Words, words, words!

Random thoughts in a blog post are sometimes the most telling....Or they're just super-annoying and I don't know any better.  Either way, I am going to complete a blog post today.  There may be rhyme and reason to it, or you may all shake your heads and click away.  Let's see, shall we?

I joined a writing group.  I decided it was time to get off my blogging ass and do some writing in another forum.  I sometimes have delusions of grandeur in which I see myself writing a memoir of sorts.  People like memoirs.  Especially when people swear and tell secrets and make them laugh and cry.  I've done all those things in the last 20 minutes, so who knows? Perhaps a memoir is something I could manage.... someday. 

So, yes!  The writing group.  It is filled with interesting people living their interesting lives.  Some of them enjoy writing dialogue. Some enjoy descriptive paragraphs.  Some enjoy screenplay.  I have no idea what the hell I enjoy.  I felt like such a jerk walking into that first meeting, copies of my work in hand, a couple of pens in my pocket, and a big notebook to light my way.  EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE ROOM pulled out a laptop, and my head fell into my hands. When we had a 20 minute "free writing" session, I got through approximately 5 pages of writing.  Everyone else had a piece to rival "Les Miserables".  So it may be time for me to buy a laptop, or it may be time for me to recognize that writing comes to everyone in different ways.  For most, it's via high-speed internet.  For me, it's the pony express. 

I love to write.  Words make me happy.  I love the way they feel coming out of my mouth.  I love the way they caress or assault my ears.  I love to hear them in different accents.  I love to spell them, and I love to see them on the page.  (Why thank you, Dr. Seuss, would you also eat them in a tree? Ugh. As I said before, this is random thought time.) As a child, I used to sit in my room and read books until my eyes crossed, and then I'd pull out a ratty notebook with hearts all over the front.  Those hearts had my name joined to every crush I had; Laura Riker and Laura Picard were particularly popular. That notebook held all my most precious prose and poetry.  I wrote biblical epics and World War II short stories.  I wrote poetry that would make even Emily Dickinson weep. No, really, it was that bad. The poor woman would have sobbed herself right into an epileptic seizure. 

As I read and then wrote lovely words, my real world fell away, and I was the beautiful, intelligent, and graceful girl I always wanted to be. I was the princess the Prisoner of Zenda came to rescue.  I was Jo March, writing and running and having great adventures with her sisters.  There were no bullies in my writing world.  The mean girls couldn't get me there.  The kids that picked me last could not come near me.  The practical jokers, the nicknamers, and the shamers all stayed away. I was the creator of worlds.  

As I continue to fight this well-known bully called Bipolar I Disorder, I find myself longing for those days.  I remember the comfort of the weight of a book or notebook in my hand.  I remember asking my illustrator uncle to create a cover for one of my short stories.  It was GORGEOUS, and something I treasure to this day.  I remember taking my notebook and pen wherever I went, like a sword and scabbard.  Books and writing were trusty companions, and ones that I continue to cling to now.  I read whenever I have the concentration and focus.  Some days it's only a page or two, but sometimes it's whole books.  I am starting a new adventure in nutrition and supplements as Western medicine continues to fail me, and so my pile of "to read" has turned into a mix of vitamin education, diet theory, and Chinese medicine. I journal and take notes and make lists, words flowing forth in as many forms as I can stand. 

I am going to continue to go to my writing group, armed with a crappy notebook.  With a head full of stories both real and pretend, I will conquer my fears and shortcomings and make them all into a suit of armor. I love to write. And there are no bullies there.

Vignettes Part I

Hello again, gentle readers.  The following is the first of a few vignettes I wrote whilst at Emerson Hospital for another bout of med changes and "staying safe" this month.  All names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty.

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Carl throws a stress ball across the common room, hitting Blake in the shin.  They're talking about all the ways you can make alcohol and drugs from household items.  They have a case of what Bob would call "the spin drys".  Guys come in for 3-5 days because their wives, bosses or families beg them to get clean.  They dry out enough for the physical effects of their substance of choice to wear off, claim Jesus as their guide, and go right back out and use.  They have no intention of quitting, they just want to make their families happy, or keep the money coming in.  Blake has already managed to ingest Purell to try to stop his tremors and hallucinations.  In his mind, the ethanol in a hand sanitizer would be better than sobriety; all hand sanitizer has been confiscated from the unit.

