What Happens When Trauma Leaves The Body

Can we talk about how last night I taught yoga online in the granniest of granny panties, and IDGAF?

Like, so granny, the kind hospitals give you after you have a baby and leave the hospital, that go all the way from the place where your ass meets the top of the back of your upper thigh to fully grazing the beginning of your thoracic vertebrae?

Yes, THAT GRANNY.

And when I was changing into yoga clothes to teach how it was a decision I made to not change, not into a thong, not even into something less likely to peek out from the back of my activewear, because I am finally realizing what the feeling the world is experiencing is, and I need comfort wherever I can get it?

It’s grief. We are in mourning.

Whether or not you agree with the way the U.S. culture works, and I can assure you that I do not agree with most of it, it is the water we have been swimming in for a very long time, and the tank has sprung a leak.

Following this revelation (I started this particular post around 8 pm Sunday night), I had a massive anxiety attack, the worst in awhile, way back to the days when I used to black out in the middle of them.

This anxiety attack had an additional feature: uncontrollable shaking. I have been known to shiver as an anxiety attack recedes, but this shaking was like having a seizure, only I was fully aware and able to stop long enough to go throw up.

It was so bad, I had to hold my jaw open to prevent me from smashing my front teeth in as they gnashed together (they have short roots, I am informed, and it will only take the slightest nudge to knock them out).

Triggered, is the term, I think. I am triggered.

This shaking may have been trauma, held in my body for so long, trying to make its way out. The linked article (which I highly, highly suggest you read) explores the idea that our brain responds in a very orderly way to disorderly occurrences (like, oh, say, the death of your husband or the stressful unknowns of a pandemic). The reptilian brain kicks into gear when confronted with a stressor of any kind. This keeps us alive when we need to respond, as in when tigers are chasing us.

But what if the tigers are constant – real or imagined – and the rest of the brain is not able to spring into action to process the emotional response or to allow the brain to understand what occurred (the cognitive processing of an event)?

We are literally unable to “shake off” the trauma and our bodies remain primed for action. Conventionally, this is referred to post-traumatic stress disorder.

I have been collecting trauma in and of my body for an entire lifetime.

Being a learning robot and making an effort over a decade to recover and manage, I have been doing all of the right things – going to nature, eating well, attempting to meditate, (finally) managing my access to news and social media – so it is especially disheartening to have this occur.

I have no answers. I don’t know why.

This is not a blog for that.

We are living through trauma. We are surfing an ocean of grief that may or may not have anything to do with losing the life we have now but may instead be a compendium of a lifetime of damage in the body, damage that comes from just getting by, stuffing things down, insisting we are ok.

I am not ok. I am better than some, but even saying that invalidates the sentence before.

I am not ok.

But I am learning. I am here. I am working towards letting go. I am reaffirming what is important. I am developing tools within myself.

I feel at my weakest. I feel I am the strongest I have ever been.

We are all of us swimming in contradiction, far away from land.

For ourselves and for each other: let us be kind and patient. Let us be compassionate. Let us move slowly and lovingly and remember always to breathe.

I am trying.

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 29

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

I am bone-weary.

Maybe it’s still the transition of seasons.

Perhaps it’s the frantic rush of my baby bird as she sorts her belongings and packs for a month in Paris and then comes home to a new job and the search for her own place.

It’s certainly in the lingering illness in my lungs.

Maybe it’s saying goodbye to our old dawg and the grief that it stirs up. He was so related to Dane – Dane was Winston’s person, and when Dane died Winston never really recovered.

Sicily and I have discussed that we would really like, for Winston’s sake, for heaven to exist. If it does, he is eating peanut butter and bacon and sitting on all of the furniture there. We are not convinced that Dane is actually there, but we hope there are allowances for visits, because Winston would really like to go with Dane for a ride in the brown Dodge he came home in.

Go easy, Winston. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

31 Day Social Media Fast: Day 4

In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

There is no caption to adequately describe this. Please just watch.

Today’s post is not a happy one, brought to you as it is by the horrific history of American slavery and the manner in which we continue to perpetuate racism in this country.

In addition to reading The Book of Delights, I have been reading White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard To Talk To White People About Race.

Spoiler alert: If you are a white friend of mine, you may be getting one or both of these in the mail in the near future. I know reading actual books is unfashionable, and if you get the latter book you might feel defensive or insulted. It will be ok. Please read it anyway.

In one of this morning’s essays, Ross Gay talks about the genesis of the phrase “hole in the head,” and then tells the story of Vertus Hardiman, a man who, at age five, was experimented on with radiation.

Because here in the U.S., we experiment on black children. We enslave whole generations of people, break up their families, and blame them for the racist structure of the country.

We experiment on black children. I cannot put into words the grief I feel over this.

And then there is this:

Sorrow Is Not My Name
By Ross Gay
—after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color’s green. I’m spring.

If you share nothing else that I write, if you comment on nothing or barely pass by the words that I put down, if you cannot even be bothered to click the little “thumbs up” on your Facebook page, please share this post. I don’t care on what channels you share it, I don’t care what caption you place on it or if you are horrified and disgusted that I would post this and want to write about how awful I am.

