Tomorrow I will be going to Walden Pond with a very dear soul and another dear soul. I don't know anything about Thoreau. Well that is not true. I already know a lot about him because two souls that are dear to me feel deeply about him. So, i don't mind at all hearing what they liked about him. It will be a communion of souls, with Thoreau's soul enveloping us at the pond that he loved.

It could be a lovely day, maybe sunny, maybe cloudy and rainy and cold. But, maybe sunny. Even a cloudy and rainy day can be a nice day. On a cloudy day I have the perfect excuse for just staying in bed and reading. As long as I am reading, my mother does not scold me for staying in bed. Instead I get smiled at and my privacy is protected, mostly. My younger brother likes to pop in to ask me if I like the book. And then a minute later he comes in to give me an article he wants me to read, and then he pops in again to ask me if I am still enjoying the book. I can only guess that seeing me read is comforting to them. They want me to read. A few weeks ago I got scolded by my mom and my brother for not reading enough.

 As a child I gobbled up books. Book after book after book. Oftentimes the world of the book that i was inhabiting was more real for me then the one I lived in. I felt characters deeply and seemed to know their inside lives like my own. I was especially involved in reading books about the Holocaust and I dreamt myself to be a survivor and then a fighter in the land of Palestine. Her name was Karen. We were one and the same.

It is true that when I read I am less prone to fall into depressions. The reading gives me some peace of mind. Maybe seeing me read brings my family back to the security of my childhood when it was normal and healthy to find me reading in my bed. On a rainy day what could me more pleasant then to snuggle up to a warm blanket and a good book. Maybe it is because they think that I have too many gaps in my knowledge because once I left to Israel my life was full of so much that reading became a thing of the past. Reading in Hebrew was never as delicious as reading in English and my own life in Israel was so juicy and alive that I did not need to dream other people's lives. Being back at home and living with my pain level under control means that I once again can return and am expected to return to the essential art of reading.

So, tomorrow may be a sunny day or a rainy day and I am on 200mg of Lyrica and 120mg of Cymbalta and I can get dressed and ride in a car and go to the pond with two dear souls and watch them get to know each other and enjoy being with them. They both almost lost me from their lives a year, a bit over a year ago. They both got slammed in the face with something that reached down to their roots and shook the ground till their roots almost parted from the ground.
And I am still here, for better or for worse, till death do us part. That is, forever, Lyrica, Cymbalta and me.

1. the bed, the depression
2. the bed with a book=totally different scenario
3. their conclusion is right

1. I am still here, me and my soul, still devoted to my soul and body, we are one
2. There is always the knowledge and the fear in the back of my mind that without my meds. I would not survive. I remind myself that it is okay that I am on meds, that they won't be taken away from me, that if I need them for the rest of my life I will do all that I can to have them.
3.This thought process connects me back to the feeling of control which was lost completely once the pain took over my mind and my body. The memory seizes me back into terror. I quickly retrieve my self by reminding myself that that is over, that today I am here and that today I have control and that I know what I need to do in order to control it. Nowadays this is enough to watch the terror recede back into what I know is a memory, something that will remain a memory, only.

1. My memory, yes I have been traumatized. Yes, I still feel pain all the time. It is very hard to inhabit a body that is in pain. Sometimes it is not so hard. I love those moments, those markers of my destiny...
2. I don't live in books the way that I used to. I tried to become the characters that I admired and loved. They influenced me deeply. Today, I learn from them. I take their wisdom and I reap it, there is always more, there is always enough for whoever seeks it. So, I hold my arms wide open and with a warmth and a passion I hug it all, very close to my heart. Wisdom is always very close to the heart. It needn't be searched far and wide, only as far and wide as our arms can go when hugging another to our souls.
3. I take the honey/wisdom and I share it with others, like honey to their lips they drink, and my eyes are anointed  with the light of salvation and I praise the One and Only force that I believe in for having given me another glimpse of its glory.
4. Your words are sweeter then honey, I am humbled by your beauty. You are with me just for a fleeting moment, because underneath your wing there is another bird whose wing has broken, and I can see how you go swiftly, and carry my word to the Goddess of healing. And I thank you. I thank you for connecting me to your powerful force and I pray to be taken as your servant for the rest of my existence. For with your presence I am healed, even if just for a moment.

It was my own war. It was daily. It was hourly. Sometimes it was just to get through the moment, the hour. My whole world melted around me. Everything that I loved and had lived for was in another world. I was separated by the ocean, by the airplane. The abyss that I had fallen into, the corner that I inhabited, the loss and the terror were two separate monsters that took their turns strangling and suffocating me. i could not look at pictures of my friends or of Siabonga, neither could I call them. I could speak to them when they called. I could hear their voices coming from that world that I had once been a part of and I could hear my voice speaking to them. The air around was stiff, made of immovable iron and steel. The walls that I breathed through had no entrance and exist. I could hear my voice. I could hear their voices. There was penetration but the walls did not budge and the echo from that world tormented me. It was the reminder of everything that I lost, everything that had been taken from me. Words came out and like butterflies that would never be mine to see or to draw. They came out from my spirit and from my heart. I loved them. I loved them deeply. I was afraid of the pain that would come if they forgot me, if they did not call, if they let me alone in this invisibility that was beyond darkness. I cried, locked and chained to the stakes and to the acid and to the knives and I hid nothing from them. If they were to come with me then I would spare from them nothing. They were my friends and I trusted them with my life.

Liat stayed by my side. She guarded the invisible and endless hole that I fell into. If she could not see, she could feel me into the depth of my cells. She guarded the abyss and stayed guard. She handed the job over to none. She was my angel. She was dedicated to me and her presence became a life-line. Through her I remembered who I was. Through her I could embrace myself, find compassion for my suffering, find beauty even if they were just threads. They were threads connecting me to who I used to be, to who I knew would never be taken away from me. When Liat and I spoke, I felt and heard myself reflected in her patience, in her compassion, in her soft and gentle dedication. I felt my deepest spiritual self rise above the terror and the desperation to meet her. And wherever I met her, I met myself. What I saw was so beautiful, so powerful, it was something to live for, it was something to fight for, it was something to believe in. The life sentence that I had been sentenced to was a reason to die. It was a reason to die now. Liat's devotion was an angel's voice that came from another realm. I could hear her clearly, as though the divide of our two worlds was not so great at all, as though the world that I inhabited was the same world that she inhabited, as though I had not gone completely insane. I learnt her voice more and more. I knew when she would call. I could not call her but I always received her calls. When despair had eaten my will to live like maggots at a fresh corpse, I spoke to her. My mother would come to give me the phone, her eyes with the light of salvation in them. She thanked Liat every time she called. It was beyond thanking. It was a gratitude that went to a higher source. When we spoke we thanked God that we had found each other. We thanked God that we were in each others lives. We told each other that we did not know what we would do if we were not in each others lives. Our gratitude was to a higher source, a source that felt present when we spoke to each other, a source we felt that was beyond us, whose power had united us. A source that we spoke of, in the language of gratitude, self-acceptance and devotion. If I was dead then she was there to remind me that there was nothing dead about me. If I was hopeless then she was there to remind me that there was so much ahead for me. If I was as useful as a dead man that never died but stayed forever suffocating then to me she was my best friend that stayed by my side while I suffocated constantly reminding me that my soul was there untouched by the senselessness and insanity that my body was submitting me to. Her beauty was something to live for, and my idea that her beauty was a reflection of my own gave me the strength to fight for the hope that one day the torture chambers would slow their frenzied insanity and I would be set free from the chains, free from the repetitive daily, hourly minute to minute massacre of my will to live.
If there was blood, it went unseen. It was as invisible as the crocodile teeth that were clenched to my vagina, invisible as my flesh twisting and torn to shreds, raw and wrenched, brutalized and shoved into a deathless and repetitive corridor of insanity. I dreamed of death. I was jealous of death itself. To be granted death meant to be loved by a God of mercy. There was no mercy in the plane of this existence. There was no mercy at all. There was a kaleidoscope of nightmares and terrors and the endless obsession with death and the torment of knowing that I would have to chose a way to do it. My mind winded around itself. There was nothing left of it but the spiraling images of me in the act of taking my own life. The thoughts spiraled and they spiraled and twisted and chiseled themselves into my brain as the knives plunged hundreds and thousands of time into the depths of my vagina. I wanted to be killed once, To be tortured once, to be allowed to bleed so that the life would bleed itself out of me naturally and my suffering would end. I was sentenced to be destroyed over and over again. I was losing my mind. There was nothing else. I was losing my identity. Who I was and what I was now added up to nothing. Whatever I had fought for, whatever i had believed, the coherence and the meaning that was such a huge part of the life I had lived, were like tickets to a carnival that had never existed. And yet I was holding the tickets, swearing that the carnival was taking place. I knew that it was because I had lived it, I had created it. The black hole ridiculed me. The spiraling broken machine that twisted itself through my brain that had turned into stiff and drying glue, the chasm between the world that I had inhabited and the world that I was sentenced to now was as real as two galaxies winding on different orbits. They would never meet. And if they met it would be only by crashing into each other. And then the victory of death will be a morbid and ugly tragedy that my family and my friends would have to live with for the rest of their lives. In this world the only gateway was an imagined one that existed in my mind in the future. I knew that when I lost that, I would be ready to accept that my fate was to take the life out of my own body.

