through the surface.

I have needed this deep breath. I have come up for air, just for a moment, to gasp at the life-giving force that words and reaching out and spilling guts are want to give. It is a lonely life, this world of academe. Not always, of course, but often. It is stifling and exhausting and frustrating, all the while simultaneously exhilarating, redeeming, and oh-yes-this-THIS-is-why-I-do-it. But lately, it has been the former. The isolation. The sacrifice. The tunnel with what seems to be the smallest, oh-so-smallest point of light, a dot of white on the head of a pin.

I realize, of course, that it is self-inflicted. This pain I feel, this suffering I endure, has all been caused by me. I do not regret it. I do not clench my first and curse the air at this choice I made. Despite those many moments when I Just Wanted It To End, I thanked my God for giving me the strength to keep going, to have made the choice in the first place, to have been given the opportunity for this education, this one that others would fight to have in my place. I know this. I know this.

But it is still hard.

I have needed this deep breath. I have come up for air to reach out my hand from below the murky waters, to touch you, to feel life on the other side. Because that is where my heart truly is. For five years I have felt out-of-place. For five years I have struggled with and questioned and cursed my intellect, have searched for that thing that would just explain it all and make me more like them. The intellectuals. The real students and scholars and thinkers. The ones who made the same choice as me, but for oh-so-very-different reasons. I have searched through that dark tunnel, waiting for that smallest point of light to burst into a million rays. But the darkness remained.

Until this week. Until today.

I realized, as I count down the days left in this world of measured thoughts and ideas and smarts, that I will no longer search for the light that tells me I am like them. Because I am not like them. Thank God, I am not like them. Thank God I am just me. I went to graduate school because I love to read. The twists of the words, the smell of the pages, the feel of the book in my eager hands. The stories inside, the experiences of people from every walk of life, every corner of the earth, every culture under the sun. My brain wraps around those in its own way, not in their ways. And that is valid. And worthy. And beautiful. Yes. Yes.

I have seen the way she rolls her eyes at the one who speaks of ideas she doesn’t validate. I have heard her snigger under her breath when one announced her desire to study a particular area of literature. I have heard her brag and boast and brag and boast about the work she’s doing—the important work. I have noticed the way she no longer even acknowledges me, because my ideas are not expressed in the manner of hers. I have seen it. I have felt it all. And I have realized how very sad that is. But not for me.

Do you think you’re better than me? Because you have an ability, a gift, for serious intellectual rigor? Because you made a choice to make your life within this Ivory Tower? Because your time as a student will culminate in a 300+ page paper?

You are not. You are not better than me. Nor am I better than you. We have abilities, each of us, different from one another’s. We have made choices for ourselves, in accordance with those abilities, in accordance with our hearts. They are different. No better, no worse, no more worthy, no less important than the other’s. But you do not see this. You see only yourself. And that, that has made me realize how very wrong I was to want to be like you.

I read tonight the story of an immigrant. Her words made me laugh and cry, sometimes within pages of one another. I thought of my Nana, an immigrant herself, her Polish accent singing in my ears.

That. That is why I went to graduate school for literature. The realness of it all. My heart, written there on the page so that I would never forget the power of this life I’ve been given. Not so that I could sit in a classroom and tout my abilities in front of others, to spout from my mouth ideas and insights that only camouflaged what truly lay within them: lack of courtesy, lack of confidence, lack of grace.

These last few days in which I remain a graduate student will be filled with beauty and peace, because I have come to realize, albeit near the end, what truly matters to me. I will never let anyone take from me the beauty of words, the power of a story, or the determination it takes to Just Get Through It. And I certainly will never apologize for why I made the choice I made, will never apologize for not being able “to speak theory” (let alone understand it), will never apologize for not fitting your image of what smart looks and sounds like.

We made choices, you and I. I did not have to make this choice so that I’d get a PhD or teach. There are many other reasons, all of which—even yours—are valid.

This deep breath fills my lungs with peace. I can continue. I can finish what I’ve started. For me. In my way. For my reasons.

I descend again, below the waters no longer murky with uncertainty and strife. I no longer hold my breath, but breathe in the life I have received in this moment, this moment of acknowledging what it has all meant for me. I descend in order to complete the work I have set out to do, the work I have set out to do for me. And I will surface again, a million rays of light surrounding me.

with love from Pittsburgh,
Laura

loss.

I lost a piece of my heart today.


I can't believe you're gone. We all loved you so much. So much.

Albert C. Labriola
1939-2009

bin full o' loonies.

Date: Thursday morning.

Time: 11:15 a.m.

Location: My office.

