october 2014

October 1st We are being tested in our committment to being alchohol free. It is pay day and we quarrelled, sort of, again, last night. Just as some people have a problem with road rage, i believe Darrell has a problem with kitchen rage . . and that’s usually been the the source of problems between us domestically that lead to quarrell both when he was staying with me and continuing on when I am visiting at his place. it usually amounts to his hovering over me when I am cooking, criticizing and some times taking over and’doing things my self’. often dishes get broken because his rage gets  out of hand. The way i can’t do things right.   Last night he went into a frenzy of cleaning up the dishes and so on during and after our meal. id made pot roast, home made chicken soup for later.   it left me tense, wary, quiet, ready to sprint .  My blood pressure goes up and of course, i do not feel able to relax even when the episode is ended. So i simply said , when it was over that I was going on home so that we could both be relaxed and at peace. of course he turned it into his usual ‘get out and take all your clothes” . .which amounted to one bra in a bottom drawer. So even though I did the correct thing in simply leaving without confrontation and protecting my own needs my evening was made sad and distressed.  Darrell said that he was struggling because he was afraid he would drink again . . . but does that mean its O.K> to take it out on another??  Sometimes creating a conflict when things have been going well is a way of setting oneself up with a rational to drink again. If i decide to not go back then he will drink . . feel abandoned, victimized, full of hate which will radiate outward in the community. But can i continually put myself at the mercies of erratic moods and rages in my attempts to maintain our relationship and his well being at his apartment?? Deep down, i think I have turned a corner.  I really want to end the situation, but the issues of Darrell’s neediness remian as unchanged as they were years ago, despite all the things his counselors have done. That is because they have not addressed the core issues. And i believe that that has to do with Darrell’s addiction to rage and keeping me in the loop in some way that he controlls by some means . . keeping me serving his needs, while he puts me down, blames me . . it is classic domestic abuse, even though the actuall physical abuse ended years ago. This is not unusual.  But what has made this unusall is that it is a case where a cycle of domestic abuse has been reinforced by community abuse, even national abuse.For political and social reasons that have much to do with power and controll of public for whatever agenda.    The sense that the cruelties i have ex[perienced at the hands of the dominant culture, the rug pullings the hostilities and misrepresentation, the evils to call it out out bluntly . . .are worse and therefore there is no better alternative, is what has kept me in this.  The feeling that despite this problems with rage addiction focused on karen’s kitchen and habits that Darrell is my one friend, that at least we understand each other, that it is all balenced by times of humor and affection and understanding. But has he been a friend?? do friends make you feel the way he makes me feel / don’t friends try to support you and boost you up . . don’t they try to bolster your best qualities by positive recognition, say nice things about your strenghths?? I asked Darrell not long ago if he could say one thing about me that he admired . . admit to just one strenghth and he said “You have tough teeth”.  I have tough teeth. That’s it. I know that this pay day I am going to stay on the path.  I am being tested right now . . . a sudden bout of depression when i was feeling good, feeling stressed and confused when i was feeling that things were again in balence.  I ought not to be writing about Darrell but it is my one way of working through these things. the people in his world may not care if he is using me for his own ends, I am not important to them.  They don’t care about karen’s needs . Only Darrells.  he is considered the valuable one.  Oh . . there are many women who will give lip service to my ‘taking care of myself’ but mostly they just consider my laments, when i (rarely) reach out for some kind of cousel as ‘bullshit’.  don’t take any of her bullshit.  Or they deny the validity of my ‘reality’ . . . always insisting that I am wrong in my perceptions and feelings about things and that they have the better understanding, the ‘truth’. so its like they are polite and let me speak but kind of turn a deaf ear. Their solution is always to encourage me to stay seperate from Darrell, they would have themselves in controll . . and me, not just diminished but non existant. accepting a life where I am dissconnected, disempowered and ‘despised’ . . . the enemy, who must be defeated, ‘shamed’ into submission . But i guess i have tough teeth.  MY strenghth.. i don’t make it easy.  I stubbornly hold on to the idea that I have worth, the right to live a decent life on my own terms, to think as an individual. I think the psycholgy I have been battling,  in the dominant culture is own rooted in Post Traumatic stress disorder in a big collective way. it is sad to think that there are so many people in the United States who cannot work through so muc traumatic stress disorder . . that it developes into a madness . . a thirst for power and controll, absolutism of ideation despite our professions of being a nation that tolerates freedom of thought and expression. Active persecution , an obssesion with killing, inflicting punishemnt.  .  It takes a strong person to recognize this and say to one’s self . . I really am all right, Im O.K. . . ,. it’s just my nation working through something, unfortunetly using me to do this but Im O.K> . . . without becoming evil and hatefull one’s self.  Bitter and cynical.. I have developed bitterness . . but i still believe that seeking a path og the spirit will make a sustainable life wrht living, and that one just does it . . wether or not it is understood or recognized  and that is my challenge . . to keep myself on the right path, to recognize the demons of destructive emotions that can lead to unclarity, self desteructiveness, hjealousy, resentment . . to learn how to proscess the hurts in life, the disapointments in peoples own emotional failings.  that’s all i need to do.  kepp the ship of karen afloat.  and then, the ship of Karen and Darrell as long as it is ment to sail . . and too, to know when it is time to dock. So i need to figure this out myself.

