Do you have people?

When times get tough, it's a good thing to have people. I have people. Some of my people sent me things this past week.

Diane made an envelope out of a magazine page and filled it with two of her collage pieces. They were created just for me. The wishes and sentiments fit me to a tea. 

That is what Keith sent me -- tea. Harney and Sons Capri. Even Harney (or the Sons) sent me a little something, two extra teabags.

A Wisewoman sent me a postcard that encouraged me to be myself and, strangely, full of tea.

Mindy sent a postcard too. "Good friends are like stars. You don't always see them but you know they are always there."

She says I am there for her too, even when I am in a mess. It's what you do. You are present for people who need you. When you can't immediately be present, you send your voice, your words, your wishes, or a little tea. Tea and sympathy.

My government and the people represented threw me for a loop. I suffered sexual battery as a child and was raped as a young woman. I've spent a lot of years trying to put that into a place inside me that is cushioned by therapy and soul work. That work enabled me to pull outside of myself and my own pain to help others who have suffered. I have encouraged others to get help. My recovery seemed something I could count on.

I forgot that recovery is a process. It's like remission, not a cure. And just like that, my future president says he can grab any woman's private parts because he is a star.

I found out that sexual predators are like stars too. You don't always see them but you know they are always there.

So I fell off the edge of my safe place on this planet. But I have people. My people make a tether to hold me close and pull me back.

Do you have people? #raiseyourhand Ask for help.
Do you have people? #lookforthehurting Be the help.

I will be here, drinking tea and writing words. You can sit with me.

Consider This as Me Swooping In

Just before I swallowed the pills, I wanted to melt away. About 20 or 30 minutes after I swallowed the pills, I slipped into sleep, a rare thing.

Some time later, no one came to save me. No one swooped in to pull me back, giving me hope, listing my talents, telling me I was loved. No medic pumped my stomach or injected me with death-defying drugs. No gathering of friends made me comfort food while joking about dead-serious topics. The most desired love of my life didn't shake me and make me promise never to leave him ever again. None of the movie situations happened.

I just woke up.

When I say it now, as I have many times when I talk about suicide, I shiver a little. I have listed the things I swallowed on paper. It was every pill I could get. It was enough. More than enough. But I woke up.

I don't know why or how. I do have some strange chemical composition. Mosquitoes won't bite me. Never. If one lands, it hurries away. Coffee doesn't keep me awake. Other things. For some reason, the lethal dose of drugs I swallowed and processed through my body gave me a long, deep sleep. And then I woke up, very thirsty, a little queasy but alive.

***

I have severe depression, which most often presents itself in me as a cancer of the will to live. Medications put me in remission. Talk therapy keeps me waking up from month to month. My love for the view of deep blue in my daughter's eyes keeps me alive when all else fails.

But I still occasionally find myself face down on the tiled floor of my front hall wanting to die. It's not such a bad place to be for those times. There aren't any sharp objects, pills, weapons, ropes, or anything dangerous within my reach there. A cat or dog will usually lick my face or climb on my back or both. Time passes. I get up on my grievously bad RA knees and go back to living.

***

You can't depend on someone else saving you. Robin Williams' homeless, broken former professor character in The Fisher King saves Jeff Bridges' suicidal shock-jock character. That was just the movies.

Sometimes no one comes. And you will not wake up from those pills. You just won't. Suicide is not romantic. There is nothing less romantic than a dead body.

***

I am known for my angry response to someone's suicide. There is nothing worse than seeing your own mistakes played out in front of you. I worry that others, particularly teens, will follow the leader. I grieve the mothers that ache for a view of blue or brown or green eyes.

But I am also known for my ability to hear the pain you want to pour out like the blood dripping from a cut wrist. I understand that it just hurts so much. That it won't stop. That the chemicals in your brain are trying to make the chemicals that move your muscles kill you.

If you want to talk or find help, I am your girl. Call or text or FB message or come over.