Ever since I found the Support Group On Facebook I feel less inspired to write here. I much prefer the interaction, the communication. Still, this can be my little island that I come to visit once in a while. It seems that I am growing, out-growing, growing out-ward.

I am willing to be an artist. I would not have chosen it. But, it happened upon me. I grew into it. I accept it. I am an artist. And a healer. And i put them both together and I know the art of healing and I know the healing of art. And I admit it, I have become an artist and I have matured into a healer. I don't have much to say about it. Everyone has there own god-blessed or god-damned destiny. There is only futility in denying what I truly am. Out of fear? It isn't humility, though I can feign humility. It is simply fear. That same familiar fear. I was always different. Sometimes admired for that difference, mostly ignored for that difference. The things I saw were different. The things that I felt were different. The things I thought were different. The spiritual was always intermingled with the 'mundane'. In places where the mundane was the norm, I felt alone and misplaced. I preferred to be alone than to feel alone. I chose to be alone when the choice was to be like everyone else or not to be. I chose to be just for myself even if it meant having few friends. When I was 13 and 14 it meant having no friends. I was angry, very angry at that. My fate changed. My fate was always changing but it took me a long time to heal from the pain of having no friends for two years at school. I learnt too much and it hurt too deeply. But I was stubborn and I knew that I would not forfeit myself to whatever it took to be liked. It was mundane, clothing, make-up, boys....I refused to let go, to submit, to hand over my spiritual self to that world that was not only mundane but that was cruel. I wanted no part of the cruelty that I saw around me. I rejected it. I hated it. Inside I scoffed at it. And so I was destined to be a part of it. I accepted my fate, though it hurt me, deeply.

I was always living on different planes of reality. I was always creating new realities in my mind. Where I lived was clear to me but it sometimes baffled those around me. I lived in a deeply spiritual world, a world inhabited by animals and trees and stars, a world where stars spoke to me and where God was One with me. There was no separation between me and God. We were one and there was no doubt about this. God was compassionate and caring and cherished life deeply. God felt each squirrel that was run over and knew which soul needed a hand. I lived in my private world. Few entered that magical world with me. I learnt to not speak of it. It was weird to be connected that way to something that much larger then myself and to feel that it was me. I accepted that this space was mine to inhabit privately though I longed to share it with a friend, even one.

My relationship with that world became rockier as I grew older. I was angry more. I was desperate for answers. i was impatient and impulsive and I developed a huge appetite for travel and for change and for movement. I was thirsty for life and I felt gypped. And there was only so much time to make up for my losses. I went to India, to Africa, to South America. I traveled on  my own, I traveled with a partner, I traveled and traveled and when I was not traveling I felt that same uncomfortable and sad feeling that life was passing me by. What I wanted was to travel but I could not disconnect myself from the world of 'degrees' that I had grown up in. Yale, Harvard, Columbia...B.A., M.A., PhD....I studied psychology. It was lame and it lacked soul and spirituality. It was mundane and stupid and had no insight into healing. That was the way that it was taught in Israel. Theories and text-books and useless memorization of irrelevant facts. I felt my life as though it were a sand-castle, each tide stripping another layer and another layer away...each day another day that I payed for with my dreams. I wanted to act. I studied acting. I wanted to travel. I traveled. I wanted to love. I loved endlessly and relentlessly. I never gave up on loving even after being bruised over and over again. For a time, I hated men. The men in India left my heart filled with brutality towards them. I had been harassed endlessly. I hated them for taking away from me my dream of traveling and exploring. I learnt that I had explored enough. I learnt the painful truth about India. And I finally accepted that I was tired. India had defeated me. I wanted peace and quiet and nature and creativity and healing.
I took on Pottery. I fell in love with the Galil, the North of Israel. I felt blessed by the animals and by nature and blessed by my soul-mates that I met there. And still I was restless, still I felt that there was something missing.
Today, nothing is missing.
I know the girl.
I know the teenager and the young woman.
I know more then I ever wished or imagined I would know.
I can heal and I meet the girl and she knows that I need her to hold my soul. And she does, with patience and love and compassion. She knows that I never lost anything, that I lived with a burning passion that left me exhausted. She does not judge me. She understands. She knows exactly what I was running away from and exactly what I was slamming into. And she just stays with me. If I need to stand, she stands with me. If i can sit, she sits with me. She watches me forget the pain and when I look at her and smile, she smiles back with love and compassion in her eyes. She does not judge me or harbor jealousy or anger towards me. And when I am angry or jealous she reminds me that she loves me just the way I am and that i am exactly where i should be. Because she is by my side, I know that I have truly not lost anything. I still look at the world with compassionate eyes. I still feel pain when I see a squirrel crushed on the road. I still feel when a soul needs a hand and I still give it.

So, why then can I not call myself an artist or a healer? And why are we not permitted to call God by his name?

It really makes no difference at all. It isn't feigned humility. It just is the spiritual that needs no name and never asks to be named because it is constantly changing. And I watch it and become a part of it again. Thank God. My God would never have put me through PN. So, I still have a God to thank and a soul that is sane and as familiar as this childhood room where God and I spoke to each other with love many many nights.

You have been quiet lately

Your sharp menacing teeth
receding to the background

How kind of you
How compassionate

I love deluding myself, distracting myself, believing for a moment that you never were

REAL

you send your tentacles, their poison stings through my anus

ANUS ANUS ANUS

another god-damn word

as dirty as VAGINA?

maybe not, men have anuses too

anus anus anus

my anus is stinging me

i ignore it all day

i pretend that i am the winner in this battle

i am

anus anus anus

i am a lucky survivor

a lucky trauma victim

i am not bed-ridden any longer

anus anus anus

i have nothing creative to write about my anus

i have to get used to the word

how does butt-hole feel?

my butt-hole is full of bees

that is where all the bees of the world have disappeared to

look into my butt-hole, you will find them there

take them out and then you will have your flowers and your honey again

for now, all you get is

an anus full of bees

frenzied bees trapped in my anus

they keep telling me that it is not because of me

abba, they insist that it is not because of me

but i know the truth

they are just trying to protect me

this never would have happened to you

if i had not suffered so

if i had not gone wild and desperate


abba, why did this happen to us?

why did this happen to you?

to me?

abba, where are you?

where did you lose your mind?

why can't i get you back?

father must a daughter live for her father if she is in desperate suffering?

abba, must i keep on living through another day of torture for you?

abba, will you please grant me permission to die

father, how many times will we walk around the same block

look through the same dark waters of the pond

afraid of the thoughts that travel our mind

back and forth

the same blades sharpened and ready

i prepare myself for the evening

curl myself into the corner of my room, on blankets

ready for the electrocutions that leave me useless and begging to die

father, how many times over will you watch me fall into the gallows

before you lose your mind

abba, where are you ?

abba, where are you?

abba, i cannot find you. abba, please come back to me. how many times

will i watch you broken and lost and scared

abba, why did you follow me?

i was your daughter, your pride and glory

father, don't come near the dungeon.

we both will be burnt, together.

