Category Archives: moving, breathing, feeling

Oct24

mistaken identity

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This came to mind after reading Pam White’s blog post.  May all beings be free from suffering, may all beings be peaceful.  May all beings be free from mistaken identity.

What is a mistaken identity?  How can we tell?  As an actor and a performer, different identities are my stock in trade.  They become mistaken if I get stuck in them, or start to believe that there are too many points of connection between myself and a character or role.  When we are older, I believe, it is harder to sustain a mistaken identity.  There is too much evidence accumulated, too many instances of un-masking, and it is too much effort to sustain the theater of false personae.

For the young, though, especially those who have had a terrible, traumatic childhood, mistaken identity can be a great La Brea tarpit.  What I am learning, through my research into adoption and trauma, is that children who lose everything when they are very young – before the age of two especially – can re-enact that loss and may chose self-destructive, delusional paths in a confused search for identity. The problem for parents is that those alarming choices can become causes, can take on missionary zeal, can become cemented in rebellion, resistance and fear.

My own youthful mistaken identities nearly killed me.  The problem is that if you don’t unmask, don’t see through the haze of false selves, your bones will be found there in the pits, sunk into the delusional muck. I pray for my beloved child, that this mistaken identity releases her before it is too late.

 

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Oct22

today

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I drove through the waning colors of fall today on my way to see my horses.  Despite the haze of jet lag, I was astonished by the rise and fall of the landscape, the smells, the warmth of the sun.  This is what I love, what I appreciate, every day.

It feels important to stretch toward that appreciation, to make a point of opening to it.  I am overwhelmed by the absence of my youngest daughter, by the emptiness at the heart in the place that she occupied.  That emptiness feels cellular, like the smallest parts of me have lost their resonance and sweet comfort.  When I am overwhelmed by all of that loss, there is this.

Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Oct21

home now

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My favorite day in Istanbul was when we took the ferry to Kadikoy on the Asian side of the city.  We saw this cat, and thousands of others, but this one was startling with focus and purpose.  As much as I enjoyed Istanbul, I am happy to be home, happy to have my feet on the soil of this northwest corner of Connecticut, the Berkshires, the Hudson River valley, this country.

I had some opportunities to reflect on homophobia and human rights while there.  Pam’s nine year-old, half-Turkish granddaughter does not know that she is gay.  Her parents want it that way.  It is their choice, but the whole thing makes me uncomfortable.  Turkey has one of the lowest percentages of acceptance of gays in the world, and interestingly, Spain the highest in the world, with 88% acceptance.  The US is not stellar, with a 60% acceptance, compared to Canada’s 80%.

I won’t travel to a gay-unfriendly country again.  Nor will I modify my expressions of love for my beloved partner of 27 years –  I am profoundly unwilling to closet myself in any way  Let’s just say that I am too old for it, and too fed up with behavioral modification of that kind.  While we were in Kadikoy, I saw three young lesbians, one with ferocious dreadlocks who aggressively kissed her partner in public, on the street.  I pray for her safety, for her life, her happiness.  I pray for my own, for my integrity, for my human rights.

This cat is not pretending to be anything but what she is.  There is a lesson there.  A few minutes later, I saw these brilliant musicians, my favorite moment of the trip.