Mining Nuggets

May flights of angels sing you to your rest

Today, I had to make the decision of putting my darling Molly to sleep. An infection had set into her leg that would have required amputation. I was with her until the end.

R.I.P. my darling cat, my darling, little friend.

We miss you so much.

The "Double Bind"

Lately, I have been thinking about double binds. Before I left Israel twenty years ago, for two consecutive years, I studied intensive courses about family systems through the Barkai Institute of Marriage and Family Therapy in Tel Aviv. During my doctoral program at the University at Buffalo I minored in family counseling. One of the family systems areas that fascinated me the most was the Double Bind. This is no coincidence, of course. For we study that which we most need to understand or resolve within ourselves. Reviewing the characteristics of this system I turned to an old book I love: If You Love Me, Don't Love Me by Mony Elkaim. Quoting Bateson, Jackson, Haley, & Weakland (1956/72), Elkaim defines the characteristics of the Double Bind:

1. When the individual is involved in an intense relationship; that is a relationship in which [s/]he feels it is vitally important that [s/]he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that [s/]he respond appropriately.
2. And, the individual is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and one of these denies the other.
3. And, the individual is unable to comment on the messages being expressed to correct [her/]his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e., [s/]he cannot make a metacommunicative statement.

Needless to say, I recognize that I am that "individual" mentioned in the above. I have known for sometime, through studying and my own therapy, that, when I was a child I was a victim of the double bind. Mostly it has been a cognitive knowledge. Once, many years ago, one of my therapists described the process as: being beckoned with the person's index finger as if to say, "Come to me, my darling," but on arrival, receiving a slap across the face. Or, put another way, being told, "Darling, tell me how you feel," and then when I do, being screamed at for being a destroyer, liar, abuser, crazy, bad, or Sephardi person. That same therapist told me that I was extremely fortunate that I did not, in fact, become schizophrenic.

Recently, events have taken place that have sucked me right back into old familiar bind territory. And as I begin to unpack the feelings associated with it, I become more and more aware of what happens inside me and how I react. Indeed, this new emotional knowledge is helping me unhinge the bind, and realize that I am no longer that child whose very survival dictated a desperate need to "respond appropriately" to messages where one denies the other.

Instead, as a free thinking, independent adult, when confronted with situations like that, I might learn, rather, to hold still and allow myself to focus on what I start to feel. Ah, I see. I feel as if a) I am going crazy, b) there is something intrinsically bad about me, and c) I must be doing something wrong. And from there, start the unhinging process.

For example, I can realize that I am not crazy; rather the double messages are crazy-making. Or, I am not doing something wrong; rather, I am anxious that my response, not being what they wanted to hear, will certainly cause the other not only to be enraged, but might even abandon me. Ever optimistic or delusional that things must change for the better, I usually fall into the trap of responding in a number of ways (all hopeless and ultimately harmful for me): sharing my feelings, explaining myself, becoming crazy emotional (in which case I am told to calm down or stop being dramatic), and sometimes I even try to be intellectual or rational in the face of the absurd. Often, I choose to giggle or clown around to hide the fear and pain.

I could, instead, say something like this:

"I am confused. You are sending me two messages in which one denies the other. When you say you love me, but in the same sentence tell me you cannot visit me because everyone else is your priority, and then ask me why I don't feel loved, and will be enraged at how I answer you, I am unable/unwilling to respond."

Or:

"I am confused. You are sending me two messages in which one denies the other. When you say you love me in the same sentence where you are yelling at me, name calling, supporting others against me, blaming and shaming me, and then ask me why I don't feel loved, and will be enraged with how I answer you, I am unable/unwilling to respond."

Subsequent rage or abandonment (because a double bind ensures that any response is the wrong one) does not mean that I will cease to exist or am a bad person. Indeed, that type of rejection has nothing to do with me. On the other hand, I do not need to externalize a response at all. When situations occur (as they most surely will) I simply can internalize all those unhinging-of-the-bind, maturation, and discriminatory steps, learn to laugh at the predictability, absurdity of it all ... and just ... move on ... unmoved.