burnt

alone

strips

fall, swing and slip from the sky

pink, lavender, yellows

periwinkles and light blues

pain rips through my vagina

fathers fall and i cannot lose you father

i crumble into a beautiful woman

struck

struck

beaten with bats and ripped through with glass

the fight is futile

i have lost

my youth and my will

suffering is a word with no meaning

useless and senseless

i watch my father drown in fear

i watch  the futility of my love

and all the deep breathing cannot destroy the god-damn glass that tears me to shreds

that falls from the sky

and mean nothing to me anymore

i have had too much taken away from me

that nothing adds up to anything

anymore

SACRED CHAMBER POEM

grey and black and white

a twisted fog

a rainy day

a mug

hot tea

i drink the steam

and breath out a stream

of memories

the life i left behind

the cat i could not take along

the grandmother whose bed i snuggled into and whose body i held between my arms

her soft face and feathered hair underneath my fingertips

i was on my way to Jerusalem

i joke, another saint that never made it back to the holy city

like Moses banned to die

looking into the land that he had dreamt for

no man will ever enter my land again

my holy land

my land of love and emotion

my land of child-birth and devotion

twisted and knotted


fire and flame

Now, you know

Now, you cannot deny

I give birth to myself again

I re-create

That is my power, I am woman

And I bid you to enter, to enter my land

It is soft and moist and fertile

And I invite you to feast, to feast in my land

It is fruitful and plush

And I re-inhabit this body

I reclaim what was taken, what was stolen from me

And let you taste my desire, my hunger, my lust

for everything that was taken

and for one more thing that has returned

In praise and in prayer I lead you

to the chambers

of torture that i inhabited

and there

I lead you to where i planted tulips

and to where i braided jewels

and to where i painted birds

and to where out of ashes and smoke and desolation

i transformed

devastation into desire

and breathed life

back

down

into

my

sacred

chamber

Ashrai Yoshvey Beitecha, Od yehalelucha selah. Ashrai haam shechecha lo, ashrei haam sheadonay elohav: Tehila le-david, aromemcha elohay hamelech, ve-avarcha shimcha leolam vaed. Bechol yom avarchecha, veahalela shimcha leolam vaed. Gadol Adonay vmhoolal meod, ulegdulato ein cheker: dor ledor yishabach maasecha, ugvoorotecha yagidu:

Our soldier came home. He came home alive. Israel, my people, are celebrating. For many of them it is a miracle. But there are people that are very upset and angry at the trade-off.  They feel betrayed by the government because some of the prisoners who were released had murdered their own family. They do not want these people to be back into their terrorists attacks and murders of other people.

I can understand their pain and their anger and their dread. i think that they are also trying to protect  the people, to not become euphoric, to not forget the other side of the story.

He looked like a deeply spiritual and traumatized human being. I think that because his soul is pure he survived. Could it be that once they caught him they no longer wanted to kill him? Could they see that he was gentle and harmless? I saw my boy and I felt that we have so much in common. And for a moment i felt jealous that he was going to get so much support. And then I felt guilty for thinking that. Torture.

When I came to America I finally felt  that I was being listened to. It was scary meeting so many doctors who looked at me and just had no idea what was happening in my body. And basically I was beginning to believe that I was going crazy, that I could not take it anymore, that I was for the first time in my life confronting the possibility that I might have to take my own life. It was a terrifying thought and I thought it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ove and over and ovetrredghghdgywJHHHHHHHHJWSJHWUTYDWTYTTTHGJGHHHGHJKJHKJ BUT I was going crazy, acting strange, not being responsible, maybe a bit dramatic, maybe borderline personality disorder Cuz (and this is a funny one) every night i would tell the nurse that I want to be euthanized and that i am upset that i cannot get euthanized in my state and that euthanasia should be legal because people that are in deep suffering have a right to die. I was certain that I was not the first and would not be the last person who would be taken to a psychiatric hospital. So, I made sure to tell the psychiatrist that i want to be euthanized. I was in a severe state of anxiety, the depression had hit the end of the road and i had to talk about how devastating Pudendal Neuralgia is.  So I had to remain strong.  And my brother spoke to him on the phone and the psychiatrist told him that it is possible that i have border-line personality disorder. And that was very sad for me because once again I was not being seen or heard. They were reading me from their diagnostic text-books and i fit perfectly. i was constantly threatening suicide, i had a lot of attacks of rage in the beginning because i felt that my family were not helping me enough. I felt that my brother was slow in reading about it or researching about it. They said that they were confused by all the different diagnosis that i thought that i had. 1st , endometriosis and then interstitial cystitis.
My family are very good at avoiding the inevitable. When i told my mom today that I am very tired., she pounced on me and said "no, don't say that". she barked at me that i should have gone to the meeting i had scheduled with a pain theraipst. I have felt so insulted by some of the "professionals" who i met with. And I guess  that I am just generally exhausted. Today was a generally very very very exhausting day. I have been too active. While I gardened I started fighting with the roots of the huge tree in front of our house. Fighting as though to see who would win this time, the pain or the pain?
Yeah, so i am happy that our soldier has been freed. He is a sweet boy. A sweet Jewish boy like the boys from the ghetto, the boy that we jews all know of. There is a famous picture of a little Jewish boy with an angels face boy with his hands up. Crazy, six million of us slaughtered, mothers, fathers, sisters brothers...there are stories that tell that there were those that forced fathers to sleep with their daughters. Or mothers that were ordered to choose which twin she will send to the gas chamber and which one she will keep with her. I have so many questions and I am starting to get answers. Some women are interested in writing. It is something. And there are women who even painted and did art-work for me. Truly , that is how i feel that they did it for me. And i really appreciate that. And they seem to appreciate that. So, we have started communicating with each other, women who have been deeply and horribly traumatized by damage done to the Pudendal Nerve that lies within our pelvis.
I have been in pain for the last two weeks or maybe it is two and a half years already. We are all different and we all have had our nerves damaged from different things. One women suffered nerve damage from having a hysterectomy done. Isn't that what they used to do to us. If we were too hysterical they took out wombs. Do you know that in Tibet that is what the Chinese do to the Tibetan women. They take out their uteruses so that they will not be able to have children. I feel a little sick as I write this and the pain in everywhere is sharpened and the scalpel takes care of those women.
And in Africa, the female circumcisions, sorry, the female mutilations, that mothers do to their own daughters. What the fuck? And the daughters scream and cry and some of them are left with permanent nerve damage.
And in Rwanda, where men who had Aids organized themselves to rape the Tutsie women so that they would get aids. And they were raped by so many men at once, for hours and days on end. That they also were left with nerve damage.
Women have suffered from damage to the nerve that enervates our vagina since the beginning of when eve was sent out of the garden cuz she was a sinner, a manipulative sinner. And in India, women are raped and it is so shameful to be raped. And once a women is raped (again, my stomach is turning and i can feel the pain sharpen.) she is considered public property so men have a right to rape her again. She is worthless as a woman, no man will ever marry her, shel is better of dead. There are a lot of suicides in India. Some of them were called Holy. Holy suicides where the woman who is left a widow burns herself so as to be with her husband. People watch this and admire this great act of courage and self-sacrifice that a woman is doing for her man. In India many women suffer from burn-wounds where the mother-in-law is trying to kill her because she wants more dowry. Really sick stuff is going on and i don't understand how things like this happen. And my heart is broken for all of these women.
And I also feel for us. For the women who were told that they were crazy. For the women who were left by their husbands. To the couples who are deeply in love with each other and are profoundly supportive.
How do we survive such physical torture? What keeps us sane? And how scary it must have been to live at a time when our physical pain was called frigidity or hysteria? How many woman have been asked if they were raped, if they had suffered sexual assault? One very sweet obstetrics nurse asked me if maybe i missed my boyfriend and that is why i was in pain down there. i can go on and on and on. But in the end I chose to live. I chose to accept that this was what happened. And my mom helped me a lot. She fought really hard for me. Sometimes she also botched up, but we have forgiven each other and today i feel like she is my sister and she guards me and protects me. But sometimes she gets mad at me still like she did in the beginning. She doesn't understand that I should not be working in the garden. I planted the tulips for her. I bought them for me and for her. I guess that we both wanted to believe that I was getting better. But i knew that I wasn't when i started tugging on roots and fighting to pull them out of the ground. And i get hurt cuz i think that she should have told me to stop gardening.  And that today i am exhausted cuz i have my period and the pain is much more intense.
I think that me and our soldier, Gilad Shalit (he reminded me of the Dali Lama. Gentle and pure. I even thought of writing him a letter and inviting him to come stay with us here if he wants a vacation from israel. But truthfully my family is all deeply traumatized by these last two and a half years. I forgave them for not getting it. It took me a long time to untie all the knots that got so mangled...
And I wish that we could all help each other.

Women have been suffering from so many different forms of genital and pelvic pain. You want to tell me that we are ashamed of our own private parts? Nope, I will tell you that we aren't. And that maybe finally the world is ready to hear our suffering. But then, all of us have felt abandoned or betrayed by friends or family. God Bless All Of Us; may those that are in pain unite and begin to tell our stories. At least we are not alone anymore. We are beginning to reach out  to each other. We can hear each other and we care for each other. We can  help each other heal cuz we can understand each other's souls.
And there are beautiful men among us as well who are also fighting hard to resist the call to suicide and who are expressing such levels of care and compassion that it truly is beautiful. We still feel very misunderstood but what is important is that we are beginning to understand each other. Friendships are a big part of surviving. If our friends can really travel the way with us. I have one friend who just glided along with me. So we have a lot of work in terms of educating. How do you begin to educate. How do we create awareness.
One thing I learnt from Wangari Maathai, an African woman who fought a beautiful fight is that we are much stronger when we are united and that we can help each other. That is a lot. I wish that I had known about this group earlier. Can we support each other so that we won't give up hope? In order to survive we have to be united. Maybe that way, someday we will also have a flag, a beautiful flag all our own. Wangari Maathai fought with so much love in her heart and there were people that were sure that she was crazy.

