Taking my measure

I have been bullied
torn down
torn apart
screamed at
picked apart
edged out
hedged in
mobbed
coerced
threatened
slandered
burned
violated
made an example of
fucked with
fucked
don't say
don't think
don't do
don't be
what you are.

In this shimmering,
quantum superposition
You cannot touch
my fundamental state.

Bright spirit

You supplanted my God,
became He to whom I begged for mercy and relief
On those fine white sands and on the rocky shores,
Deafening despair and unrelenting grief
And feeling your absence, negative of light.
I am a Jealous God, he said; the first expression on the stone.
Is that why you could not stay with me?
There was no other god. Only ever you, alone,
rendering other prayers irrelevant.
I worshipped you, bright spirit, body with my body, heart with my whole,
needed you, longed for you, soul of my soul.
There are a thousand hurts that I brooked
before you came and after you were gone
I am hollower now, resonant echoes in a spirit numb.
Now I take the blows and stand again.
Unbelieving cynic I've become.

ear ache

I am in bed. It's later than I intended. I always intend to be in bed by 2200 but rarely make it before 0100. At least now I'm here before midnight.
I have an earache. Don't know why. It came out of nowhere and I'm baffled by the rapidity and the pain. I've tried various homeopathic remedies: neosporin, hydrogen peroxide, coconut oil, apple-cider vinegar. This evening, I sat quietly in front of the television, watching episodes of "The Man in The High Castle" because it hurt too much to go for a run, tidy things up, or do analysis. I'd strapped a chemical handwarmer to my head with a scarf, turban-style. The heat seemed to give some relief.
On the phone, Willem said, "try an onion". And he was sincere. I put an onion heart in my ear canal but he said, "don't be shy. Cut an onion. Put half of it on your ear. It will be better tomorrow morning."
"I have no shame," I replied.
"I have no guarantees," he said. Then he called his mom to get the exact instructions.

So here I am, gauze filled poultice of onion strapped to my ear with a scarf. Trying to sleep.

The day has been an ugly one. I need sleep. With an onion.

Challenging

0600. Outside, wind and rain.

I can't sleep. 

Anxiety reached untenable levels yesterday morning and I had to waive off. 

I've reported the abuse at work. For months I've tried to rally the other victims, but they were either too beaten or too fearful to come forward. So I acted on my own. 

History tells me that I will be punished now. I've reported bad behavior before and always suffered as a result. So now I wait. Waiting for the axe to fall is always the worst part. Already I've heard rumors of the credibility attacks. Fuck. I hate those. How the hell do you fight lies, rumor and innuendo? I've danced these steps before and know that I will be danced off the cliff. 

I came here with the hope of starting something fresh and new. I wanted the opportunity to leave ugliness behind; to build a beautiful life. Instead, I found the Bonny and Clyde of covert aggression, so entrenched and sophisticated in their technique that I didn't detect it for months, and only later found the trail of bodies they've left in their wake during the past decade. By then I had already unwittingly revealed my ability to resist - at first, I countered their behavior with earnest, open conversation and argument. But this only warned them that I was more of a challenge than their other victims and they intensified the clandestine hostility and aggression. 

Marie said, "Give them New York Nice. Smile, but don't give them anything to latch on to." 

This was the saving technique. It's preserved me for months. Even in the middle of intense stress and ugliness, I smiled and talked about U.S. Politics and the weather. Hopefully, this has also prevented giving them any personal data they might use to harm me. 

I'm not the type of person to stay and be abused, but it's difficult when I don't have a way out that won't harm me tremendously.  I've applied for other jobs; I've visited legal advisors. But I've lost so much already and if I lose my job, I am too financially screwed to help myself, and I lose my right to stay. 

I'm not the picture of cool as I wish I could be. I wish I could say that none of this has affected me - that the past six years of horrible hasn't gotten to me. But I can't say that. I'm seriously fucked up and this last year has been the most recent fight to this embattled analyst and I'm tired of fighting. 

The wheels are starting to come off. I'm exhausted all the time.  I have a perpetual tightness in my chest, nausea in my gut, and I can't keep ahead of the inevitable anxiety and depression.  Bicycling to work has been my saving grace for months because the physical activity and time outdoors gives me just enough relief to keep going. But with the winter cold and rain, I can't do this as often as I need. I don't have attention to give to any other projects or friendships.  I've dropped everything because I couldn't carry it in my arms. 

