The Art of Digging Holes

My mom used to dig holes every year. They wouldn’t be pretty things or hard to spot. She’d find a place under the Manzanita next to our apartment and dig. It wasn’t technically part of the property we rented but it was close enough to us and far enough away from everyone else that no one minded. When she was done she’d paint oblong rocks with little designs and a name on them then set the rock at the head of where the hole used to be. Every day for weeks after she’d make the hole I’d walk past it on my way home and squint through the afternoon sun into the shade of the trees at the mounds of freshly turned earth. I always felt a sort of abstraction from the whole thing. Something would happen—a car usually—and mom would have to dig a hole. She never seemed sad about it. I remember when it was Murphy the cat my little brother didn’t cry. My dad thought the whole thing was an inconvenience from the looks of it. The first time there wasn’t a hole my older brother cried when he got the news. I was the first to know.

It was late at night and I had snuck downstairs for a drink but I didn’t get that far. As soon as he saw me, he whined. McCartney was on the rug we had that ran from the step down of the entry way and the kitchen. He looked up at me with fear in his eyes and yowled. I was scared, I didn’t want to get caught out of my room that late at night so I hurried out of the room and stood there, listening. He called after me. I couldn’t stay away. I’d never heard him sound like that.

So I crept back in and he scooted his way to me. It looked like he was trying to run away from his back legs. They weren’t moving, just trailing after him, tail flat and lifeless. McCartney made this hollow noise, looking up at me, his eyes round and wide. I reached out and touched his head, scratching behind his ears. He lay down after that and meowed again. I didn’t know what to do—I was just a kid and I’d never been the one to find them before – so I woke my dad (who had slept through McCartney’s cries like a baby not two feet away) then ran upstairs and woke my mom.

They took him to the vet and I went back to bed, worried but comforted that my parents were taking care of it. When my older brother came home from staying over at his friends there was no ceremony to it, no “we have to talk” or “I have some bad news” from mom or dad. Mom just walked up to him and said, “McCartney had a stroke. We took him to the vet but there was nothing they could do.” They both made comments like my older brother would like that his cat died high as a kite. I was revolted by this but decided they must know better how to deliver this news than I. After all, this was the first time I had discovered a reason for a hole.

But the hole never came. Two years later when Squirt, the turtle, died because of parasites there was no hole either. My dad just picked him up, put him in one of mom’s many shoeboxes, and tossed him in the trash. I felt as removed from it as I had when my mom dug the holes.

Today I dug my first hole. It was for Cecil who was white with a blond vest, shy, and liked to kiss my nose. I used to call him my fatty ratty, my mushmallow, my baby boy. Because that’s what you do when you hold a little life in your hands; you fill it up with love and tenderness and soft touches until they give you a reason to dig a hole.

The thing I didn’t know about digging holes is that there are choices you can make which will display your sentiments and your care (or lack thereof). My mom’s holes were always over-filled. She’d put all the dirt back in it until the ground bloated up over the bodies. She’d leave a visible mark where something once living was now decaying. She’d take a rock and paint it but always used water colors which meant the paint would fade then disappear, leaving only a lump of earth that would eventually erode away to subtle bumps. Cecil’s hole was not like that.

I borrowed a shovel from a friend. It had a long handle but a small head, just wide enough to make a good-sized hole. I looked around the backyard, I tried a few places. The ground is pretty hard this time of year so I tested the soil by pushing the shovel in and standing on it to see how long it took to sink below the grass and into the soil. I found a good spot by the chain link fence. It’s in the sun but near where a bush grows during the heat of summer. I framed my chosen spot by stabbing the earth, using my weight to sink the shovel into the ground. I made a rectangle half a foot wide and eight inches long then pushed the shovel back into the line. I put my boot on the back and pried until I got the grass up in one piece. I looked kind of silly, I know, prying up the grass like that. I’m sure Cecil would have loved it. Rats love to dig and play in grass.

After that I dug about a foot down, making sure to keep it in that geometric shape because I watch too much TV and they always dig these impossibly perfectly rectangular holes. Mine was less than perfect but I was pleased with it anyway. It was mostly rectangle at its entrance but belled like a hammock at the bottom. When I finished, I gathered up Cecil – now wrapped in the first sheet he ever destroyed (never leave rats unattended with your bedding as they will make it their bedding)—and put him inside a fast food box that had once contained chicken. He loved chicken. It was the perfect size for him even with how bloated in death he’d gotten. The box went in the hole and I put back only half the dirt I’d taken out then flipped the square of grass I’d pried off back over and hit the ground until it lay flat.

