Alone Together
in total vulnerability
openness spread across your face
how can I resist
I am powerless
before such love
before your open heart
and yet you have to go
live life in your world
after all
though we share so much
we remain alone
we make love,
or not,
no matter
our foundation
is deep and strong
how can it be that
our two bodies
though sometimes
joined in union
remain separate
paradoxically
keeping us apart
how can it be that
our bodies
will break my heart
in the end
for we will die
alone
how can it be that
our bodies
vessels of union
will keep us apart
that one day two hearts
that beat as one
will leave this bodily union
alone
Death cannot sever
our binding bond
though it rips us
asunder
(Dedicated to Thomas, my husband of almost 25 years, with all I have to give)
Prayer of Despair
Oh God,
where art thou?
I feel Thee not near me
clouds obscure Thy light
fields lie barren like my soul
Love was in my heart
but I feel it not
all is obscured
Pain and illness
shroud all light
in shadows of darkness
joy but a faint memory
as the mountains
in the grey distance
hope is out of season
bountiful is despair
a sin
yes
I sin the sin of darkness
and wish I could blend
into the greyness
and retire
into nothingness
Oh God,
forgive my ingratitude
for my many blessings
now shrouded in the night
so I can no longer see
Come to me
breathe life into my soul again
and let me see Thy Light
let me see love again
it was there
how does it seem to vanish
and take with it all hope
for why else is there to live?
The Spiders’ Secret
A chill wind blows the yellowing leaves off the trees. They drift down to the ground like giant snowflakes. The air is pregnant with the feel of the coming holidays. Fall has truly come, with the sudden drop in temperatures, a full 10-20 degrees cooler than a few weeks ago. This is the real Fall, no faltering Fall, but a Fall that will guide us appropriately into winter. November appears as a mirror image of March with its vibrant color of decay, while March is the decaying color of about-to-burst-forth Spring.
The birds are at the bird feeder all the time now. They are not stopped by our presence when we come to fill the feeder or blow leaves under it. Nothing stops them. They swoop around the feeder and the surrounding trees like Kamikaze pilots, darting here and there recklessly. The squirrels are in a frenzy as well, stock piling acorns and walnuts which they will retrieve without fail in a month or so in a snow-covered land.
To me, the trees are most beautiful at this time of year, when many of them are bare and a scattering of leaves remain on dark brown branches. The leaves that remain quiver daintily in their precarious positions on the tree limbs. Yet these are the survivors. The other leaves have fallen and gone the way all living things eventually go. Most trees have lost all their leaves and they stand in stark contrast against the blue sky, the stormy sky, the grey sky. But I find them most beautiful against the night sky, with arms reaching up to the darkness, trying to touch the stars twinkling between the branches, as moonlight dances on their limbs.
November holds the last glimmer of color. A carpet of yellow lines the woods now– and one can see inside the woods that are so dark and impenetrable in summer. Some forests have carpets of oak leaves– dark brown tan in color. Others are paved with variegated colors– vibrant crimsons against yellows and faded greens and tawny tans. The un-mown lawns are now taken over by the spiders covering the fields. At precious moments, one can see a world of webs that only appears in a certain slant of sunlight and reveal a silent take-over by the spiders in webs that sparkle secretly, mirroring the infinite web of creation.
The yellow, brown, and crimson leaves are complemented by the ubiquitous yellow, brown and crimson mums that appear on the roadside near mail boxes, on porches or along driveways. These tough little flowers withstand frosty chills and stand tall throughout most of November– hearty, generous souls, so giving in their colorful, velvety splendor.
Halloween pumpkins begin to sag a bit or shine with wetness as if encased in glass. They will soon be tossed– pine combs, wreaths and fir swags to take their places, and the season of lights will begin. Anticipation hangs in the air. Autumn seems the fastest season to come and go. I try treasuring each moment, but the minute/hours/days just sift through my fingers like so many grains of sand. Then Christmas/Hanukkah comes and fades in a flash and we are into the Nor’Easter blizzards of January. Another year is gone and a new one has come. Would that we could be in forever in the season of love, but it is also a season of loneliness and loss and darkness. It is good we are defenseless against time.
