The Power of an Imagination

Everything seems to be going better in my home. After having a headache last night, I feel better this morning. I was able to communicate how my husband’s constant obsessive worrying about medicine affected me. When my husband worries, I feel stressed out. This has been happening since we went out to eat on January twenty-third, the anniversary of my last battle with a blood clot.

Over the past few months, my husband has been taking a sleeping medicine known as Klonopin. Recently in my husband’s recovery group, a man joined for his addiction to Klonopin. My husband described the man as having bruises on his face because of fights. The man’s wife left him because of his verbal abuse. This woke my husband up. My husband was heading down the same path with me.

Since being off of Phentermine, my husband has been a bit obsessed with my recovery. He blames himself for blowing me up last year with food. Things did get worse in my marriage since the twenty-third. I told my husband to call his doctor or we were going to part ways. I was feeling stressed out, moody, agitated, and not wanting to be at home much. Since the temperatures outside were low, I could not go outside.

One afternoon – I believe Friday – my husband called one of his friends in recovery to discuss his behavior towards me. The man told my husband to concentrate on his own recovery and let me deal with mine. There have only been one or two times my husband has gotten out of line since this talk. Each time since, I have put my husband in his place.

Yesterday was a prime example. My husband had an eye appointment. When my husband is alone, he has a tendency to dwell on the negatives of everything. This is part of his mental illness. My husband was worried about his liquid Trileptal would be switched to the pill form and approved by his insurance. He was worried about having to go back to a psychiatric hospital if he had a relapse. My husband worried about everything under the big bright sun.

I told my husband to have faith in God. I told him other things as well, such as being proud of how far he has come in recovery. I wanted to lift my husband’s spirits. I did put my husband in his place but in a nice way. I do not need to be mean to get my points across. My husband knows I love him and want the best for his life. He thanked me for putting him in his place. Being appreciated is something I look forward to.

Living with a mental illness is not easy for my husband. I believe my husband is worried I will leave him. One of his male friends from college in New York kept going inside hospitals. At the time, the man was married. He would take his medications at different times of the day or he would forget. Eventually the wife became tired of this behavior. She moved to Atlanta with their young daughter and filed for divorce.

I married my husband for the man he was. I did not see my husband as larger than life the way I did with another in my younger days. I did not paint my husband out to be somebody I wanted him to be. I saw my husband’s compassion towards his church and love of friendships. My husband seemed real to me. My husband loved me for me and did not panic about little issues with my physical disability. My husband has poetry from his college years that I love to read. His poetry provides me with hope.

Last night, my husband told me Hastings has begun to buy records. I told my husband he should keep his family records. As he was going to walk away, I pulled him closer. Maybe I was having a moment of break down. I usually don’t become sentimental over things like this but I was last night. I told my husband I do not have anything materialistic from my paternal grandmother. The only connection I have to my grandmother is a love of the criminal justice system. We also attended the same college. We have dark brown hair. We both love to smile and laugh. We love people.

Other than that, I do not have anything else of my grandmother. When I read Saturday Matinee by Maxine Neely Davenport, one of many of my grandmother’s younger sisters, I am able to have more of a connection with both women. I know Grandma would be one proud big sister if she were alive today. My grandmother has several wonderful sisters, a brother, a sister-in-law, nieces, nephews, and greats. My grandmother is inside of us each day that passes.

My grandmother is no longer in our my world through material possessions. Grandma is in my world through my imagination. When I was younger, I used to imagine what smelling Grandma’s clothes would be like. I wondered if she looked in her mirror each morning as she applied lotion and make-up for work. I wondered what clothes Grandma wore to work each day. I do know that Grandma was a lady in every way. I like to think about the woman Grandma. This did not seem real to me in my early years. In a young person’s eyes, a grandmother is romanticized. A grandmother can do no wrong or suffer from any pain. A granddaughter would love to take that pain away from her grandmother so she could live longer.

As a thirty-three year old wife and mother of a small Chihuahua, I see Grandma in a new light. I wonder what Grandma would look like in the clothes I pick out for her to wear. I am sure she would look lovely in a light pink sweater with white jeans. I am sure Grandma would smell good in perfume. I am sure she would look beautiful wearing black sandals inside her home. This is the image I see of Grandma. I imagine Grandma in modern times instead of the woman she was thirty-years ago. Grandma was one beautiful lady, and in my mind, she still is. Grandma had a glow that showed the radiant woman she was.

