Life’s Compilations

July 12, 2009 Leave a comment

baptism

Today I purchased a compilation of George Harrison music. The disc has all of his classic songs that I favor. There hasn’t been an album like this is in the past so I went ahead and paid $13.99 less 10% for a treasure trove of good music. Playing Harrison’s My Sweet Lord brought back memories of my senior year in high school. I will always cherish this time in my life for its spiritual richness.

 The song My Sweet Lord was released in November of 1970. The next spring of 1971 I was in my final semester of high school. At this time the Jesus People movement was in full tilt. About the same time the Evangelical Christian church was embroiled in the liberal theology debate including the challenge to the doctrine of the Bible’s inerrancy. I believe the Lord got things moving with the Jesus People Movement. He moved His Spirit among the young people in order to bypass the talking heads of doctrine, heads often stuck in the sand about life as a Spirit-filled human being. (More about this another time.) Nobody won the theology debates. Each side took their theology and returned home to their churches claiming their own inerrancy. Of course, at the time, the release of the song My Sweet Lord was just another abomination to the theologically ‘correct’ group of people. George Harrison sang about Hare Krishna while the Christian “Hallelujah” was sung by the background singers. This Gnostic synthesis inflamed the torches held up in search of heretics and heretical teaching. Many Christian teenagers though, singing this song, wanted to see the Spirit of God move among the stodgy churches. These teens were soon brandished as rebellious teenagers ready for stoning. At least that was how their elder’s words came across. I know. I was one of the teenagers.

 When we as teenagers sang the words to George Harrison’s song My Sweet Lord we exchanged Hare Krishna for “Jesus, Jesus” and “Lord Jesus”. We understood that Jesus and Krishna were not at all equal, they were not the same. We knew that Jesus was God and that Krishna was basically man’s attempt at finding a god they could use to sanction their lifestyle.

 I along with many other local teens followed the Jesus People Movement which started in California (another heretical state of mind!). We joined other local groups of teens in the Chicago area. We went to Jesus Freak concerts, 2nd Chapter of Acts concerts, Andrae Crouch concerts, Jesus People Rallies, Bible studies and prayer meetings. I went to a Larry Norman concert in Wheaton, Illinois at the Dupage County Fairgrounds. Along the way we listened to Sammy Tippet, Hal Lindsey (author of The Late, Great Planet Earth) and many, many others speak. There were many teens who became followers of the Way. We baptized them in pools, ponds and lakes. The Spirit of God was moving in a tremendous way among the youth. Sadly, the elders thought it was another fad like Sonny and Cher or just a childish departure from the solid Biblical truth they had their foot down on. These elders often sought to quench the fire. But the fire lived on. It lives on in me.

 Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father, except through Jesus.

 One Way.

Filed under Christian, Human Interest Tagged with , , ,

Withdrawal

July 7, 2009 Leave a comment

window

“I can take your kids, I can twenty-eight percent of your income and I can make you pay.” With these words, Evelyn unloaded her pistol of anger and resentment into her husband as often as she could. These projections of malice and bitterness were focused on Daniel for most of their fourteen year marriage. The marriage ended with the death of their marriage. Daniel narrowly escaped the death of despair brought on by caring.

It was three years into the marriage when Daniel found out about Evelyn’s past. Before the marriage he didn’t think there was anything else to know. He found out that things were not as they presented themselves. First of all, Evelyn did not come across as angry. She appeared happy and confident. She was outgoing and friendly to a degree. She felt inadequate around others she deemed smarter than herself and she would often say so. She talked about growing up in a small town, but she didn’t fill in the details until three years later. The wounds of the past were under the surface of a simple veneer of introversion. She liked to be taken care of and Daniel obliged her willingly.

In the third year, Evelyn told Daniel about her small town life during high school: Evelyn’s mother had committed adultery right before her sixteen year old eyes. Her mother was making out with her lover right in their small town family kitchen. Her mother subsequently denied any involvement with the man and then went on to divorce Evelyn’s father and to marry her lover.

During those same years, Evelyn became involved with a seminary student. She went to his room and closed the door behind her. She lay on his bed and then she told Daniel that she was raped by the student. Before she knew it she was pregnant. A male high school friend helped pay for an abortion. Evelyn told Daniel that her parents never knew found out what had happened. She wanted it that way.

Evelyn went on to tell Daniel about her life after leaving high school. Evelyn moved to college and then left college after a year. She moved out west and lived with someone for a time. She had another abortion. She moved to the south and lived with someone for time. They had a child together. She and her boyfriend sold drugs from their house. They took drugs together. Evelyn told Daniel that she worked as a call girl for a time with her friend Rosa. Rosa was a madam. When her boyfriend had overdosed once too many times Evelyn left him and moved to Chicago. She moved to the Lincoln Park area and cut her hair short. A year later she met Daniel. This is what Evelyn told Daniel that third year: “Those things are behind me.”, but Daniel wondered how far behind they were. He wondered about biting dogs at his heels.

Now, Evelyn loved wine and margaritas. She drank wine at home and then she would drink Margaritas at the Mexican restaurant. She wanted to go there often. On more than one occasion, after she drank three gold Margaritas, she would become mouthy, belligerent and verbally abusive to Daniel. Daniel decided that he was not going out to eat anymore. He began to bring food home.

Evelyn took often the kids to her mother’s house after several of these drinking bouts. Evelyn was angry with Daniel about some unknown fault or quirk or some vast deficiency: “You don’t love me.”; “I don’t feel loved.”; the kids weren’t “handled”; the dishes weren’t done or Daniel spent too much time in the kitchen; Daniel didn’t think ahead that Evelyn would be needing a bottle of wine, a “good” movie and the kids put to bed, again. It didn’t matter. Her marriage and her husband were not the perfection and panacea she demanded. Daniel was told by Evelyn that he was supposed to know what she needed before she said anything. “This is what a man does, Daniel. You’re not a man.” Her husband was not taking her pain away. She thought that alcohol and being with her mother would. So she would take the kids to her mother’s house after these evening drinking sessions and stay overnight.