Now, at Thanksgiving, it is our time to give thanks. Inspired by the Native Americans, let us thank the earth. Let us give thanks to the trees for their constantly changing beauty, to the stars for their piercing presence in the night sky, to the leaves for their inspiring colors, to the sun for its life-giving power. Let us thank the Spring for its awakening hope, the Summer for its warm, thriving growth, the Fall for its beauteous bounty, to the Winter for a time of renewal. Let us thank the soon-to-come snow for its hushed, white silence that transforms our world, to all the animals for their pure souls, to our families and friends for their precious love, and, lastly, but mostly, to the Higher Power of our belief for the macrocosm of creation.
Happy Thanksgiving and may you each be blessed with the all-embracing, pervasive, pulsating Love in Nature.
Interview with Slade Suiter of Authenticity Radio on Being Bipolar and Asperger’s
“http://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?autoplay=false&episode_id=3642270”
An Overdue Thank You!
“Love cannot be had for the asking; it comes only as a gift from the heart of another”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
And so I am sending my love to you whoever YOU are reading this right this moment. More than a year has gone by that I have had this blog and I am only just now thanking you all for reading my posts. If they have touched you I am grateful. And I am grateful for all the “likes” and comments– but mostly for just reading my thoughts. It is humbling. Indeed this whole process has been humbling. Not in the way one might expect, reading other people’s blogs and finding people far more talented in writing, photography and painting, though that is certainly the case. I was and am humbled by finding people who have a closer relationship to God, more faith than I probably ever will know. I am humbled by finding people who are more giving than I, despite often challenging circumstances. I am humbled by finding people who are seriously physically ill and yet full of more courage than I will ever feel- people who are handicapped and in pain yet vibrant and alive and more full of beauteous poetry, song, art. I have found poets, healers, shamans, photographers, writers, artists, philosophers, teachers, animal activists, homeless advocates, and preachers. I would list the people but I don’t want to cause embarrassment or an invasion of privacy. You know who you are. We have exchanged words.
I started this blog to showcase my book on how I found love despite being Bipolar and having Asperger’s— it was written to offer hope to those who are loveless and have given up on finding the right someone. But this blog took on a life of its own, viewed 9,031 times with 1,301 comments. It allowed me to showcase my photography and write about, yes, mental illness, but also animal rights and the nature and wildlife preservation, and it brought forth hundreds of poems as I prayed to God to use my fingers. But most of all, it brought YOU into my life and in so doing enriched me. And for that I thank you, all of you, for all of you have been great teachers in the lessons of life.
The Web of Fears
Caught in a web of fears
full of wet tangled tears
been this way for years
of course there are triggers
that make fears look bigger
but it is hard to figure
a way out of negativity
a way back to levity
and to my old productivity
it is hard enough to fight
the dramas of mind with my might
without succumbing to fright
about losing you
tis true
fighting at once the physical and the mental
is far too much for a mind balanced so gentle.
Instinct vs. Love
(Click on photo for video)
“Instinct”
they say condescendingly
but it is not.
“Anthroprophism”
they argue
but it is not.
Science now knows
animals show altruism,
animals show love,
elephants, dogs, dolphins…
“Love” they say reverently for man
but it is and is not
Science now knows
hormones course through our bodies,
Oxytocin they say,
I say how clinical,
a dissection of love
for man
and
animals.
A Hug Without Arms
Do they think because
we have no arms
we do not hug?
Do they think because
we have smaller brains
we do not love?
*
We hug
neck to neck,
chest to chest,
coat to coat,
in a warm embrace
of pure love,
a love as pure
as theirs,
perhaps more so.
*
They think
we do not love
because it makes it easier
for them to drug us
for so-called sports,
for their so-called fun,
and race us past injury,
and, yes, they even kill us
for their gustatory pleasure.
*
All we want to do
is love our families
and run free.
But we are willing
to serve them
if they treat us right.
*
Now I ask you:
who here is superior?
“Couldn’t Look Away” – Book review by Alistair McHarg of “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things”
I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone interested in psychological exploration – from clinicians to self-diagnosticians to concerned family members to lovers of extraordinary tales well told.