I do not know if Grandma liked dogs. I am sure she would love Luigi, her great grandson. I am sure Luigi would lay on Grandma’s lap the way I used to for hours at a time. I imagine Grandma would play hide-and-seek with Luigi and act silly with him the way she did with me. I like to imagine Grandma kissing the top of Luigi’s head with her angelic lips. I imagine Grandma smiling down at me as I am by her feet admiring her shoes. I imagine Grandma’s smile the way I do writers composing great characters in stories. I do not believe any great writer could have ever written Grandma’s part in this world to be the way she was to her youngest granddaughter. 

The Simple Mark of Womanhood

Yesterday morning I discussed the tragic suicide of the great English writer Virginia Woolf. The act of committing suicide was not easy for this woman. In fact, I find this woman to be resourceful in her final attempt. Previous attempts did not lead Woolf to her final goal. She was too self-reliant. Apparently Woolf knew how to swim well. The final attempt landed Woolf looking outside of her comfort zone. What object could she use that would imbalance her body weight? What would cause Woolf to sink to the bottom of her river?

I attempted suicide at the age of twenty. I was still in my senior year of high school. I had an argument with a friend who turned to have more issues than I could deal with. I decided to cut my arm with scissors. This attempt was one of an amateur. When I went to counseling – an older woman from my church and also mentioned in John Grisham’s book about on one of my hometowns – this woman physically showed me how to cut myself the right way. Thirteen years later, I am still shocked by this woman’s honesty. Wow. Had I attempted doing this the way my former counselor explained, I would not be writing this morning.

Over the years, I have attempted counseling with my husband. After the last experience, I decided writing would be the best outlet for seeking help for my problems. The last counselor we had was a female who seemed to be a disability rights advocate. The first process consisted of an intake. I listed the problems I was having. I also included sexual difficulty. This became a mistake. At the time, I was comfortable opening up about the problem with physical intimacy.

This subject was the only topic during the first session my husband and I had with this female counselor. Throughout the session, the counselor seemed to be enjoying our discomfort while discussing and showing us new ideas and approaches. The counselor offered to take me to Christie’s Toy Box one day to look at intimate lotions. This made me feel even more uncomfortable. She said we were all adults and we should be able to handle discussing the subject in an adult manner.

Maybe this is one important reason why I reject areas of modernism in our media. I had to walk away from a book club that centered around sexual content. I have had to change the channel on television because I do not wish to see sexual content. I read a couple required pieces in women’s literature that made me want to take one hundred showers back to back. I refuse to buy clothes that reveal too much of my body.

When I am inside the comfort of my home, I am able to dress freely. I am able to have a private collection of chemises that I wear to work out in. I wear night gowns that do not reveal too much of my body. This is something my husband loves about me. Even when we are alone, I still prefer to be covered up. My husband does pick out clothes he likes to see me in in the privacy of our home. He knows what I will and will not wear. My husband knows that I value my body as a tunnel of God. He would not want me to wear any clothes that will feel uncomfortable to me.

Last night, I read Virginia Woolf’s 1921 writing “The Mark on the Wall.” To the ordinary reader, I am sure there would be boredom. This story is written in the first person narration from a male’s perspective. What I have discovered from Woolf’s life are her scarred perceptions on womanhood. As a teenager, Woolf’s white wholesome purity was marked by one of her half-brother. The mark on the wall seems to be faint and unimportant to the average house guest the way Robert Browning’s portrait in the poem “My Last Duchess.” The reader may begin to feel uncomfortable as this narration centers on an insignificant mark in the wall and a portrait of a deceased Duchess hanging on the wall.

Woolf examines the mark and provides her knowledge of the history on London to use as examples. The unexplainable mark of mankind in Woolf’s period is my perception of this story. As much as society may try to romanticize issues and the ways of the work, the mark of reality will always be on the wall. Nobody can ever try to hide this mark. There seems to be an obsession with this mark the the female narrative uses yellow patterns of wallpaper in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. At the end of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the woman inside the wallpaper is able to escape from a controlling husband. Or so we as readers believe.

