Consider the Dandelion

Most people consider the dandelion a weed. They rip it out of their yard and throw it in the garbage. Why do so many people destroy these flowers when they will pay big bucks to buy flowers from a garden center? Because everyone says that the dandelion is a nasty, worthless flower. If you don't destroy it as soon as you see it. It will spread, and then there will be more nasty, worthless flowers you have to work to get rid of.

But it's a flower. A rather pretty little flower, if you stop and look at it. With lots of bright little yellow petals going every which way.

And when it goes to seed, it is even more beautiful. It forms this ethereal sphere of lace filaments that glow with inner beauty when seen in the right light. But it is a delicate beauty. It lasts only a brief while before the harsh elements destroy it. But even it's extreme fragility is part of its glorious design.

The dandelion's death is one of the most beautiful examples of the life cycle that I have ever seen. Who hasn't held a dandelion puff before their mouth and blown upon it in order to watch it's tiny seeds be lifted up and away upon one's breath. Spreading new life with the evanescent beauty of its death. Even without human intervention, the world's breath becomes the breath of life for the dandelion, carrying the potential within its seeds to form new life wherever the wind blows.

But this beautiful flower is destroyed over and over again, simply because someone, somewhere, sometime decided that since it didn't do exactly what they wanted it to, then it must be destroyed. Because the dandelion doesn't behave like “normal” flowers, it must be destroyed. Because it doesn't allow itself to be confined within the strict borders of a planned garden, it must be destroyed. Because it goes its own way and doesn't “follow the rules”, it must be destroyed. The dandelion is a rebel flower and rebellion cannot be tolerated, it must be destroyed.

Why?

Why must beauty be destroyed simply because it wasn't planned for?

Why must beauty be destroyed because it turns up someplace unexpected?

Why must anything that doesn't “follow the rules” be thoughtlessly destroyed?

Next time you encounter a dandelion, stop and think about what it means to be a dandelion in this world.
 
This post is dedicated to Mark Kanemura, Lady GaGa and all the other monsters out there. 

When a Kid is Sick

When a kid is sick, most parents tend to pamper their kid. They'll bring them special treats and/or sit and read to them or just tuck them in securely and hold their hand. When it's time to eat, they'll cook foods that their kids like and if the kid is too sick to get out of bed, they will bring it to them and help them eat it in bed. Basically, they will try and make their kid feel better emotionally as well as physically. At least that's what I imagine.

When I would get sick, my mother wanted nothing to do with me. She would just leave me alone in my room. If she had actually taken me to the doctor and there was medicine that I was supposed to take, then she would bring that in and make sure I took it. But she wouldn't sit with me and tell me stories. She never brought me special treats. She never even brought me regular meals. If I wanted to eat, I had to get out of bed and come to the kitchen and eat whatever she had cooked. If I was too sick to come to the table or if I didn't want to eat what she had cooked (she cooked a lot of foods that I was allergic to), then I was out of luck.

I remember one time when I was in sixth or seventh grade, when I had some sort of fever, headache and body ache illness going on, that I went for three days without eating anything. My mother knew that I hadn't eaten anything. When I finally managed to come to the kitchen to eat, she commented on how many days it had been and that she had wondered how long it would take before I got over feeling sorry for myself and came out to eat something.

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

This post was copied from an old blog that I no longer keep up. It was originally published on November 5, 2008.

I woke up this morning with a nasty headache. I still have it. But at least I didn't have a panic attack when I woke up. Eight out of ten mornings(or thereabouts), as soon as I realize that I am actually awake, my heart starts pounding and my mind races, and I become terrified because I will actually have to get up and face another day. I'm not exaggerating. I'm really scared to wake up. I'd much rather just stay asleep(permanently). Some people are afraid to go to sleep because they have nightmares. Well, for most of my life, I suppose, my day to day existence was a nightmare. My life isn't that bad now. My external situation is actually pretty good. My husband loves me. My kitties love me. I have lots of books to read. But the wiring in my brain still thinks that being awake means being in emotional pain. So almost every time I wake up, I panic. It doesn't last long, a few minutes maybe, then I calm down. Unfortunately, this mornings headache isn't going away. I suppose I should take something for it...
Practicality... bleh...


Update 3/31/11: I still wake up with panic attacks. I now refer to them as my UMPA's (Usual Morning Panic Attack). Though I think the frequency may be down to seven out of ten mornings. It might not be much, but it's an improvement.

Physical Therapy

When I was 12, I had to learn how to give my mother physical therapy. I'm not sure why they chose me to do it instead of my older brother. Apparently, my father simply wasn't co-ordinated enough to manage it properly, but as far as I know, they never even tried to teach my older brother how to do it. Of course, he was the difficult child and I was the obedient one, so that was probably it. Or maybe it was because I was a girl and he was a boy. Everyone knows that girls are better at taking care of people than boys are, right? Even if they are two years younger and far more emotionally vulnerable.

Anyway, my mother had a very nasty lung disease. My family referred to it as terminal bronchiectasis. I don't know if that is the actual scientific name, but that was what we called it. Basically, my my mother's lungs were slowly, but surely filling up with infected phlegm. One of the ways to get this phlegm out was to put her on a tilted board with her head downwards and rhythmically beat on her back, sides and front with slightly cupped hands until she hacked up some of the phlegm. We would then look at it to check what shade of yellow, green or brown it was, and if it had any blood in it.