After all, my survival does not depend on figuring out an "appropriate" response any longer. For there isn't one ... and  ... so what!

I am safe now.

There's a post in me somewhere ...

... it's lurking, rising, moving through my veins, coursing through my brain. Until it reaches my fingertips. As I observe them swiftly tapping at the keyboard I notice it takes mostly only my middle fingers on each hand, right-hand-pinkie on the space bar, and sometimes index fingers jump in to help out.

Come to think of it, since I came to America back in 1988 I have been doing a lot of keyboard tapping. Indeed, until then I had never once touched a computer although when I was a teenager I had a type-writer that my mother gave me for my sixteenth birthday. I even took a short secretarial course in those days and learned the real way to let my fingers do the walking. Passionate, dramatic and intense stories flowed out. There was no stopping me. In fact, one of them was titled Bombs Won't Stop Me.

But, I digress.

From 1988 on, the computer became my morning, noon and night friend. For I had to write papers. I cannot even think how many. Let me see. If I close my eyes and think of all the courses I had to take to complete a BA, Masters, and PhD (including the dissertation) over the next nine years, well, it has to approximate a couple of hundred papers perhaps. And then there were articles, book chapters, a book, and, since January 2005, my blogs.

My fingers took on a groove all their own and now they function almost without my help. Like automatic pilots they fly my words around and about swirling, creating, dancing, jiving through the keys sending out pieces, posts, messages, even poems that I did not know were in me. Suddenly I look up on the screen and there I am: thoughts, ideas, opinions, mind, soul, heart, spirit, defined by words that came out of me. Pretty powerful stuff, let me tell you.

Now I am not clever, organized or scholarly like some people I know. I simply can not compare. Even though I have tried to match up. And, oh! Believe me, I have tried. After all, a person will do anything for the love of a parent. Anything at all. No, I am much more impulsive, irrational, and emotional. More often than not, I seem to allow my psyche to lead the writing even when I do have a plan, or an organized outline with the major points defined before the fingers start a-tapping.

Take my book, for example. It had been years in the making. All my life. All I needed was one e-mail communication, the slightest suggestion from an acquisitions editor passing through, for me to know I wanted to write that book. In an instant, a flash, the outline was prepared. I almost fell over at the sight of it. It took a tweak here and there and proposals were forwarded and accepted just like that! Try as I did to stick to the scholarly, rational way, my soul, brain, heart, life, childhood memories came roaring up and out onto the pages. After a few hours of writing each day I would sit back, read it through and sometimes weep with joy and relief at how I was allowing my self to emerge.

I specifically remember the day I wrote about my childhood, black African Nanny Margaret when I was growing up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). I recalled how she had to rise before dawn each day so that she could bring me tea early in the morning. I described her living in a small shack at the end of our yard. She had come to town for work, leaving behind her own children in a poverty-stricken rural area, hoping that other family members would care for her children while she tended to, among other things, my morning tea. I wrote about that woman who cared for me physically and emotionally morning, noon, and night forsaking her own children in order that she, and they, might survive. Even though, as I read back what I had written, I realized that as a child at the time I was powerless to change the system, feelings of grief and shame overwhelmed me. And I wept. While I became an activist growing up and was aware of racial injustice during those years, nothing was more revealing than when I wrote about my childhood memories of Nanny Margaret that morning.

Yes, there is a post in me somewhere. It is about self expression and reality, comfort, shame, guilt and life's complexities. It is about human emotion, especially fear, that drives us all to say and do things that hurt to the bone, or lift a person's soul supporting it to the heavens. Mostly it is about sharing myself so that maybe, if the other is brave enough to receive it, they might allow themselves to know who I really am. Vulnerable, compassionate, complex, frightened, emotional, fucked-up, human, loving, fallible, courageous, and, thankfully, irrational.