 

Thursday october 1 The ‘right path’ lead me to a deeply satisfying gelato yesterday afternoon .  I treated myself to a trip to the chocolate shop and had a bilberry gelato that was pure pleasure. We teamed up to pay bills  and Yea though we passed through the valley of stress we did not fear.  We passed the test.  New clothes for fall making me feel all snug and warm and O.K. I have a dr.appointment tommarow regarding a unhealed lesion on my arm that has been tentatively identified as skin cancer. Not worried.  Very, very tired tonight. Ebola has arrived on American shores. finished my book; 1423 . . wow. That was the most interesting read I have gotten engaged in  a long time.  I am way too tired for a book review, or thoughts on the history it disclosed about the Chinese discoveries in America and elsewhere before the europeans. I am too exhausted to even think this evening, but i felt i had to write something about that gelato, still singing in my veins.  Isnt a Billberry Gelato in a stylish shop a better way to enjoy an afternoon than moping  and drinking?

Sauturday

Still doin fine.  Had my arm checked out.  Dr.   Sarvosy is such a nice person.  I have to go to Mt. Vernon to see  a dermatologist.  Got my round trip ticket to Minnesota too. Coming up soon.

There has been a homo phobic drama over at Darrell’s building recently with some odd twists.  I guess Darrell made friends with one of the tenents that was gay, I don’t remember his name so I will call him George . . no . . Willy. I Guess they started smoking pot together a lot and at some point willy was on the phone with a friend and mentioned his friendship with Darrell adding . . I think it’s going to be more than a friendship. Well you can bet Darrell’s hyper Lakota masculinity took affront and he kept chewing on,fretting,  going on about it . . that guy is a stone cold Winktea  and so on. They had a mini quarrel when Darrell was drunk and got pushy at Willys house and so they stopped hanging out.  Neighbors of Darrell and Willy ( bald , hardened guys)  overheard Darrell’s observations about willy being a stone cold Winktea and spoke to him about their plans to harass Willy into leaving.  Apparently they had seen him ‘doing something’ when they passed by his window.  They wanted to bring Darrell into their secret plan.

Darrell and I talked about this.  I reminded him that that what they were proposing was hate crime.  Did he want to be a part of that? Did he like it when it happened to him? No, he replied he did not.  I reminded him that just because you don’t like some one doesn’t mean you have to persecute them.  If you don’t like some one or if they make you uncomfortable you simply ignore them or leave them alone. I reminded him of the suffering we went through at Lincoln square because of this attitude of trying to push out  ‘the ones we don’t like’, the ones that threaten us. He agreed that he would tell his neighbors to leave him out of what ever they were up to.

apparently , what ever it was, it was effective because Willy put in his notice shortly after that. Then Yose entered the picture.

Yose is the Gay, Mexican Religious Jew that used to live at Lincoln square when the bug persecutions of Karen was  at it’s  height.  He , to his credit, defended me against the irrationality of the blame.  I always liked Yose.  He was hysterically funny.

He too, had had enough of this fear based  ganging up behavior so prevalent up here in Bellingham ( pockets of Bellingham)  and moved out.  Not before he threw a big barbeque at his own expense for everyone . . he was a great cook and made the best  salsas I have every had.

Well Jose came back to town to get his stuff in storage and was staying with Willy while all this was going on.. small world isn’t it.  Willy, Jose, Darrell and Karen all in the same strange tale.  all together again at Elm St.

