who the fuck am i?

Who eWho the fuck am I?

This July, I walked out onto the hot sidewalk with my friend’s ashes in a cardboard tube, all I could afford. 

The tube was in a white plastic grocery bag. Powdered Peter is what I arrived at. I picked him up across from the Swiss Criminal court house where I had already been and am going back

 All of this made me insatiably hungry. 

The restaurant wasn’t open yet so I walked into the store next door, ….it reminded me of home so far away. 

The owner was there,      strangely an older version of me. When she heard my English she asked where I was from. I’m from the US I said, moved here with my now Ex.

 I’m sorry to hear she said but now you have a chance to meet someone completely new. 

But he took my children I said. She replied, then you have a chance to mother in a different way.

 But I don’t have a job or a real place to live I said. She smiled kindly and said                   well dear then you have a completely clean slate, ready for a fresh start.

In this Swiss life, I have seen my children abused and then taken from me. 

I have read poetry to someone as he died and watched his heart continue to beat after he stopped breathing.

 I have seen some of the most beautiful things and met the most interesting people. I became acquainted with my first ghost, found her living brother, invited him to lunch and learned a whole story around them.

I met a healer who has the sensation he holds someone in the palm of his hand and sees everything that is wrong and fixes it. He “saw” my physical ailments,  but He could not see my shattered heart

 I write and paint and creativity just explodes from the insides of me ...only contained by my skin and my confidence. 

I get feelings and take chances. I have been rejected by family and forgotten by friends and complemented by people from the past who were surprisingly impressed.

 Confidence, now lost was just an inherent thing for me, Never really doubted it

 I found a therapy this summer when I was at my lowest. I would float on my back in a pool, arms out, eyes closed. My brain floated around while my body just floated in place. I opened my eyes and watched the clouds move over the trees, each leaf shown in such detail.

I was in an impossible situation and what I wanted was to just turn over in the water

 Arms spread, face down, breath stopped while my heart still beat for a while. And the pain and the stress and the search for who I was and how I could exist here were gone.

 My parents and brothers would be apathetic and my old friends would understand and survive and move on.

 My thoughts were of my children. I did not want them to be the ones with the cardboard tube in the white plastic bag.  I would not turn over. I would not.

I got out of the pool, dried off, pulled myself together. Two more desperate and harried moves. A memorial service pulled off, cardboard tube out of the plastic bag and Peter’s powder spread in the river beside his haunted and beloved house.

My 51st year on this earth now.  I believe in magic. 

So far my magic hasn’t been like the three wishes from a genie’s lamp. It has occurred in other little ways. Like a little door opening so you could glimpse the fairy lights inside, but then closed quickly. Just a brief glimpse.  I soon realized, when the door opens a little, I have to stick my foot it in to keep it open and know that sometimes it will slam shut. 

The theme of last year according to experts? Vulnerability...check, got it.

The theme for this year?

 be yourself,     be yourself. Show them who you really are

 Ok, let’s do this then.                    Who the fuck am I? 

I’m the woman now standing here before you. Stripped of everything I knew, successful business, friends, family,  live in children. I am lacking a proper address and have minimal resources. But I will keep going and I will reach out. I WILL be myself and I will be vulnerable and I will tell others who I am and where I have come from.

 I will lift them up and I will inspire them. My foot is stuck in the door holding it open, looking at the magic waiting until I am invited in.  My ashes will not be held in the cheapest cardboard tube inside a plastic bag. That is who the fuck I am.