The only way you can tell that I dug a hole today is the dark soil still sitting next to where it is and the small toy I placed at the head of it. The toy was Cecil’s favorite; a brightly colored ball made out of chewing logs with an actual wood ball in the center so it rattled when he rolled it. I thought he might like that. Though I wasn’t thinking of anything when I dug the hole. Before I thought about it; I debated the best place to put it, what box to use, where I could find a shovel, what time of day to do it, what to do after I dug it, whether or not I should get a rock like my mom used to do. But I never thought of a single thing except digging while I was making that hole. The first thing that came to mind when I was done, standing in the sun with a shovel over my shoulder and staring at Cecil’s grave, was “There’s an art to digging holes.” I have to wonder if my mom thought the same thing when she made her first hole.

Haunted.

Living is like walking, possessed, through an old house that's veiled in spider webs. I am shrouded by ghosts that drive my body through rote actions that at one time were not my own.
It's only natural to hunch my back, sip at a beer while on the porch, and slowly smoke. I am not myself when I do this but I am more myself then than any other time. Because I am my father; thin lips wrapped around the mouth of a bitter ale and existential dilemas over his lack of ability to communicate. These are not my thoughts but his. He is long dead but still here in the most subtle and invasive ways possible. He mumbles his thoughts on intelligence and they come out my mouth. He throws the kitchen towel over his shoulder while he cooks and my arm goes to follow him. He speaks quietly, with a most effective venom when angered, and my mouth hisses out sibilant word after sharp vitriolic invective. Even with this, it is not him that has taken the strongest hold on my mindlessness.
Chris. I've heard her cadence in my voice and felt those nervous jitters she used to get in my leg. Every smile I make is hers and every cock of my hip sends pains of remembrance down the spines of my family. Not even one of my oldest favorite authors is my own.
It is hers.
Everything that makes me a unique individual is a simulation of someone else. I wear a well-stitched skin of other people, making me the very best Frankenstein's Monster there has ever been. I have her smile and chin and his nose and hairline and her fashion and his sense of humor and hopefully, hopefully, one day I'll have her air of solemn love that blanketed her like Atlas' onus.
I am not alone in this.
We are all quilts made up of other people and their memory. Whether they be alive or no, they will haunt us until our very last breath and after it. Every smile, every laugh, every sad time, every pain, every ounce of suffering that we have builds our control over others.
We haunt the living as much as the living and dead haunt us. Other people's experiences that we have helped them build will take to their minds and stick like flimsy spider webs; they will cling to them and cause them to mindlessly jerk their body in motions that are ours and not their own.
Except they are now.
One day someone will smile and it will be my smile. One day someone will throw a kitchen towel over their shoulder or sing while they wash the dishes and it will not be them but me.
I will be a guiding light in someone's life with or without my continued presence.
And that is both the most daunting and freeing thought there is.
I will live on even if my body does not.
I will perish and rot into so much meat and all of these shining habits that I've gratuitously stolen from those around me like a rabid magpie will live on in those who survive me.
I am haunted as I haunt others.
The same is true for you.

These are a few

Validation.

Acceptance,

Care,

Concern,

Worth,

Worry,

Pride,

Happiness,

Importance.

Thank you, Diana. 

You are a truly great friend and a wonderful person. 

I wish I could remember all the time how you feel for me. 

And I wish that I could adequately express my affection and love for you. 