The phone rings. I answer.

Me: Department of History, this is Laura. How can I help you?

Older Woman's Voice On Other End (which is rather raised and as if she's smoked three packs a day since she was a teenager): I got a bunch of stuff that I want to give away and I need to know who's gonna take it.

Me: (Silence. Am rather confused.)

OWVOOE: I got this stuff.

Me: Uh, well, um, can I ask what kinds of things you're talking about?

OWVOOE: I got a program from one of your celebrations from 1965, I got two newspapers--one from 1954 and one from 1963, and I got a magazine from you guys.

Me: Oh, yes, you have things from the University then.

OWVOOE: Yeah. Who I give 'em to?

Me (trying to be calm and polite): Well, you'll want to speak with Mr. White, the University's archivist. I'll be happy to transfer you to him, but I'd like to give you his direct line in the event that we get disconnected.

OWVOOE: Good. What is it?

Me: (I recite number to her.)

OWVOOE: You know, because I'm 80 years old. I don't need this crap.

Me: Well, hopefully Mr. White will be able to help you out. I'll go ahead and transfer you now.

OWVOOE: Wait. Before you transfer me.

Me: Yes?

OWVOOE: You ever get leg cramps?

Me (TOTALLY confused): (pause.) Um, well, sometimes.

OWVOOE: Okay, here's what you do. You know that little piece of skin below your nose and above your lip?

Me: Um, yes.

OWVOOE: You know, like, right about where you put your lipstick?

Me (slightly confused by her beauty ritual, as lipstick, to my knowledge, goes on my lips, not on the skin above it, but I play along anyway): Yeees.

OWVOOE: Okay, what I want you to do---I'm a nurse, by the way--you want to grab that piece of skin and squeeze. It short circuits your brain and then you don't know you have leg cramps.

Me: Oh, well, that's very interesting. Thank you. I'll go ahead and transfer you now.

OWVOOE: You got a headache on the left side of your head? You squeeze your left ear lobe. You got a headache on the right side of your head? Right ear lobe.

Me: Yes, thank you. I'll transf--

OWVOOE: Lemme ask you one more question.

(I swear on my life that this is a true story. I really did get this phone call yesterday.)

Me (rolling eyes to student aid across office and making eye-gouging gestures): Sure, okay.

OWVOOE: You got a dog?

Me: No.

OWVOOE: Cat?

Me: No.

OWVOOE: Know someone who does?

Me: Yes.

OWVOOE: Okay, now I want you to listen to what I'm gonna tell you. Are you listening?

Me: Mmm hmm. (Gouging gestures still in full-swing.)

OWVOOE: Never, ever, ever let your dog or cat near a telephone pole or a railroad tie. Know why?

Me: Um, noooo.

OWVOOE: Creosote. It'll kill 'em. People spend millions of dollars on their sick pets, tryin' to get 'em better, when they just die anyway. And it's because of the creosote. Sure, what if you don't live near a telephone pole or a railroad tie? People say, 'My pet never goes near telephone poles or railroad ties. What do I have to worry about?' I say to 'em, 'Well, what if you have someone over to get your carpets cleaned? And the guy tracks it in on his shoes? It'll kill your animals.' So, just keep 'em away from the creosote. It'll kill 'em.

Me: Well, that's very helpful. Thank you. I'll be sure to tell my friends. I'm going to go ahead and transfer you now.

OWVOOE: Good. I gotta get rid of this crap. I'm 80 years old. What do I need this crap for?


with love from Pittsburgh,
Laura

once again, a bird

You'd think that I wouldn't want anything to do with my laptop, seeing as though it's been stuck to me like an extra appendage since last week. That's the thing about graduate school. You and your laptop end up in a pretty significant relationship with one another. Sometimes you fight, sometimes you swoon, and sometimes you just get plain ol' sick of each other. I almost hit that point today. After writing for days on end in what seemed like a non-stop way, I almost picked this thing up and threw it across the room. Something happens when you're trying to write (notice the word "trying") and you just Can't Get The Words Out. But you have to. Because your advanced degree and your reputation as a scholar are at stake. So you push. And push. And puuuuuuuuuush. Tonight, I pushed my final push of the semester. I finished my course paper. After days of having words like "intertextuality" and "phantasmagoria" (don't worry, it's not as sexy as it sounds) flying from my fingertips and up onto the screen, I have finally finished. Fifteen pages, which really isn't much at all but sure-as-hell-feels-like-it-anyway, focusing on the ways in which (are you ready for this?) the female body functions to allow and/or disallow agency in the intertextual and extratextual space of gothic drama, sit in my flashdrive, my hard drive, AND my email (when you've work this hard, you can never be too safe) ready to be printed out and turned in first thing tomorrow morning.

