A Picasso-ian Family Portrait

My family is attempting to re-assemble. It feels like a Picasso.

There's a leg over here; a cracked face hanging over there; broken composition lines, un-tethered figures floating around with no clear spatial relation to one another. All the familiar pieces are there (though looking strangely unfamiliar) within the composition. But fitting them together in a familiar way has been obliterated like a mega-bomb.

Some Picasso canvases are soaked in color, bleeding passion like the slap of a furious lover. But this one, Guernica, is black and white, creating a different kind of slap. It's like a shock of cold water that startles you into sobriety. Guernica is a portrait of horror - the horror of violence, chaos, war. Some wars are political; some are within ourselves, flailed out on family ground. We see the wounded, the maimed laying strewn; grasping, arching for rescue and placement. We see bullish monsters and groaning steeds; but more than anything we see madness.

Next week my children, grandchildren, myself, and (here I go again, attempting an appropriate label I'm comfortable with) my former spouse (the father and grandfather of these mutual offspring) are getting together in our first post-divorce vacation-like thing. Now, to say that we're ALL getting together at the same time and place is a stretch. Various arrangements of us will be together at various times, but there will be a few over-lapping instances when most of us will be together. The planning of this vacation-like thing has already gone through several drafts, been sabotaged in a grenade-like implosion, reconstructed with smudgy lines that could dribble off the page any moment, yet is still attempting to wobble forward. We are desperately trying to reconnect, to reconstitute some kind of family beyond semblance. We want to be together; we just don't know what together is. And, there is still a lot of bleeding on the field. We are all, still, very raw.

We are struggling to gather onto this post-bombed canvas - to hang onto a portrait. All families have those studio-portrait moments of assemblage - the arrangement of tall to short, girl to boy, which baby is upon whose lap, whose hand is on which shoulder....now smile. There is a placement; a kind of artistic structure, no matter how arranged, which says - we are family. Walk in any office or cubicle and from across the room in a glance, you know exactly what that framed, matted, people-grouping is hanging on the wall - it's a family portrait. It says this is the collective from which I come; which places me; of which I am. This is us; this is me.

When I look at Guernica I feel it more than see it. Frankly, I don't know what the heck I'm looking at. But I can feel it. I feel the bombastic lack of structure - like jagged glass it tears at my sense of order and sanity. I don't feel safe in it's shadow. I feel the vapid loss of color and life, a canvas screaming for a gigantic crayon swatch, while declaring at the same time how this sallow pallor is perfectly appropriate. It feels drained of warmth. There are no soft lines, and I feel that too; the angular, weirdly juxtaposed planes shoving me off footing. I feel my arms flailing, flapping at something, anything. I feel the pain, the angst, the horror, not only as my own, but as ours; us - sprawled disjointed across the canvas. I feel us groping, clawing at pieces, trying to create some kind of composition that says something about us other than we are a flayed out mess. Some kind of assemblage that says, we ARE still family; we are more than the horror.

And perhaps,
this is the redemptive point of a Picasso.

A Jolly Holler-y Christmas

One of the definitions for schizophrenic is -
a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.
Do you have any idea how discordant Il Divo and Rascal Flatts are?

All of my household goods are stored in a POD - including my Christmas music. We all have those standard CDs we slip into the background as we decorate, wrap, bake....emotionally enfolding ourselves into the season with each jingle bell melody. By the end of the holiday we're sick to death of the little drummer boy and the twelve days of Christmas, but until we've reached that saturation point, we hum along merrily. It's part of the way we manage a gambit of yuletide minefields.

Because my Christmas music is unavailable, I'm depending on the radio, and there's always a station somewhere that plays non-stop Christmas music. The trouble with remote areas like the coast, is that what's available is static-y and limited......and in my case, country-western. I somehow didn't associate the coast (fishing industry, fishermen) with cowboys. I wouldn't have been surprised with, oh, I don't know, Burl Ives, Gordon Lightfoot oldies, Irish ditties.....but, country-western?

So, as I'm navigating this emotionally loaded season differently, I thought, why not? Why not Dolly, Reba, Sugarland, Brad Paisley, and Keith Urban? The standards are there in mega-supply, White Christmas, Frosty, O' Little Town of Bethlehem, and O Holy Night in twangy harmonious variations. Every once in a while, a little Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole is tossed in for merry measure. And while the holly-jollyness does create a festive atmosphere to set up a teeny weeny tree in the window seat, hang a stocking just for me thank you very much by my cozy fireplace, wrap presents (well, I stuff them now into decorative bags with all that sparkly tissue paper), and arrange displays of pine cone and greenery, I noticed something. I miss my music.

It's not that I'm anti-country-western. It's just there's so much about this season of my life, this season of the year, that's requiring a foreign experience. My traditions have collapsed upon themselves. Others who have been through this kind of transition have encouraged me to create new traditions for myself; and my country-western venture is a stab. But there's only so much of a Texas-swing arrangement of Deck the Halls that I can take. New, different, diverse is great.....but now and then, I just need a dose of familiar, to feel like Christmas.

