today I drove up to the cemetary connecting with my mother, cleaning her stone and redesigning as i do every year. I have carried one string of Tzitz in my talliet bag and I decided to place one and used the strings in the four corners embossing them with stones. The other Tzitz that I have placed there has disintregated .. and shards are left. My Mother was always concerned about how things looked and everything be in its rightful place. Today I washed her tombstone front and back and shared Kaddish, read from Kol Hashemash ...
Today I spoke about her, and she lived on cottage cheese and fruit, cigerattes, half eaten chocolatese that she placed back in the box if she did not like them. I have started doing that too. Leatrice, ( my mother ) wore exquiste clothes and she climbed daily into her girdle so that she would have that perfect figure, perhaps to be as beautiful as she could so that my father would stay home and want to be with her. He did not. She had to vi for his affection, make due with his flandering, put up and shut up. he treated her unkindly, made fun of her in public and put her down, quelched her voice, and choice was never an option. I know people thought that she stayed because of the money, class and priviledge but really in all due honesty what choice did she have, a shelter or foster care for me? through the years as i have embarked on my own journey of coming home to myself understanding the various narratives that i have carried and used my body to keep me safe from feeling? A friend of mine said that men who rape don't make a distinction about size when I worked at Klinic in Winnipeg. I felt if I got big enough i would no longer feel anything. When i started to feel in deeper ways the witnessing of my first relationship with my x partner, being seen on some level and not ostcrized the battle began for me. I learned to have my voice, take care of my internal family and create different boundaries, while my body was unleashing to another tune.... I shared with my mother today as I stood there in deep prayer, still holding the trauma in my body of years past and trying my best not to keep cultivating that seed so it will grow. but to keep resowing and dis-entangling my life. Now I am stepping into taking care of me, trusting my decisions. My mother is dead.. she no longer lives inside of me.. and I am feeling a sense of freedom and liberation for me. this is an ongoing practice... of coming home over and over again. while taking care and moving more into body respect. May we all be written in the book of life this year.
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