Anyway, I really recommend reading her book. It is called Wangari Maathai, Unbowed, One Woman's Story.

I was going over a bit of my blog, trying to clean up a bit in honor of the guests who will read and hopefully share with me in which pieces they found meaning (which pieces should be put in an arts pamphlet made by women suffering from PN and Vulvodynia) . And I read back to the post about the red wires and the stakes. So, i thought that i should put in an update. My older brother threw all the red wires in the garbage. They have all been taken away and so there will be no red wires wrapped around me and no stakes... in some ways this is a relief because I don't want to go back there. I don't want it, not now and maybe not ever. Maybe the words will do for now. It took me a long time to be able to write about it. For now I will stay here. I feel safe here. Though I do not feel that anything I write here can describe what I lived through. I am trying to write again but I still feel like I am bending wire that is not flexible and pliable any longer. In jewelry class every time I want to make a new imprint on the metal I have to anneal the metal again. I like annealing, I like the flame and I like the way the metal softens up again. I like that I can play over and over again with the same piece of metal. The metals are strong that way and I like discovering the way to work with them. I am learning how to weed beauty out of them and I like that fire is part of the process.
I guess that after twenty years away from writing and from the English language I have to practice and practice and practice. Maybe with time I will appreciate the progress that I made. So here I am. There is no principal inviting me to her office. The essay itself is tucked away somewhere in the basement. Israel and my life there were once again snatched away from me. Twenty-seven years later I am doing what I did as a ten year old; trying to put together the shattered pieces of my life with words. And along with the words I am soldering and annealing and engraving my grandmother's name into the rings that I make. Being far away from her today makes just as little sense to me as it did twenty-seven years ago.

My last post gave a very romantic and upbeat description of my day of gardening. My pudendal nerve shares a different side of the story. It is not particularly happy with me. I hope that my pain will settle down and that my nerve will settle down. I was just starting to enjoy the stability that going back up to 200mg of Lyrica was giving me.

I have a request to whoever reads my blog. I have to choose a few pieces of poetry or prose to put into a genital pain pamphlet that I will be putting together. Please share with me the pieces that you feel have a collective voice or a voice that touched you more deeply.

Thank You,

Atara

Tulip bulbs in my garden!!!!

It is way past my bed-time. I promised myself that I would be in bed with the lights out no later then 12:00. I have gotten carried away.

I have to share today cuz today was a beautiful day. It was even a wonderful day. Today I sat on the cool scented earth with my bare legs folded and flat beneath me. I dug into mother earth with my little spade, caring about the earthworms that wiggled their way, fighting with rocks and roots and finally tunneling a hole deep enough for my treasured daffodil and tulip bulbs. Oh, and i dreamt of all the colors that would come to fill my senses in the Spring that would surely come. And I dreamt of my mother's appreciation when she saw the tulips blossom from her bed-room window. And from her kitchen window. Beauty, beauty, beauty surrounded and protected my mind and I swear that I did not feel a sensation that I could name pain. No, even with all the tugging and the bending and the earth/legs/squat my body was able and eager.

Oh, I say a prayer there, my legs deep in earth, I say a prayer of gratitude for the day, for the Lyrica and the Cymbalta and the earth and for my love of gardens and for the gardens of my love.

The gardens of my love are tucked away, tucked away to survive the cold of our winters, tucked away and hopefully safe from squirrels. Until spring, until spring tickles them and teases them and finally convinces them that it is time for them to share their glory with the world.

Oh, wonder of wonder, Oh, miracle of miracles, Thank you for keeping my heart healthy with love, thank you for giving my body the ability to partake, to help create this miracle, this blessing come true.

Amen.

And Goodnight, way past my bed-time.

My brother told me to keep on writing poetry.
When I was a kid I was taken to the principal's office.

I had no idea what I had done wrong.

I could not imagine what was about to be told to me.

Maybe I had lice?

I had just returned from two years in Israel and I was in deep longing for the life that I had left there, for my friends and the outdoors and the boys that seemed to like me.
I was in 5th grade now, back to being a foreigner just after having nearly stopped feeling like one in Israel. Now I was one, once again, in America.
I was not happy.

The principal showed me a short paper that I had written for English class. She asked me if I had written it. I looked up at her, not quite understanding her question. My name was on it. Who else could have written it? And why was she holding my paper? What was wrong with my paper? Were there too many spelling mistakes? Had I written the letters backwards as I used to in the beginning when I had just moved to Israel?

And then she told me that my paper was a beautiful piece of writing. I didn't quite understand what she was telling me and why I had to be called to her office to be told this. In Israel invitations to the  principal's office were a sure sign that punishment was on its way. I nodded and smiled politely, wondering if she thought that I had not written it myself. That was an absurd thought considering that all my emotions were there flat as the sun that pounded into me the day of departure. Only that day the sun had a black hole in it and only I could see the hole. It was pressed into the shadow on the pavement. I sat atop our luggage thinking about my best friend that had sobbed the night before when we had hugged our last goodbye. She was wearing her pink pajamas and it was painfully hard to leave her crying like that. I saw the hole in the sun from there and it was as black as the sun was shining. Writing about how I longed for Israel and about everything that got left behind like my grandmother who was my sunshine was not going to bring me back there. I was ready to have this meeting over with.  I had a whole world tucked away in my soul, a world that flowered and blossomed, a world that was full of love and animals and outdoors, a world that my grandmother belonged to and I surely belonged by her side. And somehow I had to accept that that world was slipping behind me and that this world now was to become my life. I found that in my writing I could keep that world alive. And even when it began to recede into the outlines of my life, I knew full well that I would return to that world again.

Within six months my spelling was better then that of most of the class. I had fallen in love with English and would continue falling in love with my English teachers up until and through-out high-school.
I have been away from the English language for twenty years now. The first eighteen years away were in Israel. The last two years away were mostly curled up in the corner of my childhood room, here in America, my mind twisted and frenzied with pain. Now I am slowly reconnecting back to the words, slowly seeing if they will dance for me like they once did. They have been frozen in time, left behind with my childhood passions that could not move with me to Israel.
Like poetry clubs
And poetry readings
Like good-looking English teachers that left me lusting after them as opposed to my class-mates.
Like the toads that died out or hopped away. I wish that they hopped away. I believe that they died out.

There was not much that I loved about my childhood. But writing was one of my loves.
And though the words feel so stale, so imprecise, so rusted and callous, I am trying to refine them, I am working on learning their rhythm and their lust, their truth and their natural urge. I am working on trusting that they will still work for me, that they are still my loyal companions and that though I have abandoned them for so long, they have remained as loyal and as devoted to me as all the invisible friends of my past.

In my mind we all dance together, bringing the invisible into the visible, healing the hurt, and treating the pain, unlocking doors and releasing all that belongs to life.

Invisible people are real.

You may not see them.

But I do.

I always have.

It was one of my gifts.

I always saw them.

And I always gave them a hand.

I knew how hard it is to be invisible.

How hard it is to fall onto cement and to bleed blood that none can see.

But me. But me.

How hard it is to want to play.

Come play, I will play with you. I can see you.

Invisible people. There are so many of them.

Today I can tell you that every invisible hand that reached out to me was my 'self' searching to be seen. My invisible friends taught me the finest parts of who i was. They taught me compassion and love. They taught me patience and commitment. They taught me perseverance and humor. They taught me how profound creativity is. They were very generous, very kind teachers. They loved me just because I saw them. How strange to be appreciated for seeing something that is so clear and so full of truth and wisdom. My invisible friends were my greatest teachers. They taught me about my soul and my spirit.

But still, I was completely unprepared for becoming invisible myself. And I was completely unprepared for invisible knives and invisible forms of torture and for months of invisible persecution. And I was completely unprepared for what it felt like to be asking for help and for being invisible. And I was completely unprepared for pleading and crying for help and for being invisible. And I was completely unprepared for living a life of invisible knives and invisible torture and invisible visibility.

Oh no, I had the sight to see the invisible because I felt it all with my heart and with my soul. It was easy. But to be invisible myself was a completely different world. A world that began and ended nowhere. A world that added up to nothing. A world that split into invisible pieces held together by invisible glue that bore into me like bones and bricks and iron stakes. A world of no sense.