Carl has taken to Blake and a few others who are all trying to dry out.  They laugh a little too loudly, proclaim their love of the Patriots, Red Sox, and Bruins a little too vehemently, and know everything.  All exclamations have at least one "fahhk" in some part of speech.  They are frightened little boys, wearing their fathers' jerseys and expressions, trying to be just as brave.  When their knowledgeable statements and information are questioned, they are almost always wrong, and they bluster through all the reasons why.  Their glasses weren't on, they thought you said the '77 Sox lineup, not '87, and that bitch nurse gave them the wrong med at the window this morning.  These are the guys who tell you who REALLY killed Kennedy, but can't remember their son's birth date.  Their tales come forth through gravelly, smoke-filled cords.   

I ask one of these gentlemen why he's so angry.  He says "I'm not angry at nothin'. Nothin' bothahs me anymoah." This is the same gentleman who thought Purell would make a good mixer.

It seems to me that I sometimes see these sober men for the last time on earth.  They are walking and talking ghosts, who won't ever be in this corporeal and sensitized state again.  Alcohol and opiates will numb their pain, desensitize the body, until they sleep forever.

"And now, the end is near...

And so I face the final curtain"

My Pa Rocky was a huge Sinatra fan.  He was such a big fan that we played "My Way" at his graveside on the day of his funeral. That song wasn't just one of his favorites; it was a mantra by which he lived his life.

Pa's life was not an easy one.  He came from a small town in Calabria, Italy. When he was 12, he and his father came to the United States, to work and raise enough money to bring his mother and two brothers over.  They lived in an apartment building in Boston, working hard, eventually bringing the rest of the family to America.  When Pa was 15, his father died.  Now he was the head of the family, supporting his mother and two young brothers.  School had been out of the question for a long time; now his life was about family and work.  Childhood was out of the question as well.

The years that followed were not easy either.  There was joy in his marriage and birth of his three children, but heartache in his divorce and strained family relationships.  He continued on his own path, not worrying about consequences, but being true to himself.  Even if no one liked his answers, they were his own truth, and he would not give up.

I find myself thinking about Pa a lot these days, these days that are shaky at best.  He did his utmost to make his own decisions on his own journey.  He was strong and stubborn (some would say to a fault).

I am making my own decisions now.  I have thought about giving up music.  Last night, I was scheduled to sing the Verdi "Requiem" at Tanglewood.  About an hour before the performance, I began to sob uncontrollably.  A dear friend and my manager both rubbed my back and comforted me and told me not to worry about singing, just to take care of myself.  My husband and mother said "Put tonight behind you.  It's one Verdi performance." But how many nights like these must I put behind me?  How many times can I start to lose my mind and let everyone pick me up off the ground, sobbing and wondering why I can't just get swallowed up by it?  How many people must I disappoint?  How many times will I prepare for a concert and then go through such a roller coaster in my brain that I question my own perception of reality?  In the span of one hour, I went from urges to cut myself, to determination to do the concert anyway (sobbing during silence be damned), to a simple and utter despair.  I don't know if I'm manic, hypomanic, anxious, depressed or psychotic.  I keep taking the pills, and taking the pills, and coping and coping and coping.

I want to try to slow the creeping unrest in my heart.  I can't stand to be around more than two or three people at a time.  Going out in public makes me fearful.  I worry that people I don't know will be angry, talk out of turn, or won't be quiet in a movie theater or at Mass.  These things make me feel actual fear!

And so I feel an end is near, and I face a final curtain of sorts. Is this the end of a music career? As I rehearsed the "Requiem" this week, I could not help but weep while I sang.  I am mourning the career that might have been.

I have had regrets, but I will have to do this my way.

Joyful Girl

"I do it for the joy it brings,

Because I'm a joyful girl.

Because the world owes me nothing,

And we owe each other the world.

I do it 'cause it's the least I can do,

I do it 'cause I learned it from you."- A. DiFranco

When I was a little kid, I loved to make friends.  My parents tell me that when I was a toddler, they looked up from their blanket by the ocean to find that I was traveling from blanket to blanket nearby, babbling at the people there, and eating their food.  (Who doesn't love a buffet?.... ahem....) But I was so happy just to be talking to people and learning new things.  I would walk up to children in a park or at the beach and say "Hi, I'm Laura.  Wanna be my friend?" It just seemed like the right, comfortable thing to do. It was another reason that performing felt so natural.  With one song or monologue, you could communicate with a room full of people, asking them all to be your friend.  How does one become this way? How did I learn about being a joyful girl? The best answer I can come up with is two words: my mother.

