Minefields of the Mind

(After Corps School, on my way to Charleston Naval Hospital)



Blogging friend Should Fish More (Mike Mullins) wrote of an episode of PTSD-spawned flashback to his service in Vietnam.

As Mike says in a reply to a comment, everyone’s jungle is out there.  Maybe my first trip wire was the hospital ward at Ft. Polk, Louisiana in 1968, where we went to see my brother, recovering from wounds he received in Vietnam.  Or when I was stationed at Great Lakes, for corps school, and got my first exposure of the unending stream of walking (wheeling, hobbling, et cetera) wounded.  Then there was Charleston Naval Hospital, my last duty station.  None of what I saw was like being in a kill zone after a firefight, or working in a field hospital tent, but it was more than I had ever seen in real life before, and was more than I could process.  So it lay repressed, in deep cover, for 45 years, waiting for the right moment to ambush.

Sometimes I feel ashamed of myself for having these episodes when I didn’t see combat or serve close to the front, where the boys I did see had been patched together enough to send home to stateside hospitals.  I can’t imagine what I’d be like if I had been, and that’s scary to contemplate, considering.

I'm learning about triggers and desensitizing and coping mechanisms and how the 45-year-old memories that seem to explode from nowhere, that destroy my serenity, are also door-opening keys to the memories from childhood forward that I took with me into the Navy.  The memories I can’t look at directly, but only through the lens of my time in service.

I don’t fully understand the mechanics of PTSD; may never know.  But I’m working on it, getting better a little bit at a time, one episode at a time.  My heart breaks for those whose condition is far worse than mine, who can’t function in “the world”, who are still lost in their own jungles (or deserts, or mountains - wherever there was mind-altering trauma).  I hope they find the help they need and deserve…and have earned.

(Thanks, Mike.)

New Digs

 

This is the house where I used to work.  Too bad I didn't take any photos inside, but I think you'll be able to imagine the scene if I say we had three houses worth of furniture, equipment, books, office supplies and people in that one tiny house.  We also had road dust, leaking pipes, poorly fitted windows, road noise that sounded as if the vehicles were going to drive through the front room (my office) at any moment.  There were good noises, though - children from a near-by preschool program used to parade on the sidewalk in front of the office on their way to the park a few doors down.  Their voices made me think of chirping birds, with laughter.  I loved having them go by.  If I weren't busy, I'd go to the front door and wave to them.

 

However, we needed to move, having long ago outgrown the space, and the expenses for repairs kept rising.

 

 

 

One of our Board members is a Vice-President at a local bank.  When we started our search for a new place, he remembered that his bank owned an adjacent, attached building that had been sitting empty for more than ten years.  Two years ago, the Board asked him to investigate our being allowed to use it, for as modest a fee as possible, of course, since we're a poor non-profit.  After much negotiation and back-and-forth with the bank's corporate office in New York, all parties agreed and we had our lease.  Above is our front façade.

 

We began packing up the old office in June, readying for a mid-July move.  All that while we still conducted regular business, which was more stressful than any of us imagined it might be.  We had to remodel the inside from front to back, mostly cosmetic work, to change it from a dark, dreary cave-like décor to something that would reflect the available light in all the rooms.  (The windows are few, narrow and coated with some sort of sun screen material.  Dark, dark, dark.)

 

 

 

This messy room (still unpacking and putting away - remember the three-rooms-worth of stuff?) is my new office.  I was permitted to choose the wall color, design my new built-in desk area and choose the materials and new equipment.  That wall where the clock is (as were all walls) used to be a dark brown.  The new paint color is a light yellow-green that appears different depending upon how the light hits it.  I wanted something light and cheery and had selected several shades for the Board to review and select.  Fortunately, they picked the one I wanted most - called Hemingway.  Shortly after moving in, the air-conditioning unit for my office died, hence the small fan.  The bank is considering what to do.  I might have A/C in December.  The next two images are of my desktop - also messy and cluttered.  Not for long, though.  I'm going in this afternoon and doing some clean-up.

 

Our new space also houses our library, a much needed expansion.  Our librarian has been asking for more space for years, but several people on the Board, and one weighty committee, have given the library short-shrift in the ten years I've been here.  Our librarian has worked hard, under trying conditions, to organize and properly archive our burgeoning collection of documents and books with the smallest budget allotment ever.  He's done a great job, and now has the space - and budget! - he needs to do it right.

