I Dance Because I Am

I am....4...years old.  I hop, I skip, I dance.  I believe in Magic.  I drink tea made of sugar cubes and water in enameled tin tea cups.  We hold our pinkies out, because that is the way it is done.  I pull out my vowels, I enunciate my consonants.  Because that is what you do...when you are a LADY.

I sit in a lap.  My mother's.  There is music by firelight.  Guitars, voice, song...rising to the heavens.  Song, Joy, Wonder.  I live in a brownstone in Georgetown.  In the Basement next door...a folk/blues nightclub.  I sit on the front stoop.  I am only five.  I watch...the world.  I talk.  I ask.  I wonder.  The artists cross the street, walk down the stairs.  I am a child.  All is possible...so...I...five go to a nightclub, next door to watch my "neighbor" sing and strum the guitar.

I am five. I hear...music.  My heart soars.  My brain cavorts.  My limbs wave....I dance.  I am joy.  I am music.  I am wonder.

I am eight. I am with friends on a back porch in Berkeley.   The Beatles are playing on the radio.  I dance.  My friends laugh.  I stop.  I hurt.  It feels wrong.

In my home.  It is safe.  Music plays.  I dance.  It is a party.  My mother loves me.  I dance.  I am the "center of attention".  All is good.  Never dance for your friends.  Only adults are safe.

I am 16.  It is my "Senior Prom".  I live in a Southern Baptist Town.  Apparently, dancing is a sin, only allowed when you are a senior.  But...We dance the Maypole instead of a Senior Trip.  Do they realize that the Maypole is a Fertility Rite?  I rise up on toes, I waltz with my crush.  Rise, step, step.  Hold the ribbon, step, step, step, under, step, step,step, over.  Dancing, but so regimented.  Girls in pastels, boys in tuxedos.

Senior Prom.  I cannot dance.  Humiliation will ensue.  My "crush" is here with his date.  He grabs my hand.  I drag back.  ZZTop  La Grange plays in my future.  My crush pulls my hand.  ZZtop enters my soul, enters my hands, I open up.  I am swallowed I dance.

I am in college.  I am at a party.  I dance.  I open up my soul.  My hands move.  My partner asks me "why do you move your hands?"  "I am dancing.."  I reply.

I am a mother.  I hold my child to my chest.  Music skirls through the air.  We are dancing.  Step two three.  Rise two three.  We are dancing.

My soul rises.  My soul sings.  My soul dances.  I dance.  I am. 

How Do You Fix Crazy?

I have just hung up the phone from my Mom.  She is 79 and suffering from short-term memory loss.  When she first started becoming confused, she reacted with anger.  This included biting remarks, head-on attacks and just general meanness.  This.  is. NOT. my Mom.  She can get very angry.  Righteous indignation is not out of her realm.  But...just plain mean.  Not her.

My Mom is now "pleasantly confused".  She knows that she does not remember things.  She remembers going to events, but she does not remember specifics.  She knows that this past June, she went to France, but beyond her pictures and some moments of wonderment, she does not get more than feelings of joy and satisfaction that she has gone.

I have a sister that is 14 years younger than me.  She moved with her husband and toddler daughter to Australia 14 years ago.  They moved because my sister had "multiple chemical sensitivity".  I did not fully understand this at the time.  However, in 2002, I had an allergic mold exposure.  People at my workplace in the "newly remodeled" basement of a major hospital began complaining of headaches, nausea and allergic reactions when they would come into their workplace, which would resolve when they would leave that environment.  They began filing "occupational health claims" throughout 2002.  I was one of the last to do so, because, with my Fibromyalgia, I had exhibited all of the above symptoms prior to moving into the newly renovated environment.  However, from January through August of 2002 I was on antibiotics for "Sinus Infection".  Then I started feeling exhausted.  When I would do patient transfers, a standard for Occupational Therapists working in Rehabilitation, I would break out into a profuse all-body sweat.  I would be exhausted and unable to recover.  I was fatigued even during my August vacation.  I had extreme bowel problems,  extreme bowel pain, exhaustion and difficulty with everything, home or work related.  I quit working and sought out an allergist with two other co-workers.  They quit work in December.  They recovered.  I did not.

So...My mother is calling because her granddaughter, my 16 year old niece, is now being paid by the "state", Australia, to take care of her parents.  My sister who is now 40 and her husband who is 47? (not sure of his age).  My mother is outraged.  I am sad.  She says that they are both hypochondriacs.  Both my mother and my sister were diagnosed as having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the early 90's.  My sister was 16 at the time.  I remember being somewhat sympathetic, but concerned at the complete lack of activity and engagement in life of the both of them.  My mother had a 12 year remission which collapsed when she was left with the major responsibility of a move from New Hampshire to North Carolina in 2008.  She has deteriorated both physically and mentally since then.

My mother called for a sympathetic ear.  I told her it was awful, outrageous, but what could we do?  My sister had placed a legal "no contact" order against my mother when my niece was 4.  At that time, she also severed all communications with me.  We are Facebook friends  now, but no more than that.  She initiated contact through Facebook, but has not responded to any "Messages" that I have left.  I will see an occasional "like" from her.  I have befriended my niece, but sightings are fleeting.  In a moment of grace, I apparently friended my sister's husband.  His interactions are long-winded diatribes about once a year on random postings on my wall.

My mother wants more.  I tell her that I cannot judge them, as they claim to also have Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which I have.  I will say that it is not right that their 16 y.o. daughter is their caretaker.  My mother is distraught that 5 generations of college educated women have ended in "this".  I remind her that I was 16 when I graduated from High School and started college.  She then becomes caught up in apologies, "if I had known" that I was running from a household in which my sister was being sexually victimized by my father.

But that is not my point.  I remind her that she has other grandchildren who are amazing, both male and female.  That her Australian grandchild is only at the beginning of her leap into adulthood (I think our family begins this at 16 rather than 18).  I tell her to not write her off.

My mother says, "Well...I called you for sympathy."  Again, I tell her that I cannot judge on the hypochondria, but that to make my niece the caretaker of my sister and her husband is wrong.  Neither one of us is in communication with or has any influence whatsoever with my sister and her husband.  I have gone through weeks, months, years of counseling to get to the point where I have had to let go of what I have no influence over.  My mother needs more.  She forgets that earlier in the conversation, I have already condemned their treatment of my niece, her granddaughter.

My mother hangs up.  Sigh...I hang up the phone on the dial tone.  I let go of the receiver.  I let go.  And then I remember that we had this same conversation 6 months ago when my mother found out that my niece had quit school to take care of her parents.