Justice, Sort of. [TW: child molestation, incest]

About a week ago, maybe a little bit longer than that my sister told me something important. We were talking on the phone like we do every so often and she tells me- she says that our dad has told her that our uncle is in jail for child molestation.
I didn't feel anything, at first. Or so I thought. It was like suddenly there was this great big nothing pursuing me. It was a strange feeling but I intellectually I knew it was a good one. See, my uncle molested me when a was young. It made me feel so betrayed by my family and so hurt that I couldn't really ever trust them because not only did they let it happen to me but they were the ones who did it. For so long I have been so angry and so scared and so hurt and and so untrusting of everyone I love that it was impossible, really, for me to feel and be close to someone in a healthy way that didn't lead to me running away or ruining it. Because I was so angry, because I was so hurt, because I couldn't trust in people, because I was always afraid. Because I never got justice.
I never wanted revenge. I just wanted justice. I wanted him to know that what he did was wrong and that society wouldn't stand for it. I wanted him to pay for his crimes justly. I wanted it so that it would ever be that much harder to hurt another child again. I wanted there to be people who watched him and knew him for what he was. I wanted him to be punished for his crimes in accordance with the laws of our society.
And now he has.
After about five minutes googling his name and various phrases I found him. He's on the Megan's Law website of California. His address is known and he is known for the evil that he has done. It's a terrible thing that he had to hurt another child to be caught but caught he has been and he is being watched.
But since I've found out I've noticed some strange changes in myself.
I remember feeling this piecing sensation like a knife was being removed when I found his image on the MLoC site. It felt as if an old and cankerous wound had finally had the barb that had been festering in it removed. I didn't feel free. I didn't feel elated. I was momentarily terrified like a patient before an operation but once I looked at it and confirmed it was him and read all of the information they had I felt so much better. It felt like I had just woken up from anesthesia and the doctor was telling me my prognosis was good, that they'd removed most of the black cancerous tumors of hatred, anger, and fear that had been filling my body.
I felt lighter and it was like suddenly those things I feared when I turned off the light or walked up the stairs at night or sat alone at home were mere whispering vapors.
It wasn't so much that I was suddenly free and glad of it because I still feel angry and scared and don't trust easily and I'm still hurt by what my family did to me but it's lessened now. It's like I know I can defeat it now instead of just faking like I can.
It's as if all of those things I feared are no longer these undead things that grip the back of my skull and whisper terrible fears into my ears. They're intangible now. They can't touch me anymore. I can see them and I can laugh at them and walk away and they fall farther and farther behind me, rotting and dropping to the ground like the remnants they are.
Because justice is no longer an abstract thing but a reality, firm in my life as these demons that plagued me were.

I'm not saying they're entirely gone because they're not. I'm still angry. I'm still hurt. I'm still afraid. I'm still untrusting. But it's easier now to deal with it. It's like they've gotten weaker and I've gotten stronger simply because out there was someone who cared enough about a child to say 'hey, this is wrong. This man shouldn't be able to get away with what he's done.' And yeah, it wasn't for me that this was done, and more children had to get hurt for it to happen but it did happen. It's possible for there to be justice where there is evil.
And that is the most comforting and therapeutic thing that could have happened for me.
The man who hurt me is being dealt with. He has been told that what he did was wrong and that he won't get away with it anymore. I am not irrational. I am not alone. I am not unjustified in being angry or hurt or afraid. What happened to me was wrong and the monster who did it is being watched.

Groundhog's Day

“Another Day Sunrise”

Another day sunrise

Moments before dawn

Sails set

Friends depart

But they are not gone.

That was written by my Uncle Stephen who was the greatest man I ever knew.

On February 1, 1952 one of the most important men in my life was born. 

He had thin red hair and a slow steady gait. 

In his office he had gadgets and do-dads and bits and bobbles. 

In his kitchen he had an armada of little model houses.

In his dining room he had glass shelves covered in Star Trek memorabilia.

In his living room he had wind-up music boxes and the world’s largest collection of B-rated science fiction films all stored in brown boxes with thin faded black text describing the movie and some facts about filming.

In his life he lived simple and relatively lonely. He never married. He didn’t have many friends. What he did have were nephews and nieces that he treated like treasured plants. Plants that would look pretty damn badass with a machete and possibly a katana in some pictures. 

In his actions he was direct. He had honesty in spades. He showed me that solitude was not sadness. That finding the silly in the mundane was amazing. That making doo-dads even if they didn’t work was a great thing. That label makers had many uses.

On March 22, 2004 he died at his kitchen table. It took several days for him to be found. His baby sister who lived less than five miles away refused to drive to his house and see if he was alright. The same sister held his funeral in a Chapel with a pastor presiding. This same sister talked of God and what “Stephen would have wanted.” She said he would have loved the violin. She said a lot of things on his behalf. 