So I drove up the coast to Fred Meyer in Warrenton and bought myself the Il Divo Christmas CD to kind of balance things out. Big, bold voices.....deeply textured orchestration.....arias that bust down the ceiling.....and after several listens in a row, I felt both satisfied and, irritated? I can't explain the conflict, other than to chalk it up to this crazy time in my life. But I definitely could only take so much of Il Divo. So, I'd turn the radio back on......and believe me, the shift from Panis Angelicus to grandma got run over by a reindeer was like being jerked from one reality to another in one swift yank. Kind of schizophrenic.

And you know....that's a pretty good definition for the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements reflecting my state. On the one hand (now picture Teviah in the Fiddler on the Roof), I want tradition; while on the other hand (Teviah again) "tradition" is changing. I want the traditional, family stuff of Christmas, and yet, I've intentionally isolated myself from my precious, wobbly, family structure to sort things out. I feel the edgy rawness of wanting, needing, both - what's been familiar, and what I must create anew. Everything is redefined; weirdly juxtaposed. What fits? What doesn't? I'm swung from the far edges of Ave Maria to Honky Tonk Christmas. Where's the mid-range in all this ripping back and forth?

........the other day, while sitting in Sweet Basil's, a little lunch spot in Cannon Beach, enjoying a robust cup of portabella/onion soup, I noticed the background Christmas music. Well, I didn't really notice it at first. What I noticed was that I was tapping my fingers, in a really involved way, and that made me notice the music. It was bluesy.....rhythm and blues Christmas music. And I thought....hmmmm....why not?

Launchng the Queen Mary

I just came out of my first four-way divorce meeting; his lawyer, my lawyer, him, me. Four chairs cozy-ed up around a small, round table. The first thing I noticed when I walked in, was the box of Kleenex smack dab in the middle of the table. Hmmmm.....I told myself. You are NOT going to need those. Not today. You've cried enough to launch the Queen Mary.

But I did. Not a lot of blubbery boo-hooing, just an initial, sniffle-y episode that managed to streak my mascara across my cheek - unbeknownst to me. I was not aware until almost the end of our two hours (or in lawyer lingo - our $200 per hour, times two, session), when my (what term do I use? I don't like "ex;" we are still espoused, but not maritally functioning, at all)......(let me start again)......when the man I've been married to, reached over and gently wiped the mascara smudge off my cheek.

And I let him. I didn't recoil and hiss "don't you dare touch me!" I didn't pine for more contact. I didn't register anything. And I've been thinking about that all day. I didn't register anything. During our separation I have registered everything. Anguish, fear, heart-break, loneliness, rage, forgiveness, un-forgiveness, confusion, hope, cynicism - the whole melodramatic roller coaster. I've groaned great, spasmodic, gut-ripping sobs. In fact one time my crying came from such a deep, animalistic place (and I had no idea how loud I was), that my neighbor asked me the next day if I had heard that strange howling the night before. Oh, I have felt, registered, deeply.

And there I was....he touched my cheek, and I was ok. Really, OK. I am in another place. I don't exactly know how to define it, but it is different; distinguishable; a new direction.

Launching the Queen Mary; indeed.





 

Machetes, and Other Anger Management Tools

There are some things only a machete can handle.

Shortly after I moved in with my mom, I helped her landscape her front yard. About the same time, I was deliberating whether to link up with a Life After Divorce support group. I did not want to be a part of one of those groups. It wasn't that I doubted their usefulness, or that I was anti-social, or, heaven forbid, judgmental. It's just that....I did not want to believe that this was where I actually was at this stage of my life......getting divorced. If I actually went to one of these groups, then I was actually identifying with this demographic. I would be a LAD - a life after divorce person. I don't know how to be a LAD.

So, I put it off. I ripped my mother's yard apart instead.

I tore out yards of overgrown ground-cover, chopped off root stumps, hacked out a few shrubs, and cleaved away at hardened, clay soil. And I grew very comfortable with a macabre gardening tool - a machete. It felt powerfully good to hack and chop and slice away. With each whack I sweated out a silent, simmering anger, and in some ways, the hard labor relieved a level of tension. But, it seemed the more I dug into the project, the more fury that machete over-turned and exposed. It was like once my anger found an outlet, it wanted to rampage; and this was kind of productive, for a while. I mean, constructive anger is very akin to creative energy. My mom's yard was taking shape - a little dry river bed, a defined path, groomed beds. But while her yard was coming along nicely, I was a mess. It seemed that with the deluge of wrath, a whole other dammed up emotional reservoir just wanted to sob it's way out.

So, I made an appointment with one of my counselors. (I need more than one.)

And in that session, I blubbered, and howled, and vented, and realized - this was just the beginning. I would have to align myself with a community of support that I wouldn't exhaust if I was going to let myself travel to the depths I needed to become healthy. Processing the reality of divorce, all the layers of loss it involves, is taxing. It can wear down a support circle of family and friends - so I'd hold back. What I needed required a certain camaraderie, a kind of mutuality. I thought a divorce support group would be a self-feeding environment. But I was challenged to see it as a way to move forward; a way to not hold back; a way to go - fully, deeply.

So, I went to LAD.

I still don't know how to be a LAD person, but I'm learning. I'm learning that it's OK to feel lost in denial - for a while. That all denial isn't bad; there are parts that are helpful to survival. That anger is OK, justifiable, even righteous and needs to be expressed appropriately. I'm learning that a community of broken people can be a safe place.

And I've put down the machete.