Therapy Poem

So, as a woman we have an extra doctor's appointment we have to make every year.  A couple years ago I had an abnormal pap.  I was treated and recently had another abnormal result.  My doctor's recommendation is to have a partial hysterectomy- removal of the cervix and uterus.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I'm not even 35 yet!  But the more I've thought of it, the more sense it makes.  My mother had uterine cancer which is very hereditary and also difficult to treat and to detect.  So!  With all that in mind and also the fact that I do NOT want any more children, this seems like the logical thing to do.  I don't have health insurance so I'll have to, probably, jump through some hoops to get Medicaid to pay for it.  I think, (again), that it's totally bullshit that I am a working person living in America and I have no health insurance, (and struggle with money daily), but I'll save that for another post.

I'm talking about my uterus here.  I realize to some it may sound strange to have an attachment to a particular organ, but most women would understand.  That's my womb!  Like, my womb!  It's kinda, well, special.  And I realized a huge spiritual reaction to all of this.  Like, the life-cycle of a woman is tied into the three aspects of the Goddess- maiden, mother, and crone.  What does it mean if I give up my uterus?  Can I still call myself mother? (Of course and my daughter will too.) But these are some of the things that have been circling in my brain.  It's scary.  It's scary to have surgery.  It's scary to lose an organ. Now, I must admit that if she asked for my tonsils or my appendix, or even maybe a kidney, I would not go through the same things.  That's not to say I would not be scared.  I'll be clear, I would be terrified.  Again, surgery and loss of an organ- scary things.  But, this is hitting me a lot harder than that would.  I never really thought about it before.  I am attached to my uterus.  (okay, obviously)  But in a very emotional/spiritual way.  So, as I was taking this all in, the night I learned this, I had the urge to write it. 

I don't often deny the muse.  Like, I just don't ever do that.  Whatever I want to write or wants to be written by me, let it come.  I don't edit in my head anymore- I write too much, who am I to decide what's good before it's even on paper?  But this.  This was a difficult write to start.  The first three lines or so popped into my head and I felt the pull toward the keyboard and literally groaned, "I don't want to write this!"  Like, I didn't even want to be living it, let alone did I want to write about it.  But good sense prevailed and I gave in.  I'm glad.  It helped a lot.  And it shows me moving through the emotions.  Dancing in fear and confusion and just a couple steps forward toward courage and an identity that could never reside in an organ.  So, I'm still processing, especially since this is all just talk right now.  I'm very glad about my decision, I only hope it's feasible and will be history soon.  Any prayers would be helpful and appreciated, if you do pray.  But overall, I feel pretty lucky.  I was able to go to the doctor and find out what is wrong.  I will make it through this and one day I'll just look back and say I was brave when it counted, even if I was terrified at first.  And I know, I couldn't be brave if I wasn't terrified first, right?


not surrender


so the doctor says
maybe surrender your womb
but she doesn't use those words
     remove           uterus
like it's an organ
like a part
of my physical body
and not the place
where I grew my daughter
and not the place
where all of humanity
grows
and not the place
that makes me
woman
and she is a woman
but uteruses are her business
her work
like woman's work
working on women
and she maybe doesn't know
what all I hold there
and what we all have in there
and that it's the warm red place
where some secrets hide
and where a goddess sleeps
and it's where I grew my daughter
and I don't want another child
but it's my woman self in there
and even if they don't take my eggs
and even if I get to keep my hormones
that place will be gone
and I look inside to wonder
how things will move
because I'm not pieces
I am a whole
I am a woman

but the body-part
that walking around part of me
she says it's just not fighting
and I think what do you mean
I'm strong
I'm fighting every day
surely if the rest of me will
my body will fight too
maybe no one told her
maybe she doesn't know
those cells don't belong
do you have a phone, doc
an in-there phone
so we could call her
and tell her to woman-up
because it's taken me too long
to get this far
and I know that if I have to
I will surrender that part
and be still whole
and be still woman
because I am

because I am a fighter
and I know no part makes me me
and I know I will move through every fear
and I know where my power lies
it's not in that warm red place
and it's not in a place that can be
removed
it's a part that will always be
that will come with me
even when I leave the body
with or without its womb
or any other parts
that can't seem to fight

because whole doesn't come
from a collaboration of parts
and strength is buried deeper
than the deepest inside me
it rides up through the earth
to fill all the unseen parts
and becomes the essence
of who I really am

Something to Say

Hi everyone!  I finally feel like I have something to say.  That is, I've been thinking of something I need to come here and write out.  So, we all know a congresswoman was shot at in Arizona.  Let me first say that I'm appalled at how the media mentioned shots fired at a congress person and left out the data that other people had been killed, including a child.  That was just the first bit I saw of the story, when they weren't sure the congresswoman survived.  I detest the media.  If you've ever seen the movie "Natural Born Killers", Robert Downy Jr. plays a media personality in that film and there's a tiny shot where he's shown as a devil dripping blood.  Ok, it's gory but that little picture really exemplifies the media for me.  And it's not their blood they're covered in, it's our own.  It belongs to every citizen who is influenced by biased media, and every person whose life unfolds in the light of their skewed truth.  But I digress (as I so often do)...