Momma is a joyful girl.  But don't you DARE let her hear you say it! She carefully guards her curmudgeonly status, like an Ebenezer Scrooge who tricks Fred into thinking she's still horribly grouchy even after the three ghosts have come and gone. My mother is like Auntie Mame and good ol' Ebenezer and Julie Andrews all rolled up in one.

Momma grew up in a huge house with six siblings, a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, and seven other aunts and uncles and cousins' worth of family going through the doors as though they revolved.  My grandmother told me once "When your mother was born, the world turned on its side.  Your aunt Eileen took to that child in a way I had never seen a person take to an infant before.  But that was your mother's influence on everyone she met!" When she was still small, they realized that she loved to sing and was quite good at it.  And so she began to perform in little variety shows, for ladies' luncheons, and summer shows in town.  She was a shining star, someone who everyone cherished and delighted in watching perform.  She was smart, accomplished, and had a 1000 watt smile. Momma had everyone wrapped around her finger, and that's ultimately because she was a joyful girl.

"Everything I do is judged,

And they mostly get it wrong, but oh well.

'Cause the bathroom mirror has not budged,

And the woman who lives there can tell

the truth from the stuff that they say,

And she looks me in the eye and says

Would you prefer the easy way?

No, well then ok, don't cry."

I had the privilege of having my mother as a music teacher when I was a kid.  I remember learning lots of songs with her, at home and school.  I remember seeing her laughing with a class full of kids when we would make all the silly noises and sing silly lyrics that came with her songs.  I remember her acting out the story of the very first "Surprise Symphony". I remember her baseball unit, marrying her love of the Red Sox with her love of music. I remember her wrangling group after group of us in after-school choruses and shows, putting us all in the right spots, running our lines over and over again, and smiling her 1000 watt smile while she conducted. She is so joyful when children work hard and sing beautifully.  How could we do anything but that, with her smile and laugh cajoling us along?

Momma is another female role model in my life, made of steel that's overlaid in humor and joy.  She has raised four children (one of whom is out of her mind), worked full time for 30 years, hosted parties and rehearsal dinners and sleepovers, and done it all with a wonderful dose of hilarity and sarcasm.  If sarcasm were currency, Momma would be the richest woman in the world.  But this is not to say that she is nasty, or exacting.  Momma's sarcasm is the kind of self-deprecating humor that she has honed carefully.  Momma has a great sense of perspective (learned from my Nana), and wants all around her to know that they are of value, greatly loved, and should NEVER take themselves too seriously. Through the sarcasm, Momma is a devout Catholic who believes in the inherent good in people.  She believes in doing good deeds when no one is looking. She believes we owe each other the world.  

When I am at my lowest, I go to Momma to pick me up.  She finds some way to make me laugh and take stock of the real situation.  Often, she can talk and joke me right out of a bad mood.  When my brain has been too far gone for that, she'd put her cup of tea or coffee down, look me right in the eye and say "Well, now we know what needs to happen.  Let's go...".  Off we'd go to the hospital, and as we'd wait in the ER, she would find joy and humor in every small thing, rubbing my hand in hers and using her sarcasm to get me laughing even through my madness and tears.  

When I think of Momma, I think of the Ani DiFranco song quoted above. Momma is my "woman in the bathroom mirror" who does not budge.  She is my compass. When I think of what I should do next, or how I am perceived, I see Momma in front of me, encouraging me, never letting me take the easy way when the right way is hard, and being the joyful girl with the 1000 watt smile.  I think of how she never expects anything of the world, but wants to give and give and give, with her performing, with her friendship, with her sarcasm and love of life. She has said to me "Life is just messy, Laura, but we need to be like Auntie Mame, and belly up to the banquet!!!"

When I grow up, I want to be a joyful girl like Momma.

But What If I Can't?

I am many things, one of which is a singer. I've sung for as long as I can remember, which for me is 2 or 3 years old.