I sat for what felt like eternity listening to what she and others said on his behalf. I listened to my brother cry his way through an Edgar Allen Poe poem that he had spent days searching for. I listened to this pastor talk about heaven and hope and the ending of lives. I sat there and cried and looked at this blown up portrait of him. I sat there and thought about how he didn’t like green or red foods and how he always went to Al’s Pancake Palace and the waitress would bring him an iced tea without asking. I thought about the sweat stain in his truck’s front seat that was dark and pungent that I never wanted to touch. 

I thought about how he always made me try new foods and the careful way he went through every row at the Dollar Store. I thought about the time he took me and my brother to the park and tried to play a camera trick so it looked like we had jumped over a huge stone. I thought about the times he took us to the birdcage movies and how at the arcade he always played Space Invaders. 

I thought about all of these things while sitting next to the man who molested me when I was younger and listening to the woman who told me awful things about my whore mother. I thought about all of these things and I got angry and tearful. I thought about all of the cruel and meaningless things the people on the pew set aside for family had done and I was so angry.

Angry that these people had the right to talk on behalf of the one good man in my life. Angry that the pedophile still lived while the greatest man I knew had died. Angry that they had such a right and the privilege to stand there and tell us all what Stephen wanted, who Stephen was. I sat there and burned on the inside and listened to their lies and their legitimate grief and hated. 

I hated the chapel. I hated the pastor. I hated the violin. I hated Stephen’s brothers. I hated his sisters. I hated his friends. I hated everything except that picture. That ridiculously huge picture that was nearly drowned out by the hideous bouquets of flowers around it. 

That night at Stephen’s wake I laughed when my drunk aunt gave me the shirt off her back. I laughed not because Stephen would have wanted me to but because I wanted me to and that, more than the pastor, the chapel, and the awful squeaking violin music is something I knew in my heart that Stephen would have appreciated. 

I will never do anything in his name or because he would have wanted me to because that would go against everything he taught me growing up. I am my own person and the best way I can honor him is to continue being my own person. Proudly and without fanfare, I will be myself. Not because he loved me for me or because he would want me to but because I loved him- love him and this is the best way I can show it. 

Uncle Stephen was the greatest man I knew and he died alone. He loved his toaster oven and worked on traffic lights for a living. His obituary stated he “will be loved” and he is.  

In his words, “I’ve a feeling we’re all just a cornflake / Spilled loose from the box.”

This is something that has been bothering me for a while

The fact that while my orientation isn't well known it's already developed stereotypes that fuck up how I interact with others.
Because I'm asexual I must:

• Not like sex at all ever.
• Not like to talk about sex ever.
• Not like it when people check me out.
• Be uncomfortable around "sexuals."
• Never want to engage in sex at all.
• Have no desire or reason to have sex.
• Not be flirty at all for any reason.
• Never want to have sex with someone.

Holy fuck, people. Stop this. Just because I'm asexual doesn't mean any of those. The only thing being asexual means is that I do not experience sexual attraction. The rest of these purported traits are simply stereotypes. Not all gay men have sex indiscriminately. Not all heterosexual men only want women for sex. Not all asexuals lack a sex drive.

Putting in a page break to warn my sister that she may find the rest of this post awkward to read.

Tesk Rambles Because Tesk Can

I have problems remembering that my idealistic view of the world is not quite reality so that when someone does something that is entirely in their character but below what I expect from them I feel hurt, a little betrayed, and miserable. I know it's all my fault. I look at the world from a perspective that many people would call naive.


Because I am naive, in a way, really. I believe that everyone has in them the potential to be good. That everyone is inherently a good person but that societal expectations and personal grievances often overcome their good nature. I believe that everyone battles between wanting to be good and the easier ability to be bad. So when I interact with people I expect them to be good. I honestly believe they are. I feel they are capable of so very much and that they are trying to be a better person. I have hope in every single person that I meet and some that I never do.

This expectation- this faith in the people I know- has hurt me so much. I have spent so many days being miserable, being hurt, feeling betrayed by the people I love and the people I have hopes for and I will spend many more the same way. I wouldn't trade one miserable, forlorn day for an instant of expecting people to be less than they are capable of. I feel such a natural capacity for love and I don't want to dampen it, to let it wither away. I want to keep believing in people, in second chances, having faith in humanity, in my loved ones.