Good. Share it anyway.

A New Driver Deserves A Drink: The Angry Mule

Back of the tooth: “Flossing isn’t just for gangstas.”

This morning my favorite (youngest/only) daughter got her driver’s license.

I remember getting mine as if I was the one behind the wheel a few hours ago. I took my test in a red Ford Escort with a manual transmission, back in the day when you still had to parallel park to earn that plastic. I had plans that weekend, plans that relied on me passing that test.

I remember the front wheel kissing the curb as I straightened up after parking, and my heart sank. If I was directed right after I pulled out of the parking space, that meant I had passed. A left meant disappointed friends and another boring weekend, trapped at the whim of parents who were sick of driving me around. I pulled the car out of the space and brought the front bumper parallel to the stop sign, expectantly looking at the test administrator. With a bit of a sigh, he pointed right.

I couldn’t watch The Kid as she began her test today. Mr. Tyrone walked the perimeter of the car, asking her to turn on various lights, and I couldn’t remember if she actually knew where the hazard lights were (or how to turn them on). She was spacey as we drove to her appointment, and I was just worried in general.

It’s no small thing, this putting your kid in the world and hoping for the best. It’s not just the lack of control over what they do; it’s the lack of control over what everybody else does. No one can be forced to treat your kid well.

No one gives a rat’s ass if you think they are amazing or if you did your best.

Mostly, from birth until you stop posting family selfies and ridiculous updates all over your social media, most people in the world are simply humoring you and your obsession with your child.

#TrueStory

It’s okay. We are built to be the center of our own universe. We can’t expect everyone to feel the same way about the things we care most about.

The one person who would have cared at least as much as me, beyond just a regular, garden-variety well-wishing, is sitting on the top shelf of my closet in a little wooden box.

When Dane died, Luke Bryan released “Drink A Beer,” a song that nearly killed me at that point in my grief. It was a country song, but we were in Georgia, and if I am being honest, Dane was more than a little bit country. Nevermind the “good lord” references; that’s beside the point.

Listen.

This song has been reverberating in my head since I handed Sicily her own key on a tooth-shaped key chain. As I type this and listen to various versions of it, I miss him. I miss Sicily’s father. I miss him because of her, and I miss him because of me. He would have been so proud today, and he would have cried as she drove away to spread these new wings of hers.

Neither of us are/were the praying kind, but I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit to sending something into the universe about protecting my heart as she drives to her next adventure/heartbreak/triumph/devastation.

After we spent a little more time in the company of the delightful folks at the MVA, Sicily drove us down to Jimmy’s in Fell’s Point for breakfast. I spent many drunk and hungover mornings with my friend Luke at the old Formica counter in Jimmy’s, drinking draft Budweiser so cold that it had thin sheets of ice floating at the top.

It doesn’t even shock me that I didn’t realize the Luke Bair (my friend)/Luke Bryan (that singer) connection until that last sentence came out of my fingers, or that I just randomly suggested breakfast at Jimmy’s to celebrate.

I didn’t get a beer because a beer at 9:30 might send the wrong message to my newly-licensed driver, but if any day warrants a drink, today is it.

Perhaps it should be a little forlorn, today’s drink, but grief takes it out of me so that I can’t even muster the strength to be forlorn. I made up this little cocktail over the summer but didn’t set it down until yesterday. #Foreshadowing

I know there is a drink with the same name, but this is not that, and I am certainly open to alternative suggestions.

Raising a glass tonight to myself, my sweet new driver, and my beloved husband who would have been so proud and is still very missed.

The Angry Mule

Make your own. The store-bought crap is no good.

Jalapeño-Infused Vodka

4 cups vodka

5 or 6 jalapeños

The Rest

Ginger beer (I like Gosling’s. Anything but ginger ale. #Heresy)

Pineapple juice

Method

PLAN AHEAD. Make your vodka by chopping up the jalapeños and placing them in a clean quart jar. Cover with vodka. Include the seeds. Let sit in a cool, dark place until you can’t wait anymore. A couple days, a week. Or just give it a taste. You may find it’s too spicy and want to add more vodka (see below).

Strain into a clean jar.

Fill a pint glass with ice. Add two ounces of vodka, then ginger beer almost to the top. Splash of pineapple juice, a little stir, and you’re in business.

Recipe Notes

  • The batch of jalapeño vodka I currently have working is actually bright green. This is a very, very good thing. This means that I can cut this batch with even more vodka and have even more jalapeño-infused vodka. #HellYes

My sweet baby. Jazz hands and potato chips at two years old. Not much has changed.

Love And Anger: Chocolate Cupcakes With Mole Ganache and Cinnamon Buttercream

Moody. Just like you.

Four years and four months after his death in a car accident, I am beginning to only remember the bad things about Dane.

The stages of grief are not stagnant and are generally understood to be fluid and back-and-forth; you don’t reach one stage and then never backslide. I seem to be moving back and forth between anger, depression, and acceptance, settling in mostly to the easiest emotion for me to deal with.

Anger. Which often hides its evil bitch of a twin, depression. So there’s that also.