The weekend isn't enough time to recover. And this past weekend was particularly bad. Monday morning at work again and I felt that there hadn't been a weekend. I looked with dread at the next days. Yesterday morning, I was a disaster. Asleep at 0200 and awake again at 0400 I despaired of getting the rest I needed to survive the week. 

Willem called the doctor, then took me to the beach. The sun was surprisingly bright and the day was warm. We walked along the waterfront for hours, listened to the waves, climbed the pier wall, and ate sandwiches and chocolate. 

The flag

Dinner at an Italian restaurant tonight. Not so much Italian food as pasta. But okay.
And wine.
Walking home with Willem. Past the U.S. Embassy. There is an American flag. I watch it as we walk. They did not take it down at Sunset as they do with the flag. On the military base in Naples, there was a ceremony, colors, at sunset, as they drew down the flag, folded, and saluted the stars and stripes before taking it indoors. So I'm struck by this flag at midnight. It flaps in the high night wind, a spotlight fixed on it.
There has always been a flag, and in every Embassy I feel the relief of being on American soil again. I remember the sensation. In Sekondi, in Lagos, Dakar, Monrovia, Limbe, After days ashore in a foreign land, every time I returned to the port and saw the grey hull ship my heart thrilled with pride and relief when I saw the flag. And I always felt the gladness of being home.
I stopped, and tried to sing the national anthem. Quietly so as not to embarrass Willem. He's a little drunk and hums along raucously for a moment, not knowing the significance to me. It's been a year since I've been home.

concert and candy

It was Willem's birthday yesterday. In the morning I made him crepes and he opened his gifts. Then we took the train to see his bro-in-law in concert. It was an orchestral performance, with a brass band thrown in for fun - a fusion of Americana folk music and jazz and 30% improvisation.
Willem's youngest nephew, six-year-old Paul, climbed up on my lap and we went through my purse, looking for anything sweet. There were a handful of individually-wrapped hard mints from a restaurant. There was also one piece of chocolate. We unwrapped the truffle slowly and quietly - during the louder parts of the performance. Eventually, it was freed from the wrapper. Paul crammed the whole thing in his mouth and rested his head back on me in an affect of utter bliss. It was too late that I smelled the distinctly strong odor of liquor. Apparently, the truffle wasn't caramel filled - but, rather, rum-filled. Of course it was too late to do anything except feel incredibly guilty for feeding a preschool aged child alcohol. I watched Paul like a hawk after that to be sure there were no lasting effects - but whether his goofy, naughty behavior was due to the truffle or due to the 2 hour concert, I can't be sure.

Weekend breather

Saturday morning.

Awakened by the door buzzer. Jehovah's witnesses. They want to show me a video.
"Uh," I mumble, full of mouth-guard and squinting at the light edging through the black-out curtains to guess the time. "I'm not up for it today. Thanks."
Probably not going to affect my chances at heaven. They only get 144,000 and the place is probably already full.

Everything hurts. Not from over-exercise, but from long days of intense work, no time to bicycle or run, and short restless nights this week. There is a heaviness in my legs and belly. God, I must be getting old to feel like this in the morning. I've missed the 10AM yoga class.

Willem sits across from me at the breakfast table, vaping his 70% propylene glycol, 30% vegetable glycerine and "pas de nicotene". A smoker since the age of 14, he's been scaling back on the nicotine for months. No pressure...but he wants to quit and he might just make it this time. This is his waking-up ritual. I'm itchy for information and stimulus but we don't watch the news because it interrupts the gradual process he has for coming into his body. Later, when he's arrived, we'll go for a run.

It's been a strange week. Yesterday, I sat at lunch across from the woman who has made my life hell for the past year. She was all smiles and interest. Is it fear of me that makes her pretend or, perhaps, she is disarming me in advance of a strike. In any case, I smile back, unwilling to let her guess my distrust. "Yes. Thanks. I'd love to have a bite of the cheesecake."

I've been working the unreasonable "on call" hours that (among other things) make the job so difficult. Early morning reports, late night phone calls and meetings. In the morning, as I prepare the daily report on the bus, I notice that I stop breathing. I'm very tired. Nearly two weeks ago I finally disclosed to upper management the workplace abuse that has harangued me for nearly a year - and others for nearly a decade, I feel simultaneously relieved and afraid. Relief makes me tired, and the fear no longer has the power to shake me. I told myself once I wouldn't be driven by fear. But when you lose everything once, you understand the probabilities of the impossible.

Willem and I take a run through the woods after Willem fixes us porridge for breakfast. Porridge: a Fairy-tale food. Willem's Goldilocks porridge has to be the "just right" ratio of 1:4 oats:water.  He doesn't like cinnamon or raisins but definitely a dash of salt.