Sometimes at night
i write poems
they appear in my head
beginnings
threaded words
embroidered precisely, humble works of art
with no destiny
they disappear into the night
i swear to myself to remember
winding the words through my mind
the words travel the same routes

morning comes
and whatever routes those words traveled have faded




so, what?
if the words were so important
would i not have lazed out of sleep and into awakening?
are the small journys that my mind makes trying to anchor me in my story
are they irrelevant?
forgotten?
lost?
irretrievable?

as irretrievable as the life that was mine before all of this?
as irretrievable as the child that got lost on the merry-go-round that could not stop spinning?
where are the words?
what words can describe invisible knives that tear flesh into bits that stay whole and bloodless?
who would believe such fairy-tales anyway?

Damn,
i order the words to come filing in
like soldiers lame and lost
they refuse to reclaim their place among the living

I yell to the words
Don't you understand that i need you?
That i need you now!
I don't care if you have no blood and no flesh
I will take whatever is left of you
Your skeleton is fine too

I don't care if you have no limbs to walk on and no will to grow limbs with
Yes, i remember now
One of the words was GROW
What was i growing? There in the dark, in the fire, suffocating...
I cannot remember, maybe GROW was not one of the words at all

Then what was that spark of genius that got lost in the night?
There was a thread and a lot of darkness and suffocation that suffocated and suffocated, suffocation that suffocated like breathing sand through your lungs,
darkness penetrating suffocating ripping through my flesh
leaving no trace of blood behind

Invisible

Growing invisible
Screaming with no voice
Sand pouring down into my legs
and into my lungs

the merry-go-round of glass and razor blades
spinning suffocating drinking sand
walking under air that presses into me
gravity pushes from above
the weights press compress from above
invisible
every step is timelessness encapsulated

Words, don't you understand? I need you now! Come out from under the bed. Get out of your hiding places. I have let you live on your own for two decades. Now I need you  back. I need you back.

Serve me as I have served you.
Putting you all together.
Making you spring and sing meaning.
As a child, you played in my notebooks, you jumped like the toads... whichever way you went, you went as well, with spring on your side and life in your blood.

Come back to me now. I  need you now. Serve me please, I beg you.

Please, open the gates so that I may enter, so that i may learn, so that i may weave and rekindle, and tell and ...

may i be worthy of your magic.

Toads, toads like the letters of my childhood no longer live here.

I have returned to tell of them, of how I loved them. Of how invisible people are real.

if what you want is life

then that is what you will fight for

if what you want is life

then that is what you will suffer for

if what you want is life

then that is what you will be granted

if what you want is life

then that is what you will restore

Hey, you, girl in Chicago, i danced like a wild-cat, i danced like a goddess, i danced with my heart and my soul and i swear i danced for everyone..... Hey, you, girl in Chicago, we dance the way we live...and we live the way we dance...

I can tell that you are fierce and strong.

Love,

Atara

Poetry
it happens sometimes

that what i want is to leak

to leak like a broken faucet
or like a toilet trained toddler

to leak
like a busted pipe
or a fire hydrant in mourning

to leak
to leak
poetry and words and letters that add up to words
to leak it all out
until i am covered in letters
that dance from my nipples to my chin and spin from arm-pit to knee

until i am drowning
ecstatically throwing letters around me
like confetti
like cupcakes

there is a poem that i remember
but this one has no memory
it only has an urge and a surge
and it leaks

no, it doesn't just leak
it explodes outwards

i used to be able to dance my poetry with my body
the boys loved to watch

i loved the warm sensation of their eyes on me
they were respectful and curious
and i was a woman sharing my life

nowadays its the words

i still miss the boys
i do miss the boys

but at least i have the words
i am teaching them to dance for me

but they are still leaking
not quite dancing

tonight

Out of exhaustion I create has
Out of tears I create tea
Out of fatigue I create fate
Out of insomnia I create as
Out of disability I create lit
Out of excruciating I create tin
Out of pain I create pan
Out of insanity I create sanity

I shuffle it all around

fate has sanity lit
tin pan has tea

as

i play life
sipping warm chai
warming spices in my grandmother's old tin pan
watching fate
play cards with me

winter comes from around the corner
the snow is only weeks away
the neighbor knocks covered in white flakes
Chai fills our nostrils with desire
And sanity is as simple as warm socks and a woolen scarf

Into the night we roam
Hand in hand
Into the unknown of a friendship we now know is ours

Into the winter
Our hands wrapped in gloves and in each other
The smell of our spiced breath frosting in the air

Our lips cold and warm

We make our destiny
We choose what to take
And what to leave behind

For now we have chosen each other.
We walk into winter together.

Blessings
I scatter
I scatter blessings

Flowers grow

Blessings I scatter
I scatter blessings
like feathers

Feathers float

Blessings
I scatter

Shells swim their way to the shore

Blessings
I sing

The notes scatter and shatter and splatter and fall

And I like a true artist
make and remake
every day anew

sending my love

to you
to you
and
to you

walking out of the pain clinic's building

out the glass door
onto the pavement
she notices something

her eyes pull her towards it
looking downward
focused and intent
colorful
yellow
with four dots
one on each wing
four beautiful wings
a butterfly's

a butterfly's body on pavement
she hesitates
she notices; a man observing her
she thinks; he must wonder what keeps my head bent towards the pavement

And then she bends down, like to a child
and gently lays the butterfly body onto her palm
quickly cupping it between two hands before the wind grabs it and sends it sailing to nowhere

Cupped between two warm hands, safe from wind that plays with the falling leaves, blowing them upward and chasing them until they settle somewhere else and again...

This butterfly body has a different destiny
Cupped in her hand, the Trolley driver notices its beauty
At the jewelry store she asks for a box
The sales-lady comments on its beauty
And at home, her mother admires its beauty

Beauty
can sometimes
take one's mind
off of pain

Butterflies shed their bodies and flutter into my soul

If i give you a piece of me
Will you give me a piece of you?

And then can we split the two pieces into halves and mix them all together and make a small mosaic to hang above our heads?

But, what if i want my piece back?
Will you return it to me?

Or will you say that it is all glued and pieced together and that I cannot have it back.

Then, if you say that, I will take it off of the wall and put in the drawer so that I will not have to look at it anymore. So, that I won't have to remember how once I hoped and believed that our pieces would fit together.

But, if you come back to tell me that it is okay, and you tell me that I can have the piece of me and the piece of you then I will know for certain that you trust me with your piece and then I will love you to pieces.

Trust in Love.

My body is my ship-wreck. I have yet many jewels and treasures to discover.

My body is my temple.
And my prayer-book.

It is my compass and my map.

My body is my beloved.
And my beloved is mine.

Yes, I know.
Yes, I hear.
Yes, I vow.

I vow to help you heal.
I vow to accept you as you are.
I vow to learn from you.
And to teach from you.

My body is your body.
Your body is mine.

My body is me.
My soul is pure.
My body is wounded.
My soul will guide you.
My body is aching.
My spirit will comfort you.

My ship-wreck is mine. The treasures that lay underneath it are beautiful. The collections that traveled with me into and from distant countries. The wildest storms came and tore me apart. Here I sunk. In the middle of the ocean, deep down to the dark my splintered self fell to the ocean floor.

What I have found here on the ocean floor are the secrets that I carried and collected with me everywhere. I dig and search beneath the planks, the flanks.

And what I find are the secrets, the collections that I carried with me everywhere.

And now it is time to share. To share with the life that has sunk to the ocean floor. Slowly I move between ship-wrecks. Tragedies of similar storms, different times, same place.

I visit the ship-wrecks and share my jewels.

There is a whole life here on the ocean floor.

It clamors and calls and I can hear it all so clearly. I know the cries so well for I cried and called them all before.

Oh, the ocean floor has become my new home. I walk through the underground ghost-town and i wonder how long has the ocean floor been crying for?

Apparently cutting down on the Lyrica did nothing good for me. My pain level has been much more erratic, catching me by surprise and pushing me back into bed with a vengeance. I wanted to see how my body would respond with less Lyrica, the hope of one day getting pregnant pressing me to see if I can handle less medication. It seems that the answer is no. Since I have gone down on the Lyrica I have been needing to use my other meds more; Opium suppositories, Valium suppositories and Marijuana. I have been bed-ridden more often and have been less able to stick to plans. I will be going back up to 100mg of Lyrica 3 times a day. I hope that things even out again and that the increase in pain really is due to having decreased the Lyrica. I need by baseline back so that I can work on improving from there. So, it is me, Lyrica and Cymbalta 4ever. I sure hope not. Cymbalta leaves me awake, wide awake most nights. I prefer to not sleep then to go back  to the pain levels that tormented me before I got on Cymbalta. Damn though, it is really hard to not sleep.