Do not imagine that this is a lesson-plan about Bipolar Disorder, or Asperger’s Syndrome, for that matter. On the contrary, we see Ms. Wolfe wrestling with a panoply of symptoms residing on different points of a spectrum – we never know exactly where we are, and neither does Ms. Wolfe. We get first person, real-time intimacy – the raw data, not the spin.
Asperger’s, autism, schizophrenia, paranoia, mania, depression, and challenging questions of gender identity blur back and forth until one is overpowered by the sense of a shape-shifting, ghostly enemy. We witness Ms. Wolfe inaccurately interpreting social cues the way an anthropologist might puzzle over artifacts from an alien civilization.
The writing is austere, elegant, forceful and almost chillingly honest. There is not an ounce of self-pity to be found, or self-aggrandizement. Serious students of these illnesses could hardly find a more useful document because – using meticulous diaries she kept through the years – Ms. Wolfe has made scrupulous accuracy her battle cry.
From very early on I found myself caring about what happened to Ms. Wolfe, wanting to know more. I sensed sweetness, innocence, and vulnerability – and that made me want to protect her. Consequently, the dread I felt as I watched her struggle with her own mind – and the outside world – created the tension of real drama. One would have to be a cold fish indeed to not suffer along with her as she trudges ahead with heroic determination.
Ms. Wolfe has achieved something quite remarkable. She has applied the direct simplicity of science to a human ordeal and, in the process, accomplished what art does, when it is at its very best. She has fearlessly and generously taken us into her world and – in doing so – enriched us all.
Alistair McHarg
Love Surpasses All
A former New York Times columnist and bestselling New York Times author, Andrew Solomon, gives a very moving account of how parental love surpasses all manner of diversity in their children. The first few minutes are scary as he quotes an article from Time Magazine from the 60s. Don’t let that throw you off the beautiful message of acceptance of handicaps and the contribution of those children who are different from a man who is himself a minority and different.
The Stealth Kiss
Unseen by a background of fellow flowers
he rushed towards her purple petals
to plant the blossom of her bosom
with a kiss
when
blew a breeze
that steathily stole his kiss,
before she ever knew, sending it wafting
above the treetops to the forever fields of lost loves.
Hooked
You hooked me,
twenty-eight years ago,
with your shy smile
and elusive ways.
I was scared
but you were more so
which made me brave.
I would I had known you all my life
(or even before)
but I feel/felt like I had
although it took years for me to find you.
With your rough hewn edges
you taught me to speak up
when before I spoke not.
I have learned to take care
because you have taught me to dare
and today on our 24th wedding memory,
despite our little irritations and frustrations
as an old married couple,
I am hook-line-and-sinker-
in-love-with-you,
and want to use what time is left
together
to bring one and other to God.
Two Lips of Forever Love
He didn’t “get it,
the “loss thing,”
when my aunt died mid-April,
and I lost my second mother.
Didn’t “get it” when I lost my first.
This was not the only time
he was lost in oblivion and
puzzled by my tears.
*
He didn’t see me hurting
from the loss of my lineage,
and his lack of empathy for my grief
as he made me meet and greet
a friend the next day, as if all was normal.
This time I balked, bolder and older,
and he agreed it was time to ponder
and talk with his mentor.
*
When he came home
one night days later,
full of hugs of apology,
and tulips on the kitchen counter,
it was a breakthrough for us both.
It took a few days
but what came out
brought tears upon tears.
*
Not having grown up
with emotional displays
he didn’t “get” the meaning of loss.
With no models of grief
he didn’t know how to feel it himself
nor how to give solace,
not just lip service,
to those who had lost.
*
I cried for him.
How very sad, as a child
he didn’t know the love I knew.
He, a sensitive child,
in an icebox family
fraught with frigid emotion,
and warm, deep affection only
from his great-aunt, Dot.
*
He brought me pink tulips,
flowers of a contrite heart,
and held me close
and kissed me
with lips full of apologies
but I was the one
who felt sorry for him
for the years he knew not love.
*
Twenty-eight years ago
God told me “Love this man,
trust him and have faith in him,
and hold him to your heart.”
Many moons later, I love him light-years
more than the day we met
and in then-unimaginable ways
has our love strove for the stars.