I am done. With the semester. And I can finally breathe. One more to go. After five long years, I have one semester left. Thank you, Jaysus.

It's been a long, rough semester. I have pushed. And pushed. And pushed. But every grad student does. It's part of your degree requirement. The whole "pushing" thing. And, boy! Are my arms tired!

So, as I sit here in bed, lights out, and apartment quiet, and down the hall my kitchen table is covered in papers and notes and books and more papers and notes and books, I take a deep breath and exhale. I am free. I am free of the weight of expectations for yet another semester. I am free from the weight of thesis statements and critical arguments and deadlines. I am free from heavy theoretical frameworks by Butler and Foucault and Kristeva. I am free from long nights of reading and reading and reading while simultaneously trying to stay awake. I am free from working the full-time job from 7-5 and then going to class from 6-9. I am free.

At the end of yet another semester, I am free.

With love from Pittsburgh,
Laura

poem for wednesday.

It feels heavy in my chest
This sensation
Of trying to understand
Why the weight can't be lifted.
This weight
Of what feels like
The World
On my heart and in
My head
Of worries I shouldn't be worrying
For people I don't know
And situations that aren't mine.

But I hurt. It hurts. My chest is heavy.
And I feel overloaded
By what is out there--the world.
The images on the tv, the sounds on the radio,
the pixels on my HP, which I
click
click
click.
Before bed is no time to look.
But I do.
I am tired.
So tired.
Of feeling this heaviness.

And last night
A sudden rupture
in my heart
from something said
that was taken wrong
and my heart burst and burst and
b
u
r
s
t
while it sunk.
Deeper.
And anger rose.
And frustration surfaced.
And sadness consumed.
And now
I am tired.
So tired.
Of walking on eggshells.
Of worrying.
About it. About this. About that.
But the love is there.
For him for her for everyone.

I almost cried when I walked into the room tonight
before class.
I made my tea, and while the water boiled, I reclined
on the sofa and covered my eyes
trying to block it all out
but the voices from my classmates
wouldn't allow it.
And I wanted the tea to
Take It All Away.
The scent of the blueberries
staining their sweetness
into my heart
to heal and soothe
and bring peace.

The warmth was nice,
but my heart still hurt.
Just as my head does now.
But I am here in bed,
waiting for the sleepy-time pills
to take me away to the place
where my heart
will not feel heavy.

I am tired.
So tired
as I write this poem for Wednesday.

with love from Pittsburgh,
Laura

memories of a degree.

When I saw them coming--in their vans, their SUVs, their pick-up trucks--I had a flashback.

Suitcases. Halogen floor lamps. Full-length mirrors. All manner of Rubbermaid containers.

Flashback.

Lines and lines of vehicles, each jammed full of all the bits and pieces of a life of eighteen years. A simultaneously worried and excited face peering out from the back passenger window. Eyes gazing up, and down, and to the left, and to the right.

Flashback.

Tents, carts on wheels, name tags hanging from the well-versed habitants of this place. Signs pointing to various locations/help points/parking spaces.

Flashback.

"Excuse me," she says, her daughter by her side, timid, but trying to be brave. "Can you tell me where the Union is?"

I smile. I look into her eyes and see A Mother Letting Go.

"Sure. How 'bout I take you there?"

A look of surprise. And relief.

"Oh, thank you," she says.

Mother and daughter, and father, too, walk with me towards the destination. They're from twenty minutes away. She's their first. And only. They've heard such wonderful things about the university. She wanted to come here. Because it's wonderful. Communications. Non-profits. Those are the possible paths she'll take.

Flashback.

I stand on the tenth floor of the parking garage, and I look out of the big window by the elevators. I see the campus. The people, small and many. The vehicles still making their ways to the unloading zones.

And I remember when it was My Turn. As if it were yesterday. But it was eleven years ago. My current place of study, my current place of employment...I cannot leave this place. My first year as a freshman here was not my first year as a freshman. I'd dropped out of the first university I went to--homesickness, feeling out of place, and good old-fashioned fear led to my departure. I came here for Freshman Year Number Two. And it changed my life.

I remember the way my father packed the trunk and backseat of the car so methodically that I was convinced he was, in fact, an engineer and not a steel worker. The way he planned the journey--all thirty minutes of it--so that stress was not an option, but organization and a well-thought-out experience were. I remember the way my mother put non-perishable foods in a grocery bag and tied it tight, to keep it safe, before it arrived in my dorm room after the journey on the interstate.