That's it, folks.  If  When I have everything put away, if things look any better, I'll post an update.  (I know - hard for you to get excited over office space, right?)

Anyway, thanks for stopping by today.  See you later!

 

 

 

(Well, what else would I have in my office for decoration?)

Happy Birthday!

http://4thofjuly-pictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/fourth-of-july-photos.jpg


Sorry for the link.  Google wouldn't load the image, after several attempts.


I hope that those of you who celebrate the anniversary of our becoming a sovereign nation will have a great time today.

Goodbye, Joe.

When I started my blog several years ago, I searched for others that had a crow theme.  Joe Hyam's blog wasn't about crows, not in the way I was searching, but he had taken a photo of a crow, and that's what came up in my search.  I liked what Joe wrote and added him to my list of blogs to follow.

 

Joe, through his blog, introduced me to many things - art, poetry, other bloggers, other places - that expanded my limited knowledge and added a lot of pleasure to my life.  He wrote about the artist Rothko, of whom I'd never heard, but whose works I find interesting. 

 

 

Abstract by Rothko

 

Joe also introduced me to another Brit with whom I've corresponded, his dear friend, Roderick Robinson.  When Joe posted a photo (below) he took of friends on a park bench near his home, I immediately thought of him and Robbie.  I swiped the photo, with Joe's permission, for my collection, and look at it often.  Never more so than today.

 

 

Photo of friendship, by Joe Hyam (c) 2009

 

 

If you visit Robbie's blog page today, you will find a beautiful tribute to his friend Joe, who has died.

 

I have no idea if there is anything for us once we die, but if there is, I hope Joe has found his Beloved and they are enjoying a skyscape together as beautiful as the one he captured in the photo below.

 

Goodbye, Joe.  Thank you for all that you gave to me. 

 

Golden clouds by Joe Hyam  (c) 2013

Beginning To See Trees

 

 

The familiar expression about not seeing the forest for the trees, meaning one can't see the big picture for being myopically focused on details, doesn't fit with my situation right now.  My problem is being overwhelmed by the enormity of the forest surrounding me, full of frightening sounds and shadows, no clear path (or paths) to follow out of the darkness, with frightening goblins jumping at me, ambushing my peace of mind.

 

However, I have a guide now, my former therapist, whom I last met with four years ago.  I tried counseling with a psychologist at the Veterans Outreach Clinic nearby, but it was not a good fit.  In fact, she made me feel worse than when I walked in.  She insinuated on my first visit that I was a malingerer, there for compensation.  I tried counseling with her through two visits, recognized it wasn't going to work and left.

 

I've been ill for a long time, more than 50 years.  Whatever happened at the end of December opened all the closet doors, behind which I've been stashing bogeymen -- instead of dealing with each issue as it popped up.  I do have PTSD, related to my time in service, triggered by my visits to the VA clinic, but it is mild and will settle down.  I can feel a space opening up around me, allowing a bit of light in.  That light will enable me to see into the rest of the darkness.

 

I have a long way to go before I'm out of the woods, the labyrinth of my mind.  There will be more clearings, I hope, where I can stop to rest, to gather my wits about me, before going down the next path.

 

For the time being (however long that might be), I will continue to lurk, to visit your blogs, but won't be back here for awhile.  Just wanted to pop in and let friends know I'm okay.

 

So, happy trails to you, until we meet again. 

 

 



 

 (*)

 

Sometimes, God-there-is-no-God, I just don’t see any purpose to anything (an exaggeration, but you get my drift, I’m sure).  Sometimes, I think we human beings were a terrible mistake; a curse upon this planet to ourselves and all the other creatures; also, to the land, the waters, the air.

We are a self-involved, self-serving, self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, self-important, Self-ish waste of evolutionary energy.  All that we create is for the attention, praise and adoration from others, unless it is for their subjugation or annihilation or enslavement.  What good are we?

Sometimes, I don’t want to be human.  Sometimes, I don’t want to be me.  Sometimes, I don’t want to be.

But, what else could I be?  What purpose could I serve?  What purpose does a life have, anyway?  Maybe (probably) there is no meaning or purpose to life and deep inside the darkest corner of our brains we know this – it is all moot.  Perhaps Life has no more significance than a flea’s fart, if even that much.  Yet we continue the struggle to give life a speck of significance, of meaning or purpose.  We search for joy, for laughter, for happiness, for bliss, for transcendence.  For Love, that other insignificant mystery, source of more pain than gladness; a thing more elusive than chasing a shadow or a sunbeam.