Willy and Yose brought us a bunch of stuff before they left, a lot of food, some packaged, some open jars and condiments. Darrell suggested to Willy that just before he took off that he ought to dance naked in front of the Nazi’s windows. I suggested to Darrell that Yose should pick out the music.  I could just imagine it.  Mariachi blasting from the car ,lights going on,  a couple of nude guys dancing briefly, one with a Yamika before they peel out.

Darrell said; “Just shake that Ozeke”  willy smiled and shook his head,

“I don’t know about you SpottedHorse.”  Then the homophobic drama about what to do with the food they had left us began . . Darrell did not trust it. They could have a revenge motive . They might have aids.  You don’t have to spell it out I replied.  So he kept the sealed stuff.  so it ends.  Life can be funny.  Even the worst stuff can be hysterically ridiculous and funny.

Monday

Focus,
not on the rudenesses of others,
not on what they’ve done
or left undone,
but on what you
have & haven’t done
yourself.

–Dhammapada verse 50

This is the season . pre Halloween, set aside for recognizing fears. Set aside in a playfully dark festival of fantasy and one of the more interesting American phenomena. So rather than focus, as I have been lately on the wrongs i feel done to me I should set aside a exploration of what it is that I fear.

 

Thursday October 9

dream

I was on a reservation, perhaps Lummi, but it was unclear.  some guy was on trial. it was a private court with different rules than the usual justice system in the U.S.  i don’t know what the crime was but everyone was awaiting the outcome of this.  Everyone seemed to want justice to be administered to this man.  it was a closed court, presided over by tribal leaders and others.  Finally we heard the verdict. He was to be imediately executed. People were happy, cheering.   He was executed in some fashion and the body was carried out, by the scruff of the neck , without a coffin and dumped in a train. he looked to be Asian.

Notes.

I related the dream to Darrell.  He kind of thought to himself  and remarked'”Yeah . . . that stuff can be deadly.” that’s all.

Getting ready to hit the road soon. Did a good cleaning at my place.  Tying up some loose ends.

Trying to get in some excersize too.  Darrell is boozing again . . perhaps afraid of being on his own.  he seems vulnerable rather than belligerent so i am staying at his place today and looking after him, cooking . . and finishing up my own slipper projects. Watched ‘ The life of Pi” . . a great movie.

 

Dream

I went to visit my parents in MN.  I was also staying at some kind of healing center or ashram.

I had some money so i went out to buy all kinds of tools and usefull things for the ashram . for everyones use.  I had been   taking a taxi while I shopped and it seemed like the ride had taken  a long time and the drivers kept changing.  They did not look like taxi drivers.  One guy had whitish hair, seemed British.

At the ashram I noticed that one guy, a chicano guy was hoarding a lot of the stuff I had brought over for everyone so i spoke up about it.  At this ashram there seemed to be many different rooms, many different kinds of spiritual healing offered.  There were also many different kinds of people and they seemed very glad that I was there.  I went first to a native American healer who prayed with me, and over me, used sage and other herbs to smudge me.  Then some one offered me a panther cub.  it was so cute and soooo fiesty.  I petted it but did not adopt it.  Then I moved on and explored a little more.  In one room they were having a.a. recovery meetings and aa lot of people were there.  A woman came up to me and asked me about the taxi drivers.  They suspected government spies.  They wanted to know how many taxi drivers had been driving me around and when i finished describing them they (mostly native people, but some other people too) told me that I had been indeed kidnapped and spied on by government agencies with some motive of their own. They were keeping an eye on me while i was in MN.

Then they brought me a leopard cub.  This leopard cub was fiesty too but seemed to sooth down when i held it and took to me. We bonded.

The cub seemed more needy than dangerous so i talked to the cub and decided to adopt it as my pet.

Notes: This dream reflects themes gleaned from waching the Life of Pi. I think the leopard (spotted) is Darrell SpottedHorse.  The chicano guy that hoards the tools may also be an aspect of Darrell.

As for the government spies . . . this reflects what was really happening to me over the years. I was under surveillance. They guy with the white hair could be Dan but didnt look or act  like him in the dream. he reminded me of an acto whose name I cannot remember right now.  The way his hair was combed suggested Jon Stewert but his mannerisms were different.