What happened to women who went mad in society during both female writer’s time period? The answer to this question can be reflected on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams and Virginia Woolf’s sisters. All three women spent their womanhood inside of insane asylums. In Zelda’s situations, this provided sanity away from F. Scott. Woolf’s older sister, Laura, and Williams sister were institutionalized early on in their lives. W\omen who suffered from nervous breakdowns were institutionalized as well. During this time, the wife belonged to her husband. The husband could institutionalize his wife if he chose.

When I read “The Yellow Wallpaper” in both American literature and Women’s literature, I believed the husband was very abusive and controlling to keep his wife locked inside of a room. The narrator is able to be realistic. John, the husband, really does love his wife. By keeping his wife locked inside the comfort of his house, there is no threat society would seek to institutionalize her. This is also a personal reflection of the writer, Gilman, in her essay “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper.” The husband in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was modeled after her doctor who believed the isolated woman would feel better in no time. This piece of senseless advice created public awareness that a woman knows herself well enough to seek her own happiness in the work. This piece support Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s advocacy for women’s rights in “The Solitude of the Self.”

I relate “The Mark on the Wall” to a suicide note. Woolf’s mark ran beyond the teenage years. This is evident at the conclusion of the first paragraph. When a child makes a mark on a wall, the mark is simple. There is nothing elaborate. Nothing special. A mark is a mark. Woolf’s parents death when she was young made the mark of the circle real. There was nothing larger than life about the grieving process. Woolf had to face the music. She was going to be alone in this world.  Granted, Woolf did have siblings and two half-brothers. These could never replace the guidance of parents.

This instability led the siblings to travel abroad. I am able to relate this to the life of the great Maya Angelou. When I read one of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies, I read the instability she had in her own life. At the time I read this book, I was almost a week shy of entering the hospital for the first round of blood clots. Maya Angelou and I moved around so much in our early adulthood. I imagine friends asking Ms. Angelou, “Where are you living now?

Why did Virginia Woolf really commit suicide? To seek an answer to this question, we must reflect on the world event that took place during her time. The outbreak of World War II took place. The Nazi soldiers were arresting people left and right. Plus, Woolf’s mental decline left her feeling like a burden. To save everybody from watching this continue, she left her world. What does this lack of communication say about society of her time?

The means of protection in this world are books, according to Woolf. Woolf’s biographer used this knowledge when compiling her biography. When he asked one of Duckworthy’s sons to read letters from his father to decide whether or not the sexual abuse was real, he believed the letters would prove otherwise. The truth lays in the last sentence of the first paragraph of “The Mark on the Wall” along with the opening scene of Woolf’s biography. Woolf wants to go back to her childhood to know what freedom (or liberation) from the mark feels like. She wants to know what purism from realism feels like. This woman’s mark is not fancy but childlike. This woman stopped being a romantic when she buried her parents. Perhaps the purity of Woolf is buried in her parents caskets. The truth is in a simple mark on a white wall.

I close with an idea. I wonder if this mark on the wall would have stood out from the child Virginia Woolf. Would there even be a mark on the wall? This story is powerful to me because I am entering a world I do not understand either. So much in my world has changed. Television shows are not the good ol’ clean 1960s to 1980s. Modern literature revolves around sex and subjects I am not too interested in. When we attend movies, we are providing income to people in Hollywood who are not deserving of this or our time. We are taken advantage of by corporate America. We are victimized by student loans, credit cards, and debt period. We suffer from inequality and discrimination. We bow down to the wrong people. We are selfish, needy, and desperate for answers to change our country. We rely too much on the views of Dave Ramsey for financial help instead of relying on the Word. We send too much of our tithing money to countries overseas when we are too dependent on government agencies to help our children in our communities. We need to step up to the place and make our world a better place. No one else is going to do this for us.

Amanda-Leigh and Virginia Woolf's Suicide

I introduced the complex biography of English female writer Virginia Woolf yesterday morning. I discussed our similarities and the ways I can relate to her as a girl, a woman, and in the literary sense. After I closed for the morning, I began toying with the idea of writing letters to loved ones each night. This made me happy. While I worked out last night before Diff’rent Strokes came on the air, I listening to Delilah discuss personal relationships needing to loved and nurtured. This strong female radio personality made sense.

