It was christmas eve, not even my pet compsignathus named clover was stirring. The stockings were hung with care in hopes that Saint Velociraptor would soon be there. The children were snuggled all up in their beds while visions of dinosaurs danced in their heads. My brother and I had just climbed into our bunks when out on the lawn there arose such a racket of roars I climbed as quick as a cheetah down the rungs of my ladder. I pulled on my dino robe and looked over the balcony to see what it was.
There I saw...
St. Velociraptor and 10 dromeosauruses down on the driveway. He called out their names while giving directions. on Dasher, on Dancer, on prancer and vixen. On cupid, on comit! Rudolf show me the way! Lazer, scan the area for anything large like giganotosaurus! They flew up to the top of the house like microraptors! And there light as a raptor leaping out of a tree St. Velociraptor jumped from his little dino-sled and into the chimney.
He zoomed down like the velociraptor he is. He stuffed the stockings as quickly as a microraptor can glide, with dino claws and toy dino tooth swards.
I looked out the window to see T-rex, Dromiosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Triceritops crossing the hill toward our house! Little clover my pet compsidnathus dashed to my side and told me in dino, I think we're in trouble! I leaned over and whispered into her tiny dino ear, "Don't be so worried! I'm sure St. Velociraptor has it all under control, OK!"
Sure enough, with a wink he lept back up the chimney and called to all the dino's "It's time to put on a show!"
Suddenly all the dino's were dancing, in each their own way, even little clover, down by my feet.
Too soon it was over and off they all dashed leaving nothing but the many dino tracks in the snow.
I went back to bed where little clover curled up on my stomach as she always does and fell asleep to the sound of distant dino rawring!
Words and pictures by Brown Eyes
Transcribed by Kaja
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Why I can't Thanks this Giving
It's thanksgiving day.
but I am not thankful.
I am sick, angry and isolated.
Isolated by my anger.
by my pain.
by my fear.
by the past. which has made me angry.
I am not always an angry person.
but give me this one.
give me this day.
I am angry because protests (peaceful or not always so) by indigenous americans and allies for their water (and ours) their land, and their sovereignty are being met with brutality, greed and indifference. STILL. In 2016. In my country. By my people. And I am doing nothing. (or very little... signed a few petitions, share what I can...) http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/09/dakota-access-pipeline-protest-timeline-sioux-standing-rock-jill-stein
Because Native women have the highest rates of rape and murder. (And no, it's not by Indigenous men). http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/women-s-rights/violence-against-women/maze-of-injustice
Because so many people blindly distrusting "the media" gobble up lies that suit their preferences without seeking any verification, then go on to blame any legitimate or otherwise for not also "reporting" things which agree with their own thinking. People who do not know better and are being taken advantage of by for profit "journalism" and scammers and people who should know better, but chose the easy way out. http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/
Because a minority of Americans voted for an illegitimate president (I know those are strong words. But I'm not here to change the minds of Trump supporters.), in the name of change, for the hope of restoring something lost, lost jobs, lost privileges, lost pride. But, it is not change, and it restores no one. Hatred begets hatred. Trump is not new, and he is not a do-over. He is a pathological liar who will say anything he thinks folks want to hear to accomplish his own interests, mainly faim and fortune. And, MORE IMPORTANTLY, most americans DIDN'T VOTE. So no, while I take issue with this angry minority, I don't blame them. I blame the rest of us. I blame the ones of us who can't be bothered, don't have the time or the energy to stand for the right things when the stakes are not high enough or we don't have a clear, squeaky clean hero. Newsflash (they don't exist. have you ever met a perfect person? so where would a perfect hero come from?) Sometimes you just have to wade into the mess. The local politics. The "locker room" conversations you overhear, the family member quoting lies they've been heard passed off as statistics or posting "news" which any quick check of google or snopes would discount as completely phony. I'm not saying argue with people. I'm just saying question what you hear. "Where did you hear that? It's very different from what I have heard, let's look it up and make sure we are both getting accurate information. I would hate to agree or disagree with you based on a false premise." Most of us have phones that have put hundreds of generations of knowledge and research all across the world within our fingertips on a moments notice. Lets use that. Let's not keep our worlds small because we are tired, overwhelmed... I am too. And chances are good, I've survived at least as much as you have in my life. Maybe different things. But far too much for 100 years, yet alone 32.
