“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.” – Gertrude Jekyll
“An invisible string from the heavens touching mine, her orb a sweet- scented blushing pink.” – Jacqueline Cioffa
I never cared much about looking back when I was young.
I could not wait to leave this house, this town get out and experience stuff. You know the obstinate dreamer looking for bold adventure. It worked. I ran. I ran fast and far, and kept running. That’s the funny thing about developing a serious illness, you are forced to re-prioritize. Becoming insane in the middle of Manhattan did not bode well for me or the strangers that crossed my path. The fancy friends eventually grew tired and gave up on listening to the paranoia, illusions of grandeur or understanding the enticement of pretty pink and shiny purple horses or the flickering lights of the carousel. Ones you can’t dismount or runaway from or dismiss, like the mania and depression you can’t out run. Round and round you go, in perpetuity. There are worse things than glaring evil stares when dancing alone in a Radio Shack in Harlem. There are even worse things than sitting on the floor in the middle of Rite Aid, Gatorade in hand, sobbing because you don’t know where you are, why the room is spinning or if you’re going to hurl from the strobe light storm happening inside your brain. There are even worse, more horrific things than why you’re all alone sitting on the cold, dirty floor. You are sure there are. You watch the news, bad shit happens. This bad to you, you’re not so sure.
Mortifying, that’s what mental illness is. Ruthless, ugly, hide your face in shame from the judgmental, fearful stares. The noise level in NYC is just too high. You can’t stand when passerbys brush against you, the subway screeches to a halt, or the taxis whizzing past. The bright yellow hurts your eyes. You can’t see. You can’t hear. You cannot process the incessant, relentless buzz, hums and whirring noise.
S.T.O.P.
I am somebody’s child, you know.
I am somebody’s child, same as you.
I used to love the Carousel screaming and running towards it, arms flailing like the happy carefree girl I once was.
What I can’t figure out is what the hell I’m supposed to do? Now. With this.
Some people are addicted to the mania jonesing for the next high, the visions, euphoria.
No, no, no.
Not me. I’ll take the black hole depression and blasé every single time. It’s quieter and peaceful alone in the dark. Except for being skinny, that part of the mania I’ll keep.
There’s only one thought to trust, one way to save yourself.
Maybe, maybe if you go back you might find your way.
Safe passage awaits.
Home.
Maybe I’ll breathe easier there.
Maybe the familiar, childhood home might save me.
Probably not. It’s my best shot.
You see, I don’t care if I live or if I die. I know that sounds harsh, exaggerated, self-indulgent but it’s not.
I only care how I live and where I’ll die.
I’ve been asking my mom about her mother as far back as I can remember, cataloging the information in a deep, pooling reservoir of serenity where I could reach in calling on the stories to be soothed.
I have tidal waves of memories, and ripple effects of love stored in my brain.
My grandmother, May, died in her sleep before we could meet. Fifty-three is too young to leave, she was barely getting started I bet.
I know some things about her. She liked to fish and the solitude of being on the water. We have that in common.
She drank a Manhattan every night after work. She was a baker’s daughter, my mom still makes her molasses cookie recipe at Christmastime. She loved her husband who’d get sick, (like me) and then better but never quite the same.
“Don’t bother your father,” the phrase handed down to her own daughter.
May worked in a plumbing shop with him, raising her children to be responsible, gentile and hardworking.
It was a simple, honest life.
She liked to dance, but didn’t go out often.
She loved gardening, planting roses and peony bushes.
Did you know it takes peonies a full year to bloom?
Maybe May knew while planting the seed, her heart full of family.
An invisible string from the heavens touching mine, her orb a sweet- scented blushing pink.
Maybe she knew, probably not.
She’d adored diamonds like me, wore an outrageous sparkling solitaire with facets that shimmer and catch the light on my finger. I only wear the precious heirloom on special occasions or when I’m morosely blue. It makes me feel pretty inside, close to her.
“You never told me I looked like her,” drilling my mother with yet another ten-thousandth question.
She nodded, “it makes me sad and happy at the same time.”
Home, a place one doesn’t fully outgrow and never truly leaves behind.
But home, this home however much I am the failure for needing to return is where I would like to live and how I would hope to die.
Not necessarily the physical dwelling, but the contentment feeling and serenity of a happy place inside.
Surrounded by love. Less alone.
Unencumbered by the weight of heavy living.
One, two buckle my shoe. I don’t know how other writers find their way into a story.
For me, it usually goes something like this. I hear a line in my head, a word, see a visual, and then the story plays over and over, until I release it onto the page. Its cathartic, sometimes it takes me back, some days it moves me forward when I am wallowing and can’t get unstuck. Most times, it’s just an honest, real interpretation of an emotion. I’m an emotional girl. Or, so I’ve been told.