What I find interesting is the question that keeps coming up about whether or not the hateful speech of the right has anything to do with this tragedy.  Let's look at that.  So, people are actually trying to decipher whether or not one political party's rampant politicking on subjects that really get straight under peoples skin could have, potentially, been enough of a trigger to send a mentally unbalanced and probably improperly medicated person over the edge to the point that he would try to kill a congresswoman for (I suppose) being a democrat.


Wow.  That's heavy stuff.  I mean, think about that.  If we're asking the question, the answer is irrelevant.  If we're asking the question, it means that we know there is a problem.  I was talking to a friend recently about how polarized we seem to have become and how it scares me.  This is one of the many possible outcomes of a country feeling like we're on different sides.  It makes me so sick because it's to the benefit, (until days like these), of each party to argue.  It helps their cause to have something to oppose.

I just have to say now, to anyone who is pro-life or against gay rights, if you vote based on those issues, you're wasting your time.  The republicans don't give a rat's ass about abortion or gay rights.  They use these issues because they know they can get to you with them.  And I, being rampantly pro-choice and a huge supporter of gay rights, am in no better shape because I know if I had to vote republican to keep my body free, or to see friends gain the right to marry, I would.  And what does that say?

To me, it says that the words mean nothing.  Ds and Rs, they're all the same.  The biggest problem, I think, when it comes to voting or any political thought, is that we're so hemmed in by these two parties.  They know it and so they can use whatever tactics they want to point our attention away from what they're really doing and to whatever they can use as distraction.  In a country where mental illness is rampant, where stress is probably at a planet-wide high, where we're fooling ourselves that we're still #1 and that everything is fine because our favorite show is about to start, where so many of us are so ignorant about the real issues, does anyone else think it might be a bit unprofessional and dangerous to start manipulating the public in order to gain a vote?


We have to become a bit more independent.  We look to these people as leaders. If they were really leaders, someone would be working to make our country work.  Driving a wedge between people based on issues that, really, shouldn't even be political is not responsible leadership.  The anger I feel at people who oppose my beliefs scares me.  I have to keep reminding myself that they're not "others".  I don't want my beliefs imposed on anyone's life, but I really think the government is digging too close to the lines of what should not be their business.  And, oh look, we struck a vein of crazy and let it loose on an unsuspecting public.  Woops.

I wish, again, that I could be giant and get everyone to go along with my plan.  Like, let's mind our own business and let people do what they will, knowing that if no harm comes to anyone, there's no need to worry.  Let's demand that our public servants serve us, instead of us serving their agenda by feeding in to their manipulation.  Let's hold our politicians up to the standards of - well, any standards would be good.  Let's start expecting something from them and stop simply accepting what they do.  There's some sort of unspoken understanding that politicians are somehow above reproach.  I say that's crap.  Let's speak up!  I can't be the only one who feels like this!  And I'm not giant yet so all I can do today is write this.  And do my best to go away feeling less angry and more compassionate, which is what we all need, I think.

a tiny hello

Hi everyone!  I've been gone quite a while and my only real explanation is that I haven't had much to write about, or I haven't felt moved to blog.  That is, I've been writing like crazy, just not here.  But I miss reading everyone so I'm going to take time to visit and I thought I'd share some recent poetry and stuff.

Things on my Fridge

You are a forest 

needing sun to grow stories

& the sea is your dream

rain beats a languid chant

to make fresh mist beneath a bare purple sky

explore your new voice

wild as a bouquet not from a garden

delicate as a petal still

your smile is a story library

man

end 

new 

&

old 

wars

whisper moon language

              never 

              cover your (heart)

from the world

              under shadow

              create beauty          (*never,cover,world,under,create came together)

wander the ancient library of the human head

explore this magic life

A poem I just wrote.

maybe i should eat

i need some more words

i think i'll have to start

eating dictionaries

because i can't seem to come up with

enough words

or the right ones to

mean what i'm saying like

how i love the word mobius

and i know what it is

and what it looks like but

sometimes i use it when

i mean something else and so

maybe i'll have to

eat up some geometry books too

to try to find a better shape

to metaphor with

and sometimes singing

even in words that have nothing to do with it

seems to get out or get across

what i'm feelin at the time

in the most direct, most satisfying way

so maybe i should eat some cds

or music books or my violin

and when it starts to all seem

too surreal like

life has gone

quite strange

maybe i should start eating

some of the old and true

fairy tales

warning us of how twisted

and mistakenly lovely

life can be

Something little I wrote last November.

Her nostrils flare like a horse when she's hot
and sometimes, when she looks at something
that makes her want to run, like to the barn,
you can tell everything else is out of focus.

Something I wrote a few days ago.

(unfinished)

working stiffs

So what has us working

as we toil for our supper

and nobody seems to be singing much

about anything

and sleep tends to defer to the needs

of a person to be a person

and sometimes around other people

and these natural needs take

an unnatural back seat to the

make-believe needs of

a culture of has-to-be

where balance is so sorely twisted

that if it were struck, even for a moment,

it would be askew

and it seems to me that most people don't see

that it's only this way because we say it's ok

we get up too early

go to sleep too late

eat food that's not that at all

being, often, grossly under-compensated

for our time and our energy

both of which are so consumed that

it becomes difficult to look around

it's hard to take it all in

to fathom the big picture

or bother to ask questions

 about- why do we do this thing

but instead just keep doing

because it's what we all believe in

and I may be a bit on the fringe when i'm thinking

we've all lost our minds