The onset of spring feels very ominous here, we do not seem to have those soft mellow movements into a warmer time here in Canberra. It seems one day is very cold and then the heat comes in suddenly almost to take your breath away, most certainly to surprise you..
On these days I feel it. I actually got out earlier to get into a green space, there is a lovely section of earth in an older part of our town that has older houses and lots of trees, this particular section has a huge tree throwing over a lot of shade and growing up the tree is a lot of ivy, the grass underneath is rich and green and deep with other low growing shrubs, and while I was taking refuge there on my walk I spied a big magpie sheltering in the boughs of the tree.
At these times of social distancing these moments bring me comfort plus I was feeling a bit bad about neglecting Jasper earlier as I do not always write a blog post first thing but today I did, there were things I wanted to give voice to after therapy yesterday. After that I was rushing around trying to do domestics before taking him for a walk while he went mad barking at the front door, no one was there when I checked but I ended up getting cross with him I then got a huge surge of ancestral stuff around not being able to have my needs met and a full on body attack.. I then got myself out.. but I made it up to Jasper as soon as I got back home from my time out at the park as he did not want to come with me in the car after my little outburst and i was hankering for my morning coffee which I always have around 11 am.
Sometimes I remind myself of my mother.. I do not think mothering was what she wanted to do, she wanted to work and was working all the time, first in the delicatessen she and Dad started here in the 1950s then in the restaurant with my brother and later in clothing businesses.. My sister and I were left alone after school a lot and that is when she would sometimes bully me but I wonder if I am only selectively remembering at times those tough moments it happened.. Still to leave me in care of her was a lot for her then at the age of only 11 or 13.
Its a bit sad and hard when my sister will not pick up the phone.. Despite our past difficulties I do miss her but at times I also feel so much anxiety touching base with her when she is disconnected, I question my part in things all of the time too after I share a post about being hurt by being hurt by her, when she wasn’t getting her needs met either. The problem of being alone a lot too in lock down and have having no other focus apart from Jasper, myself, my home and my blog as well as the one or two connections I reach out for is that I focus a lot on this inner world. Now why am I saying that is a problem? its my life..
On another interesting notice I watched the latest show that Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby did in America while back last night which is streaming on Netflix.. It is called Douglas both after her dog and a particular part of the female anatomy that is known curiously as the pouch of Douglas.. Yes folks, I did look it up and it actually is an anatomical part deep inside a woman’s uterine called that (obviously named by its Scottish namer!!).. The show is Hannah’s take on a lot of the misogny and men’s control over naming things as well as the workings of the female anatomy..
In my Mum’s case I know they did not hesitate to whip out her womb when she started to get heavy periods around the age of 31. I had dreams at this time about her turning into an evil witch and after I got sober (at the age of 31!) I started to ask her a lot about what was going on for her in those early years since I was then interested in therapy.. She told me she went into a very deep depression after the hysterectomy which is only natural as it brings up deep grief, but that my father could not support her emotionally. (which is also understandable.) Men tend to get angry with anything they cannot fix or control and so we are likely to labelled as ‘mad’ or ‘hormonal’ something Hannah also brings up in her show. My sister who struggles now also began to fall into depression after her womb was taken at around the age of 49 which was later than Mum and my older sister Judith also told me before she died that her womb was taken too when she started bleeding and could not stop around the time of menopause.. The same thing happened to me in around 2008 (at the age of 46) and I ended up going to seen an acupuncturist who helped me to stop the bleeding, my own periods stopped around that time too as a lot of unprocessed childhood stuff started to rise up after my husband left and I got involved with someone else 3 years later.
In her stand up Hannah is very upfront about her ‘autism’ diagnosis which is almost like giving a label to someone who is happy to call a spade and spade and speaks up about things other’s find ‘inappropriate’..like mentioning the thorny subject of the pouch of Douglas to a guy she meets and has a bit of a tussle with at the dog park. I really recommend watching it.. She gets pretty intense during the show and the first part is spent trying to highlight the audience to the particular format it is going to take.. I question if this deflection strategy is also a kind of protection strategy she uses to deal with her many ‘haters’ which she shares about too in the show Listening to her share about all of this I thought of that video I posted a while back by Dr Ramani on the truth teller in the family.. or the person who just is curious about taboo subjects and does not feel ashamed sharing about them.. but then I consider the attunement issue of childhood which seems to be a big problem for those of us who so often feel sidelined by others or marked out as too different or ‘difficult’.
Anyway the entire subject of autism fascinates me.. I have had someone say I should take the test for autism but to be honest i have zilch interest in such kinds of diagostic labels.. there is more for me to learn on this subject but the autistic person often feels they do not fit in and for GOOD REASON. more on that later (hopefully) as it is something I have tried to touch base on which my therapist a while back after reading a number of posts by someone diagnosed as autistic who was the youngest child in a family and not loved and embraced as his (or her) true self…
Anyway its lunch time the weather has now turned overcast from sunny and there feels to be some moisture lingering.. I just wanted to do another update on things going around in my mind.. in order to bring them into focus, put the down on the page for the purposes of later reflection in my therapy sessions next week.
Emerging From The Dark Night 