Daniel felt that he was held hostage in his own marriage. Evelyn would threaten to take the children to her mother’s house if something wasn’t done to appease her before she even had an issue too complain about. The situation was unlivable for Daniel but he didn’t want to break his marriage vows and wander off to seek peace. He was committed to the marriage but he felt his hands were tied by the invisible bonds of her past.

After much marriage counseling and endless self reflection Daniel realized that he did everything he possibly could in seeking to remedy the marriage and to pacify the rage which quelled in Evelyn’s heart. There was nothing more that he could do. He wanted the painful spasms of fighting to end. He didn’t want to fight with her. At every turn, though, she found something wrong with him. Her perfectionism had become an obsession of finding the missing ingredient. She wanted a perfect man to fix her imperfect world. The children, and Evelyn‘s mother, would learn how imperfect Daniel was from Evelyn.

Daniel wished that he could surgically remove the growing cancer of hatred and disdain that Evelyn had retained in heart over the years. He understood then that a woman could hold a grudge forever if she wanted to. She could not forgive, she would not forget. Evelyn would not let go of her anger because it became too familiar to her. It became a cherished locket of fury hanging from her neck, always with her, but hidden beneath the surface. It was the locket of fury that replaced the wedding ring on her hand. Five months after demanding a second separation she took off her wedding ring and began to date other men.

Daniel, during the two years of separation leading up to a divorce, found one day that depression had cornered him in his small one bedroom apartment. He had been taking an antidepressant prescribed by the marriage clinic. After a year of taking the pills, Daniel found that the pills made him feel complacent. He felt that things were slipping away from him. He didn’t care about work and he soon didn’t care about the marriage falling apart. He decided to stop taking the pills. Within a matter of three weeks a deep depression encircled him. Daniel sat crying at his desk at work. He felt the jagged edge of every painful chasm in his soul. He didn’t know what to do but he knew that he wanted to get far away from everything and find a place of healing. He called his doctor.

The psychiatrist at the marriage clinic asked Daniel what he wanted and Daniel said, “I want to get away from everything right now.”

“Do you want to sign yourself in to the hospital?”

“Yes”, Daniel answered, thinking of an enormous Garden of Eden which would usurp the enormous load of grief in his heart with its heavenly serenity.

That night Daniel signed himself into the Hospital. After filling out the pile of papers required by the hospital Daniel was given a different antidepressant and a sleeping pill and then sent to bed. His room was shared with someone already asleep, snoring in his bed. Daniel went over to the window bed and lay down on the slab covered with blankets. No sleep came until the early morning.

That was Friday night. On Saturday, Daniel was given a cold hospital breakfast and a little cup with pills. There was no change of clothes only open hospital gowns and elastic slippers. The other patients sat around a little table eating some parts of their breakfast. Each of them was nervous to make eye contact with anyone else. There were some patients who were definitely around the bend. Conversation with them didn’t matter. Daniel sat down that first morning and ate silently. He just stared at the TV hung from the ceiling. A game show was on. Daniel knew that his expectations were not in line with the reality he was seeing. He wanted to leave immediately. It would take a week before he could go home to his one bedroom apartment.

During the morning smoke break that first hospital morning, outside in the cordoned garden area, it was whispered that someone had hung themselves in their room the week before. Mostly, though, the patients shared cigarettes and talked about what they would do when they got out. Some said they would quit smoking. A small cantankerous Chinese woman told Daniel that she didn’t know when she could get out but when she did she would open her own business in her house after she kicked out her boyfriend. He had called the police on her and they put her in the hospital. She was a manic-depressive, she told Daniel, and she hadn’t taken her pills for a week.

Phone calls from the hospital were limited to one phone in the hallway. It could only be used from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm till 8:00pm. Daniel called his office during the day and told them that he was in need of a short vacation and it had something to do with his marriage breaking up. He wanted to keep his job. The cost of the separation, the cost of two separate homes; the cost of his imperfection was becoming monstrous before his eyes. This financial situation didn’t seem to bother Evelyn, who was waiting for the free ride the court would later give her, except for the fact of her unpaid cell phone bill:

“Hello.”

“Hello, where are you?”

“I am in the hospital for some rest. I’ve been having a hard time with things lately. I stopped taking the medication I told you about. I’ll be here until the end of the week. The doctor wants to see if a new medication works before I leave. I want to talk to kids before I get off the phone. I don’t want them to worry about me.”

“Daniel, you need to take the kids this coming weekend. I’m gonna be gone. And, how is my cell phone bill gonna get paid if your in there?”

“I’ll be here until the end of the week. I’ll pick up the kids. I’ll pay it then.”

“No, no, no. I don’t want it to be late. They will charge late fees.”

“Write them a check.”

“I don’t want to write a check. I have enough going on here. You’re in charge of the finances.”

“I’ll be here until the end of the week. I’ll pay it then.”

“You better. Here’s the kids. You have to pick them up. I’m going to Las Vegas this next weekend.”

Daniel spent the week, until that next Friday which was Good Friday, in the hospital and then he was released. He drove to his apartment, changed his clothes and picked up his kids at the house and took them out for pizza that night. He didn’t forget to pay the phone bill. He paid it late and felt a relief, a withdrawal. His life had been returned to him in the few days he spent in the boxy little room along the boxy corridor of the unyielding hospital floor plan. He would never again let someone break him down as he had let Evelyn. He knew that he loved her. He knew that he wanted the marriage to work and to become more than the sum of its factors. But, he also knew now that he had to chart his own life apart from the unyielding demand for perfection coming from someone’s ruthless past.

