fences

today is the last day of summer, sun shone albeit weakly. the sun provided a much needed comfort --warmth to my left cheek, to my back as i walked along.  the sun followed me through today. today would have been my grandmother's 96th birthday. today my almost 96 year old grandfather is in the hospital, he has been many times, but here he is again, and here is is still the fighter, fighting infection, multiple organ failure on the left side of his body, fluid congestion in lungs, leakage in his heart, kidney not working, and getting blood transfusions for anemia.  he survived losing his mother at the age of six, two concentration camps, the stress of not knowing if he'd live another day, the agony of not knowing where his wife was if she and baby were alive,  the stress of moving across continents, of trying to make it, of trying to forget as well as remember.  there are so many stories and words inside the stories.  i feel i don't even know half of them.  some are woven inside of me. some were half told, written, uttered, video taped, some i have to piece together.  this is because telling was seen as hurting--silence was seen as protecting. i hear this is common with survivors, but as a third generation--i wish everything would have been made explicit. they need to be known.

i am in an in between place.  i feel out of sorts.   i have lost my way a little bit.  i am very tired. yet i am wide awake and it is almost 1am and i cannot seem to shut my eyes.  

i have lost my way after countless hoops for my ph.d i am facing a big fence and i need to turn the latch and walk through.  i am hurt, scared, unsure of myself...i am trying but in the trying there are a lot of stops, starts, stops--i freeze and turn away. i freeze because  the lock on the fence is a bit sticky-tricky, i just need to be patient, to stand in front of it, make peace with it and in my own time walk through.

there is disappointment, thought i would have a mentor or two. thought i would be seen, heard, valued-learn. i have to be there for myself, and not only walk through but find the strength to see it all through.