I think we most of us are very comfortable with anger. Every time I open The Facebook or listen to the news, there’s something else to be angry about. I feel it when I get behind the wheel of my car (this is infrequent lately) and spend most of my time driving talking myself down and taking deep breaths.

The hardest thing these days is moving towards love.

I believe deeply in love and compassion and kindness. This is at war with my general dislike and distrust of strangers, but it dovetails nicely with my deep-seated and long-held belief that love truly is all that matters. Real, deep, abiding love. It’s the one thing that is free and available to anyone. You don’t even have to have a target for that love. Love, in general, can be spread all around, like butter on a hot bagel (and just as delicious).

I think that love is healing and softening and strengthening and is, ultimately, the thing that every single person on this planet actually wants and needs to survive.

But shit, man. Sometimes people are deeply painful and difficult to love. This is our 5th Father’s Day without Dane. Every year Sicily and I mark the day by doing something that Dane might have liked to do, but this year I find myself increasingly angry when I see and hear all these tributes to great dads. I can only see the negatives, chief among them the fact that he did not take care of himself and has left his daughter father-less, for this Father’s Day and an infinite number of other days that will find his child with teary eyes because her father isn’t there.

I did love Dane, deeply. He was funny and clever (see also “Wormaggedon” to describe the surfeit of dead worms in our driveway after a gully-washer). He could fix pretty much anything, and if you wanted to have fun, he was your go-to. He was generous to a fault and took everyone at face value (a trait his daughter has deliberately and conscientiously cultivated in herself). He loved his child, and he loved me – it was obvious in the way he wanted to be with us all the time. No one was happier than he was, puttering around the house and hanging with his girls.

But he sabotaged himself at every turn, his death just another example of that. He was careless with his time and money and he often avoided responsibility, making me the bad cop (but also the person who kept our ship afloat and mopped up his messes). The aftermath of his sudden death is another example of that, and I have been the target of some spectacular grief  outbursts from our child. I have parented very poorly at times these past years (well beyond minor poor parenting. Have you ever told your kid to shut the fuck up? I have. For the record, even though she really, really needed to shut the fuck up, I deeply regret telling her to do so.#ForReal), and I have, at times, found myself thinking about just how long I have to actually keep myself alive, respectably and so that our daughter is stable and set.

These have been rough days of late. No one tells you that grief lasts so long, not the wailing and teeth-gnashing part but the part where you have to figure out actually what the fuck and how to move forward.

Not surprisingly, I am craving comfort food. Chocolate comfort food, specifically. I guess I don’t actually know many people who crave a heaping bowl of kale when they stress eat, but I am also past the days when a simple piece of chocolate will do. If I have my say, my comfort food is cake of some kind, with plenty of frosting.

Just like love, these cupcakes are not just a straightforward chocolate smack in the face. They are complex and have deeply flavored layers of cinnamon and spice. They are warm and comforting  – just like love – and spicy and easy to overdo – just like anger.

Chocolate Cupcakes With Mole Ganache And Cinnamon Buttercream

Ingredients

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1 1/2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour (regular AP flour works, too)

3/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoons salt

2 eggs + 2 egg yolks at room temperature

3/4 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup hot coffee

 Mole Ganache

2 heaping tablespoons (or to taste) prepared mole negro (see Recipe Notes)

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons heavy cream

Cinnamon Buttercream

2 sticks butter, softened

3 – 4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 teaspoon cinnamon (sifted with the powdered sugar)

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 (ish) tablespoons heavy cream or whole milk

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place cupcake liners in a muffin tin. Set aside.

For the cupcakes: In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl), mix together both sugars, flour, sifted cocoa flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a medium bowl, combine eggs, sour cream, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract and mix well to combine.

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until just wet. Add hot coffee and mix until thoroughly combined, about one minute.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full and bake for 15 – 17 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely before filling and frosting.

For the ganache: Place mole, chocolate chips, and heavy cream in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over low heat and stir constantly until chocolate and mole are completely melted and mixture is smooth. Let cool slightly, then place in refrigerator.

For the frosting: Place softened butter in a large bowl and sift in powdered sugar and cinnamon. Add vanilla and one table of heavy cream to start. Use a hand mixer to beat until creamy and smooth and the consistency of frosting. If it is too thick, add more heavy cream; add more powdered sugar if it’s too thin.

Assembly: Use a demitasse spoon or sharp knife to remove a divot of chocolate cupcake (set that aside to freeze and then mix into ice cream). Scoop or pipe chocolate mole ganache into that divot, then pipe frosting in a swirl to cover (you can use a star tip and a pastry bag to make rosettes or a fancy swirl.

Eat a million of these. Recipe makes (annoyingly) 32 cupcakes.

Recipe Notes

I used mole negro from Guelaguetza, a specialty food company in California. Their mole is complex and spicy and earthy and delicious; I found it at the Emporiyum in Baltimore back in April. Previously, my go-to mole was Dona Maria’s, which had the bonus of coming in a lovely juice glass and is easily located in the Hispanic food section of most grocery stores. You can use whichever mole you wish.