I have a hunger for something I can’t name, haven’t seen or tasted or held or heard or smelled; something that does not exist, not even in my imagination.  It is this yearning for the inexplicable, for the unsayable non-existent that led to humanity’s creation of gods and goddesses, of God-there-is-no-God, Allah, Buddha and all the other Masters of the Universe. 

Know what I think all the Masters of the Universe are?  A big black hole leading to Absolute Zero, that state wherein no Life can exist - no sun, no constellations, no thought, no pain, no gladness, no sadness, no pointless ruminations on a dreary, wet, cold Friday night of no light – or Light.  No yearnings, no words, no sight, no response, no reactions.  No being.

What’s it all about, Alfie? 

I'm going to fix a cup of coffee, go out on the back steps, sit in the almost-pitch dark and watch the steam rise from my cup to enjoin the rainful night air.  Going to listen to the plip-plip, plick-plop of raindrops onto the roof, the metal gutter, the sidewalk, the alley's blacktop.  Going to close my eyes and picture the sound of tires spraying water onto everything the cars pass.  Going to listen to birds snoring and fleas farting.  Going to feel every ache in every bone, in every muscle, in every cell of my body, and be grateful that I can.  When I finish that cup of coffee, I expect you to have an answer for me, God-there-is-no-God...okay?


(*)Photo:From Wikipedia article on black hole: Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The ratio between the black hole Schwarzschild radius and the observer distance to it is 1:9. Of note is the gravitational lensing effect known as an Einstein ring, which produces a set of two fairly bright and large but highly distorted images of the Cloud as compared to its actual angular size.

 

Rose-red and Pink

(C) 2013 M C McLemore

 

 

Anyone over the age of 6-years on this date in 1963 likely has some memory of where they were when JFK was shot.

 

I was in biology class, first class after lunch, at F. T. Nicholls Senior High in New Orleans, wondering where our teacher was.  She was almost ten minutes late, and the class was getting restless, loud and unruly.  When she came through the door, it was obvious she had been crying, was still crying.  The class fell immediately quiet, uneasy.

 

"It is my sad duty," she said, "to tell you that the President has been shot."

 

Stunned, confused silence greeted her announcement.

 

A boy sitting behind me asked "What president?"

 

Our President, she blubbered.  "John Fitzgerald Kennedy!"

 

Disbelief replaced confusion and several of us screamed out "NO!"  The boy behind me said she lied, that Kennedy wasn't shot, it wasn't true, it couldn't be true.

 

We were the same class that had lived through the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, practically at our front doors.  We didn't believe anything could be scary after that.

 

Mr. Garland, the principal, came on the intercom a few seconds later, telling the teachers to close the doors to their rooms.  He told everyone to remain calm, that he would speak again after the upcoming broadcast.

 

Somewhere in the front of the room a girl began to cry.  Then it became real.  Something was dreadfully wrong.  Mr. Garland was crying, too.

 

Like in a roomful of babies, where one after another begins to cry (not knowing why exactly, but if the other babies are bawling then there must be something to cry about), sniffling and low moaning spread through the classroom.  Even the most macho of the boys succumbed to the anxiety.

 

The next announcement came from the school secretary. 

 

"The President is dead.  Please remain in your seats."  Her voiced cracked.  The mike clicked off.

 

Fear, unnamed but near-palpable, raced its way from seat to seat, row to row.

 

Mr. Garland opened the mike.  He said he was reading a statement from the Orleans Parish Superintendent of Schools.

"President John F. Kennedy was shot today in Dallas, Texas, around 12:30 this afternoon. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead just a few minutes ago."

A great roar went up in our classroom and those around us.  Unbelievably, some were cheering.  Not in our room.

Mr. Garland told the teachers to take attendance and for the students to prepare to leave, but to stay in their seats until he released us.

When we were released, we walked out of school into a world changed forever.  We had left the cave, lost a measure of our innocence, and felt the heavy hand of adult responsibility touch our shoulders.

I didn't break down until later that evening, at home, while we were watching the arrival of Air Force One returning to Washington, DC.  When I saw the First Lady standing at the back of the open bay, her face puffy from crying, her hair in disarray, I said to my mother that there were rose petals still on her suit.

"Those aren't rose petals, Martha." 

My mother's voice was soft, kindly, tearful.  I looked at her face, then knew.

There were many tears shed in our home over that mournful weekend and the week after, but none stung as bitterly as those shed for the blood rose-petals on Jackie's skirt.