Yes, I am angry. I am angry for what my 32 years have been filled with. I am angry for the world I live in.
But I have not given up caring. My anger is caring. Caring for what I have survived. Caring for what police officers are being asked to do and for what they are doing. Caring for water protectors, including the few making decisions which may end in more harm than good when pushed up against the impossible events of all the combined histories leading to the events of today. If you have not survived trauma like that. Don't judge. And if you have. Dont judge. Hear the message, people. Hear each other. We, are all we have left. When this world goes up in flame for our follies (and it will be for our follies, the greed of the few powered by the silence of the many) all we will have had is our love for each other. Or not.
I will have loved. If nothing else. And I pity no person more than the unloving dying unloved. Pity and sorry may not turn my heart toward them, but I can at least see, even their suffering, and have compassion, if not redemption, and this is what makes me human. Stay human hearts. For if I can, perhaps you can. And if you can, perhaps I can. By the strength of our wills and the love we will carry to our graves.
So yes, even though it is from afar, and even though it is not enough, from my original pillager's heart to yours, this Viking stands with Standing Rock.
but I am not thankful.
I am sick, angry and isolated.
Isolated by my anger.
by my pain.
by my fear.
by the past. which has made me angry.
I am not always an angry person.
but give me this one.
give me this day.
I am angry because protests (peaceful or not always so) by indigenous americans and allies for their water (and ours) their land, and their sovereignty are being met with brutality, greed and indifference. STILL. In 2016. In my country. By my people. And I am doing nothing. (or very little... signed a few petitions, share what I can...) http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/09/dakota-access-pipeline-protest-timeline-sioux-standing-rock-jill-stein
Because Native women have the highest rates of rape and murder. (And no, it's not by Indigenous men). http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/women-s-rights/violence-against-women/maze-of-injustice
Because so many people blindly distrusting "the media" gobble up lies that suit their preferences without seeking any verification, then go on to blame any legitimate or otherwise for not also "reporting" things which agree with their own thinking. People who do not know better and are being taken advantage of by for profit "journalism" and scammers and people who should know better, but chose the easy way out. http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/
Because a minority of Americans voted for an illegitimate president (I know those are strong words. But I'm not here to change the minds of Trump supporters.), in the name of change, for the hope of restoring something lost, lost jobs, lost privileges, lost pride. But, it is not change, and it restores no one. Hatred begets hatred. Trump is not new, and he is not a do-over. He is a pathological liar who will say anything he thinks folks want to hear to accomplish his own interests, mainly faim and fortune. And, MORE IMPORTANTLY, most americans DIDN'T VOTE. So no, while I take issue with this angry minority, I don't blame them. I blame the rest of us. I blame the ones of us who can't be bothered, don't have the time or the energy to stand for the right things when the stakes are not high enough or we don't have a clear, squeaky clean hero. Newsflash (they don't exist. have you ever met a perfect person? so where would a perfect hero come from?) Sometimes you just have to wade into the mess. The local politics. The "locker room" conversations you overhear, the family member quoting lies they've been heard passed off as statistics or posting "news" which any quick check of google or snopes would discount as completely phony. I'm not saying argue with people. I'm just saying question what you hear. "Where did you hear that? It's very different from what I have heard, let's look it up and make sure we are both getting accurate information. I would hate to agree or disagree with you based on a false premise." Most of us have phones that have put hundreds of generations of knowledge and research all across the world within our fingertips on a moments notice. Lets use that. Let's not keep our worlds small because we are tired, overwhelmed... I am too. And chances are good, I've survived at least as much as you have in my life. Maybe different things. But far too much for 100 years, yet alone 32.
Yes, I am angry. I am angry for what my 32 years have been filled with. I am angry for the world I live in.
But I have not given up caring. My anger is caring. Caring for what I have survived. Caring for what police officers are being asked to do and for what they are doing. Caring for water protectors, including the few making decisions which may end in more harm than good when pushed up against the impossible events of all the combined histories leading to the events of today. If you have not survived trauma like that. Don't judge. And if you have. Dont judge. Hear the message, people. Hear each other. We, are all we have left. When this world goes up in flame for our follies (and it will be for our follies, the greed of the few powered by the silence of the many) all we will have had is our love for each other. Or not.