I live with the image, words, sometimes for days, weeks, even months. Then, like magic or being possessed, I have to get it out. My fingers take over the keys; my mind wanders and dictates the thoughts, mulling it about until there is a clear picture. I see mere babies growing, learning the simple phrase, “One, two, buckle my shoe.” We are all preconditioned from the start. “Look at me, Mommy look what I can do. I can talk, walk and dance all on my own.” And we wait, for the love, the adoration, the pride on their faces. The loving adoration of a parent and their perfect can do no wrong baby girl. We wait, and then we wait some more.” Look Daddy, I dyed my hair red with a blond streak, I wanted to be different”. I got drunk in school, lashing out against the bullies, the in crowd, and the machine, desperate to be an individual. Daddy holds my head as I puke and strokes my hair, he tells the first lie. “It’s ok, baby girl, you are my princess, you are going to be all right.” And we wait, for the clap. Bravo, you are so smart, so beautiful they say. You are positive they mean it. You miss the roll of the eyes in frustration, or the bed time whisper and tears, “I’m so worried about her.” She’s too young to be this sad, so depressed, to be so oddly different. One, two buckle my shoe. I must conform to society, wear the same shoe, walk the same old boring old walk, say all the right things. I’m sad for the young girl, so miserably, visibly unhappy, in high school. I hate the way this feels; I take note that I am different. They say nothing, providing all the pleasantries and comforts of a supportive, loving home. I am so lucky like that. Maybe they knew all along, how horribly difficult things would turn out, how unusual I would actually become.
“It’s not her fault, it’s in her genes.” Oh my God, did they speak it aloud? She’s Mentally Ill. What?! One, two, buckle my shoe. I try to be normal, to please them, to see the admiration still on their faces. My daddy is gone, he died a broken man. Mental Illness got him, no matter how hard my mother fought. She did not win. We buried him in a grave and he has not yet come back. I wait for him. I still wait for him. In my dreams, during this sabbatical and these sick days, he hasn’t come. He can’t quite find his way back. One, two buckle my shoe. My mother has aged so. The bravest, head strong, caring, woman I know. Cursed in this lifetime to fall in love, make a family. One, two buckle my shoe.
With a baby daughter who would grow to walk in her father’s shoes. I didn’t mean it, as hard as I try, I can’t win. The Lunacy gene has taken hold of me, too. One, two buckle my shoe. I don’t care if I die see; the excruciating days are too hard to fill. I came back home. Home, to the safe, happy childhood home I once knew. It’s less happy now. There are fewer nursery rhymes. There are only mornings, where I wake shaking and take pills. Lots and lots of pills, I count. Ten a day, sometimes twelve. I don’t want them, fuckers one and all. I hide it best I can. Inside I am a ticking time bomb, shoeless, crying, screaming, I’m so sorry I didn’t make you proud. I gave it my best shot. I hide the pain, the fear, the paranoia, and the overwhelming anxiety the best way I know how. In the bottom of an old, outgrown, dated, and worn down shoe. I’m sorry, really so very sorry I never meant to lose my mind. I’ve always wanted to come back to you, to make my mother and father proud. I lie most days, I do. Sometimes that even makes me feel better. I can forget the ugly future that awaits.
I am penniless, wandering with no direction. One, two buckle my shoe. I end up in an institution or worse on the street. No one cares. They barely saw me before. You see, while my parents were busy clapping my way into adulthood, I saw it. The times they were preoccupied doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, getting on with life. They missed my first steps. Not on purpose, not without regret. I know they tried their best, I know they did. But, I’m still looking for that first and final clap. It never comes. I will always be out of step.
I drink Ginger with a bit of Ale to ease the relentless ad nauseam that is the day. It’s winter here. We have had an easy time of it. Today, the sun shines and I reminisce. One, two buckle my shoe. I can’t remember the full verse. I guess it doesn’t matter anyhow. I will ask my mother. No, no I must not. I must learn to walk on my own, however blistering and uncomfortable the shoe. The numbness fits.
originally published April 2012 brooklynvoice.com
Lupe and I must have walked the loop at Hoopes Park a thousand times, or more.
In ten-degree freezing black ice, navigating lethal dangerous walkways (and fallen more than once), on grey-cloud, weepy wet gloomy days.
You name it. We’ve dredged through it.
It helps, ya’ know. The walk.
To free the brain from the pressure, dark and dangerous thinking.
Easing up, releasing the unrelenting anxiety.
When we walk past the white pristine house with the red door, I have to fight the urge not to run up and knock.
Or barge in.
She’s not there.
I know this to be true in my head, but my heart searches for her.
Missing every puzzle piece and all her silly ways. Her sage advice, too.
The water fountain, Buddha and Zen room she created, so proud to show me the space.
Her home with the red door is just a dwelling now, somebody else’s house we pass on the walk.
Suicide was never her choice, she just couldn’t stay.
I don’t believe there are coincidences, I choose to believe there are signs along the way.
L.B.H., I believe you threw me one today.
It’s the perfect sixty-degree, pretty blue sky day with sunshine peek-a-booing through the clouds.
Like a child playing hide and seek, giggly and covering their mouth to contain the excitement.
Just like a happy child, exactly like you.
http://standagainstsuicide.org
Thanks for the Buddha, water fountain, precious memories and luminescent magic that was your life.
The Zen room has a new home, with me.
I’ll do my best to keep them safe.
I’ll do my best to keep you safe, using my voice.
I stand against suicide, because your life matters.