My first musical memory is of my father standing me next to the piano and teaching me the song "Dites Moi" from South Pacific. Dad played, I sang, and an obsession was born. I can still hear the 4 bar piano intro in my head, V to I, in staccato chords. Dad would play the first note of the melody at the end of the 4th bar, so I knew where to start. But I didn't need the help. I couldn't HELP but know where the song started. It just made sense. It couldn't be anything else.

My love of music grew and grew, from a tiny spot in the center of my little body to the ends of the earth. Momma and I would sing songs from Disney movies and Broadway shows. I knew the words and melodies to every rock song Dad played with his band (I can still feel the foam microphone cover on my cheek as I sat at his keyboard during rehearsal breaks). My Fisher Price record player played everything from John Denver and the Muppets to the soundtrack of "Pollyanna" to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"-- a 4th birthday present from Dad. 

My family likes to joke that I started my "stage life" when I was negative 6 months old. Momma was pregnant with me during a run of "Trial by Jury", a G&S operetta. How could I help but love the theatre? I knew it before almost anything else!

Then when I was 6, I began piano lessons. I had been sitting at the piano "pretending to play" for so long that Momma and Dad knew this was the next logical step. My piano teacher was a little Italian nun with whom I had a love-hate relationship for the next 12 years. She was a part of the Irl Allison Guild; this is an organization for which you must play an "audition" every year in front of a judge, and receive an annual award commensurate with the material you present.  (Translation: If you don't screw up your songs too badly, you get a medal.) I loved these auditions because it was an adrenaline rush like no other.  You sat precariously on the edge of a piano bench, willing your hands to do what you'd worked so hard at all school year, in front of an audience. Then you got to do it AGAIN for a family recital in June..... now my obsession for music included the thrill of live performance.

And so it continued, with piano recitals, stage shows, choral concerts, band concerts, musicals, Pops concerts, Tanglewood concerts, Symphony concerts, more stage shows, TV tapings, movie soundtrack recordings, and on and on and on.

Last year, I came to a violent curve in my musical road.  I was onstage, and suddenly the feeling that I always cherished, that sense of "right" that music and performance gave me, was slipping away.  It turned to panic and rage.  My blood pressure skyrocketed, I broke out in a sweat, and I had to sit down in the middle of a performance.  My wonderful flying feeling from music was crashing and burning in front of my eyes. I tried to brush it off, as a simple flexing of the nerves, or a hypomanic episode.  But it keeps happening, and happening, and happening....

Since then, I have had a few other close calls and cancelled performances.  Two weeks ago, I was singing for a Marvin Hamlisch Tribute at Symphony Hall; we were doing all numbers from "A Chorus Line" with the original Cassie..... holy shit!  This is what young Broadway fans dream of!  How exciting!  But for me, it turned sour again.  I couldn't enjoy it.  I was so bogged down in sadness and anxiety that I had to actually keep myself from sobbing whilst another soloist sang "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows".  I COULDN'T SING FUCKING SHOWTUNES WITHOUT CRYING. As the 2nd evening of performance progressed, I made a decision.  That night, I would go home, get settled in for the night, and kill myself.  This was it.  Music held no beauty for me anymore.  I sang and felt nothing. What was the point? What will happen to me now?  My sublime comfort in all the chaos had been music, and standing on a stage singing as though the devil were chasing me. It was gone. And soon I would be.

I managed to remember my promise to Paulie and cling to life until the next morning when I got help from my therapist... into another hospital. Now, I can get through the day without wanting to die, most of the time.  I tried hard not to cry for that week in hospital, and the week thereafter when I thought about the fact that I may never be able to perform again. I can't find my fire. I can't find my love of this precious gift that was given to me when I was 2 years old, standing next to Dad at the spinet in the living room, right along the stairs.

I listen to music and sing along softly to the radio. I sing jazz as fiercely as I want while doing the dishes.  I can't practice.  I'm trying hard to keep my chin up, knowing I do have some musical obligations.  My conductor at the Hall is being gracious and wonderful and letting me try a few weekends of Tanglewood this summer. I am determined to find my sublime comfort again, in the memories of a toddler singing in French with her father......

.....but what if I can't?...........

Coming Out of the Dark?

Sorry, gentle reader, but I'm on a mental health kick. I find it fascinating to watch my brain fluctuate. Hope you don't coming along for this ride of random thought.

Sitting in my sister's apartment in Astoria, I am listening to an old Gloria Estefan song. "Coming out of the dark/I finally see the light now/and it's shining on me".

