Part of Me, poem

"It is our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top"--Virginia Woolf

Photo courtesy of Chloe Drehmer

Part of Me

The house is dark and quiet,
my bedroom feels like a tomb
and for a few seconds
       I am not sure if I am awake or dreaming.

Everything is at once familiar
 but strange as if I'm seeing
 with new eyes.

I reach over
to the empty side of the bed,
remember you are working,
and feel alone.

I say morning prayers
and try to clear my mind.
I read a passage that says
there is no birth and no death.

Part of me says it's a lie
for I have felt both rip
at the sides of my heart.

Part of me understands
the meaning...
We are returned to the beginning
over and over.

How can you give birth
to something that always exists?
How can you grieve
what never dies?

I turn the Christmas tree on
and make the bed.
I need something to remind me
there will be presents and smiles.

The coffee brews and I sit alone
at the table
waiting.

Aleathia Drehmer 2015

RIP Jimmy Roger Joseph LeBlond

My father was born in the remote tip of Maine...just over the border was the river of his youth.  He was a man of nature and history and loyalty to the end.  He hated liars and people that weren't thankful for the life and land they lived in.  He was a soldier, a husband, a brother, a father, and a friend to many.  He told you the truth, always.  He loved baseball and wrestling and dogs.  He was a man of the world, but more so a man of this country.

My life with him has been tentative for so many reasons.  I don't remember the very early years as he was gone by the time I was 4 years old.  My mother was hard to live with and I would learn this throughout my life.  I would eventually understand the distance between us was more because of her.

We came together again when I was 10.  He was a stranger that I wanted to know.  I had looked for him out my window for 6 years.  I waited by the mailbox on birthdays and Christmases to see if he remembered who I was.  I never got letters or cards, but I still sat there hoping.  When I was 10 he gave me a garbage bag full of letters and cards he had carefully filled out and labeled with his own return address...all with my name on them and no address to send them too.  I cannot remember this moment, ever, without crying.  I was validated as a person and a daughter.

In those years, he taught me about history, Native Americans, architecture, woodworking, painting, hard labor, games, respect, honesty, truth, how to read maps, how to laugh, fishing, hiking, fiddle head picking, and how to make an apple pie.  I learned that I was only as good as my word and behind all words there must be actions to back them up.  He told me then that he named me  Aleathia because it meant truth.  This is a name that I have done my best in life to live up to though I have not always had a voice to speak it.

In all the years that we have been speaking to each other, but especially when I was 10-12, he always used to tell me "Improvise, Adapt. Overcome.  Semper Fi".  As a child, I am not sure I really understood what that meant.  I knew he was a Marine and in Viet Nam.  I also knew that this war and everything that happened to him there would always keep some sort of steel band around his heart.  For a long time I hated the military, because I felt it stole him from me.  These were childish thoughts for a hurt child.

The toughest decision I ever had to make was when I moved away from him at age 12.  I was not sure what a future with him would mean and my mom had always been there for me despite it all.  Before I left I remember my grandmother Regina sobbing and telling me that I was going to break his heart.  I know that I did.  It was one of the worst feelings I have ever felt.  It may be the one decision in my life that I ever regret.

We stayed in touch over my years in high school and I was so thrilled when he came up to New York to watch me graduate high school with honors.  Sadly, we drifted apart after that.  I wandered around the country trying to "find myself".  I had many journeys and pitfalls, but I always got back up.  I remember reconnecting with him when he lived in Florida and I took a trip down there.  It was a great time and also when I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter Chloe.

Connections between us were hit or miss and part of me was so angry that he didn't make an effort.  I even went to counseling over the subject.  My project was to write him a heart felt letter.  I did this.  6 pages front and back and I sent it.  I never heard back from him so I expected that was my answer...that I didn't mean anything to him.  Years later I found out that he never got the letter and I had spent those years in anger for nothing.

I have to say that my renewed relationship with my father would have never emerged if it weren't for Michael.  We were at my Aunt's funeral and Michael suggested I reach out to him.  We stood outside the funeral home as he smoked and he asked me if I was happy.  I told him I was.  And he said that is very good.  We didn't talk much more and I returned back to New York.  Once home, I comiserated over how it didn't go well.  Michael told me that he felt my father loved me and just because he couldn't show me that love the way I envision it doesn't mean he doesn't love me.