I really hope that I will be able to handle the bus-rides to Waltham and the jewelry classes. I start two new jewelry classes this week. Last week I started a mosaic class and I could do it standing!
What can I say? It is very hard not being able to do the things that come to me so naturally. I know that I will be very good at working with the metals. I love delicate and precise art-work. But will I be able to handle the sitting pain? Will my pain spike and leave me searching for a place to lie down? Two friends of mine live walking distance from the school so this gives me a bit of a sense of security. I have to hope that my pain level will be under control again and that .....i so want to create and feel proud of myself and i so want to be able to enjoy creativity and creation again. The process of discovery has always touched my heart so deeply. Will I be able to enjoy????
Please, i pray. Staying at home in my room feels endless. Oh, please.

I wanted to go to Vilna Shul, to meet friends and to pray but my pain level spiked so sharp that instead I went to lie down and put not one but two Valiums up my private pussy kitten. I have to work on not adding depression onto pain, accepting that tonight is not the night for me to go out. It helps to be able to check in with the Pudendal Support Group on Facebook, to feel like I can hang out and communicate with a lot of others who understand my plight completely.

It is weird but I do have faith. I have faith that new medications and treatments will be developed. I have faith that more doctors will be hearing about our condition. I have faith that I can be part of this larger movement towards healing.

That of course does not mean that it is easy for me to get out of bed or to to do daily life activities. I went shopping with my mom and brother today and upon returning home made a quick dive for my bed. Damn was the knife sharp. Killing me. But I didn't get depressed about not being able to go out as I had hoped to. And I appreciated my friend's understanding. He told me to stay home so I did not have to feel that I let him down or disappointed him. It makes it easier when the people around me understand that I am trying my best. I am happy that though the pain was mad I stayed level-headed and just accepted that it would be another evening in my bedroom. It is okay. I can accept myself without judging myself or hating my body or pitying myself to tears. Equanimity is what I want in my life. Equanimity in the face of my own suffering.

I hope that I will be able to attend the jewelry classes that I signed up for. I better psyche myself up now for the possibility/probability of having to miss some classes. Remember Atara, don't get down on yourself. Try to listen to your body, accept, breathe....

I should be going to sleep cuz it is 3 in the morning. My circadian rhythms are so messed up and i am not helping them find peace and balance. I just wanted to write that I am happy that I have been talking more about my suicide attempt. I shared it on the facebook support group and i have told some new and dear friends about it too. I don't want it to be a secret. I want people to know that pudendal neuralgia can very easily lead to suicide. In fact one has to be very strong to not give in to the obsessive desire to die. Every day I remember that we are getting more help, that we are working towards getting doctors and surgeons involved in helping us. Every day, many times a day I remind myself that there are new interventions and new medications.

For those of you that are reading this and are struggling; the most important thing is to find a good doctor who understands the severity of this condition and wants to treat it. The pain has to be kept under control otherwise suicide becomes a very convincing route. I don't recommend it at all. We need every single one of you to voice this pain out loud and embodied. We need to create movement in the direction of healing.
And i have to go to bed. My sleep and my appetite are so messed up. And i am not helping at all. So, how can I help others if I am not helping myself?

Goodnight

And remember
suicide just is not the way
our way is hard
but we will have our victories

stay strong sisters
i am here for you

always praying

I want pictures
can't get myself to take them
to bring that red twisted wire to my room

feels like i can't do it alone
too heavy

i have plenty of time

but there are so many days when i feel that i am not moving forward

i move forward in my relationships, in my connections with people

that too is slow, though meaningful, deeply

things feel immovable

the weight of the pain always bearing down on me

clamping me down to now

the challenge of growing through the pain
my god, it is hard

try weaving meaning with a knife lodged between your legs

i weave meaning with a knife lodged between my legs!!!!!!!

Amazing!!!!

I must be a very talented acrobat.
In the world of souls i must be a brilliant and enlightened soul
Wouldn't i be deeply wise by now?

Huh, in this world i am disabled and enabled.
I see and know of a condition that others don't.
I speak and tell and prophesy

I will fight till the end!!!
I will uncover!!!
I will discover!!!

Damn,
the pain is tough now and i just don't feel like sticking opium up my butt or Valium up my vagina. If i smoke i won't sleep and i want to sleep.

Back too bed, to breathing deeply, deeply, deeply breathing...

Goodnight lovers
Goodnight friends

One day people will hear about this and we will get the help that we need and deserve. I swear that I am willing to suffer for this to happen.

I will fight!!!!!

And so must all of you.

Faith

Sometimes

i know

that

all of this

is my soul

yearning to grow

deeper

into the soul of the world

And though it hurts

And though i cannot make it go away

i know

that i can

help to make it heard

And so

i grow

into the soul of the world

and pray for all of us


angels
angels
by our side
come don't hide
angels
angels
by our side
with our wings flapping
and our hearts beating
we come to share
to tell
to scare

angels
angels
by our side
we come with faith
we come with fear
to teach to learn to heal

angels
angels
by your side

we come
we are here
we will not hide

Last night and today I felt an old familiar feeling
Something that I have not felt in a very long time
I wanted to hug the world
To hug it in all of its brokenness
To love it just the way it is

The pain

chains me down
and leaves me struggling my way back into bed
criticizing myself that on such a beautiful day I stay in bed
And i remember the walks
the walks of timeless suffering
trudging my way through the snow to physical therapy after a night of torture and torment
And i remember the walks with my father
every step as heavy as the guillotine and the noose

The sun shone
The trees were green
My father walked with me
I didn't want to see anyone
i knew that my eyes were empty
empty eyes

walking

into

timeless

suffering

so, today, i still stay in bed, resisting the fight to walk
i don't want to walk
i want to lay in bed and feel the pain and wish i was dead
and then when i get up and go out
i am revived from the dead
water fills my soul

And i know that i am alive and dead
that i walk and that i stay in bed
that i am still
struggling

Sometimes I am sure that I am giving in to the pain
That I am not fighting hard enough

I am not sure
I am just trying to survive
Life is so different then what it used to be

I just don't want to fight anymore
I want life

Come to me life
I have a heart full of hugs

Art

I want to focus on art now, on expressing what I can express through photography. My own art is doing well. I have made significant progress with my jewelry. I hope to take classes. I hope that physically my body will be able to handle the classes. I have made significant progress in terms of my body though that all disappears when my period comes around. Still, I have slowly cut down on the Lyrica and am not in more pain because of this. And I only use the Valium suppositories once in a while. I have marijuana now which makes me feel safe. So, I feel relatively protected. I can make times and dates. My pain level is usually stable. And I am doing wonderfully with my vibrator. Supposedly there is a new wand (for physical therapy) that vibrates. The vibrations are supposed to help desensitize the over sensitized nerves. So, in terms of my body, sure it is always a struggle to inhabit it. But, I could say that healing is the path that I am on. Yes, it is long, arduous, uncertain and definitely a roller-coaster.... but I can touch that word and relate to it. And breathe it deeply into my body, my soul.
Reclaiming my sexuality. Reclaiming my sensuality. Reclaiming my femininity. Art has a lot to do with this. Being able to express the losses helps me connect to the gains. Being able to express the terror helps me to feel the safety of where I am today. Safety in terms of no longer being mowed down the way that I used to be. And if I am mowed down, I know that I will make my way up. I won't stay down for months. I already know that I improved from a place that I was certain I would never be able to.

So, now I find things and they seem to be calling me. "Here, I am here for you. Use me. Take what you need. Do what you have to do." And so I take wires and large pieces of metal and an ironing board. The wires are light though they do not look light and they are painted red. I will be tied down with them. The metal pieces are the stakes that were lodged in me. They are perfect. Sadly, I could even insert them into myself. I plan to be nude, stark naked. The truth. The soft body chained and coiled, clamped, burnt... My art is not about healing. It is about pain and suffering that has no visual context, that is invisible, that goes unheard, unseen. My art wants to show you so that you will not be able to turn your head away and tell me to leave your office cuz "it is in your head." Or because you don't care enough to try to learn and figure it out. You won't be able to turn your head and to say that it did not happen. You will not remain silent and stupid in the face of my suffering and destruction.

Stark Naked
Vagina
Legs Open Wide
Maybe I am crazy
But I was this way long before pudendal neuralgia
I always tell the truth and I was never afraid to tell you it is Ugly if that is what I saw
No, I might be sweet but I am not diplomatic about the things that I believe in

I don't know if my voice will ever be heard
But I have to try
I will send the pictures to all the gynecologists who saw me.
I dare them
I dare them to tell another woman that it is in her head.

I have a lot to express. And I have a lot of ideas. And I have a junk-yard full of everything that I need.

So, there is work ahead. And I hope that I will be able to put something meaningful and powerful together. I am not afraid to touch the pain that way. I want to.
It is part of my healing path. And my journey is still so long...

More honesty?

