i'm tracing your face up in space...
05/16/04|5:04 p.m.

as usual, I refreshed the writing-page until finding a banner I like, even though it will disappear from sight within the next few lines. unusually, I was not attempting to replace the ever-present GOLD banner, but a pretty little collection of fairies. Fairies. Fairies are one of those things that have become more complicated than I want them to be, considering part of the joy I found in them was linked to their simplicity. but now I avoid them. the way I avoid mentioning that I love Fiona Apple, that - for reasons related to two actual relationships - I fell in love with Ally McBeal/ Calista Flockhart for a few months, or that I agree Audrey Hepburn is beautiful. fairies, sometimes, seem to be the mascot for a team whose very existence shakes me. it goes beyond the simple fact that I'm learning there's far more magic in this world than what sparkles (though, hey, glitter remains a good friend) and that most of it requires me to be human, real, present, body, girl, woman. (and that no longer feels like a sacrifice.) from that perspective I can still love the fairies, as a dream I had when the realities that could sustain me remained locked. from the other perspective, I choose to distance myself. once I tried to be a fairy; now I'm life. and all life is magi. I tried to be a dream once, when it wasn't safe to have them. now, I've lived a reality that surpassed the dream. so, guess what I aspire to be now? and guess that I already am.

the skinhorse knows, once you're loved, you're always, always real.

but I didn't come here to write about fairies and magi and that, while I insist (by all my effort, honestly) that I prefer life-magic, my cursor is a magic wand. a glittery, sparkly wand. I came here to say something I don't want to say, to enter something I don't want to enter, that I've avoided entering until now. I don't know how long I've avoided entering it. I don't know the point at which grief could or did begin. but I know what has happened over the past few days and what that implies. Dixie died. it's barely two months since I learned that, and I wonder when in that time I've actually understood. now and then, I think, I have. when I had no words, when I shook with sobs, when I stared at everything around me with a taste for prosecution, and still resigned, defeated, to the paralysis of one robbed of everything but grief ... in those moments, I think I understood. but there have been remarkably few of them. I've tried not to notice, and sometimes, I haven't noticed; I've forgotten I was trying. I forget how little time has passed because to be so near that time stirs up in me what I'm not really past. I forget how little I've done toward grief because I want to believe this distracted, nearly unemotional state is something I've achieved. A peace I've achieved, the way I have to certain extents with Tracy's death and with the death of my grandma. I try not to compare, to justify the lack of comparison by comparing: after all, when Ashley (from N*land) died suddenly from a fluke heart problem no one quite understood, I did not grieve the way I did for Tracy, the way I did for Rogers. Most of the time, I forget she's not alive, the way I forget that I'm not sixteen, and my friends don't meet in the commons for lunch anymore. I feel guilt for forgetting. But I know two griefs are as dissimilar as the lives which, lost, caused them. So, I tell myself, it's different with Dixie, trying to say it's done. Not done, that would feel barbaric to me...so, not done, but closer to done than it actually is.

I am being completely honest with you now, do you understand? I am sharing without holding back the parts of this that shame me; I am walking into the territory I know will not leave me unharmed. Not out of recklessness, but to some extent out of desperation. I need to tell the secrets so that I don't have to keep them. I've said in the past that so long as I keep them, I keep the belief that they're shameful, and the shame which springs from that. I take it a step further now. I've come to believe (who ever would have thought I could pin it down so absolutely as this?) as of Thursday night - at the latest - that I don't have to carry this alone. I have horror stories in my veins, in my skin, behind my eyelids; it's true. I carry things with me I would give everything to forget and more to undo. And for the first time in my life, I know that the people who love me don't want me to keep those stories quiet. Don't even want me to refer to them as "stories", to tell them, to write them, to put them between us. I talked of bypassing barriers when I made the stream of phone calls Thursday night; this is the biggest one - this is the core. I felt and understood for the first time that someone, (many someones) could love me (did love me) to the point that they would want to stand next to me when I bore witness to the things I wish I could stop, wish I could retreat from, wish I could take my life out of- to root it somewhere else. I felt a relief then that I haven't felt in ages. A relief that made me weep at Rogers. A relief I probably believe I lost when I lost them, the only people who'd ever managed both to learn my needs and meet them, to have my trust and live up to it. So, when I start to talk about Thursday it sounds like a celebration. This, in part, is what I need to explain to the doctor tomorrow, when I discuss pain toward the end of Friday's session, which I didn't realize and he couldn't know needed to be more about what happened Thursday than it was, and less focused - when it came to Thursday - on the miracle. Because I love the miracle; I have no trouble taking it out to polish and tremble looking at (Godd believe me, I am not trying to focus on the darker side and overlook the light) ... but in that knowing, I never did find a person to talk to... No one ever answered their phone, even though I found strength to make so many tries, to so many people. And when I told the doctor, we'd spent half the session discussing other things (he hadn't gotten my messages) ... and I still didn't get to share the pain. So, I still feel burdened now, unjustly. I still want to open myself up completely, and I don't want to do it in a journal, to be read later. I want to do it in real time, in someone's real presence. Mary Brave is not a screenname. I'm a life.

