Quaking Aspens

Hi Love,

I started to reply yesterday, but a child needed my attention.  Then another, and another.  I have interacted with or advised 4 kids and 2 daughters-in-law.  I love the contact.  I love that they reach out to me.

I had a dreamy kind of experience yesterday that I wanted to mention.  I have some towering Quaking Aspens in the back corner of my lawn.  They are my old Quakers.  One day they were rustling and I suddenly got the sense of a time shift, or a time passing, or of the trees really understanding how to exist throughout time.  It sounds silly when I try to use my words!  I suddenly understood the symbolism of using rustling trees in movies to show the passage of time...So I have been very aware of the sheer massive height and presence of these trees lately. Yesterday we had a wild thunderstorm.  I was checking the yard before the storm hit, and I looked up at the trees.  One leaf was lifted from the highest point and blown toward me.  It landed about five feet behind me.  Not bad aim for a tree!  Of course I retrieved the gift.  But it has inspired me to think about time, especially since what we have been attempting to do is time travel back to the point of initial damage.  And I was thinking about something you said in an early post...we are spiraling back through these moments, but from a better vantage point.

So, so, so...I was thinking a lot about the sexual abuse of infants.  What kinds of scars does it leave?  It seems that the effects are pervasive, watery, hard to define, more easily defined when you know what happened, and know what to look for.  I don't know what to look for.  What hit me though was reading through several websites exploring the effects of abuse of infants.  Mostly I saw the same statistics over and over.  But one site explored the history and showed generation after generation of abuse all around the world.  I had a little bit of a break down - what the hell happened to our species?  Where did we lose our humanity?  Mammals protect their young...why not humans?  I felt almost soul-dead for a few hours yesterday.  It has taken time in the garden to calm me.

I see that chameleon in me, also. I respond to many different people many different ways.  Either I am not honest, or I don't want anyone to see all of me.  But I think I am also the master of gliding silently into a corner and being calm, so much so that I am invisible.  But, I described that once to someone and the person said I had too much presence to be invisible.  People want to know me.  I think it's a lie though...just someone trying to make me feel better.

Basket question - good one.  Thanks.  The basket is upside down.  But that puts me on the Earth, in contact with the Earth.  Maybe it's almost time to stretch my legs...

Have you ever read the story of Sadako and the 1000 Cranes.  I always cry when I read that.  Maybe we should write our stories and see if we can cry for ourselves.  Of course, we could rewrite the story...become a strong, protected, protective heroine.  Interesting thought.

It was brave of you to post the letter.  It was amazing of you to write it in the first place.  You were shining brightly.  You were shining so brightly that two of our brothers responded, adding to the story, one more responded secretly, and two sisters asked you to keep it between you and your therapist.  You really shined a light on something so uncomfortable, they could not stand to see it.  But, they did get a glimpse.  I can promise you that this is in everyone's mind.  It is niggling inside each of us.  We know we are not okay.  Even those of us who have rewritten our childhood to star June and Ward Cleever know that it's not the truth.  We all have beaten, starved, ignored, neglected, bloodied selves scattered around the battlefield that was our family home.

I had a different approach.  Last year, under the influence of Grandma, I wrote a letter to B#1.  If I can find it, I will post it here, just to fill out the ways we have both reached out to family.  My letter went out between the two sibling suicide attempts.  My letter was not well received...just like my letter to Mom and Dad after your forgiveness letter.  Guess I'm just not good at this!

I was trying to remember, probably because of the aspens.  I remember you as an infant.  We were all fascinated by your dark hair.  We all thought you were so cute.  I remember you picking up food from your high chair tray and putting it on your spoon than putting it in your mouth...You sucked your two middle fingers.  The rest of us sucked our thumbs.  We all sucked our thumbs until well into childhood.  I had sort of blocked that.  I remember Mom painting my poor, raw, waterlogged left thumb with Thum - commercial hot sauce marketed for families like ours.  So, as a psychologist, what does all this thumb sucking indicate?

I was glad to read that you feel safe at home.  We all need sanctuary.