Flashback.

The love I felt from my parents--even my mother, despite her illness--made it possible. Made me want to stay and learn and grow and be brave and meet people and change my life into the life it was supposed to be. My parents. My.Beautiful.Parents. They cheered for me in my Freshman Year Number Two.

I did it. I went to college. I had their love and my brain and our courage. I survived.

I

survived.

And today, as the freshman went to class for the very first time, I whispered a prayer for each and every single one of them. To be brave. To grow. To reach out. And in. Of themselves and towards themselves. To have peace and a place.

To let this place be for them the saving grace it was and is for me.



Yesterday's Gratitude:
1. rest
2. a clean apartment
3. faith
4. a healthy breakfast of soft-boiled egg and toast
5. getting to bed early

with love from Pittsburgh,
Laura

she's lost her mind.

I have wanted to write about this topic for quite some time, but I've always come up with excuses as to why I can't/shouldn't/won't. And then, like the Blogger Gods always end up causing me to do, I was smack dab on the front door step of Petunia Face's heart, being reminded that writing about the difficult stuff is often the most important, most theraputic, and most full-of-grace thing a Blogger can do. Or a human can do. And I knew, right then and there, that my story needed to come out. It needed to move from my heart, down my arms, into my hands, and out of my fingertips. Because it is My Story. And it is my belief that it might be someone else's, too. And what more beautiful reason is there than that: to share a story, with and between others. Friends. Fellow travelers on this trip of life.

And so, I share this story--My Story--for Petuina Face, for you, dear reader, and for me. (Petunia Face: If only you could be here with me now, holding my hand, helping me through this, telling me I'm not alone...Why, oh, why must you be in California?)


(The tears have already begun...they sting my eyes...they blur my vision...)

When I was 10, my mother came to me one day and announced that she was going to Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia. We were a middle-class, Midwestern family. Members of it didn't go to Yugoslavia. Yugo-what-ee-ah? I thought she was crazy. She said that she wanted to be a part of the phenomenom of the Virgin Mary appearing to a group of young people there. Again, I thought she was crazy.

She went to Medjugorje, and when she returned, she returned a different person. She locked herself in her room all day, she wrote in notebooks--so many that they lined the perimeter of my parents' bedroom, in stacks and stacks. In those notebooks she wrote to Jesus. Or she wrote the words Jesus spoke to her. She claimed she was a prophet. My mother. The Prophet. She went to Mass every single day--sometimes twice a day. She prayed the rosary from sun-up to sun-down. She became obsessed. She stopped keeping house. My parents' bedroom became a mess. Something was wrong. I was young, but I wasn't dumb.

A couple of years later, we moved. Same city, different house. Mom got worse. She didn't get out of bed. Except to go to Mass. Or pray. Or write in her notebooks. Again, housekeeping took a backseat.

A year and a half after that, Dad got a job in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. So, we moved again. I was thirteen. And Mom? Yes. She got worse. My brother and I used to make bets on the busride home from school.

"I think she'll still be in bed," I'd say.

"I think she's asleep, too," he'd say.

We weren't really making bets with each other. We were just coming to terms with what we knew was the truth. Our mom was weird. And we hated it.

By the time I was sixteen, I was the woman of the house. Mom spent all of her time at church, or in her room praying, or writing, or sobbing to Jesus. And the house was disgusting. I was so embarrassed. I hated when people stopped by unannounced. I only invited friends over if 1) I had time to clean, and 2) Mom was at church or in her room.

Then the hallucinations started. Demons in her bedroom. Voices in her head. The random screaming. Even if I had friends over. The time I had a boy over for the first time--a boy I really liked. We sat in the living room one Christmas, enjoying the tree. And then the screaming started. Upstairs. From my mother's bedroom. My heart. Breaking.

And there was the weird behavior: Locking herself in her bedroom. Pushing furniture in front of the door. Dousing the car with holy water before she went to get groceries. Inviting friends from church over to lay prostrate in front of the nearly life-size Virgin Mary statue we had in our living room. Making my brother and me pray the rosary with her and my dad every night after dinner. (Disclosure: My dad didn't like it, either. But he did it to keep her calm.)

I hated her.


I

hated

her.


And, finally: at Christmas of my junior year in high school, she went into a mental hospital. But it wasn't a normal mental hospital. It was a Christian mental hospital. Could we possibly add any more fuel to this fire that continued to rage and rage out of control? I remember visiting her with my dad--my brother wouldn't come--and on the carride home, I put my seat back, turned my face to the passenger's side window, and cried silently, so my dad wouldn't know how much it hurt. How much I wanted a mom. How much I hated this woman I didn't know.