I will have loved. If nothing else. And I pity no person more than the unloving dying unloved. Pity and sorry may not turn my heart toward them, but I can at least see, even their suffering, and have compassion, if not redemption, and this is what makes me human. Stay human hearts. For if I can, perhaps you can. And if you can, perhaps I can. By the strength of our wills and the love we will carry to our graves.
So yes, even though it is from afar, and even though it is not enough, from my original pillager's heart to yours, this Viking stands with Standing Rock.
Monday, October 24, 2016
father's be good to your daughters.
I have this craven need to belong coupled with an intense mistrust of closeness and any sense of belonging which I may have. My sense is that coaxing me into trusting (under desperate circumstances) followed by a dramatic breach of that fragile trust is one of the tactics my abusers used to keep me under their control. It was brilliant, really. By creating in me such a profound disillusionment in the trustworthiness of apparently trustworthy folk, they effectively blocked the only safe escape route any abused child has : that of placing their confidence in an outsider.
I entered adulthood with an emotional backdrop of intensely coaxed and horribly abused trust, fake help ever more persistently offered with the express intent of achieving some slight trust to then break. The result a deeply ingrained belief that trust will be followed by betrayal, onto which was painted the additional false starts and gains followed by losses experienced by any former foster child. Family is as family does. Family does not need you as much as you need it. People say family when they love you, but really mean friend. They are just saying family because they see the need in you for them to say it, without truly understanding that they do not, in fact, mean it, at least not the way you want them to.
Which is why I was able to harbor enough mistrust for the family who wanted to adopt me (and believe me, who I most certainly and desperately wanted to belong with) at 17, to disappear the first time I really disagreed with my would be dad about what was or wasn't good for me. Naturally I was right (no big surprise there, I was 18 or 19 at the time and as many of you must know, all teenagers are by default correct in any/all assumptions, particularly those in opposition to their parents guidance.) I don't regret not getting involved in the venture he was proposing although I doubt it would have brought about the complete personal demise I envisioned. Likely I would have tried it, my misgivings/discomfort leading to less than perfect results and ultimately a break with it at some point rather than total moral degradation. It's funny, I'm 31 years old at the writing and it is only just now dawning on me that it would not have killed me to have tried my hand at it. My parents thought it would be a good way for me to make some much needed money, maybe buy a car. I thought it was a cult. Funnily enough my college room mate (read best friend) and her fiance sold cutco for a summer to save up money for their wedding. They hated it, but it did help with the bills... I imagine something similar would have happened with this. I may or may not have made enough for that car, but maybe a few flights home (my parents moved from CA to AZ my first year of college). I understand the depth of my misgivings now, in a way that none of us could have at the time. I had just escaped a cult (though I wouldn't put it together, much less call it like it was for many years). In retrospect it's not surprising that a pyramid model business venture would have made me profoundly uncomfortable.
When we finally did reconnect I said to my dad that I don't think I'd had any concept that our disagreement didn't mean they were done loving me. I don't think it ever occurred to me you would still love me if I didn't give in. His response was along the lines of "and it never would have occurred to us that disagreeing would have any impact on our love for you". And yet, I don't remember ever speaking to them again. I had become afraid, certain they had never really loved me, certain their only interest in me was as one more anonymous notch in the stick, rung on the ladder, cog in the gear (or whatever phrase actually makes sense here). My brain had no use for any input to the contrary. A burn victim exposed to a match, I recoiled and never looked back to see the encompassing flames that weren't. They had used me, they hadn't intended well for me. They had given bad (I thought at the time) dating advice to a friend of mine - obviously they could not love or have ever loved me.
My math was bad. I was putting the wrong numbers into the wrong equation without ever questioning the result. After all, it was the outcome I had always secretly expected. Hadn't I always been waiting for the other shoe to drop and this sure looked liked a falling shoe to me. Sure the input was faulty, but I had no way of knowing this. I was a creature of instinct, believing in myself above all else. The infallible authority on all things personal: me. Even today my capacity for trust quickly wavers under duress.
