Tag: Authors

Caretaker

Caring For Others – May 31, 2021 Women Writers of the Well

The week prior to May 31st was rough for most of us in the writers group. I was in the middle of a course called Healing the Mother Wound, an exploration of shadows held within me, some created by myself, some by my own mother in our dance together, some passed down to the two of us from the women who came before us. I was in a fragile spot. A tiny shimmer of compassion for all involved slowly blossomed and I wanted to care for it.

Another woman had an awakening encounter with a homeless man, and realized her first reaction was fear, fear of him simply because he was a man and then because he lived wild, and looked it. It was the learned behavior of a woman growing up in the United States of America, most probably the reaction of any woman meeting a man in an unpredictable situation anywhere in the world. In the end, this one experience was positive, opening a door for both of them, but it left her in a fragile space wondering how, as women, we had come to fear men so.

A third woman in our group was caring for a devastatingly ill family member. She was inexorably disappearing as the ‘caretaker’ role took over. Alone with the task and afraid of losing herself, she was extremely fragile. Because many of us in the group have grappled with the same situation, her story, along with the meditative prompt, sent us over an emotional edge, which became public to each other when we read our pieces aloud.

This was mine:

“As a woman, caring for others is easier than caring for self. Caring for self requires looking too closely at who we are, what we are, how we define ourselves. Healing ancestral mother wounds has opened my eyes to how much my personal definition has been shaped by patriarchal conditioning handed down, not by the men in our lives, but the women.”

While reading, I looked up at the screen. Heads were nodding, eyes filled with tears. I thought, Oh dear, how will I read the rest of this to them?

I took a breath, and continued, “All of us define our worth according to how we care for others, whether on the job, in the home or within our communities. We ignore Self because we are valued only as Helper. We keep the machinery of life running.

“As I breathe in, I realize how much I don’t know about the “who” of me. I know what I am, I know what I do, I know about the people I tend. As I breathe out, do I freely let go, giving to others, or is there a part that I zealously hold onto, knowing there is not enough, not enough – not enough. Who am I? How do I define myself? What information could I give so that you could decide whether or not we would trust each other? If I don’t have full Self on board, I don’t have full Self to give and right now, in today’s world, it is paramount we offer full Self.”

Some of the comments to this piece were:

We are sic not whole if not perfect.

You can murder a woman without taking her life.

We are always whole, but it’s hard to see it if we tired, distracted, or sick.

How do we fill empty moments, spaces of silence?

How do we choose to fill them? Who are we in those empty moments not spent tending others? Recently, my Guides advised me to sit at the base of one of my trees to ground myself. It was less a suggestion and more an imperative. I was to sit and let the tree do the work. This is not easy for me, to sit and let others do…even trees. The Guides advised me that if I wanted to continue journaling, I should do it grounded at the base of a tree. After these past three weeks of doing so, I finally started asking, Who am I? – not my placement in the world as daughter, wife, mother, ex-wife, teacher, retiree – not that which I do to fill the empty moments and spaces of silence: writer, artist, singer, gardener, housekeeper, reader, student, dreamer, (well, maybe dreamer).

Who.

Am.

I?

What snippet of information could I come up with to give you a hint of who I am? What bits do you need to decide whether or not we will enjoy each other’s company, work well as a team, or just simply “be” together. What do you need to know to decide a friend stands before you?

Who am I?

I calculate risks before I take them,

Then jump in with my whole, tenacious heart.

Extreme imagination

Informs me of past, present, and future

I dream in color

A seamless wave

Of knowledge.

I see the path before me

Before I take a single step.

I fly on wings of music.

Therefore, sound distracts me because

Music is EVERYWHERE.

Profound quiet

Creates a space to regroup

But then,

I want to fly again,

Let the beats of a song

Erase my stasis.

I am an empath.

Your pain,

Your joy,

Your fear, your sorrow

I feel it; I feel you.

Sometimes I cannot tell

The difference between us.

Oh yeah.

You wear that separate meat suit.

Intuition guides me

To recognize and honor authenticity

But, I have no time for masks

Or deceit.

Once I see your true self

Shining from your eyes

I will love and honor you

And steadfastly

Hold space for you.