Because you, more than anyone I have ever known loved being alive.
You, and your gypsy-free spirit, brilliant, bold, courageous, compassionate, goofy, non-judgmental, all-encompassing, curious, big beautiful love would be walking right beside me.
You are.
I can’t see you, but I feel your presence in mine.
I did not forget.
2 days and eight years gone is too long.
You were, and continue to be forever loved.
This is my story.
Boots and a bag, sherbet sunrise, an extended furlough at the beach, the Cove, side-trip to the bayou and the self-confinement of four walls inside a nowhere home (a whole lot of love, shock and awe, bizarre happens, heartbreak, joy, birth, rebirth, gritty life stuff). Dual realities co-existing in parallel space and time.
Bam we’re back to the boots and full throttle.
The Vast Landscape and Georgia Pine are continuums; sagas and gatekeepers.
One cannot be without the other.
I know precisely how EVERGREEN starts and where the heroine/ narrator ends.
Everything else is a dust storm of blood, tears and sunshine.
Time to kick up the dirt, get chaotic and trust the ride.
I love the messy middle.
I live for the mess, and it’s all in the middle.
“It’s a roll, rock and a break. Let her ride.” – Jacqueline Cioffa
“They have mere minutes left, not long ago lazy days in the thousands. Oh, if she could give some of them back, maybe it would stop. The deep lines etched across her mother’s beautiful face, the crude reminder it does not.” The Vast Landscape
A mother’s love is everything in our #BookBubble of the week by @makeupmodelcitihttp://t.co/ZfsmyjU3ud#IARTG#ASMSG#amreading
— Bublish (@BublishMe) May 12, 2015
“I am not a mother, I only understand the depths, beauty and bitter-sweetness from her side. It’s what I know. The one truth I’ve learned that matters. I write the complicated mother-daughter bond from both sides.” –Jacqueline Cioffa
Syracuse Fashion Week 2015 is in high gear.
Join me along with other illustrious guests for a fun, glam evening at the Landmark Gala, April 11th, 2015.
BOOK SIGNING BY JACQUELINE CIOFFA AUTHOR OF THE VAST LANDSCAPE
I know where I’ll be kicking up my heels this Saturday, how ’bout you?
Portion of the proceeds to benefit The Food Bank of CNY, come out and support your local Community.
“The Vast Landscape” Model Fiction
Portion of the Proceeds To Benefit THE FOOD BANK of CNY
http://syracusefashionweek.net
CLICK the Link for SYRACUSE FASHION WEEK Spring 2015 Events Calendar
http://syracusefashionweek.net/events-schedule/syracuse-style/
i remember this place. a traditional Italian family lived here. the smell of meatballs and homemade sauce overpowered your senses inviting you in. lace doilies adorned the kitchen table. plastic pride covered the furniture. linens hung on the clothesline signaling sweet smells of Spring. the barn was once a Soda Pop warehouse, Liberty Beverage. the family is gone now, mom and dad died packing up their stories for a different journey. kids moved out and away. the bank took the house many years ago, leaving it to rot and decay. once there was a neighborhood street, a welcoming family who were proud to call this forgotten dwelling a home. the horseshoe placed upwards over the barn door to hold in all the power it brings and good luck. i remember a happy home and her inviting smells. the cracks of neglect and decay, worn paint can’t take the horseshoe memories away.
My grandfather came to this country when he was twelve years old from County Cork, Kildare in Ireland with five brothers and two sisters in tow. He was twelve years old. Despite an eighth grade education he found a trade, worked hard, prospered and made a whole life for himself.
He married a strong, loyal, capable German girl, a baker’s daughter with five sisters and two brothers from solid stock.
They’d have three sons and their firstborn, a daughter. They named her Ellen.
Family came first, tradition followed and love was omnipresent.
I adored my Papa, being one of ‘his dollies.’ He stood 6’2″ I had to crook my neck to look up. He had silver white hair and a gold tooth that sparkled when he grinned.
Sunday outings were our special time. I felt goosebumps alive to be riding with him in his shiny Cadillac with power windows.
He placed a green carnation corsage in the fridge on St. Patrick’s Day. One for me and one for his Irish baby girl, Ellen.
Without tradition, legacy, family, there would be lackluster stories to tell.
There would be no Black Irish girl falling hard for the larger than life, mesmerizing Italian man.
Their stories would paint mine with enough adventure and adjectives to fill blank pages and pages.
Legacy is a lofty word and weight to carry.
Pride, respect, honor are terms I inherited with no borders.
Storyteller, moments retold, stored and catalogued through cracked pictures that hang on the walls.
5-STAR Praise for THE VAST LANDSCAPE
“The Vast Landscape is more than just an incredible love story. It is a chronicle of a women’s …,
The Vast Landscape is more than just an incredible love story. It is a chronicle of a women’s journey to escape from her small town and to travel around the world in pursuit of fame and success. There’s something very visceral about the range of emotions the story evokes and the variety of relationships it explores. From family to friendships to lovers and back again, Harrison’s drive and enduring passion bind her to an intriguing fate bridging the generations of Georgia Pine.” JG Amazon reader
Jacqueline Cioffa 