*
He has brought me:
kindness and gentleness,
generosity of spirit,
goodness of heart,
and healing humor.
What I have taught him:
the glories of love
and agony of loss.
*
From the beginning
the seed of love was sown
for better or worse
deeply within the parched,
but fertile soil of my imperfect heart.
And he has cultivated the growth
of a stalwart, staid evergreen,
amid the blooming two-lips of forever love.
Vibratory Connections
The reverberations of love
jump across time and space
to another receptive heart.
The reverberations of suffering
resound around the earth
picked up by open souls in prayer.
The reverberation of aum
sacred sound of the universe
pulses through meditating mind.
Love brings the possibility of loss
suffering brings a totality of pain
Aum brings the reality of God within.
The Line is Dead
She’s finally gone
after fighting for life for
6 months of painful half-life
and multiple causes of death.
*
Gone is my last link
with Grandma and Grandpa
and happy days in Larchmont,
Grandpa playing the mandolin,
me dancing,
and Grandma cooking
unimaginable treats.
Happy days in Larchmont,
the Larchmont one weekend
Aunt Nina and I revisited
with our respective spouses
and cried tears of nostalgia.
*
Aunt Nina died Saturday,
the last of the LaMannas,
the aunt who knit the best-ever
Christmas stockings for
my brother and sister and me
which I still drag out every year.
The aunt who let me
play with her jewelry
in her blue bedroom
in Larchmont
with light that slid in
through the venetian blinds
and danced a jitterbug
atop Renoir prints,
with twin beds
covered in puff-ball bed spreads,
kept so clean by Grandma and
Aunt Nina wanting to sleep
and me pestering her to play.
*
Aunt Nina took me home once by taxi,
back to the city I hated
when I was sick.
She nursed me on the ride
And said “hang in there”
and held my hand
as I said to her a month ago
as she lay shriveled into a ghost
of her former self.
*
Gone are the days
of spaghetti and meatballs,
Arancini and sugar cookies,
wine and mandolin,
chewing gum in the desk,
watching at the windows
with Grandpa, as evening
fell all around.
Days of Big Grandma Castiglione
in her light-filled, white-tiled,
lace-curtained, one-room apartment,
with holy water font
and the smell of steam
in the yellow kitchen.
*
Gone are the days of
visiting Nina as she raised
her two “adopted angels”
as they were called,
and, who, with my uncle, she crafted
into two magnificent children
and later had four grandchildren
who adored them both.
Larchmont repeated.
*
Gone are the days of
visiting Aunt Nina in Kent, CT
and later in Danbury,
now much older and
with my husband whom
Aunt Nina and Uncle Ray
welcomed with open arms
and grew to love,
my husband of almost 24 years
who never knew this love as a child
and so does not know its loss.
*
Gone are the days
of a phone call
every few weeks,
Aunt Nina always seeming
happy to hear my voice as
she exclaimed “Ellen!”
as we talked about problems:
difficulties in the best of marriages
the downhill spiral of my Mom
after Dad died,
Nina giving support while
my husband and I cared for Mom
during her difficult path to death,
Aunt Nina listening to me recount
the downhill spiral of my brother
as he spent 3 years
dying of lung cancer.
And we talked of our
problems with anxiety
and later of her sorrow and fears
as her friends were dying
and she was fighting Parkinson’s,
bravely shouldering through every day.
*
Gone are the days
of pasta salads and olives
and prosciutto and provolone
as Aunt Nina and Uncle Ray
visited our little barn upstate,
where we laughed and laughed
in the Memorial Days sunshine.
*
Gone gone gone
my Italian heritage,
the last of my blood elders.
Aunt Nina was there
For 63 years,
All of my life
and all I can do
is cry
and try
to imitate
her admirable character.
For the Lord giveth and
the Lord taketh away
but why such pain
when he taketh away?
*
Because love grew
year by year
visit by visit
phone call by phone call.
I did thank her,
before the end began,
in a foresightful note,
telling how great an aunt she was.
God put the thought in my head,
and for that I am grateful,
for now it is too late
for now the line is dead.
Within Blue Prison Walls…
love happens
hugs and kisses
within the pen.
Love triumphant
over blue confinement.