I soften with sensuality

Drawn by sound, texture,

Color, smell and taste.

I lose myself

With a single touch.

In the trappings of sensation

I have to work to stay present.

Therefore,

I am grateful for trees.

 …so very grateful for trees. I am learning a lot from them. I plan to make sitting under trees a regular part of my meditation practice. For the first time, I am beginning to feel as if I belong, as if I am a part of Earth, as if I am an amazing contribution to all there is. I am re-establishing who I am.

Who are you?

I would love to know you. Are you a risk taker? Are you someone who will reach out, leave a comment? Have I given you enough information to make such a decision?

Thank you, Dear Reader, for waiting these last three weeks for another post. I appreciate your interest and the time you are willing to spend with me. May you find Peace and a sense of Self as you go about your days.

AV

Missing Boy

Standing in the middle of Evan Fischer’s bedroom, Jackson Tyler spoke softly into the recorder in his phone. “Either these sheets are brand new, or Evan doesn’t sleep here every night.” The bed was unmade, as he expected. What he did not expect was the absent traces of sweat and other teen aged boy emissions.

He dusted the bedside table and the lamp switch. There was one good print on the edge next to the bed. He pulled it. He opened the drawer. Inside was a half pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He stood up and sniffed the air. The room didn’t smell like stale smoke. He walked to the closet and smelled the clothes hanging there. They smelled fresh.

He lifted a dirty shirt off the floor. It smelled like boy, but not cigarettes. A teddy bear stuffed into a corner of the room under the window didn’t smell of smoke either. Whose cigarettes were these?

He looked out the only window at a featureless brick wall. It was  not screened. A nimble young man could sit on the wide ledge and drag a cigarette, but the sill was free of ash stain. He leaned out the window. The alleyway below was clear of smoker trash, although he supposed he wouldn’t see ash from two stories up. Evan Fischer didn’t smoke here if they were his.

He dusted the window’s sill and the latch on the window frame.

His phone buzzed. “Tyler.”

“It’s Maureen. Where are you?”

The flash of a match or lighter caught his eye. Was someone watching the window?

“Tyler, you there?”

“Yeah, sorry Maureen. Still at the Fischer apartment.” Whoever was at the end of the alley had moved away. Maybe someone had paused to light up.

“How long?”

“What?

“How long will you be there? I want to meet up to share notes.”

“I’m pulling prints from a window in the kid’s bedroom. Maybe ten minutes by the time I explain a BOLO to the grandmother.”

“Okay. I’m at the Ninth. Meet me there?”

“Got it.”

“Okay, out.” Maureen hung up.

Maureen’s voice sounded as tired as he felt. At some point, he would have to get some sleep before he sat with Tomi.

He pulled the prints and walked back to the small living room. Grandma Fischer was quietly sitting in her chair, reading from her Bible. When Jack stepped into the room, she shut the Book, set it on the oval table next to her, and looked at him expectantly.

Jack held up the bag with the cigarette pack and lighter. “Ms. Fischer, are these your grandson’s?”

“I’ve never seen those. He doesn’t smoke.”

“Do any of his friends?”

“I don’t know. I guess one of them could have left those here.”

Jack put the bag into the evidence kit attached to his belt. “I am going to initiate a BOLO. That means we will ask all of our officers to be looking for Evan.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I thought for sure you were going to tell me I had to wait twenty-four hours.”

“No.” He smiled. “That is never the case in real life. We always take a missing person’s report very seriously. I will call you to keep you informed about our investigation.”

“Thank you so much,” said Claudine Fischer.

Jack handed her his card. “Call if you think of anything else, no matter how trivial. Call the second he comes back, no matter the time.”

“You think he will? You think Evan will come home?”

“I’m hoping he lost track of time, overslept at a friend’s house, and will show up at work. He’ll be begging for forgiveness over dinner.”

“The Lord says we should all forgive each other.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

 

In the basement of the Ninth, Jack stood next to Maureen and stared at the body on the cold metal table. The coroner had confirmed that they were looking at a Taiwanese national, probably transported specifically to fight. These particular boys had the reputation of being fierce and unbeatable. They were worth a lot of money on the market. If the build on this one was an indication of his prowess, someone had lost a fortune.

