Bed bugs, Bunnies,and Fairy Tales....

"Sleep tight; don't let the biter bugs bite." my mom pulled the covers up to my chin and turned out the light with a kiss. I snuggled down into the bed to go off to the land of dreams....cozy in the knowledge that I was loved.

Okay, so maybe that scene is a bit idealized. The reality was something more like being told to go upstairs to bed several times and stalling until the very last "preview" of the upcoming episodes of Emergency, Adam 12, or the Brady Bunch was done. Then slooooowwwly dragging my rear end up the stairs to see how long I could delay until my dad stood up from his chair and took a threatening step toward me, then I would scamper up as quickly as I could, calling "good night" from the landing and I would hear my mom call back with the aforesaid phrase.

Then I would grab my current book and come into the glow of the hall light and, sitting on the cold floor, pick up the tale until my dad and mom would make their way up at ten p.m., to go to sleep in their room, at which point I would grab my book and scamper to my bed so that I could lie there pretending to sleep when they would stop in my room seconds later to check on me.

I don' t know for how many years I successfully pulled off that trick of reading in the hallway light's glow, under the pretense of fear of the dark in order to make them keep that light on until they went to bed and I was ostensibly sound asleep. I used to keep my small desk light on. That is, until my dad one day got wise and went to touch the light to see if it was cool....and burned several layers of skin off on the bulb. Yeah. He was NOT too happy with me that night.

As an adult I thought of that bizarre good night blessing about the "biter bugs"...what the heck are "biter bugs"? I'd wondered about that occasionally as a child but accepted it blindly as kids do things that later, they realize made NO sense at all.

For example.
I had a rabbit...a white rabbit that I'd been given one Easter as a gift. Now, I was quite young then....these were in the days in Colorado long before I'd strolled curiously through a kindergarten door. They were long enough ago, that when my mom let Peter hop around free in the outer porch/laundry area of our home in Denver....I would , in terror, retreat to the top of the wash machine....looking at him with fear and fascination. He was cute; WHEN HE WAS IN HIS CAGE...when he was loose, he was a ferocious wild animal; of this I was sure.

I used to feed him blades of grass in his hutch in the back yard...poking them through the chicken wire front and watching them disappear in quick nibbles of his sharp, square front teeth. Yes, he was cute all right ....IN HIS HUTCH.

One sad day...I believe it was also a Sunday, as we were amidst the process of dressing for church, that my mother told me that Peter had gone the night before to bunny-rabbit-heaven....OoooohHH no! "Why mom?"
This was my first experience with death...and it was mysterious to me...Why would something be alive and moving one minute and dead and still the next?
My mom paused...and faltered...and then dropped the ball in a classic fumble:
"I guess Daddy fed him too much grass."
OH, so this was all DADDY's fault. My four year old self, tensed in anger at my foolish father. How could he have made such a dumb mistake? Didn't he know that would happen to MY rabbit?

And for YEARS I believed with all my heart that my dad had killed my rabbit by feeding him too much grass.

I don' t know when the epiphany came that, WAIT A MINUTE! Rabbits don't die from having a little too much grass!!! Peter's death WASN'T my dad's fault!! And a great load of anger at my dad which had existed in some subconscious level of my being suddenly dissolved in to the light of adult reason.

Well, the biter bugs were like that too. I had no idea what they were, but I sure as heck didn't want them nibbing on my little toes....

As an adult finally one day I made the connection between "biter bugs" and "bed bugs"

....UGH. REALLY?

Who in their right mind would plant the idea of bedbugs into a five year old 's mind as he was ON HIS WAY to the precarious precinct of dreams and nightmares....??
But parents have done it for generations.

I just had an evil thought.

One day , I'm going to hang that rhyme on my husband as he makes his way to bed! His latest obsession is with the current plague of bedbug infestations in the greater NYC area.
I wonder if he would even be able to get INTO his bed with that thought fresh in his mind??

Odd that we give a child a burden to bear that some adults can't even handle. And kids, in their blindly accepting, ignorant courage, merely hear it as a familiar, comfortable b'rucha. (blessing).
Children can accept and integrate so many things and incorporate them as normal...things that should NOT be accepted...and things that adults should NOT hang on them....and I'm not talking about bedbugs and fairy tales either...

Oh Lord, protect and bless these innocent ones...

Evening Ramble

Well, it's not midnight, but since I just got the blog up and running, I thought I at least owed you an opening post since you dropped by. As I mentioned in my bio, I'm always in pain...and I like to write poetry...so add the two together and you get...No, NOT pained poetry! You get poetry about pain. I have a number of such poems but I won't slam you with such a gloomy topic since you just got here for the first time. And don't worry, the blog won't always be so erudite...It will be my talking to you, just like I sit and talk to myself.

I'm a compulsive writer...I have numerous blogs, and participate in forums, and also have maintained a journal since I was in eighth grade...Of course I burned about 20 years' worth of them. What I wouldn't give to have them back now! The reason I destroyed them was that, my daughter was young and I was currently ensconced in normalcy and didn't ever want her to look into the dark corners of my earlier life. But now, she's 18 and my best friend and both she and I would be interested to find out what kind of craziness went on back then (since I don't recall much of it at all, and what I recall was more what was in my head than in my surroundings...so I'm quite confused about what really DID go down.) That was when my 30 year struggle with mental illness really got underway....But that's a whole OTHER story. We started out talking about pain...so I guess I rambled into telling you about all of the pain of my life and not my current, physical pain.

I have an expression. I say it to people who have a clue what I'm going through and who don't say things like, "Oh, yes, I fully comprehend what it is you are going through. I hurt my back once..." Well. It's apples and planets my dear. It is easier for me to hear when people say things like, "I have such a stiff neck today! It's really hurting." But then they go on to apologize for complaining while all along they are sitting next to Job himself. haha. (Sorry for the "haha's" I often make myself laugh.) And I say to them this, (and THIS is the expression I referred to above before I was so rudely disoriented): "Pain is Pain. Everyone has pain of some kind and to them in that minute, it's as large and all-consuming as they can endure it to be."

Now, lest you think that I should have said that to person #1...The reason it bothers me, is that they think they understand what it's like to say, be on the rack for thirty years or so and every day have the screws pulled tighter...and they think that their pulled muscle gives them the authority to think that. However, I definitely must give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe that was just their awkward way of trying to be sympathetic...And they only confused empathy with sympathy. Person #2 has more humility and comprehension I think...and so I don't pooh-pooh their pain. To them, it is as disconcerting, maybe, as mine is to me. I've gotten to be quite a pro at managing pain that exceeds belief.

NOW, to the poem! The reason I like this one (other than for its silly rhyme scheme ((I just wanted to see if I could pull it off)) ) is that it's among the more positive of my pieces...well, maybe that's not true. Anyway, I will stop arguing with myself and give you the poem:

God and Pain

By

Cynthia Lott Vogel

I cannot articulate my agony;

Cannot convey its tenacity.

Lonely, I live out its verity

As anguished, I pray to my Deity.

I do not ask “why?” but only

Wonder in some deepest part of me

Why God should seem to be in complicity

With powers of suffering, When He is Almighty

To save and to heal out of love for me.

Yet inner healing must have priority.

Greater need have I of maturity

Than to coast thru life being pain free.

My weakness keeps me clinging fast to Thee,

Trembling legs stumble haltingly

Your ears are soft to my prayer and plea

As you bend down, lift, and carry me.