Mama's Blood Loss

to my brother, herding goats in spain...

darling delicious delectable d~,

gladder than meat-puppies to get your email today, darlin. missin you like cowgirl boots (that's a hell of a lot). got hair dye today so t~ can recreate the mediterranean sea on my head this week. am almost done bleeding. am respected among my retarded genius friends. i have much to be thankful for.

i think it's kind of funny that you, across an ocean and many mountains, know more about what i'm dealing with than anyone here does. i can't seem to share this stuff out loud and am too damned shy (if you can believe that bullshit) to share this writing with everyone. i, as most other humans, feel a desperation to be understood. that's our true loneliness, i suppose.

so, i wrote this in my journal the other day. my mom's two giant uterine tumors are not getting any better; may, in fact, be getting worse. they can't operate because she only has 5% of her normal coagulants in her blood; e.g. if they cut her open, she's gonna bleed to death. meanwhile, she's already bleeding to death on a slow, daily basis. i'm trying not to worry, not to allow fear to become my bedfellow. oh, but it is difficult some days.
forthwith:

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Spoor of temporal movement, of action and reaction, of knowing All There Is To Know. I am not a bit satisfied. I, too, am unimpressed.
And I miss my cat.

There's something creepy and amazing about the course of health, of sickness and wellness in a body. Every breath is someone closer to death. Every chortle and guffaw, every sigh and moan is onespacecloser. ("you're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older, and now you're even older, and now you're even older...")

I don't want my mom to die.

Not allowed. Not allowed just yet.

I do not fear my own death and have, indeed, been dreaming it a lot lately. Last night, I fell from crazy height, hundreds of storeys. I don't remember whom I was with, just that it took ages longer than I expected it would to fall. For the first time in my living memory, I did not hit the ground (been having these falling dreams since I was a toddler). I freefell through a mental process of forced relaxation, supplemented by continual reminders to let go, let go, let go. In the middle of a longwinded, longitudinal plummeting---unexpected,undeniable---my thoughts went back like a killer to a crime scene, forever chanting "Ain't Nothin You Can Do, Baby. Relax and Enjoy."

Tense. Relax. Tense. Relax. Tennnnnsssse...aaaand...Fucking Let Go, Already.

It was me; I was falling forever and over...but in retrospect, itseems I was falling through Mom, falling through her illness.

(Let Go. Let Go. Let Fucking GO.)

I've had this lifelong revulsion for people who cling to a Desperate Denial of the Inevitable. I wholeheartedly salute those who jab a middle finger in Death's grinning visage, who stand chest out and chin jutting, brave and laughing to the end. My contempt is reserved for those who, for lack of any better analogy, throw tantrums, hoping dumbly, blindly that Mortality is as soft-willed as their own mothers. Nauseating, really.

I will not go quietly. Neither will I go snivelling or screaming, making a weak-willed ass of myself, and generally making my own last moments on Earth a conscious hell. It's both ridiculous and unattractive, selfish and futile. I will not behave this way on the death of my mother.
No, sir.
(not that she's going to die, ofcourse)
Nooo, no, no, no sir.

It was New Year's Eve, maybe three years ago, when Mom and I stumbled home from a party and talked about her death. Said she didn't want to scare me, make me uncomfortable---just wanted to let me know she'd thought about it, was planning for it, so her children wouldn't be burdened with an overweight jockey of a coffin salesman atop the saddle of our grief. I wasn't threatened, uncomfortable; I was even grateful she'd taken the time and expense upon herself, though she knows we'd sell our last organs for her everything, anything. See, Death ain't so serious in the abstract. Abstraction warps emotional weight, makes it manageable. It is easier to talk about mortality when it applies to goldfish, or to ideals, or to some far-off Future Person, or just to Not Now.

We had our New Year's Eve planning/confessional long before she knew about the tumors...
...or did she already know? Deep in her cells, could she already feel cool breath on her neck? Did I miss the ground last night because I don't get the easy way out on this one? Because it's Mom who's gonna hit this time? Is she still dreaming the two of us atop elephants, crashing through the jungle, laughing 'til tears streak our dirty faces? Is she falling, too?

The women in my family are so fuckin butch when it comes to pain and tragedy. We grit our teeth and grin sardonically through the whole damned thing. If the pain's too much to grin through, we shoo everyone out of the room so no one will be obliged to suffer our annoyance with us. Ain't nothin we hate more than company that tries to talk us out of our misery. As if we hadn't already tried that. If you want to sit quietly with my head in your lap, that's one thing. If you want to try and soothe this family's savage breast with the Everything's Gonna Be Okay mantra, you are wasting your fucking breath. We're at least two pragmatic thoughts ahead of you. Weknow it's all gonna work out. We fully grasp how inconsequential are our corporeal troubles. We mourn in private. We die in solitude. We are bitches to the bitter ends: jealous of our time, overprotective of our privacy, exorbitant with our Love. Effusive,even.

We smell fear like bees, and will have no truck with weakness. Not even if you're trying to help. ...Especially then.

Like bees, we are honey and anger. Like bees, we smell the stench of our own emotional reaches. Like bees, like poets, like adventurers and seekers, we, too, are

Not A Bit Tamed.

We, too, are not satisfied.

Gathering pollen, creating Sweetness. Immortality.
Gathering swarms, creating Chaos. Death.
Gathering the slip-satiny Folds of Time's Fabric Skirts about ourwaists to ford the realities-deep mud of every Moving River.
We get the futility. And we do it anyway.
Grin at it always.

I do not want my mom to die.

But I will be there, big-mouthed and laughing, when she does.

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am i the only one who cries when she reads this? emotional content aside, does it flow? make sense? i'm thinking of posting it to my livejournal pages that i'm veritably sure no one reads.

i'm wiped out. need to find a house this week. and a(nother)job.
i'm not as depressed as this sounds. just a little overwhelmed. but for the pms-hangover a couple days ago, i've been in very good spirits. i'm sorry to hear about your breakdown, for lack of a better term. i hope you are feeling a little better after the release.

goats are a pain (especially to try and *herd!*), but they are some of the purest little meat-envelopes of unadulterated freedom i've ever played with (or milked!). i'll try and take pictures of my newly ceruleated tresses to send you. blue hair always makes *me* feelbetter. :)

how is your health and all that, btw? are you generally eating well and taking care of yourself? t~ sends you bigbig love and hugs, as, of course, do i.

...ah, christ, all i've got is hugs and love for you. wish i could actually give them to you in person.
otherwise, i am and will be your eternal penumbra,
your goat skull and cat teeth,
forever and always,
til death do us confuse,

doxy