People make mistakes, they stumble, falter, fall, trip up, get upset, do things they know they shouldn't... I know they do. I do it to. I get terrified by things that most people spend their life chasing, I am scared so much, paranoid so often, hurt so habitually... My life has not been easy. At all. My life has been a stew of rot, mold, lies, treachery, betrayal, negligence, and a constant state of lacking. I have seen the worst in humanity. Raised by a murderer, birthed by a prostitute, left with a pederast, abandoned, starved, beaten, ignored, and betrayed repeatedly. My body is littered with the scars of a difficult life, my mind is a mass of them. I am so scared all the time. Afraid to have my back to doors, afraid to sleep in the open, afraid to speak too loud or too much, afraid to ask for what I want, terrified to depend on someone.

The majority of my friends are at least five years older than me. This isn't something I've done on purpose but a natural sort of gravity. I have always been old for my age. I get along better with older people. People my age just always seem so young, so free, so unburdened, so inexperienced and it bothers me. They bother me. Make me ache with an age I haven't earned, make me burn with this sort of jealousy for the easy life they have had. Sometimes they just frustrate me. I find these people my age who have gone through things like mine, maybe not so much or so severe or maybe they just had it hard in different ways and they're still so young, so free, so their age. Sometimes it has nothing to do with their maturity and more to do with their intelligence.

I am smart. I am. This isn't some egotistical statement brought about by a self-delusion but a conclusion arrived at by assessment of various factors. I am intelligent. There are people out there leagues beyond me and people out there at the same level as me that simply hold more general knowledge. I prefer to feel a bit stupid when I am in a group of people. I don't like to be the smartest person in the room. I like it when others know more than me. Now here is a distinction I draw: there are people out there who have had years and years more education than I, who have spent their lives in a higher socio-economic spectrum than me and thus have more knowledge- this does not make them more intelligent than me. More knowledgable, yes, and I appreciate that, but not more intelligent.

There are people out there who think that age and knowledge equate with a type of better-ness. This is not true. No one is my better. We humans are all equals. No one is better than another. I may not be their peer but I am always their equal. I always deserve the same level of respect. I always deserve to be treated like the equal I am. Any less than that and I cannot respect you as much as I once had. There is no better way to turn me off of you than to condescend to me, than to underestimate me because I am poor, because I am young, because I am not as educated. Especially if you know me. Strangers can be forgotten, they do not know better even though they should. But loved ones who do this hurt the most.

I have spent my life living under an enforced divide because of people who love me and as such believe it is ok to withhold things from me or to treat me different. Because I am female is no reason to treat me any differently. Because I am young is no reason to withhold things from me. Because I have not yet obtained a "proper" education is no reason to condescend to me.

I promise you that I have been torn up inside and out to such a degree that many people would not have survived. I have grown up in hell and I deserve the respect and regard that I should receive. I may be a woman. I may be young. I may be small and blond and bubbly and naive. But I can promise you that I am tougher than you think and I am stronger than you could believe. I have always survived and I will continue to do so. If you treat me like I am fragile, like I will break, like I can't handle things, then I can guarantee you that the only thing that will break is our relationship.

I can promise you something else, though: if you try, if you want to do better, if you recognize your mistakes and apologize for your wrong-doings then I will forgive. It may take me a while to trust again but if you come to me and try then I will try as well. I am human. I make mistakes. There are things I wish that I had done differently, people I have hurt that I wish I could mend, mistakes I have made that I desire strongly to correct. I understand what it's like to battle with those dark things inside and to lose. I know what it's like to give in to fears and insecurities when I know I shouldn't. So much of my life I spend afraid and fighting.

So yeah, maybe I am a fool. Maybe I am naive and maybe I let my hopes get too high but damn it, it's worth it. It's worth it to believe in the utter goodness of people. It's worth it to hope for the best. It's worth it to cling to some "idealistic" perspective. To me it's like loving. It's always worth it to love. Sometimes you get hurt. Sometimes you get broken. Sometimes love leaves you in a landfill of despair but it's always worth it. The pain is worth the trust, the warmth, the respect, the learning, the companionship.

Sometimes when you leap from tree branches you hit the ground (and every branch on the way down) but always when you leap you fly. Maybe briefly, maybe for a while, and sometimes if you're very lucky you leap and you just keep on soaring.