The bright light above him outlined each bruise that littered his torso, arms, and legs. His colorful injuries on his battle-crushed face were surreal, almost fluid, like the melting watches in a Salvador Dali painting.

As he calculated the type of strike it would take to create the particularly nasty bruise on his right cheek, a wave of dizziness hit Jack as a vision obliterated reality. Another boy’s face superimposed over the disfigured face at which he was staring. A sweet face, asleep on a pillow…

…dark colored, softly curled hair. Evan. His face looked as battle scarred as the young Taiwanese on the slab.

Jack couldn’t breathe. Maureen was instantly by his side, rubbing his back. “Blow it out, Jack. Just blow and relax.” She rubbed harder.

Jack understood her orders, but he had trouble making his body comply. He pursed his lips and blew. Suddenly he gasped, inhaled a gallon of air, and bent over, panting.

“For Heaven’s sake, you’re not going to throw up, are you?” said Maureen.

“Oh, my god,” he mumbled. “No.”

“Then what happened?”

“I think Evan’s been fighting.”

“A vision?” she said.

Jack shook his head. “Maybe I am tired and projecting my fears. I saw a boy, Evan’s face, uhn.”

Maureen patted his back. “Just breathe. Is this what Tomi deals with?”

“Unfortunately,” said Jack, grimacing. Through whose eyes was he seeing this? “If I am tripping out again, and actually seeing Evan, he was asleep, not dead.”

“Thank God,” said Maureen.

“It’s not usually God I attribute this to,” Jack mumbled. He shook his arms. “It feels like my arms and legs weigh a thousand pounds each. I am so tired.” He stretched his eyes open, trying to make sense of the multi-sensory vision.

Maureen turned to the tech. “I think we’re done here for now.”

He nodded and covered the body.

To Jack she said, “Let’s grab something from the vending machine and find a place to talk a few minutes.”

 

Maureen and Jack sat at a small table in the break room.

Jack said, “One more thing before we wrap this up. It may be related, it may not, but a group of street kids was creating a ruckus in front of the building when I arrived. The tenants were yelling at them to shut up and go home. They may have been practicing mixed martial arts. I counted five boys, three girls. Kind of hoped the missing kid was one of them, but that was before I talked to Ms. Fischer. When they saw me, they all ran, except for a bear of a kid named Phillip. Calls himself “Rat Snatcher.”

Maureen huffed. “Rat Snatcher. Sounds obscene.”

“Yeah.” Jack chuckled.

“You think we should check into him?”

“I do.”

“I’ll contact Balmario.”

“He’s back to work so soon?”

“Same as you. As needed. What are your plans for today?”

“Sleep, for one thing. I want to sit with Tom for a while.”

She said, “I need some sleep. Need to make amends with Larry.”

“Geez. That’s so hard,” said Jack, thinking about how his work affected his marriage that dissolved so long ago. “I think I should follow up at the Walgreens where Evan Fischer works. They may know more about his social life than his grandmother does.”

“Fair enough. Let’s call it quits for tonight,” said Maureen.

“Excellent. I’ll check in tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Jack.”

He rapped his knuckles on the table twice as he stood. “Goodnight, Maureen.” Then he turned and strode out the door.

 

K is for Kink…

(A character sketch from Reluctant Witness – a work in process – occasionally, a witness doesn’t come forward because to do so could result in his or her arrest.)

Monday Ricks. The first syllable stretched, like the word yawn, ‘mawn’-day. What did that say about his parents, that they gave their only child a name that made a person sound as if they were bored out of their minds when they said it?

Thinking about it made his head hollow. He yawned. His large, stained teeth protruded from his mouth as his lips peeled back, and a string of spit connected an upper incisor with its lower mate. His whiskers were rough against his beefy hand as he contemplated whether to shave, or not. Maybe the shock effect would be greater if he was scruffy. Monday didn’t have many kinks, but the kink he contemplated was a doozy.

The kink was born out of a lonely childhood. He was a quiet, chubby boy that looked at the ground when he walked. As a teenager, while the other young men paraded the school with frantic, on fire energy, he watched from the shadows and wondered when his flame would ignite. Teachers called him phlegmatic and dull. He had a mind, a good one, he just didn’t use it much, except to daydream that he was someone else, someone with fire in his heart, fire that drew girls like moths to a flame. Girls. Was there anything else to think about at that age? From the moment he woke until the moment he slept, and even then, his mind was filled with girls, girls, and more girls.