More honesty?
It is my blog so i guess that i can self-indulge

my father had a severe panic attack this morning
which freaked me out
and later started a flood of crying on my part
the terror and pain of losing him the way that i almost did
never goes away

pops, i love you
pops, i hope that i am a good daughter to you
pops i am so so sorry that you suffer so much

pops i need you

if you give up
i will drown

love to you all
i wish that i could spread love like sparkles

i am still three
i believe in feathers
and sparkles
and shells

and in my father
when i was three i could fall asleep on his chest

and there was no better place to be

when abba came home today from all his medical appointments i sat with him on the sofa and rested my head on his chest.

He is still here. And it still feels like the right place to be. Only today, i know that abba can dissappear and that is very very scary.

Angels, angels by our side
come
don't hide
angels, angels by our side

tomorrow will be a better day

maybe abba will sleep tonight

I was broken that I would never marry
that i would never make love to a man again
that i would never bear a child

that i would be dependent and in bed and on endless medication all the time

this proved to be untrue
my life is much richer then this
sometimes i just seem to sink
to sink right back into the pit of fear
it feels like i am being sucked into it
that i have no control over it
i lose faith that i will ever live a "normal" life again. And clearly I won't.
And I lose faith that i still have time to have a baby
with a man that i will love deeply, of course

And then I remember how when I was dying on the inside I was certain that I would never be able to sleep with a man again. And I remind myself that I can. And I feel certain that I will be happy and that it be will be healing.

So, I already gained more then I thought I could.

So, there is always more ahead and we can't know what the future will bring.

So here I am. Eight in the morning. Fourth night of insomnia. Pretending to be normal??
But I am not pretending. Not at all. I just feel that it is healing. And healing is number one on my list. And who knows what triumphs of spirit are yet to come!!!!!

Can you hear the trumpets??
They sound a little low today
they seem a little sad
Can you hear the trumpets?
They sound like they are mourning
Heavy and slow and low

Yeah, sometimes I feel like I am pretending. Pretending to be normal. But what can I do? I don't look sick. You can't see suffering etched into my face. You can see sad eyes. So it isn't me that is pretending. I just have to tell you my story slowly, cuz it hurts so much and I don't want to be hurt more.

Like feeling like a fraud, like if anyone knew how hard my life is they would run away and they should run away.

Why can't i think positive? Why can't i think that having a loving partner could help me heal further? Why not see this as another step towards my own wholeness. I guess that thinking like that is when it starts becoming love. And it takes time to get to know someone. Not forever, but time spent together.
So, i guess it is fear. That same familiar fear that i have had since age 17, that I will never marry.

My God help.

I really need to sleep.

And sleeping in someone else's arms might help me sleep

Love you beautiful
Hey gorgeous

The truth

As much as i don't want to admit it to myself
every day is a battle with depression
sometimes i win the battle and then i almost believe that the war is over
many times i lose the battle and then i know that i battle every day
there are simply days that i battle so well that i almost believe i am well
and then when i fall again
it is because i know that the war is far away from over
and that the rest of my life pife (at first i just wrote pife by mistake, then i thought that i should keep it)
so, as i was saying, that for the rest of my pife pife (woops, meant to write life pife)
ooooookay, so that for the rest of my pife pife i will be in battle

but does anyone know what a pife pife is????

Humor
when i laugh i remember that i haven't lost
that i am still fighting
still wining
when i am patient with people and friendly to people
i know that i am still living my pfe pife

shit, that typo really changed it, so where do i go from here
it feels so academic and scientific now

the pfe pife

is it still my o pfe pife?

will i have ever get my pife pife back??

and if i get  my pife pife back

will i then get my life pife back

so, as you see i am trying very hard to get my life back

i will come back to you later


nuts


are


yummy


so, kissing
that is what i did today
after three days of depression
i went kissing
we saw a man fishing
and heard a turtle swimming
and we really enjoyed kissing

so, it is still life
and i am still fighting
beating the waves

i told him that i don't feel female
that i don't feel human sometimes

and he bluntly explained to me that i am still human
and that i am definitely still female

he had a very confident voice when he said that
there was no need for further clarification
he was simply informing me of the very obvious
yes, i was clearly female
in fact i was a beautiful and sexy female
there was not an inkling of doubt there either

in fact i managed to feel the sexy me breathing the broken pieces together
yes, i could be sexy and beautiful

and he made certain that i feel that
very female
beauti...

full
and maybe i know it
that i still look the way that she did

that men still explore her body with their eyes

but i can't feel it
i can't feel her

until i am reminded that i am still female

to me, i am shattered bits and pieces
broken goods
a burden
a disabled person

oh, and i how i feared that i had lost, would never know again intimacy with a man

i knew that i would love
i knew that i would be wanted
but what happens when you tell the man you love that....

my body is twitching just with the thought
i can feel the energy throw itself around within me

and so i let go
and stay afloat

trying to believe what other people tell me i am

brave, beautiful, wise, strong

and i look at myself
"fakakt!" - do you remember what that means, it means worthless in Yiddish, no longer working, a left over that drags along behind and keeps the clan from moving forward
the pitied ones

the feared ones

why do so many people run away from suffering?
and, i breathe deeply because there is so much pain there
and the energy is lashing through my body

mmmm, your lips are delicious

can i stop myself from wanting to live?
can i give myself a chance?

deep breath cuz this battle scares me

my friends say that it will be a cinch
that i can do it
that of course i will be a mother and a wife
that no doubt that i will have children

Liati said, if not you then who? regarding having children.
Dganit said that finding a man will be a cinch for me
And a long time back Donna said that the man that will get me, pain and all will be a prince.

These are my three wise friends that protect me and battle by my side all along the way
they can feel me from far away
and this makes me cry because i miss them so much and i feel them so strongly

i am not alone in my battle
there are people that are not afraid to battle with me
And I am crying as i write this

And I breath cuz i can feel how my whole body tenses up
and then i can feel the pain
like a block that has taken over my body

can you imagine a block taking over your body
ripping through the soft parts
to reach the shape that it wants
regardless of the pain that it is causing

pain that made me suicidal and ready to believe that there was a reason that my life would have to end with my own hands
as foreign and as unreal as that felt to me

i was beginning to promise myself that i would no longer allow myself  to suffer like this

and that it was time for the people who loved me
and for my cat who loved me and loves me deeply!
to release me, to let me go
to understand that it was time to let me go cuz i couldn't take the devastation anymore

i am still here
so i guess that i am still human, still female

still alive

not sure why,
but there are so many people rooting for me that i can't just give up

and as painful as it is
and as painful as it is for them to feel me suffer
somehow they have this voice that keeps telling me that of course i can do it, that i am amazing

i don't know what is so amazing about someone who couldn't take the pain anymore and went to kill herself?

i don't feel courageous
i did not feel courageous those two and half weeks in the hospital

i felt terrified and anxious to a ...

they kept on calling me
and elisheva
and noam, my younger brother who is in England

and they just knew that i would be fine
liati said that if i would have died it would have been just a mistake, it would not have been right

today we kissed at the lake
and i shed two quick tears for the girl who was there
for the girl that had lost hope
for the girl that was broken
that had given up

that had been so brave
broke
and shattered to a million pieces

to wake up in the hospital with my two parents at my side
after a night of watching me sleep
unconscious
praying that my liver would not be damaged
that i would wake up

and i was awake the whole time
my heart was
i knew i wasn't going anywhere
and my mom said that she knew that i would be fine
she says she knew that my liver would be fine

ten years ago, more like twelve years they both sat by my bed
while i was almost dying from malaria
it was faster then
my life was saved quickly. six days in the hospital and I had my body back.

this time around it is very different
they knew that i was dying
they were watching me die

and i think to myself how hard it must to be a parent

and i know how hard it is to lose a parent

i almost lost my dad

he tried to slit his wrist
and he swallowed all his pills

so, i know how painful it is to almost lose my father, to pray and cry alone in the little guest room in the hospital, to go and check every few minutes with a friendly smile so that the nurse won't yell at me for bothering him

and then just lying in his chest, glued to his body, feeling like we were one

and watching him wake up
and asking him questions to see if his brain is okay
and trying to understand what he is saying
and laughing with joy when he is coherent
and his sense of humor is strong
and he smiles a lot
and he is very happy and grateful that i am with him

and then being moved to another floor on the hospital and having young beautiful doctors check on him all the time, and i am so grateful to them, they are so kind and compassionate and they are so non-judgmental
in times like that, they look like angels
they very clearly are angels

dressed in blue

and then we moved to the psychiatric ward and that was a completely different world. As though it were a different hospital,,,,filthy,

we met David there, he was a sweet boy and he liked my father a lot. He spent a lot of time with my father there.