We did this physical therapy three times a day, morning, afternoon and evening. Each time, the whole procedure took a little over an hour. 10 minutes for her left back, 10 for her left side, 10 for her left front, then 10 for her right back, etc... She would usually cough up phlegm 2 or more times during each 10 minute section. I hated it. I hated the sound of her cough. I hated looking at the mucus covered tissues. I hated feeling her body struggle first to breath, then to expel the phlegm that was slowly killing her. It's not that I didn't want to help my mother. I did. It was just that being forced to be so intimate with her disease was extremely stressful for me. I was, after all, only twelve.

I had been told that by performing this physical therapy on my mother, I was helping her to live. But all I could feel as I was drumming on her body, was her dying beneath my hands.

The Edge of Death

This post was copied from an old blog that I no longer keep up. It was originally published on November 6, 2008 and originally titled, “Dying is Easy, Living is Hard”.

I was 27 the last time I tried to commit suicide. It was my first night home from the hospital after giving birth and giving my child up for adoption. I'd gotten home to discover my roommate, Alex, had moved out while I was in the hospital. At the time I thought the child was his. I later found out through DNA testing(paid for by the adopting couple) that the father was a friend of his that we'd had a three way with. I didn't have any other friends at the time. I've never had very many friends, but at that point all the supposed friends that I'd had, had disappeared as the pregnancy progressed. I was completely alone. I called Alex and begged him to talk to me, but he couldn't be bothered. He'd stayed with me long enough to drive me to the hospital when I went into labor. As far as he was concerned, his responsibility to me was over. I told him I couldn't survive without someone to help me. He just said, "goodbye".

I took an overdose of the pain pills that the doctors had sent me home with. It hadn't been an easy birth. Twenty-seven hours of labor, severe tearing from the vulva to the rectum and my right hip was partially dislocated because of the size of the baby's head. I was in a lot of physical pain as well as emotional pain. After I took the pills, it was so peaceful. I lay on my bed feeling the pain fade and my thoughts float away. My cats, KC and Arafel, jumped up on the bed and curled up next to me like they did whenever I went to sleep. Their presence was very comforting. But it reminded me that if I died, they would be stuck in the house with no one to care for them for who knows how long. It could be weeks or months before anyone discovered that I was dead, and they could die without water or food. So I called an ex-roommate (just a roommate, not a relationship) to ask him to take care of the cats. My brain was already pretty messed up by the pain pills, and I guess I wasn't very coherent. The ex-roommate somehow figured out what was happening and called 911.

I lay there in bed and gradually everything just faded away. By the time the paramedics showed up, I couldn't feel or see anything anymore. I could still hear though. And I could hear them talking about me. I know they checked my eyes, but I couldn't see the light that they shone in them. I could tell from the sounds that they had put me on a gurney and rolled me out to the ambulance, but I couldn't feel any of it happening. I could only hear. At one point I heard a female voice yell,"We're losing her! We're losing her!" I could somehow sense my life force leave my extremities and gather in my chest in a very specific spot between my heart and my throat. I felt warm and peaceful. Like being held in the arms of someone who loves you. And something told me I had to make a choice. That if I wanted to, I could let go and I would die. But that if I didn't really want to die, then I had to accept the pain in order to remain in the world of the living. I didn't want to accept the pain, but I didn't really want to die either. I just wanted the pain to stop.

I don't know why in that moment, I made the choice I made. I think part of me must have still had hope that I could find some happiness in life. And I have had happy moments since then. But there are times when I wonder what it would have been like to have made the other choice. I remember how warm and peaceful it felt on the edge of death. And, at times, I long to feel that warmth and peace again.

An Irrational Body

I can feel my shoulders trying to curl inward and downward. I can feel my back muscles pulling against my spine, twisting it sideways. My body knows that it is in pain and doesn't understand why I am moving around and doing chores. It just wants me to stop. But sitting down just makes things worse as my body tries to avoid putting pressure on my broken tailbone or dislocated ribs. And even laying down, my muscles twist and turn and attempt to find some position where nothing aches. But it doesn't work. There is no position where there is no pain, and my body's attempts to find that elusive pain-free zone merely cause muscle ache and fatigue and pull my body out of alignment. I wake up in pain, I move in pain, I sit in pain, I live in pain. And about half of this pain is caused by my body's attempts to escape the pain.

I know that allowing my body to twist itself into a pretzel doesn't really help, but my body insists that it will. I have to constantly monitor my body and consciously straighten my back and pull my shoulders up and out and try to keep everything in its proper alignment. When I stop paying attention, my muscles surreptitiously contract and pull until I am twisted and hunched. Sooner or later I realize what has happened, usually when the muscles that have worked so hard to get me into this distorted position begin to realize their own pain. Then I have to convince my tired body to straighten itself out, to try and pull itself back into its proper alignment.

I carefully stretch and move about, persuading my muscles to loosen and relax. The tightness and cramps gradually release, and the muscle pain diminishes. Then I can go back to what I was doing. But even though the muscle pain has been relieved there is the still the pain of the broken and dislocated bones. And so, as soon as I stop paying attention, my body again starts to try to escape its pain. My muscles contract. My body twists and distorts. And soon I am in more pain than I was before.

It's a brutal cycle that makes no sense. And it leaves me feeling exhausted and helpless, trapped within an irrational body.

Addendum:  In case you were wondering.  I was injured by falling off of my horse.

Passive Madness

I suffer from a passive madness. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a more active madness. Would it be more interesting?