In the end, Evelyn won the kids over with her begrudging ways. She had sufficiently belittled their father in their eyes. She told an unwary family law court, her family and her friends that the children’s father was not mentally stable. She gained sole custody. She then received twenty-eight percent of Daniel’s income. With the arrogant flippancy and unbridled urgency of a newborn teenager she took the children and they moved in with a single man who will never hear the portentous ‘third-year’ story retold. In these ways and with a thousand well-aimed shots of disapproval into her husband’s heart she made sure that Daniel paid for the infinite losses of her past. Someone had to pay for this she reckoned. It wasn’t going to be Evelyn. She now believes that she has settled her past accounts.

© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christian, Depression, Human Interest, Short Story Tagged with , , , ,

Fifty Minutes

July 7, 2009 Leave a comment

 

door 

The clinic’s lobby ebbed and flowed of people.  A mother and her son came in one door.  A teenage girl came out another door and left through the door the mother and son came through.  A therapist stuck his head out of another door and looked around the room.  He saw his next client and said “Hi, come on in.”  A man, his wife and their son followed the therapist through the door.  A woman came in the front door and proceeded over to the glass window to check in with the half-door receptionist.  This flow of traffic continued for thirty five minutes while I read a year-old garden magazine.  I was waiting for my therapist to stick her head out of a door and say “Hi, come on in.”  I was paying her to open the door, stick her head out and say “Hi, come on in.”  She would listen to me.  I paid her good money.  Everyone else I talked to, those I didn’t pay, would just shrug their shoulders and go about their business.  My life had come to this: paying someone to listen to me.  I, of course, didn’t know for sure if they were listening, but at least the door was closed and they faced me while I talked.  They sometimes nodded, too.  They looked like they were listening, anyway. “You get out of it what you put in it.” is what they told me when I began counseling at Hope Well Clinic.

 The door opened and Melody stuck her blond head out the door.  She saw me, smiled and said, “Hi, Denny, come on in.”  I replaced the garden magazine back on the small table between two doors.  I followed Melody and went through the door that separated the outside world from the ’inside’ world.  On the other side of the door was a long hallway with many closed doors.  I knew what was going on behind those doors:   The mysteries of life being sorted into sanity, into something someone could use, something for people to get handle on.  I followed her down the hallway past the closed door sanctuaries and entered her small corner office.  Melody was new to the clinic so she didn’t have a window, just a reproduction of a Kandinsky, Composition X, I believe, hanging on a four foot wide egg shell painted wall.  A floor lamp hung its one light over a love seat. A lava lamp on a small table in front of the Kandinsky provided a pink glow to Melody’s right cheek. I sat down on the left side of the love seat and nestled a burgundy pillow behind the small of my back.  I leaned back into the shadow cast by the lamp and rested my head on my hand.

 Melody is a five-foot-two gorgeous blond with a petite figure that appeared to bubble out from her effervescence.  Her clothes were fashionable, maybe from Saks or Von Maur or Nordstroms.  Her look spoke volumes.  I appreciated the care she took in her appearance.  She didn’t look clinically challenged at all, just “peachy keen”.  A bevy of natural blond hair framed her oval cherubic face.  She appeared so angelic that it was easy for me to ‘see’ her every two weeks.  The visit with her provided for my own emotional ‘face lift’.

 Melody and I had developed some positive transference during our bi-monthly visits over six months   I was able to talk to her openly about most things and yet at the same time I held back on the one piece of the puzzle that confronted my daily life.  The reason for this resistance was the fact that a previous counselor, Jim, at the same clinic had told me that if I wanted to live as a woman and follow through with the surgery the Clinic, the Christian Clinic, couldn’t help me.   They couldn’t say why they wouldn’t help me only that they wouldn’t.  I was left to assume that they weren’t sure what do with the issue or that they just thought it was sinful or destructive. They couldn’t say why.  I later learned that Jim died from lung cancer.  I found this out when they cancelled my sixteenth session with him. That’s when they turned my case over to Melody, a licensed clinical counselor who had just joined Hope Well Clinic.  During my time at the clinic I saw a psychiatrist, too.  His method of dealing with me was to medicate me and then to take five minutes during the next appointment to ask how I was doing and then charge another $250.00 for another script.  I later decided not to medicate the pain. I decided that the financial pain was worse than the emotional pain of not being able to live as a woman. My impending personal financial recession brought about by his incessant billing was causing me severe emotional depression.  I quickly put a lid on the meds.

 There were reasons to talk to someone:   a 14 year long divorce that started as a marriage to Marybeth; my leaving a successful business partnership in hopes of saving the dissolving marriage; the accidental death of our eighteen year old son during the marriage, the everyday loss of my two children to an angry alcoholic woman because of the divorce; the loss of two significant jobs, long term joblessness and the financial collapse of my life.  A page of scripture verses or a bottle of anti-depressants was not what the doctor should have ordered.  Instead, someone just needed to listen to the pain being cast out of me like a demon from the recipient of the personal holocaust.

 “How are you doing this week, Denny?” Our dialog began with Melody’s opening line.

 “Alright, I guess.  No major tragedies the past two weeks.”

“Good.”

 “Marybeth is being a jerk again.

 “How so?”

“You remember how I told you that always threatened me that she would take my kids, take 28% of my income and make me pay?

 “Yes.”

 “That is what she is trying to do right now in the divorce agreement.  She wants me to agree to this arrangement and I am saying no.  It is costing me a small fortune to pay a lawyer to fight this.  My own lawyer keeps telling me that I can’t do this and that I can’t do that.”  My own lawyer is pretty useless if you ask me.  My lawyer expects me to just lay down and give Marybeth sole custody and I refuse to do this.  These are my children, as well.  I lived full time with my kids until this… this…this person decided to break up our marriage and our home with her perfectionism and her alcoholic rage.”

 “I thought last time that we agreed that we weren’t going to keep talking about Marybeth.”