However, the reality of his life was solitary, a solitary male hungry for attention but too awkward and brutish to attract it. Beetle-browed and heavy boned, kids cast epithets at him like “Cave man,” “Neanderthal,” “Loser,” and “Gorilla.” What girl in her right mind would want him around? None of them. That was the living truth. High school passed with none of the glory, none of the conquests, none of the fun. As he aged, he became more brutish, more beetle-browed, more solitary, and more obsessed.

College wasn’t better. He shuffled to his accounting classes, head down, defeated and no more social than he’d ever been. His classes droned on until his junior year when he found a listing about human sexuality in the psychology department. If he couldn’t enjoy firsthand experience, he could at least learn about it, so he signed up.

The professor was a kinky sort of dude, with long hair that he kept brushing back. On the first day of class, he wore tight leather pants, and a sleeveless shirt with a faux sheepskin jacket. Monday was fascinated, and took copious notes about kinks and sexual deviations. The class ended quickly, though an hour and a half had passed. As students hustled out of the room, the prof called him back. The class, listed as advanced credit, had pre-requisites he had not completed.

“I can’t let you into this class unless you pass an entrance exam. Come to my office at 3pm today and you can do that. That is, if you want to continue this.”

“Uh, Yessir, I will be there.” As he left, he wondered if the prof was aware that the only thing Monday saw with his lowered eyes, was the man’s male package outlined by the leather pants he wore. It was humiliating, but, also, he couldn’t help feel an edge of excitement.

He walked out of the classroom and the door shut behind him. He could still see that package in his mind’s eye. He felt shocked and unsteady, but it was a heady feeling, a revelation about the power of a man, a part of himself he had never paid attention to before that day.

The next year, he took gym class, an unfortunate requirement. It was an hour and a half of tortuous overexertion. Showering afterward was mandatory. His beetled brows and lowered head hid the fact that he delighted in peeping at all the nude bodies, but it was paramount that no one saw him undressed. That was not a problem if he could get a private shower stall. His luck lasted most of the semester.  Until Thursday, May 11, a day forever etched in his head. Monday was a slow runner. He was the last person to finish the assigned walk-run assignment, a half-mile, four laps around the track. All of the private stalls were occupied. He sat on the bench surreptitiously watching naked men, waiting his turn for privacy.

Coach Summons, the gym instructor, strode into the locker room and announced, “Fifteen minutes, people. Then this place is locked.” He looked at Monday. “Ricks, what are you waiting for? Hit the shower.”

It was lucky for Monday that his eyes didn’t register every emotion that flitted across his mind. Everyone would have seen abject terror reflected there. He shuffled to the darkest corner he could find and slipped out of his clothes. He padded as quickly as he could to the nearest vacant shower head in the communal shower stall. He lathered quickly, and rinsed quicker. Then he wrapped a towel around his private bits and slunk back to his corner.

He heard a soft, feminine “Oh” behind him, but when he turned to see why a girl was in the locker room his towel fell away exposing his flaccid manhood. He curled over his display and looked up.

She stood stiffly, as if tased. Her shocked eyes were wide with fright. Her round ‘oh’ twisted in dismay and repulsion. She uttered a growl of distress, turned, and ran out of the locker room.

Monday was mortified, but his man parts had a different idea. He stiffened quickly, which made it awkward to dress as fast as he wanted to. When he pulled himself together, he hurried home.

After dinner, while he replayed the episode in his head he drew her picture. It was his way of coming to terms with the humiliation. Happy with the outcome, he put her shocked likeness on the wall across from the only chair at the small table in his minuscule kitchen. Just looking at it brought a titillated rush of excitement, so much so in fact, he had to run to the bathroom to take care of his urge. If he were to pinpoint a reason for his major kink, he would probably pinpoint that exact moment.

He didn’t know of course, but the drawing became his first trophy.

Her picture would remain on the wall as the first of so many shocked and repulsed viewers who unwittingly gave him a satisfying release after two and a half decades of ripping open his heavy coat to flash them.