In the session Friday, he called me Mary Brave. I've never heard him use that name before.

So, now, I'm confused- did I come here to tell you or not? Because I came here intending to talk about it, intending to tell the story that got deleted when my backspace key decided to backup the browser instead of the cursor... But now I don't want to. I want to tell it, but as I said, not to stupid cyberspace ...where a not-small group of people I love could read it and be moved... "stupid cyberspace" that's given me so much, that I don't want to walk away from.

Maybe this is part of how I procure a life that has more; I start feeling less and less satiated by the one I'm living in... But if that's the case, I want someone here now. "Instant gratification's worked so well for you in the past."^ No. But relation has.

I will say this much, for now. The manilla envelope from Dixie's sister, Tasha, contains photos of Dixie as an infant, a young girl, through grade school, into a young woman. It also contains a photo of her gravestone, "the one she wanted." This means, as her death was sudden and unexpected, that at some point during her adolescent life she picked out her gravestone and shared the wish with her family. Finally, there is a picture of her in a hospital bed, months before we met, emaciated to the point the word cannot apply. She's a thin layer of skin tight against failing organs and crumbling bones. I've never seen anything more horrifying than this picture. Why? Because I know her? Because I love her? Because I know others like her, because I was like her, because they could die, because I could have died, because I didn't? WHY? I don't know. I don't forget easily. I can see captured moments of other tragedies well within my head. Concentration camps, the holocaust. Brutality that goes beyond my body's ability to stay calm, that makes me dizzy enough to fall, weak enough to collapse, sick enough to vomit. What can I say? I can't answer why. I do ask it...

Dixie died over two months ago. This week I saw it happen. Her tenacity, love, Rogers, something, some combination - bought her 2 1/2 years more than anyone predicted. And I realized when she died that more time means more than I gave it credit for while she was alive. That having a little bit more time to live, really live, is good - even while I weep and rage that the time was not enough. Even as I know the time was not enough. As I think about that poor, mangled body holding children, who time after time met miscarriage. As I think about that poor body being attacked, cruelly and if-there-is-such-a-thing unforgivably violated... As I think of that cute, adorable Dixie entering the first grade turning into the girl without the least expression in her eyes. Starting to grow up, then stunted - terribly - and growing small again. In a hospital bed when someone thought it made sense to take her picture and caption it, the way her school photos were captioned with her age or grade number, with her weight at the time.

She lived through that hospital stay. She came to Rogers; I became her roommate. I don't understand. I don't understand everything I feel when I examine this... but I know one thing: Unfailingly, I see that photo in my mind now, and I think about the girl who will surely die... and I realize she lived, she survived, she lived through that! ...she went on to meet people, to be loved. I even start to celebrate. before I remember. that eventually, she did die. in the meantime, I met her. I knew her. I earned great trust from her, the knowledge that she considered me a valuable confidante and friend. in the meantime, I met her, and she lived - really lived - for awhile. and I understand the doctor's point now... about how, in some way, it's no less a miracle to receive life just because it doesn't last. but I also know before I fully grasp the miracle she was given, I choke on the loss again. on the fact that she never did find the guy who treated her like she deserved or have the children who could unconditionally love her, grow up, and unconditionally love her again. she didn't get her g.e.d. ...I don't know if she really wanted that, but she said she was going to do it, and she can't now. and maybe it is hella better where she is, maybe she's holding me the way she can right now, going, "Mary, if you knew what I'm a part of here," and shaking her head (can she shake her head?) at me... Poor Mary. Who doesn't know. Who has to grieve because she lost nearly all of what she knows of my life.

What is it I can't know, Dixie? That you're a part of an enormous love now, of love that is extraordinarily fat, and you've never been happier in your life? That you love me, when I love, when I am loved, when I'm love...you're with me? That you're safe? That you're not? That the afterlife is bullshit - that it's grand?

Oh, Dixie. I don't know why they took that picture. I don't know how you survived all those years with burdens that wiped your eyes so entirely blank. I don't know why you didn't die earlier, and I don't know why you didn't live longer. Here. Where I can see you. Where you can hop apartments so I'm constantly relearning your address. They just held the Kentucky Derby, you know... remember when you told Rosie you'd take her? I know we overlooked the fact that there probably wasn't a way it could happen... but you promised anyway, and it still broke my heart to realize it isn't possible. Maybe I'll go with her someday. And you can help me understand where the pride in Kentucky is, you can help me want to learn your accent as feverishly as I need to learn the Waukesha dialect...you can help me face the fact that your face won't be in anymore photos.

We never had one taken of the two of us, just those two. But that's ok, I guess. We were far past Kodak moments, truth be told. I miss you. And I hope it doesn't look like forgetting or not caring; I don't know why I don't cry like this everyday, don't go crazy everday over what happened to you. Over what happens to me. Kin, Dixie Lee. Always.

~me

^28 Days

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