 “I have to.  I am so angry at what she has done to our family, to the kids and to me.  Now she is living with some guy who looks like her father.  All of this in front of my two kids.”

 Melody lets me talk about the Marybeth situation but I realize that she has an agenda and is waiting to move on.  She just nods and looks dolefully at me while placing both feet on the floor in front of her rocking chair.  Her feet didn’t touch the floor unless she rocked forward to make a point.

 “I would like to get a different lawyer but I can’t get the retainer money together again.  I am deep in debt because of this whole divorce business.”

 Melody leaned forward.  “Yeah, that is hard.”  “Well, we have to get you through this, past Marybeth.”

 I leaned toward Melody and spoke directly to her large green eyes:  “I don’t understand it when people make vows and then they don’t fulfill them and just walk away from them.  How can you just walk away from a vow?”

 “”It happens every day.”

 “Then it isn’t a vow, is it?” Denny crossed his arms against his chest.

 “It is at the time.”

 “What?!” His threw his arms open into a wide questioning flare.

 “People say things and things change.”

 “What?! “For better or for worse” are the words we said to each other.  “To death do us part.”

 “Things change, people change.” Melody uncrossed her legs and then crossed them the other way.

 “Vows don’t change.”

 “Let’s move on and get past Marybeth.  You have to go on with your life.”

 “My vow to her was my life!”

 “That has changed.”

 What?!” Denny was incredulous.

 “The divorce is going forward and you must get past this and move on with your life.”

 “I can’t get past this.  Vows are serious things.”

 “She is with someone else.  You can’t make her love you.  You have to let go.”

 “I didn’t want the divorce. I wanted reconciliation.  I wanted to work through these things.  She was always pointing her finger at me and she never once took responsibility for our marriage.  That’s why I went to counseling in the first place.  She said that I was the problem. I was supposed to please her and if I didn’t then she said I was the problem – because she wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy but I thought I had a vow to fulfill and that I must keep working at it.  Happiness would just have to wait.”

 “People sometimes need to go away to realize what they left behind.”

 “What?!”  Denny’s face was bright red, flushed with anger.  “Once she sleeps with this other guy, her father, it is over for us.  I don’t want that to happen. We had children together; we have fourteen years of trying. We made vows.”

 “She changed her mind.  I don’t know why.  Let’s move on to talk about you.”

 “This is me!” Denny returned.

 “OK, but she is not going to change.  Let’s talk about what you can change instead.”

 “She and I were one.  How can you change that except by splitting one into two?  Don’t you understand?  We are getting a divorce because she is not happy!  That’s the reason!”

 “I understand.  She has changed for whatever reason.”

 Denny fell back into the glow of the pink lava lamp, his cheeks flushed red against the soft rose light. He knew that Melody’s ‘agenda’ took precedence over anything that he had wanted to say regarding Marybeth.  He had come through the labyrinth of doors, rooms and hallways into her office so that he could talk to her about these things and she had already moved next door.

 “Denny, remember when we first talked and I asked you about the Healing of Memories Prayer?  We talked about what it was and about bringing up the past.  You said that you were open to praying with me this prayer.  Is that still the case?”

 Denny shifted his legs and then leaned forward putting his hands on his knees.  “Yeah, I’m open to that.  I don’t see why not.”

 “Good, well if you are in a good place then we can try it today. I wanted to make sure there is enough time to pray and to work through whatever comes up.”

 “Alright.”

  … My previous therapist, Susan, was a psychologist.  Her office was in her home in a northwestern suburb of Chicago.  Susan was very friendly and approachable.  So much so, in fact, that she saw me once a week, charged me only $30.00/hour and we talked for two to three hours at a time – costing me only $30.00.  I would not call her a typical therapist but we did enjoy talking with each other.  We talked about everything:  her dog, her son, her friends, her life, church, spirituality, movies and so on.  I didn’t know who was more pixilated:  me or Susan.  After a year or so of sessions with Susan I traveled closer to home, to Hope Well Clinic in Wheaton.  I did that for post-marriage counseling and because I was giving Susan more counseling then she gave me in return.  I later found out that Susan had some serious health issue that resulted from her breast implants leaking silicone.  The silicone had affected her brain.  She became mentally handicapped as time went on.  During one session with Susan the year before I learned that she had dated a plastic surgeon and that he had done her breast implant surgery.  That relationship apparently had deteriorated over time…

 “Why don’t we pray and see what the Lord brings up from the past.  Are you ready to have these things come up?” “Do you feel OK about this?” Melody leaned toward me and folded her hands.

 “I’m not worried about the past. I’ve been there before.  It’s right now that has me bothered.”

 “OK, let’s get started.  Father, we pray for Denny.  We ask that You would bring Denny to a place in the past, a place that You want to heal.”

 We waited in silence.  The room was quiet except for the low hum of the lava lamp.  The hallway was quiet except for the closure of a door somewhere.  I didn’t know what was going on in the lobby.  I was deep in thought and the prayer was reaching even deeper into my soul.  After ten minutes of silence I began to see an image in my mind:  I was standing in the doorway of my bedroom.  The bedroom was in the house I had lived in since I was eight years old.  I understood that the house was empty, no furniture and no people.  I was alone.

 I began to cry softly.  The aching pain of being alone had followed me throughout my life.  A rush of sadness came to my head and poured out into tears which fell from my bowed face. In my vision I stood in the doorway looking into the bedroom.  It had now become pitch black.  I was enveloped in darkness within an empty house looking into an empty room.  It was then that I heard a voice say to me, “Run free.”  I instantly saw a little Indian boy running around without a shirt.  He was happy and utterly free.  He didn’t have a care in the world.  I knew then that the Lord had given me this understanding because this vision was so intimate to my understanding.  This image of this shirtless Indian boy was something I had immediately recognized in my spirit.  I realized that God had set me free from my past and had given me freedom to go forward with my heart’s desires.  Only the Lord knew exactly what was in my heart – the desire I had not mentioned to Melody or to anyone since I told Jim.  The spirit of the little boy now lived in me – the spirit of freedom.  The past no longer pinned me down.  People would no longer be able pin me down with their prejudice and fear.  I was free to go forward with my life.