“Let’s Just Hold Hands”
They have been married for 52 years.
Now she is in rehab
on a feeding tube,
a phantom of her former self,
so frail.
And he is hail
for her.
He says to her:
“Let’s not talk about the past.
Let’s not talk about the future.
Let’s just sit here and hold hands.”
And so they sat for three hours
until the darkness fell.
Now or Never
Fri., October 28, 1977
I hardly sleep at all. Ever since yesterday I am totally confused. I am no longer sure that Danielle is interested. Danielle talks again to the department head. She says something about love in a very loud voice to catch my attention. I am so upset and nervous that I don’t hear what she is saying. All I can make out are individual words: “she . . . love . . . candy.” Then when I walk by her desk she gives me a big smile. I am panicked. I don’t know what she is smiling about. Was I supposed to hear what she was saying? Did I miss my cues? I am somewhat cold and distant because of her statement yesterday. I ignore Danielle and she runs out of the office and goes to the ladies room. I follow her in there and see she is crying. “What is wrong?” I ask, wanting to throw my arms around her and comfort her but I don’t have the courage to do it.
Danielle says, “Ellen, please just leave me alone.”
I am panicked. I go over to the department head in desperation and ask, “What is wrong with Danielle? She’s in the ladies room crying.”
Sheila says, “Oh, she’s upset because they’re reducing the retirement benefits.”
I think she is lying. I don’t know what is going on. I tell Yvonne I think people are lying to me. Everyone is all upset. I overhear Dr. Lencek, the medical cataloguer who trained as a psychiatrist, say that I am a troublemaker and a flirt. I want to say I am not. I am desperate. I leave a note on Danielle’s desk when she is not there saying, “Don’t you know I can’t hear or see when I am so nervous? I am sorry.” I hear Yvonne say, “It sounds like a heart-felt apology.” But Danielle shows no response. I feel rejected again and go home in a panic. Now I have really made a mess of things. Everyone seems to know what is going on except me. I have made a scene with the head of the department. I have hurt Danielle’s feelings. They think I am playing games and hurting Danielle’s feelings. Am I? I don’t know. I don’t know why I turn so cold and hard at times. Yvonne, Dr. Lencek, Nina— they all seem to want me to love Danielle. I have to do something. No sleep now.
I close the diary after reading Friday’s entry. Joey was so negative about the whole thing I didn’t dare tell him all this and I certainly didn’t dare ask him what I should do. Why hadn’t I been able to explain the whole story to Joey?
YOU WERE TOO NERVOUS. YOU COULDN’T THINK STRAIGHT. JOEY JUST DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THIS KIND OF THING. YOU HAVE REJECTED DANIELLE A FEW TIMES NOW. AND NOW SHE IS REALLY GOING TO THINK YOU ARE PLAYING GAMES. YOU MADE DANIELLE CRY. DANIELLE WASN’T CRYING ABOUT THE RETIREMENT BENEFITS. GET REAL. YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT NOW. IT’S CLEAR YOU HAVE TO FORCE YOURSELF TO COME CLEAN TO DANIELLE. YOU HAVE TO PROVE TO DANIELLE YOU’RE NOT PLAYING GAMES. YOU HAVE TO SHOW HER YOU WERE JUST SCARED— THAT YOU DIDN’T WANT TO REJECT HER— THAT YOU ARE INTERESTED. YOU HAVE TO TELL DANIELLE THE TRUTH. BLUNTLY. OVER THE PHONE. TODAY IS SUNDAY. DANIELLE WON’T BE IN TOMORROW. SHE’S TAKING A VACATION DAY AND TUESDAY IS ELECTION DAY. YOU WON’T SEE HER UNTIL WEDNESDAY. THAT’S TOO LONG TO WAIT. TONIGHT WOULD BE THE PERFECT NIGHT TO DO IT. YOU HAVE TO DO IT. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. DO YOU WANT TO LOSE HER FOREVER? REMEMBER THAT LOOK ON HER FACE WHEN SHE CAME OVER TO YOU AFTER HER VACATION? THIS IS REAL LOVE AND MAYBE YOUR ONE AND ONLY CHANCE.
