Maternal Connections

My grandmother called me two days ago. She had come down with a cold and is in the stage of recovery. It's strange to me that my grams is sick. In all the years she lived with us, she was sick (that's excluding car sick) only a handful of times. Seldom enough for us to make the blanket statement, "grandma never gets sick". She also told me about the bay areas economic forecast since I've been daydreaming about relocation. The real reason she called was to inquire about my love life. She had a dream I was walking along, hand in hand with a mister. My mister. I laughed and asked her if he was handsome.

Grams is a funny old woman. She raised me in many ways and it's no secret I am her golden child. She's always been my support. A singular pillar that holds up my hopes and dreams. She's everything a grandmother should be...in addition to being a fierce little thing. I've always internalized her personality and from her I've inherited quite an attitude. Like her, I am equal parts affectionate and aggressive, borderline malicious.

You can't blame the woman, she grew up during tough times (born 1941, Guangzhou province). She's always taught me to defend myself and my own. She's got this idea in her head that most people are out to get you to get theirs. Those people will eventually repay their karmic debt, especially if you can deliver the lesson to them. She's got a sharp tongue and is prone to let somebody know about themselves. She is not what you'd picture a nice old lady to be. My grandmother keeps it real.

She's also as superstitous as it gets. Makes me wear stones for protection. Hangs things in my room to ward off evil intentions. Places plants in my room to act as an energy detox. Treatens to beat my ass if I take down or rearrange the things she's left... for my own good. And when she dreams about me, she is always at attention.

When I was 12, she went across the country. My aunt had just had her first child and she had gone to care for them both. While she was there she had a reoccurring dream. In this dream she was back home in a village. After a few successive nights in this area, she realized it was my fathers village. During these dreams a man would speak to her. He had a birthmark that covered half of his face. In these nightly visits, this anonymous man would tell my grandmother she had to return to us. That we needed her. She would try to explain her situation, but his message was always the same. She said that after a few of these dreams, that this man was joined by a women and they would implore her to go.

When she heard the news that both my sister and I had been hit by a car, she immediately knew who they were. She is convinced it was my paternal grandparents who had visited her, she said it was the birthmark.

I have a bond with my grandma that's stronger then anyone else in my life. I know she loves me more than anything. She remembers things about me, moments in my life that I've suppressed. She was my memory before I had one and she knows me better than I know myself. She's never told me I could not accomplish something and has been more of a mother to me than my own. It's part of the reason I want to go to San Francisco so badly. I want to be closer to unconditional love.

All my days

There are days I love you, but most days I'm indifferent to you. The days I notice you, are days I'd like back. Being in my own skin itches. Nothing fits like it use to and the tightness where it just won't fit is giving me a wedgie. I can't stand it, but mostly I just can't stand myself. I can't stand that I have dreams unfufilled. So seemingly untouchable.

I feel like I'm in a hole. I know at any point it could start raining and I'd drown, but I'm still digging. As if keeping on task would fend off troubled thoughts. So I keep digging, even as dark clouds roll in. I'm still digging. far enough down that each consecutive shovelful is going nowhere but back on top of me. When it rains, I'll be drowning in mud.

The Child

Woke up this morning, without the drive to get out of bed. Woke up early this morning, took me two tries to get out of bed. Even then, the world outside my bed felt cold. Felt boring. Felt so bland.

So I had a bland breakfast. Ate mac & cheese with a cup of water. Sitting on the couch, I thought about how utterly boring mac & cheese is, but now much I crave it's comfort. I compared it to other ethnic foods. The exotic spices and variety of color in dishes that come from overseas, while I looked upon my yellow slop and took another mouthful. I went for seconds.

This entire week has been a lazy one for me. I should mention that it was without the help of medicinal herbs. My troubles have been keeping me in bed until about noon, in which time I lay around for another hour before rising. Silly, no?

I keep thinking about things I have no control over. I keep thinking about myself as the child. Keep thinking about how much I identify with that. As much as an adult I am, with adult responsibilities and an adult front, I act very much like a child. I think like a child. I'm always scared and so very confused. I'm always looking for an authoritative figure to validate my thoughts and to secure me from harm. I'm always trying to hid and often in places only children could fit.

I wonder why. I wonder what has brought me to this state of mind. Is it because I was robbed of a childhood? What else could it have been like if the situation was different? If I could have lived what some would say a normal, average, healthy up bringing - would I still feel so lost?

Do I hate that I associate all the years of my life previous to this moment with anguish? No. I only hate that I'm so confused, so scared, and so sorry. The thing is, these are issues I have to address with MY self. The things that other people did to me, I can't do anything about. They're done and if I were try to speak to them about it, no good would come from it. I'm not looking for apologies, I'm searching for closure. The people who wronged me are not the same people anymore. I was too young to speak and now they're too old to know. We've all grown out of our former shells and now I'll never find the same person who hurt me. I'd be confronting a shadow. My words would go through them and hit a stranger.

I think I know why I'm always trying to run and hide. It's the most previaling thought in my head. Run. Don't look back. Run faster. Look for a place to hide or you'll be sorry you didn't.

Recording a memory

Moments in my childhood are often lost in the folds of my memory. I remember them so suddenly, the clarity of the picture steals the breath from my lips. Things I've forgotten along with things I chose to forget, invoke charged reactions from myself as the adult. I feel like the girl still. These memories push me back into all those long years ago with one sharp inhale and wide eyes. I was there once, wasn't I?
I have a collection of moments as a child of myself running out the front door, full speed ahead, only to be stopped in my tracks. It was always the sky that broke my pace. Once during the harvest moon, when it appeared so large and orange that I thought it'd surely fall into the horizon. I remember how it's presence held me. I was so utterly captivated, under the celestial spell of the most dramatic thing I'd ever seen across the sky. The second time was a moment of perfect balance. I was there at the edge of an awesome raincloud. I could breath the electricity. It moved quickly over the landscape, drowning all below it in heavy raindrops. I held out my arms as it passed above me, one hand wet and the other dry.
The sky has always held my gaze. Many nights I've spent laying next to the window, watching the moon become full and pregnant with sunlight. It's the sense of peace I feel as I trace it's course in the dark. I've been constructing an idea in my head for a while, a tattoo design. I've decided on the moon and a chrysanthemum - superimposed. I sometimes call her mother.