(I want to thank the lovely beta readers from The Women Writers of the Well and their terrific questions. Gentle souls, I appreciate you so much.)

D is for Desperate

To say that Jackson Tyler was a happy child would be a lie. He wasn’t sullen, he didn’t have a temper, and his pretty, little face didn’t own a scowl, but happy? No. He was thoughtful, and found intimate, personal delight about the world in general, but he didn’t often share that because anxiety was a central part of his being. The world, for Jackson, was titanic: he heard everything, he saw everything, he felt everything, and some tastes and smells were so overwhelming that he had an absolute aversion to them. His favorite place to get away from it was the pantry of canned goods off the kitchen. It was dark, it was quiet and canned goods didn’t smell.

This made life difficult for Martha, his stepmother, who was the only mother he’d ever known. Her greatest joy was feeding her family; she loved being a wife, creating a beautiful home with flowers, candles and potpourris on beautifully set tables, with beautifully prepared foods. But, she didn’t have family often because her husband, Harrison, Hank to his friends, was a foreign correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, so he was travelling most of the time, and when he was home he was hustling for the next story.

So, Jackson was her company, but he wasn’t satisfactory, because he didn’t talk much, and he only liked grilled cheese sandwiches with canned pears, at least at this particular moment in his short, five-year history. Eating for him was particularly troublesome if he was involved in an internal drama of imaginings that sometimes came true and sometimes did not, or if some imaginary irritant was bothering him, then, he didn’t eat at all.

One lovely sunny day, after spending the morning in a frantic state of five-ness, Jackson was winding down, minding his own business, sitting on the floor in the dark pantry. Martha, in her haste to get lunch on the table tripped over one of his outstretched legs and fell. Unfortunately, she skinned and bruised her right knee and tweaked her wrist. It took a moment for her to right herself. When she did, she saw him sitting there, teary-eyed and sniveling, balled into a shell, because it was his leg that tripped her.

She lost it. She yanked him off the floor, shoved him out the back door into the light of the day, into the titanic, swirling world, and said, “Why do you have to be so difficult? You cannot come back into this house until I serve lunch.” Then she locked the door.

He threw himself at it, slapped it with his tiny fragile hands, and cried, “Mom, mom, let me in, let me in.”

 An eternity passed with no results for his efforts – and then, a bird, pounding its head against a pole at the base of the yard, caught his attention.

Tear stained and shaky, he slowly climbed down the steps and walked toward the telephone pole where it was performing this strange and wondrous behavior. When he got to the base of it, he leaned his hands against it and looked up at the little bird. For one heartbeat, the bird’s head was a blur while it pounded its beak into the wood, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Jackson suddenly knew the world as the bird did, one gigantic, frantic, hunt for food. Hunger was a monster, consuming every one of Jackson’s senses. Together, Jackson and the bird could think of only one thing, “Find an insect, eat.”

In all his five years, he’d never felt so murderous, had never thought of needing food so desperately.

The bird tapped again, and the world blacked out for an instant, and then Jack heard them, he actually heard the insects crawling, chewing, and scratching inside the wooden pole. He cocked an ear when the bird cocked an ear, and listened. His meal was close. The world blackened for an instant as he pounded, trying to reach them. He listened again. There was an insect right under the surface. Crazed with hunger he rapped again.

When he and the bird grabbed an insect, then two, then three, four; Jackson swooned with relief. He awoke when he heard his mother’s voice, “Jacksie. You okay Baby? Mommy’s sorry she lost her temper.”

“I’m okay. I was a bird, Mom. He was hungry. He eats insects.”

“That’s nice, dear. It’s time to come in. I made grilled cheese sandwiches with sliced pears on the side.”

“Okay.” As Jackson followed his stepmother, he felt heavy with sorrow, though somehow, he knew it wasn’t his. How could it be? He was a bird, he’d already eaten lunch. Life couldn’t be better.

He looked at his stepmother, and saw the heavy, woolen shroud of sadness that she wore. He took her hand and smiled. “Don’t worry, Mommy. I’m okay.”

“I know, Jacksie. Mommy’s okay too.”

He wasn’t so sure about that.