And then the second hospitalization. He looked as though he was becoming catatonic and that was very scary for me.

We prayed together on Friday nights, we sang and ate challah and wine

And the third hospitalization. Newton Wellesley hospital, where I had been. So, I had to go back there to visit him and see all the same people that I saw when I was there, fragile and broken. And it was so easy to see the angels and to tell the difference from them there.

Though angels must get angry and frustrated too. The work is hard.

And I don't know why I had to fall this far.

But i do know that the angels are calling me from all sides.

Angels

i think i understand angels for the first time in my life

Are they like Jesus?
Do they suffer for the sake of others?

I don't believe that.
So where are those magical angels?

mmm, i guess i do have a lot of magical angels all around me
and they are all so different

and i know that they don't deserve to suffer
so

god

just does not make sense to me

But i think that the Jewish God is different then that. Because the Jewish God well, the Jewish God gets angry a lot, feels betrayed often, almost divorces 'his people'. It is the people that have to be loyal to HIM and to only him otherwise very bad things will happen to them. EEEEeeeeeeek. So, those that suffer are actually sinners who are receiving their payment now. That doesn't work for me either. So, what kind-of God could it possibly be?

It could be the potential for beautiful Sabbaths with delicious food and singing, gratitude, respect and devotion. We are supposed to be married to this God. And divorce is not much of a possibility. Though God could disown you if he wanted to.

Of course, first let's put everything in its correct place. This is clearly a patriarchy with very set rules and codes of ethics. Commitment, loyalty to One God was the first precipice for this faith. It was a must, a rule that could not be broken. There is only One God and that is the Jewish God. That does not work for me either.

So, maybe what they were trying to say was that there was Unity, that everything is God, and that this is the Jewish God that we believe in. We believe in Unity of all things. We believe in love and justice. We believe in compassion and mercy and wisdom. We believe that everything is one and that all these qualities and energies are what create Unity and are what can give us a sense of Godliness, can bring us closer to God. And these things are feeding the hungry, helping the widow, greeting and accepting the stranger, loving God and having Faith in His Divine Goodness.

My father loves Judaism so deeply. I wish he could explain to me what he loves so much about Judaism. My mother also loves Judaism. And so did both of my grandmothers. Each one loved it very differently. There was definitely love and respect there.

All that my father's mother wanted was that I marry a good Jewish boy. She said that the problem was that i was too beautiful. That was why i wasn't getting married.

My mother's mother was absolutely gorgeous in such a natural and delicate way. She was married at the age of 12 to 14 and widowed at a young age. She said that all men are men. They are endless in the ocean and there is no rush to catch one. No rush at all, unless you wanted a baby, of course. And babies were always wanted in my grandmother's house.

So, i have also learnt to love Judaism because there is so much wisdom there, there is so much depth and wisdom there. It is like an endless fountain because we passed that love successfully from generation to generation. I am not sure how. My father's father was not a nice man. He had a temper and apparently showed no affection to my father. Ow, how sad that is for a father to not love his son. My father loves his son. My father could not not love us. He just loved us. It was simple and easy for him to love us. But he never learnt to love himself. He identified with Judaism so much that it almost became himself. He loved Yeshiva with a passion. He loved the debating and the closeness with his yeshiva-mates.

My father seems to think that the only part of his brain that he can use is the rational one. So, of course the Torah makes no sense. It was written by a lot of different people at different times. How could anyone believe that this book was given exactly as it was given to the people, our ancestors.

So, I have divinely revealed a lot of information about my family. I am sure that this is too much information for my family. But If my blog is to be real then I have to let my hair down.

I do believe in prayer. And I believe in love. And I know that there are magical times and times that feel...pregnant with meaning and love.

And so here I am
And my angels are cheering me on

And I don't want to stop writing cuz then reality will step in
and it is the fourth night of sleeplessness
and i don't want another day of depression
and morning is coming soon and soon i will feel miserable and exhausted and anxious and worthless cuz

no,no,no
tomorrow will be a better day

that is what they say in Israel "yehiye tov", it will be good, in the future it will be good, people consoled each other that way when times were hard.

Why is there senseless killing? And rape and murder and genocides and killer ants?
Why is there all of that??

I cannot get a straight answer to that. God kind-of does the disappearing act when i ask that. Jewish God, Christinina,  muhammad, jesus, david, saul and jonathan. cain and abel, two brothers, one killed the other.

That is intense. That is how the Bible starts with murder within a family.
and we learn from this. To be better people, ...

A leap of faith could get us a God to believe in

I don't know. I see the people "of faith", some of them have lost it all together.

So what does a warrior know.
How to hide and come out in surprise to beat his enemy

And in the time of the Bible there were a lot of enemies. And the Jews were slaves. They worked hard. The Egyptians worked them hard and did not give them time to rest or to recover.

From their suffering into the desert they went. In the desert there was barely water and the people were very thirsty. Some of them said that it would have been better if they had stayed in Egypt. Here they would perish. At least in Egypt they had food and water.

And then the two portions fell from the sky on the Sabbath. And the people did not have to work, they could rest on the Sabbath. But those who collected more than two were reprimanded and their food that fell from the sky spoiled.

Fair enough. They learnt their lesson. Next time they would not be greedy and they would not disobey the commands that God sets.

There are so many ups and downs. The relationship between God and Us, Israel is so rocky. So many times it feels like God is angry and jealous and resentful and stubborn. And he takes innocent lives for minor misdemeanors.

And i thought that my life had been one big mistake, that I was being punished by God for not having stayed by my parents side, closer to God, maybe i would have gotten married, by now i would have four or five children. And I would be happy. No suffering.
Instead I had to go "sleep around", travel the world, go to the army, be with stupid men

So that is why God would punish me?
No sense, right?
Ridiculous.
I felt like I was going insane, losing it
remember, losing it from the pain

losing your mind from pain
and your entire life to pain

again, i was no one's sacrifice

But God's???

My Goddess was smarter. She waited for me by the fire and massaged my body and told me that I would come out of this a healer

that one day i would replace her and help heal those that suffered like me
cuz I know deep into God's raw flesh
what it feels like to beg God to take me, to let me die already

and I have to believe and to connect to that faith that i am still obliged to the world
that i am still of value to the world. I have to fight for that. Or so I feel. That I owe it to my soul and to a lot of women. Because I can and because someone has to.

But is that just the little dreamer girl in me that had faith in her ability to heal. Over-faith. I thought and felt that I was deeply connected to God. Sometimes I felt that I was one with God. I was young to be having such spiritual experiences, though spirituality was not foreign to me because I was part of an Orthodox congregation growing up. But, I also think that I felt helpless so often as a child, helpless in the face of all the fighting and the anger and the silences that were home. I tried the best I could to bring harmony, peace but I also filled myself with anger at having had a rotten childhood. So later, all the peace and harmony that I "brought" as a child (amazing report cards. that wasn't their fault. i loved to study. loved it and i had passionate and loving teachers) i ended up resenting them, blaming them for a lot of things, angry at their anger, at their avoidance and denial and meanness to each other. I didn't want to come home anymore.

And here I am. An angel brought me home. And home has only gotten worse. So, as a child I created for myself fantasies of  going to the lands where children were dying and saving them. Why not, it makes sense. If i can't save my family and myself well then surely i will be able to save the starving in Africa. And I lived my little fantasies and once again later on, blamed my parents for having made me a dreamer (i had to escape to somewhere that harmony and peace could exist in. they have been banned from this house since the start). For having gone to Africa and India and South America, for
having wanted to be far from them. So, it was their fault that I was suffering now.

Really, anger does not make sense. It is such a destructive force/energy and people literally get addicted to it in the same way that they become addicted to narcotics or drugs. Addicted to the feeling. That is my older brother. It is scary to watch him get angry.

I hear the dog barking. I miss my cat

It is better to be a Buddhist and to connect to the Oneness through  compassion and love.

By the way that line before the last one was my piece of Zen Wisdom for the night.
You may close your prayer books and begin to meditate.
Be patient, sit, don't react, listen to your breath, ...

Buddhism is a gem.

Judaism and Buddhism go hand in hand. Now that is something to be proud of! I don't know what Buddhism thinks of Judaism. But our ability to embrace another faith system so openly and naturally says something about where we find and seek wisdom. And Buddhism is definitely a treasure box of spirituality and depth.

And compassion. So much compassion.

For ourselves

for our healing battling loving female selves

Damn, now how hard is that. Try being compassionate to yourself when you are in pain for two years. You lie down next to yourself and love yourself and support yourself and encourage yourself. You teach yourself and slowly one piece connects to another, and then another to another...until
...two years! And I am just at the beginning of healing.

May we stay strong and loving and fierce for each other.

To life.

Le-Chaim!