In college, it was much of the same. My twenty-first birthday was one of the worst memories I'd had up to that point. She and my father drove to my campus, a mere 30 minutes away from home, to take me out for late-night dessert after my theatre rehearsal. Mom was acting funny. We arrived at the restaurant too late: Kitchen Closed. I was disappointed. We were going to try another place, but I said, "Nah. Take me back to campus, please." I sat in the front seat--the Birthday Girl Seat. My mom rode in the back. And then started to yell incoherently. As if in tongues. I was terrified. My dad continued to drive as if everything was as normal as could be. When they dropped me off in front of my dorm, I bolted from the car, crying. It was a Friday night. Students were outside everywhere. My mom opened the door of the car, and cried out, "Laura, please. Take my gift!" I didn't want it. I wanted to get away from her. My dad said, "Connie, get back in the car. Connie, please. Just get back in the car." Everyone was staring. "Laura, please!" she yelled. I grabbed the gift bag as fast as I could, hugged and kissed my dad, and ran towards my dorm's front door, sobbing the entire way.

The present? Padded hangers.

Happy 21st birthday.

And then the hospital visits became more frequent. Sometimes she'd be there for a couple of days. Other times it would be for a week or so. The nights I'd get calls from my dad while I was at college: "Your mom went to St. Francis again this afternoon. Just thought you should know." Or, "I took your mom to the hospital and didn't even have time to pack her bag. Would you mind running home, packing some stuff, and meeting me at the hospital?"

Do you know how painful that is? To go home to your parents' empty house, rummage through your mother's dresser, select underwear, socks, some pants and tops--and make sure you get her slippers--all so that she'll be comfortable while she's in a psych ward?

(The tears...the tears...they blur my vision...)

And then The Big One came. I was living in the Midwest. As if the pain wasn't enough. She was admitted to the Torrence State Mental Hospital. A state institution. Two hours from my parents' home.

For a year.

And my dad, God Bless Him Always, drove to see her several times a week. Four hours roundtrip. Because he made a committment in the eyes of God. In sickness and in health.

And then I came home for 48 hours that Christmas. Because that's all my retail job would allow. (Because nothing--NOTHING--is more important than retail at Christmas.) And my dad and I drove to see my mom. In the psych hospital. On Christmas Day. Without my brother. Because he refused to come. And there were bars on the window of the room we got to meet her in. And the staff had to inspect our presents. To make sure nothing was sharp. Or had glass. Or could be used to hurt herself.

Merry Christmas. But not merry at all.

And I sobbed the whole way home.

And two months ago she attempted suicide. A story I cannot share with you quite yet. But she was on life support for three days. And do you know what I did?

I prayed that God would take her.

I prayed so hard. As her blood pressure dropped. As the ambulance raced to get her. As my dad's shaky voice on the phone got shakier.

I prayed. God, please take her. Take her from this pain--mine, hers, my family's. Take her.

TAKE HER.

But He didn't.

(the tears...the tears...they blur my vision...)

And when she woke, she went back into the hospital. For a month.

He didn't take her.

And now she's home. Again. And I don't know what will happen next. The meds have stabled her a bit. She has learned how to use email. She even text messages me sometimes. There are moments in which She Has Her Mind. But I wonder when she will lose it again.

And my father...the sadness I feel for him cannot be put into words. Not here. Not anywhere. God Bless Him. God Bless Him.

God.
Bless.
Him.
PLEASE.

This is schizophrenia.

This is what it looks like. What it sounds like. What it does.

And I wish--oh, how I wish--that she'd had cancer instead.

There's an end with cancer. Either the sweet release of death for the body, or the death of the cells and then a cancer-free body. From chemo. Radiation. Pills. The suffering eventually ends. Yes, it is terrible--I have watched ones I love suffer from it. I have watched bladder cancer, brain cancer, and skin cancer claim the lives of three of the greatest loves of my life. But that suffering, for me, for my family, was never anything close to what we've felt as we watch my mother suffer. Twenty years it's been.

TWENTY YEARS. No release. Just suffering.

With schizophrenia, there is no sweet release. There is no cure. There is no way to make her mind healthy. It is continual pain.

Pain, pain, pain.

Oh, how I wish she'd had cancer.

And I miss my mother. The one I never had.

I will never know what it's like to have a mother-daughter bond. Her mind doesn't allow it. She bore me. That is all.

(the tears...the tears...they blur my vision...they cleanse my soul)


with love from Pittsburgh,
Laura