Unfettered 50

A poetic awakening

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 31, 2012

Back in my college days when I was discovering non-traditional viewpoints on so many levels, I was transfixed by a poem by Marge Piercy. Up until that point, my exposure to poetry and my love for it had been limited to verse that was melodic or nature-based or romantic.

But this, this was real, baby. This was the stuff of societal norms and judgment and inadequacy taken to a completely different place. It jarred me and opened me, as a soulful thinker and a writer. I quickly became obsessed with Piercy, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, so tortured and smart in ways that were uniquely female.

Years after leaving college, I came across the poem in a book that now sits on my shelf called Mondo Barbie (see image), an anthology of fiction and poetry about Barbie. Rest assured, it’s not the typical sentimental stuff of “traditional” childhood, but a darker, deeper sampling of art nicely laid out on pink pages.

So today, Marge Piercy’s birthday, this poem came to mind for the first time in a long, long time:

BARBIE DOLL

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

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The illusion of control

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 27, 2012

I suppose today I needed to be in control of something. And that’s why my closet is suddenly pin straight and I scheduled arthroscopic surgery for my knee on April 18.

Because God knows I’m not in control over the big stuff. You know, death. My Aunt Laura died yesterday. My mother lost a sister. My cousins lost a mother and their children a grandmother. Why she was chosen for an agonizing death is not mine to figure out, but it hasn’t stopped my mind from spinning about it nonetheless.

Readers of this space know that losing another dear aunt in February and then a soulful friend in March has put me in a different head space than they’re used to reading.  I spend a lot of time thinking about loss. I’ve also been incredibly clear and decisive about things during this time, probably because of what I said earlier — control.

What can we control? Little. And plenty. I’ll take what I can on the latter and run with it.

My sister asked me on Sunday if I would take on the care of my niece — a beautiful special needs child — in the event something happened to her and my brother-in-law. She said I had until Tuesday to decide because they’d be meeting with a lawyer. What rolled off my tongue was this, “Of course. I don’t need until fucking Tuesday. ” Harsh, I know. But I’m being real here. Life is very real right now. And my sister knows me well enough to realize that line was oozing with love.

What else can I control? Well, I can walk, write, watch enlightening TV. I can give myself a quick hit of joy by buying a fantastically gorgeous bright blue handbag so I can partake in the “color blocking” trend this spring/summer. I can rail about our lack of humanity in a column in a way I never would have even two months ago. I can talk to the “awake” people in my life. I can make anything taste good with garlic and olive oil. I can watch TED talks. I can do my physical therapy exercises regularly. I can reach out. I can withdraw.

Easter is coming. Rebirth? Really?

In fact, yes. Somehow.

Right now, in this moment, it’s not so much about seizing life because it’s short. I would have thought that would be my feeling. But no. It’s about taking my time. What’s the rush? There are goals, but an extra conversation with someone who needs me or a meditative walk by the river — those are essential. They’re not luxuries. They’re not things to squeeze in. They’re the living.

I’m sort of in a blur and sort of more clear than ever. There is no control and there is an illusion of control. It’s like I’m sitting in the middle of a see-saw between the two. And surrendering to the movement.

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Basking in the gray

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 24, 2012

Walk the Line is one of those movies I can’t go past when channel surfing. Not really a fan of Johnny Cash’s music, I figure it’s because the relationship –really, courtship — between Cash and June Carter was a non-linear, non-traditional love story, so real in its off timing and pain and uncertainty yet powerful in its portrayal of what happens when one heart inexplicably seizes another.

This is not a story for the black-and-white types, for there is far too much gray. I love gray. The best of life is in the gray. It can be tenuous, but something beautiful can happen in the melding of potent hues when they create another shade. Makes me want to crawl into it and bathe.

There is a scene in the movie where June gives John (as she calls him) a book — The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. What an interesting aspect of her, her love of this spiritual tome that she so wanted to share with him. Even though I’d seen the film a number of times, this week I was moved to actually read this book. It’s almost a wonder how it’s eluded me all this time, given my collection of wonderfully enlightening books.

Today as I took a walk to give my knee some exercise I wandered into Symposia, a used bookstore in my community, and found a copy of The Prophet. I love that it was published in 1923, but that my hardcover edition is from 1976 (95th printing). After my walk I devoured all 96 pages and marveled at its messages.

When a ship comes to take back the Prophet to his isle of birth, he addresses the people he is leaving behind in his town, including a woman named Almitra (a “seeress” a.k.a. prophetess). They ask about love, joy and sorrow, work, freedom, pain, pleasure, religion, death, etc. and he answers. A sampling:

Of Love ~

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Of Joy and Sorrow ~

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Of Teaching ~

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Of Friendship ~

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

As the Prophet makes his way to the ship that has come for him, he says among so much else, “I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.” Almitra silently watches the ship vanish.

My goodness, as I read this, how to not think of my dear friend Kevin who left this world on March 2? So poetic. Breathtaking, even.