I have been doing pretty well in the last few weeks. I am beginning my life "again". There are voice lessons to teach, books to catalog, a husband to fix the house with and just love!, as well as family and friends to see.

But I am struck at how this time around is different. I am not sitting around waiting to feel better, bemoaning my terrible mental health. I am not asking for another pill to numb things. I am working even harder through my emotional upheavals. Self harm urges and disappointments are being faced head on. I am even stronger than I was before. I am stronger BECAUSE of the dark. The bright moments of my life are made better when looked at next to the dark.

No one says "That one glaring spotlight is beautiful." They say "Look at those stars" or "What a pretty night". The darkness is what makes the starlight stand out.

Sorry, Ms Estefan, but I refuse to come out of the dark. The dark is where I live and die. It is how I will choose to exist, amongst shining stars.

Life on the Inside: or, How to Take a Shower in Fifteen Minutes or Less

When one is on a psych ward, there are at least 2 constants: crazy people, and "checks".  Checks are the constant "checking on" every patient throughout their day.  One staff member per hour walks about with a clipboard, making sure that everyone is safe and accounted for EVERY 15 MINUTES.  They bang on every closed door, including the bathrooms.  A running joke amongst "serial patients" is that if you get REALLY good, you can get into a bathroom, shower, change, and leave before someone comes banging down the bathroom door, insisting that you scream out your first name, last initial over the sound of running water whilst you scrub your hair.  It's like a guillotine that comes out of nowhere, blasting your last dignity; a hot shower where, for a short time, you can forget that you are so crazy you live in a locked space.

Life on an inpatient unit is a real lesson in diversity and similarity.  It's a study in opposites, and how they co-exist.  In this particular case, everyone is here because "coping on the outside" has become impossible.  We are a danger to ourselves and others.  How we handle this ranges from sleeping 20 hour a day to running around the halls in socks at all hours of the day and night, making signs for "those that are not aware of how things work" and refusing all medications.

We squeeze stress balls and wrap ourselves in hospital blankets.  We talk to each other about the "good old days", when we used, drank, cut ourselves.  We compare scars and "The Lists"; lists of the hospitals we've been to, lists of the restraints we've been subjected to, lists of the drugs the docs have "tried out" on us.  We eat far too much, sharing candy and treats visitors have brought us.  We are from the city, country, suburbs.  We live in mansions, ranches, split levels, apartments, group homes, and cars; mental illness is the Almighty Equalizer.

I have watched as a young man cried into the shoulder of an elderly woman, finally accepting his addiction.  I have been the recipient of a piece of candy and a smile from a Hells Angel who loved classical music as much as I did.  We are a beautiful and highly dysfunctional family.  We scream and yell and laugh and cry and try to be "normal".

Today I am reeling; mania has taken over my life in a very real way.  I am inpatient now, trying to mix meds and coping skills into a kind of "cocktail" that might work. 

Mania has made me angry, violent, and frustrated.  My mood is labile (Holy understatement, Batman!) and I find myself getting into arguments with friends and family for no "good" reason. I cannot sit in a group for more than 15 minutes without having to leave.  I have a nasty twitch in my hands if I try to stay any longer.  I find myself pacing the halls, biting my nails so I don't scream at nothing and no one.  I shake violently just trying to keep my brain from leaking out my ears.  Sitting in a group starts to give me a glimpse into the life of Bruce Banner.

Up until yesterday, I would have said that I continue to have great faith in the medical profession to get me through.  Now my feelings are mixed.  While speaking with a doc on Tuesday, we discussed the medications I have taken in the past.  One of them is Depakote; I took it from about 1998-2001.  The doc immediately interjected "Well, I would never put you on that again; it obviously already did its worst." When I asked what she meant she told me that Depakote has been shown to cause PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome).  This is the condition that prevents me from ever having children.  Now the truth comes forward; the very medication that was supposed to "help" me ripped away one of my biggest dreams: motherhood.  The Brahms "Lullaby" plays over the loudspeakers here as I write this, indicating a baby has just been born.  Everytime it plays a bit of my heart bleeds faster. 

And now here I sit, at the end of a little twin hospital bed, writing on a tray table, begging God and all the saints and angels to come and bear a little grief and mania with me.  Maybe if they do, I can finish this latest of life's showers in less than 15 minutes.