 Melody asked what I had seen and I told her about the empty and dark bedroom in my childhood home.  She asked me if I had heard anything and I told her, “The Lord said, run free!”  She looked at me quizzically and I kept my thoughts to myself.  She asked if I was OK and all I could say was, “Yeah.”  I knew that if I had told her my understanding of the vision that she would seek to negate my vision and suppress my perception of it because of a Hope Well Clinic policy based on ignorance and bias and, perhaps, fear.  My heart was dancing but my eyes didn’t move from staring at the floor.

 I wiped my face and fell back into the loveseat with a sigh.  I sat in her office with a red face and a growing smile.  I knew that I was loved by the Lord and that I was heard by Him.  I was not alone anymore in my very personal struggle.  The session ended with Melody saying, “Well it’s time.  Let’s get together in two weeks and see how you are doing.”  I went through her door again, down the hallway of doors and into the lobby of many doors where I paid my bill.  I left the clinic and found my car in the parking lot.  I would return just two more times to see Melody.  Everything had a different perspective now.  The Lord had heard me and He had answered my prayers. I had gotten out of it what I had put in it.  And, more.

© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christian, Depression, gender, Human Interest, Short Story, Transgender Tagged with , , , ,

Together Life

June 30, 2009 Leave a comment

Together Lifepenguin_pair

 (Living with gender dysphoria) 

Born one way,

          Alive another.

Dysphoria.

Neurosis?  No.

Psychosis?  No.

Gnosticism?  No.

Birth trauma?  No.

Original sin network? Probably.

Original child?  Yes.

Anomaly?  Yes.

Why?

Womb designed:

“You have possessed my reins, You covered me in my mother’s belly.”

Estrogen informed inheritance now a

                                                Concave mystery.

The diagnosis     outside the womb:

I am defined by anger-

                    “We don’t like what we don’t understand.” And,

                    “This must be sin, a mental malady.”

We need a label for this can of worms.

          Black and white must exist as separate strata.

          Grey must be painted black.  Restore order.

                    “Things must be done decently and in order.” And,

                    “We’ll call it homosexuality, perversion, lack of truth, neurosis.”

A preconceived label reveals the toxic ingredients to the weak of heart and stomach.  Not socially viable. 

-I find a new family,

 Formed with friendships,

                   Extending beyond the continents of fear.

 It draws me into uncrossed arms

 Nesting my being,

 Wombing me.

-Grace and mercy now affix their approval onto my head with a kiss.

          (My Lord accepts me as His daughter.)

 He has many names for me.  These endearments are hush-hush.

 These names and many other things are spoken from His lips

 To my understanding

 To my DNA:

          A shepherd boy, a shepherd girl-

          “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

          A shepherd girl slays the giant red dragon

          With a slingshot of prayer and stones of faith, faith in the one who is immutable,

           Yet, He changes m  a  t  t  e  r before our eyes.

“Man by the pool, what do you want?

“I want to be whole, Lord.”

Symbiosis?  Yes.

Living from inside out

Life aligned.

Whole.

          Dysphoria dies, yet

I am alive, as one reined in and re-knitted.

Heaven undisguised.

***

© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christian, gender, Human Interest, Poems, Transgender Tagged with ,

FAITH

June 28, 2009 Leave a comment

 

Faith…

Inopportune

Scary

Tried and true

Worthy

Foolish

Without finite

Favorite

Generous

Gone to the Wind

Apocalyptic and

Analgesic

 

By faith…

“Come”

“Walk”

“See”

“Move”

“You feed them”

“Go”

“Tell…

It is finished.”

 

 

***

Faith:

My father, my mother

My brothers, my sister.

My faith.

***

Without faith it is impossible

to please

Him.

© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christian, Human Interest, Poems Tagged with

Almost like Praying

June 4, 2009 Leave a comment

Almost Like PrayingWest Side Story

It is 1967 and that’s all I know about that. I do know that I looked in the mirror tonight and I didn’t see me. What I saw was the face of a thirteen year old girl with a pony tail pulling back on acne plagued skin. The adult woman I had wanted to see was really a decrepit adolescent in the bedroom mirror. This would-be woman, this child, this me with a hint of a baby face, stood in front of her dresser preparing herself for a night with her best friend Jane and Jane’s boyfriend Mick. They invited me along, feeling sorry for me, I think, knowing that I don’t have a boyfriend. If my mirror is any gauge, my chances of getting one are slim to negative. So, I see myself sitting alone in the backseat of Mick’s Chevy Impala Caprice tonight, hiding far from view. All eyes would be focused on Jane and Mick or on Tony and Maria. The three of us were going to the Sky-Hi Drive-In on Route 53 to watch West Side Story. I am just going to try to forget myself, hide my face and just let the movie carry me away in its arms. I wish I had someone to share it with, though. Maybe the gods of love will see me alone in the back seat of Mick’s car as they look down on me from their huge screen throne. Maybe, speaking with their muted voices in merciful tones through little black boxes, they will intervene on my behalf. Or, perhaps not.

As always, I’m not sure what to do with my hair. When I was a young girl it was easy. A pony tail was easy. Now it’s up or down, ratted or flat, sophisticated or playful? And, I’m not sure whether I should be a Greaser or a Climber tonight. In my school Indian Trail Junior High everyone has to be one or the other. The Greasers wear only black: black socks, black shoes, black clothes and black leather jackets; the girls wear black tight skirts and ratted hair above their black Dracula-like mascara staked eye lashes. The Climbers, the ones like me, wear white socks, paisley, plaid and colored school clothes and letter jackets and pink makeup. It doesn’t matter if you are a Climber or a Greaser-acne shows up where it wants to. As usual, tonight I have nothing black to wear except for some Buster Brown shoes that I wear to church. The black church shoes won’t do for the drive in. So, I’ll wear my dark brown penny loafers. But, what do I do about socks? I know, I’ll wear black socks. I’ll be a Greaser and a Climber.

