The Faerie Opal

A week ago tomorrow my mother died.  After all the bitchery and woe that she brought into my life I have found it hard to grieve for an 86 year old woman who had absolutely everything she could wish for and blew it all out on tranquilizers and alcohol.  But she had changed in the seven years since my Papa died, and I have tried to make peace with her and love her as one should love their mother.  In some ways I have succeeded.  In others I have not.  The woman made my life hell all through school, and when I graduated High School she told my Papa I could no longer live in her house.  So I left.  And I did not go back much.  Once when my daughter was one year old I took her home for her first birthday.  Nothing had changed. I did not go back again for 31 years.  She was still as vicious as I remembered.  How do you grieve for a mother like that?

Today I received the answer to that question.  An email came from my younger sister - the one who has been administering Papa's estate and acting as sole trustee to mother's living trust.  The email said that she is working to get everything valued, sold, straightened out and 'divided up' amongst us.  One of the items that she has to deal with is mother's jewelry.  Mother loved jewels, and my talented artist Papa loved to indulge her.  She had many splendid pieces that he designed and had made for her gifts each year.  My sister has them all photographed, appraised, and insured.  She wants to be sure each sister receives at least one favorite piece from the collection, and Mother would never make any decisions as to who gets what.  Except for one piece.  She said to my sister "Robyn gets the opal."

And that broke open my stubborn heart and let me cry for the Mother I knew as a very young girl - before she turned mean and hateful.  See, when I was born I was not healthy.  I was premature, and some somethings just didn't work right.  I was deadly sick till I was a little over 8 years old.  Mother took me to many many doctors, but in the time and place where we lived nobody could figure out what it was that wasn't working, and I just kept getting sicker.  Mother had a huge opal ring on her right hand - I would watch the light play through that ring for hours and hours.  I called it The Faerie Ring because I knew I could see faeries dancing in there.  Tiny beautiful delicate creatures;  they danced in the sunbeams going through the stone.  Sometimes when the procedures I had to undergo were horrible she would let me hold that hand and watch the faeries dancing.  I dearly loved that magical ring.  Robyn gets the opal. In that little sentence is all the stunning agony of being her daughter, and knowing that she too remembered the little hurting girl who loved the faeries.  I love you Mother.

Reverb10 day 17

Prompt: Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself
this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

So far the best thing I have learned about myself this year is that *I* own my own past.  Nobody can tell me what I can or cannot say about who I am, what I've done, who I've loved.   That may seem very basic to some of you, but to me it was huge.

I had a friend who wanted me to keep quiet about our relationship because of things that were going on in his life.  When those things ended for him I thought it should be OK to be open about our relationship.  He did not and he pressured me to be quiet - as though he owned my past and had the right to say what I could and could not do with my mementos and memorabilia.  Oh what an enormous blast of light I got when I heard myself exclaim "You don't own my past - I DO!"

So now he is part of my past, and as I go forward now and in to 2011, I intend to hang on to that blast of light and search out any other things I have been giving away that actually belong only to ME!

Reverb10 Dec 14

Prompt: Appreciate. What's the one thing you have come to appreciate most in
the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

2010 you knocked me out!  What did I appreciate from you the MOST?  The log that ripped my left arm out of place?  The man/boy down the hill who sneaked in with 6 crates of gorgeous apples when I was gone?  My teensy ancient house-rooster who crows me awake every single morning?  Dear Lil Guy 20 year old Nissan truck who did not break down even once? The troublesome woman down the hill?  The seemingly unending unbearable hurt of love ended  abruptly without explanation?  The amazing gifts of total strangers?

All these wonders and many more. Of 2010 the overarching miracle for which I feel daily appreciation is that somehow I was given the gift of seeing the integration of all my many personas woven together into one graceful life.   My world has become one filled with everyday life illuminated by a strange and lovely perspective.  It is one that I have striven to achieve and despaired of ever achieving.  One that I never really thought about, and yet craved all the time.  I wanted my life to be all-of-one-piece.  Not a patchwork cobbled together - this bit of work by worker me next to that bit of play by recreational me next to that bit of housekeeping by hausfrau me.  I wanted to be ME in all of the dance, in all of the positions, in all of the costumes, in all of the stumbles.  I cannot tell you how this wholeness came about.  Perhaps it is simply time for all the pieces to fit?  I do not know.

Thank you 2010 for whipping my arrogant ass into shape so thoroughly that I came through the beating one whole integrated happy woman.  I love you 2010!  I express my gratitude simply by doing my best to maintain this wondrous state - by not allowing the world and my experiences in it to fragment me again.

December 13th Reverb10

When it comes to aspirations, its not about ideas. It's
about making ideas happen. What's your next step?_


 
What I want to take with me as I step in to 2011 is the determination to make this the year that I get back on my own dirt.  I have been struggling to get this thing done since my ex-husband's addictions and perfidy cost me everything that I had 12 years ago.  Never mind all the gory details of that asset massacre - I just need and want and long to be digging my toes in to my OWN DIRT again. This year I have to find the way to  make that happen for us.

I'm sick of boarding my horse out. I'm sick of being told that I cannot have the neighbor's dog over to play.  No matter how gentle or how wonderful the boss or the landlord or the stable owner is, it is just not the same as being on my own land.  I want to get up and go see my lovies in my bunny slippers and bedhead hair.  If I need to have sick chicks in the bathtub that's what I need to be able to do.  Without fearing eviction.  Without sneaking around. I need to be able to be in charge of my own everything again.

How to make this dream come into being has eluded me for so long.  I have worked and prayed and tried all kinds of schemes - this coming year I must find the correct key to unlock the gate to my Eden.