I pour myself a Scotch. Then another and another. I take out my phone book. I am still shaking. I dial Danielle’s number, then before it rings, I hang up. I drink the last of my third drink and dial again.
Danielle answers.
***********
This excerpt from Chapter 2 of my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir illustrates a manic love and an Asperger’s difficulty with social cues. For full information see:
Also available on iBooks (iTunes), Barnes and Noble Nook and Smashwords.
“For the Truth Shall Set Ye Free”
I first remember things going wrong at age 5.
I am standing in the corner of the bedroom with my mother beside my brother’s crib. She is telling me I am cold and selfish, like my father’s mother whom she hates. I now think she hates me. She tells me I will wind up all alone.
It is just after the births of my brother and sister, only 11 months apart, and my 25-year-old mother, is totally overwhelmed. My brother is the apple of her eye, with Mom’s dark coloring and the looks of her adored Sicilian born-father. My sister is Daddy’s little girl. I remember feeling all alone, and being cold and hard at that age, confiding only in my stuffed lion, Leo. Many, many years later I come to see this cold, hard me as a dissociated self. Many years later my mother apologizes to me. And I apologize to her.
I set out on a life-long struggle to be different from my father’s mother, doing everything to try to be warm and loving like my mother’s Italian family. I fail. With acute stage fright most of the time, I cannot initiate a smile, nor greet people. The most basic social skills are lost to me, much to the chagrin of my parents. Often I cannot respond to people. At times I cannot organize my thoughts well enough to speak. I feel evil and selfish. I want to fit in and can’t. I want to pass for normal and don’t. I want to have a family and never will. I want to find love and it will take me decades to do so.
The “defensive personality” serves me well, covering up many, but not all, of my autistic symptoms. I live dissociated from many of my numerous fears.
My story begins when I break down. My fiancé, Sundra, goes back to Sri Lanka. I change library jobs from a relatively comfortable clerical position in a small library to a position cataloging art books in a huge office. The new job is in a giant room with three different departments and about 40 employees of all ages and ethnicities. There are no cubicles or dividers so everyone can see and hear everyone else. It is as gossip-ridden as a small town. There is no privacy and there are fluorescent lights. It is all too much. But it is here I meet Danielle who is to change my life forever and, later, Jimmy, who becomes my husband. My journey begins when my autistic shell breaks, at age 28, when the “superficial personality”, the dissociated me, falls apart. I seek therapy and am diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Not until thirty years later do I find out I have Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, as well.
I write my story as a message of hope to all those who are as lost as I was, to those who think, as I did, that they cannot find love. I open my heart to help others avoid the suffering I went through and caused. I nearly lost my job and my mind pursuing love. I hurt other people. I could have been seen as a stalker due to my typical Aspie approach to a romantic interest. Love threw me over the brink of sanity and made me psychotic at times. I didn’t know I was Bipolar and my psychiatrist didn’t know I had Asperger’s syndrome.
Finally, I write this book to psychiatrists and other therapists that they may understand their patients who have the same issues and delusions.
From the Prologue to Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things:
Full Moon Blues
Lunacy prevails
The foundations of daily life are crumbling
It is all “Maya”
a dream we are living thinking it is reality
We have no choice but to go on
All that matters is love
and God is Love.
The Beloved
For a very long time when I was alone and had no hope. Being Bipolar and having Asperger’s, I thought I would never find love. I had lost it many times. My vision of the future was totally black and bleak.
Years later, at age 35, I found love again. This time it felt right though I was filled with much uncertainty at the time. Almost 24 years have past and it seems righter than ever. We have nudged each other to grow and we have grown. There is still a future to face, now of old age. But every day can bring a new and unanticipated revelation. Recently, and on more than one occasion, I have looked into the eyes of my beloved and seen a tiny glimpse of The Beloved. An epiphany of sorts. For love of a human is but a taste of the love of God.
In the video below, Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf, sings of earthly love and The Divine. For those of you who don’t know, after starting out as a folk/rock star, he found Islam and that radically changed his life. He gave up fame and fortune to pursue God. In the end, he found his way back to music to use it to witness The Beloved. And that is the title of the song below.
Heart to Heart
“Love cannot be had for the asking; it comes only as a gift from the heart of another”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
MOONSIDE 
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