From that point forward, we started writing each other letters.  We shared our lives and what we had missed.  Sometimes we just talked about the weather, but it was fulfilling.  I was again waiting by the mailbox and this time, there were letters.  In the last year or so we had moved to phone conversations and anyone that knew Pop knew he hated the phone.  I took it as a direct sign of love that he called me every week to talk.  I am going to miss that the most.

This summer, Chloe and I went home for some time with Pop that didn't involve a damn funeral.  We stayed there for 5 days and I feel like that might be the biggest present I could have ever given my daughter...the chance to meet him and know him for the great man he was.  I am happy to have shared meals with him, walked the dog with him, and watered his tomatoes.  I am happy to have good memories as my last memories.

During this trip, when no one else was around he told me that he thought I would have been a great Marine.  I had to hold back the tears because this is the highest honor he could give a person.  It meant that through the years I had Improvised, Adapted, and Overcome.  I had lived my life in some semblance of truth and honor.  That I had fought the good fight and lived to tell about it.

Pop...I am going to miss you.  I am thankful for everything you taught me.  For your quiet love, for your service to this country, for never giving up on me.

If you hear ringing...answer the phone.  I'm calling you every week.  I love you.

Healing Anger (one minute at a time)

Aleathia says:

Today I had intentions of writing about the race, but something more important showed its face.  I was vacuuming the upstairs after bringing up the empty containers from Christmas decorating.  I vacuumed in front of my shrine and wondered why I haven't been sitting more.  The holidays are always hard.  They bring up so many good and bad memories.  They bring up anger when they shouldn't.

Michael told me the other day that he feels like sometimes I need to meditate more, that sometimes he notices things get away from me emotionally and I am all over the place.  These times shift the mood of the house.  I am well aware of my skill to diffuse the house with whatever problem I am holding inside.  It seeps through everything subversively.  At the time I might think I am doing a good job of hiding it, but in truth my family just steers clear of me.  Hell, sometimes, I want to steer clear of me.

So after I put the vacuum away, I stood there looking at the shrine again.  The house was empty and silent except for the noise I was making to keep myself distracted.  I pulled my cushion out and sat down.  I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to sit for long (hip is bad from running and attention span of a gnat).  I said my dedication prayer and one of my texts caught my eye...."Healing Anger" by The Dalai Lama.  There was one dog-eared page in the book so I flipped to it and started to read.

What I read smacked me in the face and made me tear up, because the truth often does that to you.  Here is what I read:

"Genuine peace of mind is rooted in affection and compassion.  There is a very high level of sensitivity and feeling involved.  So long as we lack inner discipline, an inner calmness of mind, then no matter what external facilities or conditions we may have, they will never give us the feeling of joy and happiness that we seek.  On the other hand, if we possess this inner quality, that is calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if we lack various external facilities that are normally considered necessary for a happy and joyful life, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life."--The Dalai Lama

Now this portion did not make me tear up.  This part was affirming to say the least.  Sometimes I forget the most basic principles of living a good life clouded by distractions, failed expectations, anger, and jealousy.  These are the things that make me human, but do not make me happy.  This next part is what slayed me:

"If we examine how anger or hateful thoughts arise in us, we will find that, generally speaking, they arise when we feel hurt, when we feel that we have been unfairly treated by someone against our expectations.  If in that instant we examine carefully the way anger arises, there is a sense that it comes as a protector, comes as a friend that would help our battle or in taking revenge against the person who has inflicted harm on us.  So the anger or hateful thought that arises appears to come as a shield or a protector.  But in reality that is an illusion.  It is a very delusory state of mind."--The Dalai Lama

I realized at that moment that I have been in a state of anger for several years.  It hasn't been harsh enough until recently for me to see it in myself, but it is there.  My mother died a few years ago and part of me is not sad that she is gone because she micro-managed me all the time.  She constantly made me feel like I wasn't doing good enough or being a good mom.  It was a horrible feeling and when she passed, I knew I would never have to feel like that again at her hand.  But I was angry too. She died suddenly, most likely of an accidental overdose combined with sleep apnea, and she had denied us all a funeral.  Mourning was solitary and painful and full of so many questions.  Sometimes I am angry at myself for not letting her come to visit that Christmas before she died when we first bought the house.  It would have been the last time I got to see her, instead the last time was at a funeral.