Worth the writing

Quote of the day:

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. Benjamin Franklin

Lately I have been taking out piles of DVDs to catch up on movies I have not managed to see. T. is away a lot this summer. A world traveler and important person doing research and conferencing in Germany, Australia and Egypt. I have been trying to write but life keeps getting in my way: My health, jury duty, broken legged cat, out of confidence, and way too much alone time. And so I decided to watch a whole bunch of movies to keep my mind and heart off things. And me oh my, some films have been superb, interesting, entertaining, thought provoking, beautiful, and some ... well ... just so-so. Yesterday, after having exhausted all the new releases I could find, and after reading Kalilily Time, I raced off to find Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School. What a jewel of a movie that was! A tale of sorrow and joy. An artistic, poetic experience with beautiful acting and, even, dancing to exorcise ones demons. Ooh, I think I will watch it again today.

Speaking of trying to write, come to think of it, I have been wondering about my blog lately and what it is all about. At one point in time I was sure it was about self-reflection, self-alteration, self-understanding, especially with regards to how early childhood experiences affected attitudes, behavior, life survival skills, defense mechanisms, loving, problem solving, bias, fears, confidence, and so much more. As some of you might remember that all became complicated by misinterpretations and stuff, which I do not want to go into here. Well, actually I would love to go into it here ... but ... er ... um ... I just won't.

And so, now I don't know what my blog is about. It seems that the only safe topic for me is about my cat. And there is only so much I want to talk about that. I think I might want to join Frank Paynter and just allow my blog to become a "muddy greenish brown swamp bottom color you get by mixing all the crayons in the box together."

But, I wonder, how do I do that?

Behind bars

Molly Mabel tries to take a nap after being carried from the closet to her latest home.

The orange bandage ...

The girl is home

Molly crawled out of her carrier dragging a bright-orange bandaged back leg behind her. She stumbled and woo-zed her way around the walk-in clothes closet that I had prepared for her as her new home-to-be for the next couple of months. A small low bed with her favorite blanket on the one side. On the other, a litter box and to the side of her bed, food and water. She dragged herself to the bed and sprawled out reaching her paw up to my face purring loudly. I put my face to hers and tears dropped one by one on her nose. She lay still sniffing in my tears, closing her eyes with loving relief. The nurse had handed me the crate with a sleepy Molly inside. She apologized for not taking off the band-aids on Molly's front paws where the drip needles had been. "She just wouldn't let me take them off," the nurse explained, "So perhaps she will allow you later when you get home." Molly lay with me awhile in the closet. And then she reached her front paws up to my face, and, as she waited patiently, I gently unwound the band-aids and slipped them off holding them to her nose so that she could examine them close-up. She licked my hands over and over again and lay her head back on the blanket.

My girl is home and even though there will be some trying days of recuperation ahead, right now I am off to make a cup of Tazo Chai with just a dash of soy milk to celebrate.

Break a leg

Molly broke her leg.

There she was, after her usual outdoor visit to birds and chipmunks, on the rug, tail swinging back and forth. And then all of a sudden she was yowling, dragging a dangling back leg.

Off to the vet we scurried, hurried, and then onto the emergency surgical clinic almost thirty miles away. I left her there, in the hospital, drugged and woozy, and drove home to tell Ada the news. Ada did not seem too concerned. She climbed on the bed and cuddled close to my body, glad to have me all to herself.

The surgeon called to say the leg is badly fractured and will need plates and pins and all sorts of modern technological goodies. For a cat! Astronomical cost. But if I prefer they could just put her down. Put her down?

I cried all night until T. called. He's in Australia and his day is my night before. He got my message from the conference secretary. "No putting Molly down whatever the cost, sweetheart," he said gently, kindly, voice wrapping around my shoulders with care and love.

Need I say more?

The Dark Side of the Blog

(Inspired by Darth and GB)

Come to think of it, I might have slipped into "mentally living out of [my] own business." If I wrote my thoughts about this I would have to call up the dark side of my blog, and tell other people's stories.

Yes, GB is here and we were talking and laughing with our bellies about the power of my blog especially as our conversation came out of the Sith. I guess you just had to be there.

And so there is not much I can say because so much that I am thinking and feeling relates to other people's business. I just need to focus and get real. I mean, into reality.

A good friend sent me a short piece: Simply Meditate: Download simply_meditate.doc . So I think I will do that for awhile and reach for the light again.

Blogging just ain't what it used to be.