My face is a blotchy patchwork of pointy blemishes. I’ve had it with puberty. I need different skin. This skin isn’t working. My body and clothes are just another battle on the same front. I tug on my dryer shrunk top until I fit inside its shamrock green sheath. My jeans, which I had pulled out of the dryer half an hour ago, are still wet. They will surrender to my lower half after I complete my wrangling dance yoga inside the resisting denim. I’ve done this before.

My friends are going to show up in fifteen minutes and I still am still not made up. This is the first time I would be at a drive-in without my parents. I am pacing myself to the AM radio: Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell are singing, “Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby… I’ve got to move faster.

I find my purse and I am trying to find my cotton candy pink lipstick somewhere inside. My mom convinced my dad that I was old enough to wear lipstick. Lipstick and some cover stick. (The lipstick was like Chapstick, my mom tells my father. He’s not sure. “It’s good for her lips.” Mom goes on. “Every girl needs cover stick, too.”) No mascara. No blush. No eye shadow. Yet. I dab my face with the cover stick trying to hit every red spot at least twice. I look at my profile standing sideways to the mirror with my eyes shifted right. Then, I turn around and look in the mirror with my eyes shifted left. I apply move cover stick. I look straight into the mirror. There is a rose bud on my nose. More cover stick. I don’t see the pretty girl there I used to know. Pretty is not going to happen tonight. Where are my shoes? “Mom?” I yell downstairs.

“Honey,” my dad yells from the living room, “Your mother’s on the phone. She can’t talk right now. She’s talking to Jane’s mom.”

“Oh, no. Now what? Something’s coming.”

“Jane’s mom said they are on the way. They got a late start.” My mom talks to me from the bottom of the stairs. “Your shoes are under your bed, remember?”

“Whew.” I grab my shoes and do more denim leg stretching as I bend over to get them. I walk to the hallway and I take a last look at myself in the hallway mirror. “Ugh.” The figure I see is an embarrassing collision of childhood and adulthood, of Climber and Greaser. I want to go back to my room and hide. I take another look and I think that it is getting dark soon and my “ghastly” appearance won’t matter. Besides, I’ve wanted to see West Side Story. I turn around and pause to think about what I need for tonight’s movie: I have my baby sitting money. I have my lipstick. I have my comb. Where’s my good luck pink troll key chain? Ah, I remember. It’s under my pillow.

I head downstairs and my dad says, “Hi, beautiful. Have fun tonight. I’ll be waiting up.”

“Dad, I’m gross.”

“No your not, sweetie.”

“Dad, I am, too.”

“No, No, No.” Dad protests.

Mom says, “They’re here.” Then she says, “Oh, there is someone in the back seat of Mick’s car. I wonder who that is. Jane’s mom didn’t mention that there would be someone else going with. Did Mick and Jane pick him up on the way over? I wonder.”

So do I. I look out the window and see Mick and Jane in the front seat of the Caprice and in the back seat is Juan from school. “Oh, god!” Now my dad is looking out the window, too and I say, “Mom and dad get away from the window. Quick!”

Maybe we should go say “Hi” to them and see who this is? My dad talks to my mother.

“Good idea. You go first.” My mom responds.

I stand on the front door porch. I see my parents talking to Mick and Jane parked in the driveway. My dad is now talking to Juan. He shakes his hand as he does with everyone he meets for the first time. I see him smiling. I hear a scream inside of me. I look horrible and Juan, a Greaser, always looks so cool. The scream is edging upwards towards my mouth. A flood of terror rushes through my heart like a tidal wave. I take out my pocket mirror for one last look. I see my dad and mom heading towards me. I am almost fainting. I turn and face the house.

“Honey, Mick and Jane picked up Juan on the way over to our house. Juan is Mick’s friend and I guess Juan didn’t have anything to do tonight, so they picked him up. I will call Jane’s mom and let her know that he is going along. I talked to Juan. He seems like a nice kid. He says that he is in some of your classes. Is that true?”

“Yeah, dad. I didn’t think anyone would be around to see me except Mick and Jane. I look gross.”

“Honey, all I can tell you is that you look pretty, tonight. Don’t worry. Have fun watching the movie and come home right afterwards, as you promised. I told Mick to bring you right home after the movie. Here’s some money for a Coke and some popcorn. I know that you wanted to see this movie. You have been talking about it since it came out, since you sang some of the songs in chorus.”

“I do want to see it, dad, but maybe some other time. Maybe…”

“Marianne,” my mother says my name when she wants my attention, “Marianne,” her voice lowers, “your skin looks fine. I like your hair down and your lipstick is just right. You may feel embarrassed about how you look but your father and I see a beautiful young lady. Go ahead and have some fun. We’ll be waiting for you later and you can tell us how it goes. OK?”

“All right, mom. I’ll go. I’m very nervous, though. My stomach feels like it’s in a pillow fight. I’ll go. I see you later.” With that I head over to Mick’s car and get in the back seat behind Mick. Juan smiles over at me and says, “Hi, Marianne.” And, I say, “Hi.”

From the front seat Jane turns around and says, “You look great Mare. I like that lipstick.”

I see Mick looking in the rear view mirror. “Thanks. Hi Mick.”

Mick backs the car down the driveway and says “Hi, kiddo. Juan wanted something to do tonight so I invited him along. Is that OK?”

“Ah, yeah, I guess so.”

“Good” Mick smiles back in the mirror.