I have leaned very little on my faith over the last few years.  In part, I think I have wanted to punish myself...to not allow myself a way of understanding and healing for everything in my life.  I am not sure I can carry those burdens anymore.  My anger is evident to me.  My lack of compassion for the world is painful and unbecoming.

My anger has also come at work.  I have to say that I have felt betrayed in some way.  This could be real or imagined, but my state of mind at the time didn't help but to further the anger along.  Deep down I have been hurting and hiding.  This is something I learned long ago when no one was ever there for me when I had times of pain, sorrow, and disappointment.  I knew that I could count on myself...that I always had my own back.

But now I have people that love me.  Michael always has my back...and my heart in mind.  He is a strength that I rarely tap into, because I am afraid of how ugly my insides are sometimes.  It isn't fair to him or to my darling child to hide inside myself.  It isn't fair to my co-workers who have had to put up with my very disconnected attitude.  Healing always starts from within.  A person has to be willing to heal, willing to let people in, and decide to see the light in the world. I think this is my time.  I hope this is my time.

Thank you for listening.

Fall Apart, Come Together

Aleathia says:

Yesterday was pretty interesting....unexpected.  My friend Vicki gave me a ride home from work because I wanted to make sure Michael had the car for his 5 am shift.  She drove me home after an uneventful shift at work and sitting in my driveway we had a good old fashioned bitch session. It didn't make me feel better or worse about what we were discussing until the end.

Vicki said to me that in the end we are not obligated to the manager or the senior leadership, in the end we are obligated to the patient.  We are obligated to take care of them and care for them.  I sat there with that a minute.  I took it with me while I ate breakfast, while I fed the dog, while I took a shower, and as I fell asleep.  It was there when I woke up.

That evening Chloe came home from her father's and was kind of douchey.  Before she went to bed I called her out on it and she told me that her father had wanted her to string the lights on the Christmas tree this year and she was super proud to be able to get to do it.  She told me that he proceeded to criticize how she did it and then in the end, in front of her, took down all the lights she had strung and put them back up himself.  She told me she went in the bathroom to cry and he picked on her.  His obligation as a parent is to nurture and love her.  His obligation is to take care of her.

We stood in the hallway having cleared the air and she went to bed more sure of herself and with the knowledge that our tree would be more fun and less stressful.

Later that night, Michael and I had a few beers and started talking.  I talked about what Vicki had said and about what happened to Chloe.  I told him I am at the point in my job where I hate going there.  I feel on edge and burnt out and brimming with compassion fatigue.  Michael was good enough to remind me that there must be something wrong with me, because the conditions at my job hardly ever change and that he notices sometimes when I am centered and feeling strong the job never matters, but when something is wrong, it matters a lot.

I sat there with it trying not to cry in the bar.

I love this man so much.  He never lets me fall on my face or take for granted that I have all the control in the world over how I see and move through the universe.  I feel lost and I am not sure why. I do know that I have jumped on the wheel of samsara again and so here I spin around and around getting no where.  It might just be time to jump off again and find a place to sit.

Catch Me If You Can, I'm the Gingerbread Man

Aleathia says:

My first ever 5k race is quickly approaching.  This summer I started out with a couch to 5k program because for my whole life, even as a kid, I did not like running.  Why bother to run you ask?  This is a great question.

I had to think about it for a long time.  Why after a lifetime of not running do I want to start running at age 42?  I think there were a lot of subversive reasons for starting.  So many of my co-workers run and go off to events with each other.  They have this whole other life that I was not included in because I didn't run.  Most of the time I am not a joiner.  I have been a go at my own pace, loner type person for a long time.  Deep down like every other human in the world, I desire to belong to something.  I want acceptance.  I want to fit in.  Also as I age I am beginning to find that I am facing potential health problems that if not taken care of now, will render me pretty poor in the future.

I have rheumatoid arthritis, a thyroid problem, an ovarian problem, and a weight problem.  This combination creates pain of all kinds, blood pressure problems, and systemic stresses.  I hate taking medication and with all of these problems the medicines have started to find their way into my life and my body.  Frankly, it gives me the creeps.  I know, I work in the healthcare field, and maybe this is why it bothers me so much.  I see people younger than me who have just let life go and are on 20 medications.  It isn't the life I want to set before me.