But you are going to have to save yourself from the pills or rope or sharp things by asking. Robin Williams can't swoop in like in the movies and pull you back from the fire.

1-800-273-8255 or Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Psalm 911

A Psalm for New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania

 I cry out to you with a sound torn from my soul;
a sound of metal tearing;
a sound of innocence dying.
How terrible is this thing which has been thrust into the heart of the many.

Evil has risen up from its nursery and arrived full grown to destroy us;
those who pervert your very name;
who bow to false gods of hate;
who breed in the desperate a desire for destruction.

Their instrument of death is a cruel one;
they have used our own selves as a kind of cancer.
My body has been hurled against my body;
sister torn from the sky to rain destruction on brother.

And hell erupted in the sky;
And hell erupted in the sky;
And hell was thrown against the five sides of our strength;
And, yet, hell was cheated the fourth time.

Our words rained down on us like an evil snow;
like a parade held in honor of our enemy's victories.

Humans fell from the sky; Humanity fell from grace.

High places were made low;
crushed to dust that blows at our feet.
Our mighty have been struck a cleaving blow;
warriors defeated without a battle cry.

Images of horror enter my every waking moment;
burning into my eyes.
I sleep and dream, not in pictures, but in tears that do not wash,
tears that do not cool.
I awake and the sun is blocked by the smoke of a fire which burns my soul.

I have looked to the heavens and seen a terror.
I have cried to the hills and heard no relief.
I have called to the warrior and he is quiet.
I have screamed to my Lord.
I have screamed to my Lord.
I have screamed for relief.
I have screamed for vengeance.

"Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what He has done. For He who avenges blood remembers;
He does not ignore the cry of the afflicted."
Psalm 9:11.12 NIV

I cry out to you with a sound tom from my soul;
a whimper;
a sob;
a groan originating in the earth.

I cried out to the Lord
and I have seen him.

The Lord is with us in the rubble.
God has come to us in the body of the man who lifts a stone and clears a path.


The Lord is with us in the fires.
God has come to us in the hands of those who spray a healing, cooling stream.


The Lord is with us in the places of healing.
God has come to us in the mind of she who closes the wounds.


The Lord is with us in the streets.
God has come to us on the feet of the child who brings food to the grief-stricken.


The Lord is with us in the houses of worship.
God has come to us in the arms that gather us up.


The Lord is with us in our homes.
God has come to us in the lips of our loved ones who kiss us through our pain.


The Lord is with us in the places of power.
God has come to us in those whose hearts bum for justice
tempered with judgment.

I cried out to the Lord and the Lord joined me in my cry.

Cyn Huddleston 09/12/2001

***

I wrote this on the day after the attacks, when watching the images had burned them into my retinas.  I needed some way to think about it.  I started to write like the old psalms, in the cadence of those poets.  About halfway through, at the place where you see it, I decided to see what the Psalm was at 9:11.  It says those words in the version I read.  My psalm had to change.  It was now a psalm of 9/12.  Any more violence done would cause there to be more afflicted.  I looked around to see how we were coping.  I saw response to violence with help and comfort.  I prayed we would have more of that and less of violence. 

I still am praying. 

In 2001, I read this in church to a group of battered folks and one state trooper who just walked in late and stood in the back, ready to go. 

This Sunday, we will have our New Beginnings Sunday.  It's what we have always called our first day of the new sunday school year.  It's Kyndall Rothaus Renfro's first day to preach to us as our pastor.

Here's to new beginnings for us all.

defining the cut

I keep the blades sharp
antiseptic handy
It is control I am after
I cut

dilute or adulterate the pain with pain
refuse to recognize it socially
absent myself from attendance to it

I stop
halt the running, but not the bleeding

then I edit by omitting parts
detach as if with sharp instruments
separate from the main body; lop off

make or fashion it into a jewel exquisite
produce a pattern by grinding
intersect. cross.