As I closed the book, I was ever grateful for June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash in their enduring gray existence.

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Breathing in wisdom

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 19, 2012

At the invitation of a delightful social worker, I led a discussion of a women’s group at a senior citizens center on the Upper East Side last fall. I chose the topic “solitude vs. loneliness” and I was thrilled at how much the women engaged this stranger in their midst.

I eagerly accepted another chance to facilitate conversation with this group and today was the day. They trusted me to come up with the topic again and I was so gratified to have that trust. With all that’s been swirling around me lately in terms of my knee injury and thoughts of death due to loved ones passing, what’s been on my mind is loss and how we handle it.

Did I want to go down that road with these women, mostly widowed and living alone? I didn’t want to bring them down. Yet somewhere deep at my core I knew I was on the right track.

A few people suggested it would be a nice “diversion” when I told them I’d be talking to the seniors. I shook my head. No, quite the contrary. It would be a nice indulgence. They’ll understand why I do want to talk about loss, not be diverted from it.

My cab driver went through Central Park en route to the center and it was a joy to watch the activity brought on by the gorgeous sunshine — bikes, picnics, sunbathing. When I arrived, one by one the women came in and talked about how uplifting the weather was. So when we settled in and got started, I told them I had intended to talk about loss, but given the upbeat mood I’d be happy to go with Plan B.

No, they told me unanimously. We never get to talk about this. Let’s stick to that. And so we did. The hour flew by; we even went over. I learned so much from them. They thanked me profusely. Again I heard how they normally don’t open up like that and I was beyond thrilled.

Last time I had prepared a one sheet with quotes on our topic and they had enjoyed that, so I went with another this time.  Here are the words that guided our discussion:

From Virginia Woolf:
Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. 

From Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body:
“You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it’ is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?

From Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart:
If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path.

From John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent:
It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.

From Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie:
Death ends a life, not a relationship.

From William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet:
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

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Words and clover

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 17, 2012

Other than the Irish friends I so treasure in my life, there is nothing that warms my heart from the land of green more than a bit of James Joyce. Some favorite quotes from Ulysses on this St. Patrick’s Day:

Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.
~~~
The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant’s heart on the hillside. For them the earth is not an exploitable ground but the living mother.
~~~
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
~~~
And I can’t resist one nod to romance, Joyce’s description of a woman’s scent:

It’s like a fine fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you call it gossamer, and they’re always spinning it out of them, fine as anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything she takes off.

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Of stillness and motion

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 16, 2012

Apparently I used to spend a fair amount of time dancing. Around my apartment. Subtly moving to a good song while working out at the gym.

I realized this today because right now I can’t break out into random dance steps. The big fat brace on my knee says it’s not a good idea. And today I wanted to in the worst way. Just be Nancy. Move.

I also found myself looking longingly at someone wearing a nice high heel today. No feeling like that little bit of height, how it makes your gait so saucy and confident.

Maybe it’s all hitting me today because it is also the day I decided I’ll likely be having surgery on the knee. I wanted to explore other options first, but it’s not getting better and we’re at five weeks today. I’m active. I need a plan that keeps me that way. And I have implicit trust in my physical therapist who concurs with all of the above.

I have already learned so much in all of this. One is that almost every person on the planet has had a knee problem and they’re all too willing to volunteer the details of their experience. While it’s mostly well-intended, I’ve had a few people scare me and I don’t appreciate it a bit. I am proud of not being “cut” happy. Pure and simple. My mother likened this to how freely women share their pregnancy experiences with other pregnant women and how the gory details can scare the socks off a first-time mother-to-be.

I’ve also learned that while it’s humbling and grounding to be limited in mobility, it’s also like a port in the storm. Forced stillness. And boy do I hate to admit that I’m not so adept at disciplining myself to be still with thoughts and feelings, especially unpleasant ones, and so my body is almost taking care of me by insisting I chill out and be. A trip to the post office or grocery store and I’m done for the day on my allotment of outings. I can work at my desk in spurts. And then it’s rest, icing, more rest.

I see a divine hand in all of this. I mean, I know that’s always there, but there is something about all that’s gone on in the last five weeks that has made it glaring. How I’ve been protected, nurtured, driven, loved, guided. Amazing. Other worldly. I don’t know how else to describe this plane I’m on. I’ve never been here before.

Sadness has started giving way to a spiritually healthy feeling of reconciling all that’s happened. I feel purposeful, but with not quite the physical energy to push myself like I would have before. Again, divine. That is not supposed to be the pace.

I’ll dance soon enough.

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Passing through

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 12, 2012

So here’s what’s happening. My thoughts are very focused on death, not so much in a macabre way, but on death nonetheless.

Ever since heading to the emergency room on Feb. 10 for what I now know is a medial meniscus tear in my left knee, I have been pretty sidelined. The very next day, Whitney Houston died and me and my crutches were just hanging out and taking it all in. Death from afar, but yet felt so poignantly.

Then on Feb. 23, my Aunt Rosie passed away quite suddenly, leaving my cousin who was born into a family of four as the last one left. To say we were all astonished is an understatement. I can’t really fathom his grief. My aunt always had a smile on her face and could flatten anybody in her path with a comment. Years ago she told me a story of how bill collectors continued to call for her mother after she’d passed away. Finally one day instead of arguing Aunt Rosie said, ‘You want her new address?’  and proceeded to give the pesky caller the address for North Arlington Cemetery. Love that. Love her.

I am so gratified that after sending each of my six aunts a Lenox Christmas ornament in the mail in December that Aunt Rosie called to thank me. We talked for a while and she wished me a good trip knowing I was heading to Palm Springs to celebrate my 50th birthday. Her funeral was Monday, Feb. 27.

That Friday, March 2, I received news of my friend Kevin’s sudden death from a heart attack. He was 46. His funeral service was March 9, just two days ago, so it is all still very surreal.

As I try to get perspective on all this, feel my way through instead of numbing myself, and allow whatever bubbles up to come and be with it, I am acutely aware that I don’t want to be the person who is consumed in a death zone. I almost didn’t write this post because I felt it might depress my readers. But you know, it was me who chose to call this blog “Unfettered” and so it seemed kind of hypocritical and pointless to conjure up some sunshine and blow it up my readers’ bums.

I don’t believe it is at all a coincidence that I’m sidelined — or at this point just slowed down — by the knee injury. It’s divine design that I must be with these thoughts, process them and not give in to the urge to distract myself around the clock. For me, writing is feeling. Healing the knee is a metaphor for so much more. I present to you my thoughts, a little scattered but oh so real.

I walk around my home muttering, talking to God, talking to Kevin, calmly asking questions, admonishing them one minute for this crazy turn of events, acknowledging in the next that he completed his mission with grace. It all makes sense. None of it makes sense. WTF.

People who are uncomfortable with grief want me to distract myself because they love me. Bounce back. Be Nancy again. How to tell them that won’t be happening? There’s no ‘again.’ There’s a different version of Nancy, a more whole one, I’d venture to say, who is emerging from this. She plucked some Pema Chodron off her shelf today and lapped up an essay called “Hopelessness and Death” that begins thus:

If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path.

I was one of those folks who thought that talking about a deceased person would “remind” the sad person of him and therefore it should be avoided. At least in my case, that isn’t true. I prefer to talk about it because it really helps. I don’t find it creepy to ponder what to do with that phone message from Kevin from November that is still saved in my voice mail. It soothes me to hear his voice, especially because that day he was reaching out because his mother had died.

I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg. I don’t want to wear people out, but I don’t want to lie to them either. Thoughts come and go, heavy and light and everything in between. I go with it. I write it here.

That is my life in this moment.

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Just because

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 8, 2012

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A Life in the Union Tradition

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 4, 2012

I met Kevin O’Sullivan at a mutual friend’s house on April 16, 2010. I was so struck by his loyalty and passion for IBEW Local 164 that I decided to write a Game Plan column about him, kind of providing a slice of life insight into brotherhood and what that means when it’s passed along through generations.

The piece went live on April 28, 2010 and Kevin picked up the phone to let me know how much he appreciated it. He said he was blown away. That he thought only his dogs understood him. Recently I told him he was on a very short list of people who had called to thank me that way and he thought it particularly funny that one of the others on that list was Oprah Winfrey.

I’ve noticed that many people have been “searching” his name since he died suddenly on Friday and they’ve found their way to this site. I was dismayed to realize the link to the aforementioned column was broken because Fox Business had made some changes (there’s a graphics error, but the important part is there), so I fixed it on my Columns page and I am providing the link here as well.

I am so, so proud of this piece and so privileged to have known him:

A Life in the Union Tradition

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My sweet, sweet man

by Nancy Colasurdo on March 3, 2012

When trying to explain to someone some months ago what is so special about Kevin O’Sullivan, I said, “He’s the kind of person you want next to you when the worst things in your life happen.”

Now he has died and I don’t know what to do with myself. Numb. Punchy tired. Crying. Mind whirring like a projector.

Kevin, where are you when I need you? You’re the one who helps me make sense of this shit.

I went to the river, a spot we both loved. So many beautiful and intimate words spoken there. I looked for answers in the seagulls, the water, the cloud formations, the stunning Manhattan skyline. I found none.

I let my iPod lull me, knew the sunglasses were hardly hiding my bloodshot eyes and streaming tears. Christina Aguilera was singing Bound to You and all I could hear was “I’ve opened up, Unsure I can trust, My heart and I were buried in dust … ” — all so true. I have, I did, it was.

An acquaintance I hadn’t seen in a while came by with her dog as I sat at the pier. She went to greet me and was stopped in her tracks when she saw my tears. She comforted and she listened as I babbled on about this man she didn’t know.

You sent her, didn’t you, Kev? It sure felt like you wanted to make sure someone was next to me.

I so had you pegged, you gorgeous Irishman. You knew it and you loved it.

Oh, what will I do?

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