 

Saturday

Too rainy to do the market I think, although it is not coming down at the moment. I sure could use the extra cash . . but if its ishy out there may not be many people there.  Darrell is drinking a lot and Im worried about leaving him like that.  Stocked his fridge with stuff . . .he can always call some one to help out, keep him company.  he acts as if I am leaving permanently . . geez it’s only a short visit.  Im hardly going to relocate to St. Cloud MN of all places. Certinaly not with winter on its way.  Oh . . my Minneapolis memories weren’t all bad . . . I used to go to the theaters a lot. But I was poor and my attempts to ‘pull myself up by my bootstraps’ left me with a story that alientated a lot of Minnesotians in the telling  nd threatened many political strategists  . . but I don’t want to go into all that . I some times wish I could turn back the clock to pre Darrell Minneapolis and avoid certain situations that messed me up and just enjoy the city again. . . I was certainly not ‘hated’ in any kind of big way then , there were a few people who persued it by word of mouth to the extreme, but most people didn’t even think about me much, they were busy with their own lives.  I was known as ‘sweety’ to most people in Darrell’s world in Franklin Avenue.  I cettainly was not seen as either a bigot or racist or ‘hater’ . . .I was just a city girl,I got along good with black people although i didn’t hang with them, had several women friends,I was  kind of a loner and a survivor, and not that dumb either, just drank too much at times, and went through pathetic character changes when I did, with some bad consequences. I did a lot of stuff right too.I worked all the time.  That was one thing remarked on; “I don’t know why he says all those things about her . . all she ever does is work.”

But I can’t turn back the clock.  No, Im not going to relocate in MN. Unless of course, my folks ask me to because of my mother’s failing health.  But I doubt that will happen.

 

Monday

A few hours to go before i depart.  it is Columbus day. The day of epic voyages.  Columbus wasn’t a very nice guy, and he didn’t know where he was going. Nor did he recognize his misconceptions in his lifetime.  I hope that at the end of my voyages people will not say that of me.   The city of Seattle recently changed columbus day to indigenous people’s day.  There were some happy people.  This was the day after I had the dream about the trial and execution of some unknown guy on a reservation.  I might have had had a little esp about the Columbus day ruling.  The dream might have had to do with Columbus. Then again the man on trial could have been me . . or was it perhaps my relationship.

I read a good book recently called 1421 about the great Chinese fleets of exploration in the Ming dynasty. They explored every continent, even Antartica. They had colonies in California, the caribean, Florida, even Massachusetts. They were the first to round the horn of Africa and discovered the straits of Magellian. They visited Mexico and Peru. they left a trail of asian chickens, porcelian, silks, laquer ware, shipwrecks and markers. They made carefull maps . those maps and all records of this voyage of exploration were erased from chinese history after lightening struck the magnificent forbidden city and burned it. china closed its doors to the outside world. r a few map makers on this voyage whose maps made their way into the secret collections of european powers, like venice and portugal , paved the way for european voyages later.  The portugese were in Cuba, using these maps, before Columbus.

i find myself wondering how different the world might have been if that lightening had not ignited the forbidden city, at the height of its power, while these Chinese explorations were happening all over the world.  How strange it is that fate  . . like this chanch lightening, can change the course of the world so dramatically.

We do not know about these fleets of discovery because  the chinese detroyed all records of it and closed their doors to the outside world following the fire.  What if that fire had never happened? The Chinese had not set out for conquest, at least not bloody conquest, but for trade. they dug around for minerals and things here and there but didn’t brutalize the native people they encountered.  No . . .it was at the height of the Spanish inquisition that america was ‘discovered’ by Christopher columbus , bringing that mentality with it.

How many speculative conversations have we had about these things over breakfasts at Darrells . . . funny conversations, full of humor, piss and vinigar.  Nothing in the world can replace the place those breakfasts hold in my heart.  Far from an empire  not as far from Inquisition mentality as they think.

So it is columbus day. In Seattle, at least it is Indigenous people’s day. I will be on a slow train following the coastline down to Seattle in a few hours and then i will browse around at the Pike Street market in  a few hours  untill i catch a train called . . ‘the empire builder’ headed East.  Then breakfasts with my Mom and Dad, chatting about a static world of people i don’t even know and don’t wish to know me. But that’s O.K>

I am already missing my funny friend.