I did read about Virginia Woolf’s tragic ending on the final pages of her biography. I must be brutally honest here. I simply detest suicide. There is no in-between in my thinking process. When I was three years old, one of the strongest women in my life committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide inside of her car. Even as a grown woman, reading stories that include suicide still seem too real to me. In Woolf’s case, she put a heavy stone inside her clothing and walked in a river near her home. Her body was discovered a few days later.

How many of us have been at this point in our lives? I have been at this point in my life before, and so has my husband. Being at the point of wanting to commit suicide is not a pleasant feeling. In fact, this is a very dark, scary place a person can ever find. There seems to be no hope. There could be feelings of guilt, shame, regrets, addictions that have not been addressed, and no hope of a great future seems to be in the cards. This is a point of no return for a person in despair. Nobody really understands. If we discuss these feelings in an open, honest way, we will be sent to a mental hospital and judged as unstable by our loved ones. Nobody really wishes to experiences this. I know I do not.

We do not really know how troubled a loved one or writer may be. We would like to know but we do not. We wish to know because we care. We do not want to know so we can pass judgment on a person’s troubled situation. Being a part of an active, loving relationship involves going the distance for somebody else. Our lives can inspire somebody else in ways that we may not imagine.  Reading biographies on writers and famous icons in the media have provided me with several ideas on how to live my own life. I do not plagiarize the original ideas and concepts. I learn how to improve my ways by changing. I grow as a person.

I see Virginia Woolf as a beautiful person. I am looking forward to reading her literary works in the future. Perhaps I will be able to find some online the way I hope to find more of Meridel LeSeuer’s works online. The literary world was both women’s way of creating a place for women. This is something I have appreciated in my literary walk. When I may be down in the dumps, there will always be literary voices telling me their stories. I will be liberated further. I will be able to change perspectives on the world and issues. Being able to read pieces writers has made me see them as beautiful, handsome, and unique. Each strong writer contributes a piece to a puzzle.

I can hear the thunder booming in the sky and rain pouring on the ground. This is not good weather for a woman in an electric wheelchair to be getting out in. I was able to get out some yesterday. I visited places by my home. My son missed me. in fact, Luigi stood by the door waiting on me to return. I have never broken the promise to him of returning home. My son depends on me to be strong. He is strong for me when I am working out. Luigi gives me motivation to continue when the world gets me down.

I do not believe that committing suicide are not in the cards for me. As I look in the mirror, I am able to see the beautiful lady who committed suicide when I was three years old. This lady has always been with me through every hard patch in my life. She was silently cheering me on to do better in my life. This woman’s love of family and strong work ethics has always been inside of me. This woman changed the world and she has changed me. When I was a child, she would feed me beets and spoil me as a loving grandmother does. Being able to smile at my grandmother in the mirror is something worth living for.

I close this morning with a writing challenge. I would like my readers to reflect on one characteristic you like about yourself and then run with this. You can write this down, send me a line as a comment, or keep this private. I want each one of you to know that you have an important purpose in this world. There are so many people who love and care about you. There are resources available. The Bible – particularly Psalms – is full of inspiring passages. I also suggest writing down where God leads you to read. You will be truly amazed what book will be opened. I was amazed one day when God led me to read about Queen Esther. Get ready for a new adventure! 

In loving memory of every man and woman, teenager, and child who have passed on too early in this world from suicide, drugs, diseases, disabilities, and mental illnesses. Each one of you is greatly missed. We love each of you. We will meet again one day.

Kenny Chesney's "Who You'd Be Today"

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ne3cz9eUsQ

Amanda-Leigh's Recommended Web Links: 

Virginia Woolf's "Creating A Room of Her Own" - Reviews

 http://books.google.com/books/about/A_room_of_one_s_own.html?id=w55jJc3_DT4C

Virginia Woolf featured as an early writer of modernism

  http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/ownroom.html

Criticism of Virginia Woolf's works

  http://blogs.dickinson.edu/anglesofliteraryapproach/2011/11/18/new-historical-criticism/

The Literary Network: Virginia Woolf 

http://www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/

 

MLA Documentation Guide

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

 

 Suicide Prevention 

 http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

 Bi-Polar from Yahoo Health

 http://health.yahoo.net/health/bipolar-disorder/therapist-visit-guide

Bipolar Disorder from Psychology Today

 http://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/bipolar-disorder