when I need her.

I will be here when my brain rights itself.

Emma, me, we will live free.

The facts about giraffes I retrieved from the book Tall Blondes by Lynn Sherr.

Today is February 21, 2016. I am alive and well.

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I want to have a party with fake alcohol and see how many people act like they’re wasted; rum, not rum, roars through the thin man who pinches the breasts of the host. She giggles, then slaps him after coming to her senses–the slap smells of beef, a fingerprint left on his cheek.

I want to repay all the kindnesses my friends have shown me all their lives. A sunflower bends at the neck in welcome. I hand out handkerchiefs, love wrapped in knots of stripes and polka dots–it is simple.

I want to travel the world bagging people’s groceries. A stick of butter rubs skin with a potato in London. The jolly man in Brazil grins with green jello the color of palm leaves. Canned beets are slippery in Seattle. A banana rots at the foot of an onion in Germany. Radishes remain the dirty spice that they are everywhere I go.

I want to say meow during a speech. All the dogs will riot when they learn the bill won’t pass the Senate; it’s a matter of boxers wearing helmets in the ring, the blood loss would be cut in half with the ear out of the way.

I want to believe in God. God has come to me in the form of a twisted branch in a tree three stories high. Leaves rejoice!

I want to have a story worth telling. I wake to the woman mowing the grass outside my open bedroom window, smell the grass, chamomile with a touch of honey. Paint a purple mustache on my niece’s doll. Ask her where Ken’s head is.

I want to take a cute girl to the moon. She smiles as I strap her into the card board box. The stereo explodes with the sound of flame. I tell her “close your eyes and imagine cheese.” In no time, we hear mail being dropped through the door’s slot and know we are still grounded. The moon is another dream, like cows pirouetting to Greenday’s Awesome as Fuck.

I want to go to a city where nobody knows me and act like a completely different person. My name will be Betty, an easy name, one I will recognize on a stranger’s tongue. I will wear boots and smoke cigarettes and smile only in the grocery store from where I buy slices of cake. My downfall is butter cream frosting. I like it on toast in this new life of mine.

Today is January 30, 2016. I am alive and well

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This is dedicated to two women whom make certain I don’t go without food or coffee. Guy also contributes to my financial affairs, although this is not about him.

Love Letter Written with a Wishful Penny Attached

I borrow letters from the alphabet at no cost to anyone. The letters never run out but occasionally get lost in the paper clips and rubber bands, the empty ice trays or rolls of toilet paper. How do I curve where we are headed without falling into the abyss of tired “Gs.”

This is about love. “Js” jump at the chance to be involved. I can handle one jack rabbit jumping over the name John; a dear John this is not. I’m trying to say this is about love. About love being so much more than a penny. Although, pennies can decorate an evening on a porch of a restaurant known for its linguini and musicians tucked in corners of the building, on low, serenading everyone.

I have little to offer others than letters and toothy grins. It’s a stretch for me to get this on paper because there is so much I want to give. I usually trust that most written words find their niche; they roll over on a line and butt up into a sentence. Sometimes an exclamation settles it, but usually it’s a period. Love is not lost with a dash. A dash simply means something else is a attached, maybe the geranium I spotted sitting in the window of Pete’s Pizzeria.

It feels like I am moving further away from you while enlisting all these words to form paragraphs. It was not my intention to write paragraphs. I was going to turn all this into a poem. My printer has plenty of ink. My type is showing off; it’s more useful to me than a magenta crayon. Crayons have to be sharpened and, well, magenta is too bright for me right now. I’m thinking more gray. Did I mention the band serenading the patrons?

How many letters ago was that? “A few,” you say, and aren’t I glad you finally showed up. I do know you were there all along like one does a dog leaving a muddy trail across concrete.

I am reminded of a poetry class I once attended. I would write long stretches of words and turn these stretches into the professor. At long last, the professor said “Kristina, I have yet to see a single poem from you!” So I wrote a poem, a very bad poem that contained poison ivy and love gone wrong.

My love for you is raw and bridled, reflected in the flank of a horse. It’s not sexual. There is no kiss that follows hello and walks away with a promise. We are not attached by anything greater than an intimate friendship; intimate because we show up to dinner vulnerable, willing to share anything that belongs to us, lingering just below the edge of consciousness.

I’m winding down like a girl who does “around the world” with her yo-yo, her yo-yo landing safely in her palm.

Today is January 16. I am alive and well.

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Dear mom. I’m missing you and your sloppy smiles that fall to the sidewalk as you glint in afternoon sun. The smell of Opium rounds the corner ahead of your polished toes, red like ketchup.

I’m the only one that sees you’re wearing ocean blue flip flops in the desert. I’m the only one that sees you’ve come to life again like an orchid blooming for the second time.

Missing is like this–shaping squares out of windows, framing the height of a mound of sugar.

You sweet in a short dress allowing for knees.

I see you, but I’m greedy. I want your touch on my arm, prompting me to embrace your five feet eight inches, my chin on your shoulder.

How is death? I wonder. “Painless,” you say. The air hangs like dead drapes.

I want to believe you fare better than you had in life, scotch taking your breath, leaving you slumped over a coffee mug. A fool says the liver is not important. You lost yours when it became laced with liquor. All talk stopped.

You looked beautiful in your coma, a painting unlike the Mona Lisa.

I imagine a peach at rest on your chest, waiting to be bitten, its juice making rivulets.

Your arms appear stiff, your hands unclenched. Life escapes from between your fingers that stare at nothing. You hold nothing.

I am glad for the glimpse of you standing in my doorway. It lessens the missing, my missing found in my closed palm, my missing cascading over me as you glint in the afternoon sun.

Today is May 17, 2015. I am alive and well.

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I’ve been reading about female executions. Morbid. Yes. what is my fascination with violence and wrong doing? I slow when there is a car accident, wondering if I will bare witness to tragedy. I realize that millions of people have asked this same question. And oddly enough, there is no real answer.

I have never seen anyone beaten or murdered. The only dead bodies I’ve seen are my parents and grandmother.

My mother was at rest in a hospital bed, her toes well manicured and painted red. Liquor had claimed her liver. Jim Beam had been her best friend, then later her executioner. Her death was sudden like crumpled paper with a bad idea written on it. When the nurse removed her oxygen mask, it took about a minute for her to die. It was a quiet night, nothing spectacular was happening in the hospital. I kissed her forehead and said goodbye, said I would see her on the other side.

And then there was my grandmother. I had just left the nursing home. Ten minutes later, I got the call that she had died. Her last words to me were “where are we going to find you another guy.” WIth her last breath she was thinking of me. Her body did not look natural. Her face was stuck in a yawn. I stayed and cried by her bedside for an hour, hoping my tears would wash her awake like bleach taking out the stubborn stain.

A heart attack killed my father instantly. It wasn’t like a bee sting where you can remove the stinger. In the emergency room, hospital staff had not removed the breathing tube they had shoved down his throat with the hope to resuscitate a dead body. I’m still mixed by my father’s death. During football season I still think we can talk football–a phone call away. Him forever silent on the other end like a kid who dropped the can on the string, frustrated with the lack of conversation.

So how did I get from executed woman to the dead bodies of my family? Death binds them. Death is not a subtle hand. In executions, it is immediate unless the blade is bot sharp enough, the noosed not right, the torture of limbs being torn apart on the stretch rack, slowly. There are numerous ways to kill a person, none of them decent.

I’m glad my loved ones did not suffer. I sleep hoping they visit me in my dreams. I wake hoping I will feel them by my side. Death is permanent, and yet ongoing. My cats see them. They wash over me like a cashmere blanket. I love. I love.