But writing this has had an unexpected outcome. I think I finally see my dad's pressing me to join their venture for what it was. Something I would have survived. And more importantly simply something my dad thought I should do that I did not want to do. I wish I could have known that refusing, even under some amount of continuing pressure didn't have to be the end. I wish I could have known that my dad pushing me to do something I didn't want to do wasn't the same as my dad raping me. But sadly, I did not.
And because I did not, my father was not at my wedding. My father was not there to welcome his first (and later second) grandson into the world. My mother never got to help me into my wedding dress or watch me becoming a mother or dance a tiny newborn around the maternity ward. My parents never got to shuttle boxes into our first home or see my boyfriend turn fiance fall in love with me and me him, shake his hand or tell him not to break my heart. Instead they got it all thrust upon them at one time when they said "yes" to me, again. An extra grown daughter, family in tow, popping up out of nowhere. Son-in-law and grandsons strangers to them and everyone they are close to now. Only those who knew them two states and almost 10 years ago ever knew who I was, and then simply as a quiet, troubled teen who kept popping up around them. And truthfully, I don't know if they grieve these things for themselves. They have two other daughters, after all, one other son-in-law. But I know they missed it all. That we missed it all. And I grieve. It is hard to know how much I missed out on by my own choice. And yet, I can hardly blame myself for being the gun shy person I was and am. No one can. It served me well and saved me from much.
The funny thing about finally having what I wanted for so long is that just beneath the gratitude, which is abundant, is a profound loss.
And don't even get me started on the beloved and adoring little sisters I lost...
People should not rape, brainwash and torture their children. It really fucks them up, even for the best of what's still in store for them.
I entered adulthood with an emotional backdrop of intensely coaxed and horribly abused trust, fake help ever more persistently offered with the express intent of achieving some slight trust to then break. The result a deeply ingrained belief that trust will be followed by betrayal, onto which was painted the additional false starts and gains followed by losses experienced by any former foster child. Family is as family does. Family does not need you as much as you need it. People say family when they love you, but really mean friend. They are just saying family because they see the need in you for them to say it, without truly understanding that they do not, in fact, mean it, at least not the way you want them to.
Which is why I was able to harbor enough mistrust for the family who wanted to adopt me (and believe me, who I most certainly and desperately wanted to belong with) at 17, to disappear the first time I really disagreed with my would be dad about what was or wasn't good for me. Naturally I was right (no big surprise there, I was 18 or 19 at the time and as many of you must know, all teenagers are by default correct in any/all assumptions, particularly those in opposition to their parents guidance.) I don't regret not getting involved in the venture he was proposing although I doubt it would have brought about the complete personal demise I envisioned. Likely I would have tried it, my misgivings/discomfort leading to less than perfect results and ultimately a break with it at some point rather than total moral degradation. It's funny, I'm 31 years old at the writing and it is only just now dawning on me that it would not have killed me to have tried my hand at it. My parents thought it would be a good way for me to make some much needed money, maybe buy a car. I thought it was a cult. Funnily enough my college room mate (read best friend) and her fiance sold cutco for a summer to save up money for their wedding. They hated it, but it did help with the bills... I imagine something similar would have happened with this. I may or may not have made enough for that car, but maybe a few flights home (my parents moved from CA to AZ my first year of college). I understand the depth of my misgivings now, in a way that none of us could have at the time. I had just escaped a cult (though I wouldn't put it together, much less call it like it was for many years). In retrospect it's not surprising that a pyramid model business venture would have made me profoundly uncomfortable.
When we finally did reconnect I said to my dad that I don't think I'd had any concept that our disagreement didn't mean they were done loving me. I don't think it ever occurred to me you would still love me if I didn't give in. His response was along the lines of "and it never would have occurred to us that disagreeing would have any impact on our love for you". And yet, I don't remember ever speaking to them again. I had become afraid, certain they had never really loved me, certain their only interest in me was as one more anonymous notch in the stick, rung on the ladder, cog in the gear (or whatever phrase actually makes sense here). My brain had no use for any input to the contrary. A burn victim exposed to a match, I recoiled and never looked back to see the encompassing flames that weren't. They had used me, they hadn't intended well for me. They had given bad (I thought at the time) dating advice to a friend of mine - obviously they could not love or have ever loved me.