We run and walk through a day of rare sunlight and I start to feel good. The trees are slender and green, smooth trunks gaze nakedly at us, their summer clothing lying dried and crumpled at their feet. A flock of fat grey pigeons rise up as we approach, then settle into the carpet of brown and gold dry leaves. We walk past Japanese gardens, closed for the winter, and Willem does push-ups on a bridge while I stretch my knotted hamstrings. We wend our way to his parents' house where his mother greets us with a huge grin, feeds us tea and bread and cheese, tahini with honey, and shows me video of a concert in Bulgaria where she performed on the accordion and enthusiastic dancers with long skirts and headdresses dance. I love this lady and, like everything else broken and tentative in me, some fragile hope creeps out of hiding and says, "this love. this acceptance. this warm and welcoming environment. may I keep these?" Who knows the answer in my own heart but hers is an unabashed, "yes!" and she squeezes me tight as we prepare to leave.

At home, eating sushi, there is a knock on the door. Upstairs neighbors whom I invited for drinks in a moment of good intention and high stress. Can they return in half-hour? Yes. Quick clean, shower, and foraging for food and drinks. Willem still has half-a-bottle of rum; there's a bottle of cheap wine, and a bottle of Vin Santo which I got during Corinne's visit to Italy in 2012. I pop popcorn, and we chat into the night.

Preparing

I'm supposed to compile a list.
To deal with the past, you have to return to the memory. What triggers? Where is the grief? Where is the suffering? Here, let us precisely remove the pain. Desensitize you.
But there is no specific place where I may return. Not one event. One trauma. Just the gradual realization, tiny sparkling frozen crystals settling out of the air on your face and hands and coat until you are frosted over, that everything you loved, everything you thought you knew, is changed. Altered. Lost.
I've gotten better at managing pain. Certain things hurt too badly and I folded them neatly, tucked them out of sight.
The trauma and grief come - not to recall the revelation, the moment of awareness, but remembering the thing you loved, the hope and future, and compare it to the reality of now. Not trauma in a single incident. Not a frightening noise. Just the hollow and empty corners where there should be joy.

Le Carre's tunnel

It was well below freezing and dark by the time I took the 6 mile bicycle route to the train station at 1940. As usual, I listened as I rode. Maybe it's better to stay aware and in the moment (as I've promised myself), but I take too much pleasure in reading audiobooks with my ears and listening to the news. Now, I'm listening to "The Pigeon Tunnel", the memoir written by novelist and former MI-6 agent, John Le Carre. The title refers to a disturbing sight he witnessed when he was young: birds bred in the tunnels beneath a Monte Carlo casino to be the fodder for sportsmen's bullets. In spite of the danger, the birds, true to their pigeon nature, always returned home to the tunnel, only to be target practice again the following day.

Le Carre writes that all of his novels have, at one time or another, carried this title. And no wonder. It is in the nature of covert intelligence work to risk everything as you fly abroad, but you are bred to return "home" every time, only to be sent out again, through the same perils, regardless of how senseless or doomed the mission. This truth was borne out repeatedly in the stories cited by Le Carre. He writes about the World War II Englandspiel, or "English Game", wherein more than 50 Dutch agents working for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) may have been sacrificed as part of a complicated "double double agent". Documents released by the British Archives in 2004 reveal that the agents, trained in Britain to carry out sabotage, were parachuted straight into the arms of the waiting enemy, which had penetrated the entire SOE network in the Netherlands. Almost all were subsequently executed in concentration camps. He also writes about the U.S., Britain and Germany's counter-terrorism efforts and large-scale privacy invasion following the 9/11 attacks, and the plight of an innocent man imprisoned in Guantanamo for five years. His message is not to condemn the intelligence service, but rather, to insist that they not be given a blank check - that they be scrutinized in the same way we demand scrutiny of any other organization acting in our name.

Of course this is a message that resonates with me. I have often felt deeply sorrowful by the way Sjors ultimately complied with the unethical and senseless orders of his puppet masters. For years I have grieved the loss of a future with him, the love we would have shared, and the children we would have raised. It is also a profound grief that I have lost my work and livelihood and all the contributions I may have made to national defense and partner capability if MIVD had not attacked my reputation and career to protect itself from possible embarrassment.

