I don't want to go.

I have to leave on Saturday.

F*ck.

Trains and planes and love.

I missed my plane yesterday and so I will be staying in Italy until this Saturday, December 1, 2007.

Note to the Speaker(s):

I love you too and I will talk to you really soon. xoxo j.

First Thanksgiving & first PUMPKIN PIE!

An Apple for Thanksgiving.

Thankful.

me with Apple

Thank you Christopher Columbus.

All in the family.

Out playing ball with the little Apple.

The vegetables here taste GREAT. Last night I was eating carrots like a bunny.

...And after dinner we ate this as a snack.

The first time he has ever had pancakes!!

And he was really, really happy. :-)

Hello from Italy!!!! :-)

I am here with S. and I am totally happy. The flight here went fine and fast although I was tired when I got here because I was only able to sleep 90 minutes on the plane. (I was very excited about getting here.) I went crazy with happiness when I finally saw my S. after 49 long days of being without him!!!
Yesterday we went to his church for the morning service and then had Sunday lunch with his family. I got to meet a lot of his family and everyone was extremely kind. His mother and aunt do not know any English but luckily his sister and her husband, and his brother and his wife all speak some English. The ten words I know in Italian are helpful, but not much for conversation material. :-)
We walk his dog (a yellow lab whom I love) twice a day and in the morning we walk to the park and then by the sea; which I love. Yesterday morning his cousin's wife had a baby and so last night we went to the hospital to visit and there were about twenty-five other family members there. Everyone was happy and smiling and kissing and totally excited about the new baby girl and it was fun to be a part of it all.
S. has never eaten pancakes (!) so I brought maple syrup from the U.S. and I am going to make him his very first pancakes today.
I love being here and no matter where we are or what we are doing everything feels better and right when we are together. It is like a miracle to be with S. He is the most wonderful and gentle man I have ever known.
Oh... and I am driving here!! It is a little scary. :-)
I just wanted to say 'hi' right now, but I am going to start taking some pictures and I will post them in a day or two.
I feel like I am home.

The difference a day makes.

It is 12:03AM. I am leaving for Italy TODAY. :-)

Rolando Villazón singing "Si docle è 'l tormento" by Monteverdi.

You can hear a little sample of it here. It is TRACK 4!!!

"Email you will never get."

I wanted to start this letter to you, "Dear Mom," but I just couldn't. You are not my mother and you never really were; except for in my imagination I suppose. Then I thought I would begin it with at least "Dear T." but when I started to write that I felt in my stomach that even writing "Dear" was just one more lie. There has been so much lost; so much taken away. I am crying now as I type but I want to use the word "funny". "Funny how much was destroyed.", I want to tell you. Of course it is not funny, nothing is funny about any of the parts of my life that touched yours. But all our "family" had was those lies and I guess people make words mean whatever they need them to mean when they want to cover the truth.
I know you will not get this message. I will not really mail it you to, you will probably never find this blog. But I have this idea that I can put some of the most intolerable things here on my blog and somehow the pain of these seemingly unbearable things will then somehow be lessened for me. I am sitting here with this pain and in words or in drawings I will get it out of me; out of my body and out into some other space.
I am writing you today because this morning I was preparing for my trip to Italy and I was suddenly filled with the urge to call you. For one brief moment it seemed like an ok idea... And then not. I wanted to tell you about my trip and about my life with S., but I know we are even past the few (every three months, maybe?) phone calls now. Now we have even lost that.
I was able to realize almost immediately that if I were to really call you it would result in a terrible mess of a communication, it would leave me feeling terrible after we spoke and it would take away from the happiness I am feeling now; knowing that I am just a couple of days away from being with S.
So I decided for the sake of my mental health I would write you this "email you will never get" instead.
I wanted to tell you what I am packing and I how I am getting ready for my trip. I wanted to tell you that I never imagined I would be married, but that I met the most incredible and loving person and we are going to spend the rest of our lives together! I wanted to tell you that I am taking some of my most important things to Italy with me when I go in just two days. I am taking some of my art with me, some of my favorite books and a few other small things. I will take more of my things when I move there permanently of course- but it feels so exciting that I am moving some of my things there now. It feels huge and full of good and important meaning that I am taking my drawings to Italy and leaving them there with S. I am just so happy about living my life in such a different and better and wonderful way and I wanted to tell you that; that I am happy. I wanted to tell you that I am really really happy. I am still struggling to work through the terrible things I survived during those fourteen years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse but I have come a long way, I am getting better all of the time and I have found and fallen in love with a wonderful person.
Like I said before I never imagined I would ever get married but now I know I will and I wish that the mom that I always wanted you to be could be there for me now. I know it is impossible. I know the mom I always wanted you to be, the one I tried to pretend that you were- I know she does not even exist. But it is still really hard for me to accept that; especially now when I feel like a mother would be the most important person outside of my relationship with S. that I would want to share all of this with.
There is one last thing I really want to tell you. I know you believe in God and I know that my "father" says he believes in God too.
If you are right and if there is a God and when we die a heaven or a hell to go to; I imagine that God will be forgiving in a way that I can not even imagine.
But if there really is some other life after this one- some other place where we will all be together again; I hope I will be able to love you there.

J.

pencil on paper with cats.

One sentence

from an email I wrote to my therapist on Thursday:

"The worst part for me I tell you right now was when he would force me on top of him."

A poem by Gary Young.

Two girls were struck by lightning at the harbor mouth. An orange
flame lifted them up and laid them down again. Their thin suits had
been melted away. It's a miracle they survived. It's a miracle they were
ever born at all.