I lean toward my window and look out. I don’t know what to say to Juan so I’m just going to wait for him to talk. I’ve seen him at school in the hallways and waiting in line to go into the school building. I now remember him looking at me when our school was evacuated during a bomb scare. He was in the crowd with the Greaser girls but he was looking over at me standing with my girl friends. Now I remember Juan.

Five minutes later, “Marianne, you look swell.” Juan speaks to me while combing his hair straight back.

“Thanks, Juan. You look nice, too.”

“Did you hear about Mrs. Rhoades? She’s leaving the school. I guess she’s too old to teach.”

“Yeah, she must be a hundred years old. She was always nice to me but she got angry with some of the kids, mostly the Grea…” I stopped myself.

“Yeah, you’re right. She was very strict. I won’t miss her.” Juan looked over to me.

“She was nice to me. I’m not sure why.” I looked over at Juan. He was trying to get a black forelock to stay in a curl.

“I hear that you are in the band. What instrument do you play?”

“I play the French horn.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a brass instrument.”

“Like a trumpet?”

“Well, a French horn is round with a lot of tubes and a big bell where the sound comes out. It has a small mouthpiece. It takes a lot of air to play and it heavy to carry but I like it.”

“Cool.” Juan replies, sitting slightly forward from the seat. (I think he does that so he won’t mess his hair.) “I play the radio.” Juan laughs to himself.

I break into Mick and Jane’s conversation. “Hey Jane, put on WLS. I want to hear some music.”

Jane turns on the radio and finds 890 AM. The Hollies are singing Just One Look. I sing the words to myself as I look at my orange-pink reflection in the car window. Outside the window the sunset is washing the sky like an art class project.

We arrive at the Sky-Hi and we buy our tickets. The ticket guy checks the trunk to make there is no alcohol and no food hidden anywhere. We drive in and find a good spot in the middle about half way to the screen. All around are cars driving into their uphill spots, the car windows begin rolling down. I hear music everywhere, from every car. There are people walking to the concession stand and coming back with window trays full of food. I sit back and wait. I don’t want to be the first one in the car to get some popcorn.

Finally Mick says, “Hey, everyone let’s get our food now before this thing gets started.” We all say “Yeah” and we get out of the car. Mick and Jane walk hand in hand while I walk with Juan a few feet apart. I felt like we were being watched by everyone, that we were the movie, yet I felt safely obscure.  I wasn’t alone at the drive in and all eyes weren’t focused on me, just on our group.  At least, that’s how I pictured the way our audience of inclined viewers would view us.

At the concession stand I get a medium Coke and medium bag of popcorn. Juan gets some nachos with jalapeno and a Coke. Mick and Jane share a large bucket of buttered popcorn and a large Coke. We head back to the car. From the overhead loudspeakers I hear the Monkees sing, “I’m a Believer.” I notice as we walk back to the car that there are ascending pillars of cigarette smoke coming from many open car windows. Each pillar has an extended arm attached. The approaching midnight blue sky consumes the grey smoke while dancing on the giant screen, behind the plumes of smoke is Mr. Popcorn and Mrs. Cola.

We return to the car and listen to WLS until the sun disappears and darkness pulls in front of us. We can hear the cars around us and all the chatter of voices coming from those cars. Out of our speaker box comes the voice of the drive-in announcer telling us to be courteous to our neighbors and to not make a lot of noise. He tells us: “There are bathrooms behind the concession stand.” The previews begin with a commercial about the concession stand food: popcorn, nachos, hot dogs, Coke, Seven-Up, Jujubes, Milk-Duds, Affy-Tapples…. Hmmm, Milk Duds sound good. The previews start to appear on the screen. Car horns begin beeping and some guy is shouting “Shut up!” and “Hey, be quiet!” The surrounding murmur siphoned down into the movie sound coming from the little black box hanging on Mick’s open car window:

“The Graduate, opening January 1968… starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft and Katherine Ross and directed by Mike Nichols. A movie about an impulsive, rebellious kind of love, but the old-fashioned notion of love conquers all.”…

…“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, opening in December, starring Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton…a love story of today. Does love conquer all?”…

…“Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Julie Andrews, James Fox, Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Channing, in the happiest motion picture hit of the year. Directed by George Roy Hill. “You’ve come a long way…”

…“Wait until Dark starring Audrey Hepburn who plays Susy Hendrix, a blind woman who unwittingly becomes involved in three murderous crimnals’ drug scheme. How does a blind woman defend herself? Now playing in a theatre near you.”……Feature Presentation…Technicolor…Now were getting somewhere. At last the movie is beginning. There’s another reminder on the screen to be courteous to our movie neighbors. I sit back and lean a little to the middle of the car to see around Jane’s head. Juan moves his head towards the middle also making sure his hair doesn’t touch the car seat. I can smell his cologne. It’s not like my dads. It smells musky. It smells like a rain forest would smell: fresh, earthy, inviting.

Music begins the movie. The overture fills our small space with jarring and unsettling tritones. The music sounds jazzy, modern and classical. It sounds hip (I got this word from listening to DJ Dick Biondi). The clashing dissonance of the music causes me to wonder about the story. Will it be like Romeo and Juliet? Will there be guys fighting? Will there be romance? “O Romeo, O Romeo…” Juan says that he wants the music to end and the story to begin and yet I see him tapping his hand while looking out his rear window. I crane my neck further toward the front of the car. I want to be closer to the sound. A cool breeze floods the car through the open window. My bare arms are covered with goose bumps. I shiver. Juan remains cool. Mick and Jane continue munching on popcorn while holding hands.