I felt angry when I arrived at the train station, my fingers numb and frozen inside their thick gloves, and toes like pebbles in my shoes. I wore a long woolen undershirt and underpants, with layer upon layer, but the cold bit through me and I felt that I was swimming in a cold lake. When I spoke with Willem on the phone, my anger briefly transposed to him but I restrained myself from acting on the urge to shout. He can hardly be blamed for the low-grade infection of grief and rage that flares up occasionally, blinding me with the pain.

I meditated on the train, but this didn't alleviate the suffering. There is nothing to be done for it, I know. I have tried for years to ease the pain through running and bicycling and meditation, through reflection and self-examination, through good relationships and the reading of books, but the pain and grief is always there. It always returns.

Willem would greet me at home, and I knew I would harm him if I couldn't diffuse the suffering. On my way from the station, I stopped by the liquor store. Armed with a bottle of single-malt scotch, I bicycled home.

Year's end

Here we are at the end of the year and sloshing into the next. There are good things here. Particularly when I consider what my life looked like last year at this time. I was living with my brother and his family. I was spending time with his boys. I spent Christmas with Corinne and her girls and then flew back via Washington DC because I needed to get my masters' diploma out of storage because I had the tantalizing promise of a job where I could escape and make a new shift in my life and I needed all documentation. I remember feeling hopeful and tired. Ready to move on to living again. I remember feeling grateful for the extra time with my family, and tremendous sadness that I did not have family of my own. I was injecting myself with hormones three times each day so I could retrieve eggs and freeze them: some hope that I would be able to have children. I used to want children so badly that it physically hurt me to see an infant or toddler. Now, I've come to accept that life is not what we wish it to be. I still want children, but it is the echo of a desire that had to die so I could survive.

I have friends. I have people who love me. Significantly I have Willem to put his arms around me, to love me when I do not love myself, and this eases the pain.

Been a strange few days. Tomorrow morning, I head back to work.

Yesterday I took a yoga class where I danced to loud Indian music and then laid on my mat and "set my intention" for the year. What to think? What to do? Where do I put my intention? I'd like to create a life that makes a difference, that feels right and meaningful. But there is a disconnect between where I am now and where I feel I ought to be. It's difficult to reconcile the two. My future and some unbreakable hope is tethered to some moment in my past when my feeling about the future was so clear and beautiful: where I was doing my work in Africa and had the promise of a life with Sjors. I cannot, for all my logic and reasoning, allow this dream to die because it was the only thing that has ever felt absolutely right to me. I've never loved anyone so much, never wanted anything so much. Of course Sjors must die for me, but not now. Not yet. I'm not ready.

I've decided to set my intention in the present. Be present every day - not constantly looking behind me, hungering for something I will never have - not practicing mental gymnastics to escape the mind-crushing, relentless misery of my daily work. Here. Now. This is what I have. This is my life and I only get one.

Yesterday I visited a market two miles south of where I live. It was very large - spanning several city blocks. The patrons were primarily immigrant: women with headscarves and heavy coats and men with beards. The market was a crowded bonanza: fish, meat. vegetables, fruit, nuts, olives, spices, cheese, roots, leather and vinyl purses. cheaply-made underpants, sweatshirts, bras, socks, scarves, shoes, pajamas, hats, scarves, tableclothes, jewelry, makeup, counterfeit perfumes, tea kettles, electronics, pans, kitchen knives, suitcases, toys, fresh-baked bread, grilled corn-on-the-cob, and garbage. In every other market I've visited, the heat was sweltering. Here, my toes and fingers froze. I bought a hemp-sack to carry the vegetables, fish, and bread-loaf I'd purchased. The fish-monger was Moroccan, and cleaned my Dorade for me while I waited and watched, then wrapped it in paper. We talked about how Casablanca reminded me of Utah where I grew up - minus the Mosques. I still have the robe I bought in Morocco, and a pair of pointed orange slippers which I can never really wear anywhere.

Last night, I visited Willem at his house, bicycling across the railroad tracks, past the megastores, and fire station. The air was thick with gunpowder-smoke and, all around, fireworks shot low into the sky, celebrating the season. Willem's been sick for some time, and I didn't like the thought of him being alone for new years'. Frankly I didn't like the thought of being alone myself on new years. I love Willem and take comfort from his presence even when he's grumpy with illness. His place is cold but I reminded myself that it's a little like camping and wore a stocking cap and woolen socks to bed.

We sat serenely on the couch together. Or, at least, Willem sat serenely on the couch. Nothing about my internal life is serene, although I try to hide it. I suppose this is what I hope for 2017: that I may find peace. Live right now. Find peace right now. Happy new year.