She Helps

I feel as much a rescue as the rest of these animals. There is an unwed mother of three, a half breed, a cross breed, a pedigree larger and heavier than I, and several previously homeless beggars. A total of nine, including myself, settled in this country kitchen. There is a fire roaring, and the poor little Chihuahua is as small as her milk ducts are large. We joke that she is not even a year old and her figure is ruined. Those breasts will NEVER be the same, and damn...she missed the prom altogether! She warms her saggy baaah-baaah's on the floor tiles in front of the fireplace and looks anxiously towards the pen where her three babies sleep. There were four, and I watched last month as she nudged and sniffed at the dead fourth, her mourning and grieving not done until she pushed it out of the pen. She's a good mother.

"Is your meeting with me a secret?" I ask. Despite her assurances, I am unsure she is at ease having me there and I have no intention of being a secret kept, or a compromise. She assures me that this fact is as known as all the rest. I am always tearful in her presence, for she is the hand out...held, until I take it. I know I am unworthy. It's a judgement that I cannot rectify yet.

She's good with animals. "Not so good with people" she says of herself...but I know different.  I can see how some may not know what to make of her directness and candor, but I knew I wanted her as a friend the very first time I met her. Somehow, it happened. Her mothering makes me cry. I am mourning mothers as well as many other things right now. She is intent on feeding me and says I look thin. I shrug. I have no scale. She says, "No...really...like too thin. Here (she touches my neck). Here (her hard working fingers at my cheek)." I tell myself I really need that facelift, but it's nowhere in the near future (it is a thought. i let it go. there is nothing I can do to fix it today). She never tells me what she thinks I want to hear. She tells me what she thinks I need to hear. That is the mark of a true friend.

She says it seems like I "spew vitriol" on my blog. I tell her it is that scene from 'The Mummy'. Open mouth...the dust of poison escaping with my words. It is release. The darkness I carry is one of the hardest things for people to come to terms with. I've stopped attempting to explain. It is at odds with their daily experience with my flesh person and I can understand the discomfort. "Which Annie ARE you?" Hell if I know. Both, I imagine.

We watched 'The Help' and I cried through most of it. I am off my medications and I cry a lot. I don't think it's a bad thing and she agrees. I don't feel depressed, I just FEEL. This particular movie has me face off with my grief of mothers and fathers, and childhoods. ("you is kind, you is smart, you is important"). I wanted to recreate childhood within my own children, which in and of itself put too much pressure on them. I wanted to do it right. I had no model of what right was. I feel like I should apologize daily. "I don't know what I did, but I'm sure I did something and I'm sure it was awful and I'm sure that down the road you will realize all your problems were all my fault." Ah yes. The adult child of an alcoholic at work. The rational mind rolls "I did the best I could" around on the tongue like a roulette wheel.

It was a good day. It was an exhausting day. She is kind. She is smart. She is important to me.