Octboer 16th

     

At my parents now. Both of them have aged a lot and are glad to have me drive.  The weather coming out was sunny and the fall colors were beginning their peak, highlighting the usually monotonous Montana.  I got a chanch to see the cascades but we went through the Rockies during the night and were all most out of West Glacier by the time that pokey sun finally rose.  I spent my train ride crochetting hand warmers and reading ” eat, Pray,Love.” I brought along as reading material “Drink” the intimate relationship between women and alchohol by Ann Johnston which is more interesting than it sounds, and ” the Far Corner”  Northwestern views on land, life and literature by John Daneiel of Oregon. He writes like an oregonian, I can hear the chainsaws and see the the mossy trees. Mostly however, I watching the ever changing face of the land in all it’s largeness. I thought about the largeness of things. The brief smallness of I and how after my bried hour apon the stage, all fret

and fury it ends in the death of the ego. My Ego has had a long time dying, and it still has a few gasps left, a few valient attempts to not go silently into that good night, to rage, rage against the dying of the night . . .but mostly it looks quietly on its own quests , like a flower than furls back up at night fall, and wonders what was it all for? What was i seeking? What did i hope to be, to find, and what was worth fighting against?

the more I felt the divinity,  all about me the more i felt myself blocked by a voice that insisted on remembering all the things that had caused me so much pain. That voice was inside my head too the last day i spent at Darrell’s.When he sought to express love all i could think was . . your drunk, what a pain in the ass . . yes, yes, i love you too . . . but your really drunk . . . .all the stuff you did to me, ruined it for me out here . . .that voice causes me pain . . . .it caused me more pain in Seattle, the seat of much of my P.T.S.D, no matter how much i try to enjoy Pike market treats, I think that voice is blocking the free inhale and exhale of just life, just serenty in being, just loving, just feeling happy because it is losing its hold on me.  And its been in charge for a long, long time.  I think its always been at war with the part of me willing to throw itself, forget onesself in the joyous expansion of just living.

Even when i was at themost depressed, despairing, felt annilated by media the life force still found it’s joy . . . in making things for the market, in the connections to people all over the world on Facebook.  Facebook kept this alive, breathed life back into connections with people and their insights and experience that gave me delight.

Now I am back in St. cloud.  the town of my birth. it’s not such a bad place . . . why, i wonder did I reject it so much in my young adulthood in favor of the pacific Northwest which caused me so much alienation?  The bakeries here in St. Cloud have the best cookies, and lots of them. The bakery breads surpass that dry crap that passes for bakery bread in many Bellingham shops.  There’s not a fresh vegetable or herb that cannot be found here. The library is huge.  The people are well educated, well behaved, (except for working class rowdiness and such) down to earth, hard working, they have manners, commen sense, a sense of humor and they look good too despite the prevalence of obesity. They are . . chunkier than Washingtons as a whole, perhaps because of all those bakery cookies.

but they look better. healthier. There’s no scruffy black sweatshirts, with deaths heads and such around.  ive spotted few over pierced kids flocking the streets and hanging out all night scoring .  Family life remains as central as it was when i grew up. Catholisism lends itself to prosperous families.

So what was so indimadating about St. cloud? That it becomes, in places like Seattle an icon of ethnocentricity (not THAT much) the focus of furious liberal and far left hatred and malice.  the ‘sheep’,  under the grip of focused establishment propaganda,

trained materialism, conformism, reinforced by ‘shaming’ , ridicule of the ones who dont buckle down and find their niche, their way of up holding the status quo.

And to think of how i bought into all that when i was young, thought the bohemian , the counter culture was where it was at. And they damn near destoyed what was best in me.  bit by bit and threw me back a confused wreck in my 30s.

But we learn from all our experiences, they lead us to the next place . . the next stage of figuring it all out. perhaps the closer we get . . the more furious the demonic forces

become that would keep us from knowing our souls, from acting from the soul and keep us thinking about THEM.  The would be gods,full of sound a fury. There is more to be found, in the end in breakfast with a friend with all their fualts, all the griefs they have put one through, and breakfast with family that has nourished one’s life over the years,with all their faults and all the vast array of mountains  and prairies and skys full fo colors between than in any system of thought or belief. the journey from one breakfast table to another is under the same sky. We seek what is right here all along and that is love.faults and all.

October 17th

Made up gallons of chicken noodle soup and portioned it out into single servings for freezig. Helped Dad pick up the car and went shopping with Mom.  it was a rare girls afternoon out for her. She terribly house bound these days. Today lasagna making!!and a swim.

 

October 19th, Minot  N.D

In Minot N.D today.  The sun rises over the vast stubble of sheared wheat like a great blond Hieni haircut on turtle America.  Geese are migrating here and there. There is a clear sky and I am feeling happy, as if my Karen batteries had been re charged by my stay with Mom and Dad. That painfull voice, that tape that kept running is stilled.  Gone.  Not running now.

october 20th