Juan returns his gaze to the screen when two street gangs appear, the American Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks. The Jets have names like Riff, Action, Diesel, A-Rab, Baby John Big Deal and Ice. The Sharks: Chino, Pepe, Indio Luis, Anxious and Toro. There’s talk of a rumble and a dance. Tony is cute and so is Bernardo. Anita and Maria, two Puerto Rican women, work at a bridal shop. I find out that Bernardo is Maria’s brother and Anita’s boyfriend. Maria wants to wear a new dress to the dance and she asks Anita to make it for her. Maria wants her dress lower in the front but Anita, the older woman, is resisting her. She won’t lower the bust line of the white eyelet party dress for Maria even though Maria insists.

Something is coming. I am beginning to sense it. At the dance the two gangs meet and square off for a dance challenge. I love the warm feminine summer dresses of the Latin women. The rival couples dance the Mambo while doing a version of musical chairs with their dance partners. It doesn’t end well. There is tension everywhere in the room except in the eyes of Maria and Tony. They see each other across the room. They come together and dance. They are falling in love. They kiss warmly and I suddenly I don’t mind the chilly car.

Bernardo, Maria’s brother, does not like what he sees and he pulls them apart. He wants to fight. A war council is set up at Doc’s Candy Store. I don’t get this. Why don’t they just fight at the dance and get it over with. Maybe because the cop is there. I don’t know. After the dance, Tony can’t stay away from Maria. I like this. He finds her apartment window and he serenades Maria. I see myself on the fire escape. “Maria…the most beautiful sound…Maria”. More tritones and more melting. Maria and Tony sing to each other while the two gangs get ready to fight:

“Today the minutes seem like hours…

…Well, they began it!…
The hours go so slowly,

…Well, they began it!…
And still the sky is light.

…And we’re the ones to stop ’em once and for all,
Tonight!…
Oh moon, grow bright,
And make this endless day endless night,

Tonight!”

There’s a war council at Doc’s Candy Store. Now I’m wishing I had bought some Milk Duds. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc’s not crazy about the idea but Tony says he is in love. It will be alright. Tony only wants a fair fight. Things are heating up for the Jets and the Sharks and for Tony and Maria. The next day Tony meets Maria at the bridal shop. They dream and I begin to dream…

“I, Anton, take thee Maria…”

“I, Maria, take thee, Anton…”

“For richer, for poorer…”

“In sickness and in health…”

“To love and to honor…”

“From each sun to each moon…”

“From tomorrow to tomorrow…”

“From now to forever…”

“Till death do us part.”

Tony and Maria are holding hands:

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

A cool breeze floods in through the open window. I shiver and think to myself, “My hands are cold.” I nest them together on my lap. Juan reaches over and puts his warm hand on top of my left hand. He gently pulls my hands apart and brings our hands to rest on the seat between us. He holds my hand there. I don’t look at him. I don’t know what to do. No one has ever held my hand before. I feel the racing pulse of my wrist in my chest and my throat tightens. I try to swallow. This is all new and all good.

Tony sings:

“Make of our hands one hand.

Make of our hearts one heart

Make of our vows one last vow

Only death will part us now.”

Maria sings:

“Make of our lives one life,

Day after day, one life,”

Now they both sing:

“Now it begins, now we start

One hand, one heart;

Even death can’t part us now.”

“Make of our lives one life,

Day after day, one life,

Now it begins, now we start

One hand, one heart

Even death won’t part us now.”

The movie rolls on but my thoughts are removed from the movie. Instead, I picture myself in the back seat of the car with Juan. I imagine concentric circles of newly found energy flowing out of me. I’m not sure about the end of the movie: There is a fight. I think Bernardo stabbed Riff and then Tony killed Bernardo, Maria’s brother. I think Tony is shot by Chino. The fighting stopped. Maria is waving a gun and saying that it was hatred that killed Tony and the others. Maria is left alone to grieve about Tony. But now, I am outside their story and inside my own. I am sitting in the back seat with Juan, pimples, baby face and all, one hand one heart.

The credits begin to roll and Mick says, “Hey, that was pretty good.”

Everyone says, “Yeah, it was.” I am still not looking at Juan.

“I better get you home, Marianne. You dad’s waiting.”

I cringe under the weight of his words. “OK.”

Mick drives me home. In our driveway he looks in his rear view mirror and then looks over at Jane. He smiles at Jane. Jane doesn’t turn around. She just says, “I’ll call you tomorrow, Mar.”

I say, “OK.” I finally look at Juan. I think I had a shy smirky grin on my face. There was too much blood flowing in my cheeks to feel the words come out of my mouth. “Goodnight, Juan.”

Juan gently squeezes my hand and says, “See ya, Marianne. On Monday.” He gently squeezed my hand again and then let go.

I smile back him and when I do see moon glow sparkle in his dark eyes. I start to speak. “Juan…”, but my words are choked off when my brain decides to stop working. I return to the smile when I get out of the car. The cool night air revives my brain: “See you guys on Monday!  I had a great time! Thanks Mick and Jane. Bye Juan.”

I walk to the front door of my house. Mick waits for me to go in the house like my dad would. I turn and wave a goodbye and smile a smile that I think could be seen a mile away. I go in and shut the door. I lean back on the door. I feel that I had just begun living. I feel my heart racing.  My head is swirling.  I look at my left hand and I see his hand. I feel Juan’s pulse in my hand. I sense his heart beating as my own. The rush of romance feels like an unstoppable prayer.

Dad is sitting in his arm-chair watching his favorite movie Pork Chop Hill. He turns and sees me leaning against the door not moving. “Hey honey, how did it go tonight?”

“Dad, you would like the movie. There were a lot of guys fighting. I guess I’ll just go up to bed. Good night dad.”

“Goodnight, Sweetie. I love you.”

Now I know that I won’t fall asleep for the rest of my life. I will stay awake and be completely alive forever. I will think of Juan and how the movie gods looked down into the back seat of Mick’s Impala Caprice and made a musical out of me with a touch of his hand.

© Sally Paradise, 2010, All Rights Reserved

All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christian, family, Human Interest, Romance, Short Story, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , ,

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