My math was bad. I was putting the wrong numbers into the wrong equation without ever questioning the result. After all, it was the outcome I had always secretly expected. Hadn't I always been waiting for the other shoe to drop and this sure looked liked a falling shoe to me. Sure the input was faulty, but I had no way of knowing this. I was a creature of instinct, believing in myself above all else. The infallible authority on all things personal: me. Even today my capacity for trust quickly wavers under duress.
But writing this has had an unexpected outcome. I think I finally see my dad's pressing me to join their venture for what it was. Something I would have survived. And more importantly simply something my dad thought I should do that I did not want to do. I wish I could have known that refusing, even under some amount of continuing pressure didn't have to be the end. I wish I could have known that my dad pushing me to do something I didn't want to do wasn't the same as my dad raping me. But sadly, I did not.
And because I did not, my father was not at my wedding. My father was not there to welcome his first (and later second) grandson into the world. My mother never got to help me into my wedding dress or watch me becoming a mother or dance a tiny newborn around the maternity ward. My parents never got to shuttle boxes into our first home or see my boyfriend turn fiance fall in love with me and me him, shake his hand or tell him not to break my heart. Instead they got it all thrust upon them at one time when they said "yes" to me, again. An extra grown daughter, family in tow, popping up out of nowhere. Son-in-law and grandsons strangers to them and everyone they are close to now. Only those who knew them two states and almost 10 years ago ever knew who I was, and then simply as a quiet, troubled teen who kept popping up around them. And truthfully, I don't know if they grieve these things for themselves. They have two other daughters, after all, one other son-in-law. But I know they missed it all. That we missed it all. And I grieve. It is hard to know how much I missed out on by my own choice. And yet, I can hardly blame myself for being the gun shy person I was and am. No one can. It served me well and saved me from much.
The funny thing about finally having what I wanted for so long is that just beneath the gratitude, which is abundant, is a profound loss.
And don't even get me started on the beloved and adoring little sisters I lost...
People should not rape, brainwash and torture their children. It really fucks them up, even for the best of what's still in store for them.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
the thing about me is
i'm fragile.
from surviving.
because what's true is
what doesn't break you
... does actually.
yes, I'm strong.
but in all the wrong doses.
i'm battle strong,
not every day strong.
molded to withstand torture
more than imperfect love.
my vulnerability,
invincibility.
my greatest flaw
infallibility.
false of course.
the grown up
who was never allowed to out-grow
the childish protection of of egocentrism...
until it was all but too late, anyway...
oh heart!
my heart!
broken battered shards of heart
precious all that's left of heart,
perhaps to fragile to find healing heart
find comfort,
learn comfort,
please, oh please,
take comfort!
from surviving.
because what's true is
what doesn't break you
... does actually.
yes, I'm strong.
but in all the wrong doses.
i'm battle strong,
not every day strong.
molded to withstand torture
more than imperfect love.
my vulnerability,
invincibility.
my greatest flaw
infallibility.
false of course.
the grown up
who was never allowed to out-grow
the childish protection of of egocentrism...
until it was all but too late, anyway...
oh heart!
my heart!
broken battered shards of heart
precious all that's left of heart,
perhaps to fragile to find healing heart
find comfort,
learn comfort,
please, oh please,
take comfort!
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all
There is no one me
Only one of them.
This me or the other
Today's me or another
Sometimes just the was me.
Tomorrow could be, new me
Flavour of the month me
The good one or the bad.
The hopeful or the sad one.
The one who dreams
The one who means...
no harm. yes harm.
Stab you with my knife arm.
Hold me in your arms me.
Broken me. Not whole me.
Never. Never. All of me.
Monday, August 29, 2016
The bracelet
I wear a small bit of my soul on my wrist
In the form of a gift
A lost wish..
A dandelion kissed with the breath of a never hoped hope
A never dreamt dream
Caught by a man with a father's heart
Who saw a lost daughter
Too broken to desire her deepest desires
Mine.
One restored
With engraved wings,
freed to soar.
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