I also wanted to prove something to myself.  For years I have told myself that I CAN'T run.  I'm too old or too fat or too arthritic.  This is not the attitude I was raised to have.  This is not the attitude I want to raise my daughter with.....if it's too hard, just give up.  This is not an option.

When I started running I was afraid of many things.  I was afraid I would have a stroke.  I was afraid of pain.  I was afraid people would judge me.  I was afraid to be secretly made fun of.  I was afraid of giving up under the pressure of it all.  But something amazing happened.

My running family at work is just that....a family.  Never once did they look at me funny when I started running.  Every one of them was there to encourage me to keep going, to keep trying.  I have lacked this sort of faithful encouragement my whole life.  If you look at me, I am not a runner, but never did the seasoned runners at work say a bad word.  If anything, they gave me hope.

Runners are a different breed of human.  They have to love and hate themselves at the same time because running hurts.  You use muscles you never knew you had.  The pain is sometimes so unbearable yet I find myself saying "one more block" or "five more minutes" because that is what Michelle would do or Stephanie would do or Karen would do.  They have been my champions. They have helped me fall in love with something that is teaching me about my own body, about my strengths and weaknesses, about my mental health, and how to be together with a history of people while still being very alone.

When I run, no matter where I run, people say things like "keep it up" or "great job".  It makes me want to push harder and achieve more.  It gives me a strength of spirit that I never expected.  Every run is a learning experience.  Every run I find my groove, sort of like Stella, but in a different way.

The Selfless Elf 5K is to benefit the Food Bank of the Southern Tier and as of today it has over 800 runners signed up.  We will be running to feed the people of our community and I can't think of a better thing to run for.  If you run or walk, you can still sign up to participate.

Richard Renaldi, Photographer

Aleathia says:

A week or so ago something ran through my FB feed.  You know how it goes...a constant stream of videos and meems and political opinions.  Mostly I skip over things if I look at all anymore.  It can be a complete mind suck at times.  However, there was a video posted from a major news network about a photographer named Richard Renaldi who went around the country taking pictures of strangers, together.

The concept is to place two or more complete strangers walking down the street in a photo together and have it seem as if they know each other.  The anxiety around this concept is palpable to me.  I can put myself in their places and understand what it must be like to put all of your beliefs and values...all your prejudices aside for a few moments and take this picture.

Many times these articles don't stick with me long enough to bring them to you.  Many times it is only momentarily inspiring, fleeting.  But I have been thinking about these photos, about these people and thought it would be something more people should see.

Richard Renaldi is a Chicago native who obtained a BFA in Photography from New York University. He has had his work shown all over the world and this year he was named a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fund Fellow.  You can visit his website for a listing of his shows and access to more of his collections.

Now I am proud to present some of Richard Renaldi's photographs from "Touching Strangers":

Andrea and Lillie, Chicago, 2013

Annalee and Rayqa, San Francisco, 2012

Chris and Amaira, Chicago, 2013

Ekeabong and Andrew, Venice, 2013

Elaine and Arly, New York, 2012

Hunter, Margaret, and Abigail, New York, 2013

Tari, Shawn, and Summer, Los Angeles, 2012

Every Road Has An Ending, poem

Every Road Has An Ending

Early morning rain spreads a sheen
over the new blacktop the city laid down
this summer after digging gas lines
through the neighborhood.

It smells of wet leaves
and mushrooms,
of endings and church bells,
of memories best left in the ground.

My legs move me up the hill,
heavy and tired, but still finding
the electrical impulses to fly one foot
ahead of the other. I feel all my years
on this earth in the bones of my grinding right hip.

I'm surrounded by gold leaves
and the sun warms the back of my head
without asking. The hills come alive for a minute,
surfacing beneath clouds that threaten
more rain and this makes me think of you.

You who've I've not consciously brought to mind in months,
you who I can't find in my heart to forgive for both living and dying,
for you who has left me in limbo one last time.

My nose runs and my eyes water
captured here, sun warmed and heart cold,
waiting for the winter gray that will swallow me
whole
again
and keep me from living in the moments
that matter most.

Aleathia Drehmer 2015