I. STEPHEN MARGOLIS wrote:

> Why embarrassed with these quirks
> these shumbling CP hurky-jerks?
>
> The injured brain and diverted pathways may contribute to emotions
> experienced or expressed erratically, excessively, or in ways divergent with
> social or physical norms.  In other words, we don't usually look, move or
> sound like nondisabled people in similar circumstances.  Yet we know that
> whatever our differences we're not abnormal.  What I love about Mariana
> Ruybalid's poetry: her powerful refusal to gloss reality.  She insists on
> her personhood and womanhood no matter her degrees of tilt from the
> perpendicular, wields her wondrous beautiful awesome razored language.
> Learn from Mariana, Fiona.
>

Dear ISM and Gang,        Thanks for your kind words about my poetry.  I write
about my reality, drooling, anger, despair, sunny days and grey days.
        While it is comforting to know that others with CP share my problems
with inappropriate laughter and all-consuming rage, that does not take away from
my responsibility to learn to handle them maturely.
        For years I worked on my inapproprite laughter, and I no longer start
giggling when friends tell me something sad.
        As for rage, that seems to be something I will need to work on for the
rest of my life.  I am no longer self-destructive which has been a big step for
me.
    Yoga, with its emphasis on breathing and being aware of the body, is helping
me slow down the leap from minor irritation to rage, which I make all to often.
The other day, I slowed down the leap enough to decide that getting angry would
just hurt myself, so I didn't get angry.
        One of the tenets of yoga is "ahimsa" which isnon-injury or
non-violence.  I take that to include myself.  At a recent yoga class, the
teacher applied ahimsa to self-critical thoughts.  So I am working on being
aware of my self-critical thoughts.  I don't try to stop them, but just to be
aware of them, which is the first step in changing any behavior.
        Yoga has also given me a more flexible body which allows my mind to
follow new paths and be more creative.
        Happy Valentines day to all!
                                                    Love Mariana
I will close this e-mail with three poems which show some of my journey.

In the thick of it!

Did my mother feed me
chocolate-coated razor blades
when I was small?
Why this persistent fascination
with those shiny devils?
I used to picture myself
using them to cut my wrists
and getting warm, red blood
all over my mother's good sofa.

Last Friday, I lost it.
I got cut-off
when I was speaking
at a kwoon meeting.
That broke some dam!
Oppressed forty-five years
for struggling with CP-speech,
and living for an eternity
of not getting my needs met.
Slowly and deliberately,
when the meeting had ended,
I walked away from the group,
put on my yellow socks and black shoes,
opened the front door,
took a few steps outside,
and started screaming.

Patti came outside
and asked
if she could call me later.
Meg wanted me to go back inside.
I refused.
Meg insisted that I patch things up.
I wanted to be true to my feelings.
She insisted,
I refused.

She took me home.
I yelled, cursed and wept.
Meg didn't know how to be there
until she knew I was not going
to hurt her and until
she accepted that I wasn't going
to take care of
the kwoon leaders' feelings.
I cried hot tears
but didn't want to hurt myself.
I didn't threaten to leave the kwoon.
I cried myself out
and Meg held me.

Patti called to make sure
I was okay.
Meg went home.
I read for a while.
I plodded to the kitchen,.
I lost control of my bladder.

The warm liquid
ran down the inside of my legs,
I watched it spread across the floor,
and enjoyed seeing the puddle grow.

Using papertowels, I wiped
up the urine.
Walking to the bathroom,
I remembered
there were no razor blades in my home.
I laughed,
because I no longer needed them.
I took a warm soothing shower,
put on dry pajamas,
and exhausted,
went to bed.
An implacable god

On the bus to Oakland, I remember
Richard is out of town,
he has helped me stop cutting my fingers
to try to satisfy the "implacable god
relentlessly demanding sacrifice
out of twisted distorted limbs and sifted ashes."
After class, I will buy myself a treat.

A sister client at Creative Growth
rocks back and forth in her seat,
jumps up to announce "bathroom."
She wears pink jacket and pink tennis shoes.
It is so warm but she keeps her jacket on.
Returning from the bathroom, she abruptly asks
"We don’t hit people here, do we?"
"No, we don’t" I answer.
And I add, in the quiet of my mind,
"And we don’t hurt ourselves, either."

I trace the phrase "An implacable god" on clay.
I struggle to control a spasm in my right arm.
Red glaze drips and runs
obliterating space between "o" and "g."
Aargh!  I want an intact nervous system.

Mess gets worse.
The black glaze, too runny, starts mixing with red.  Aargh!
The teacher, Ann, asks if I want her to wash off all the glaze.
I say "yes" then she returns my clean platter.
I start again with red glaze.
But this time, I cover red with green wax,
so it won’t mix with other colors.
Class is over before I can redo black.

Ann says there is always frustration
when you learn a new task like playing tuba
If I cut off my cerebral palsy right hand
red blood will drip from wrist
and stain my black sweat pants.
The sacrifice wouldn’t satisfy
the implacable god within me and
I wouldn’t learn to control where I put glaze
but I’d get attention.

I tell Ann that I will see her next week,
when I will finish glazing the platter.
I wave good-bye to the woman in the pink jacket,
leave Creative Growth,
rolling in electric wheelchair, take BART into Berkeley,
pause at Yoga  Journal office to find out about retreats
and stop at See’s Candy for a dollar’s worth
of molasses chips covered in dark chocolate.
I sit in Starbuck’s drinking mango-citrus tiazzi.
I put chocolate in my mouth with right hand,
and enjoy freedom!

Body Electric

I
.
My body, a live wire,
too much electricity charges through,
power, power, power with no control.
A muscle fires drawing left arm up, again,
a hidden train conductor got stuck
and goes over the same track,
over and over.  I know what I want to say,
but my tongue is wrapped in thick felt,
a warm blanket muffles my words
leaving me frustrated seeing incomprehension
in a stranger’s face.  Da?

I used to want to punish this wired body
that never moved the way
physical therapists wanted it to.
I tried to remember to swallow
but, concentrating on saying "perplexing"
a blob of saliva runs down my chin.
Never mind trying to walk,
my right hip wants to flex
when the left one bends,
leaving me in a gravity defying crouch,
for which no balance can compensate.
After ten steps, a jolt of pain
runs through my lower back and right hip,
leaving me sweating, and oh so irritated!

II.

I go to Yoga with this live body.
JoAnn, the teacher, reminds me to breathe.
I giggle because I forgot again.
Getting out of the electric wheelchair,
I feel free and safe on the floor,
I cannot fall because I’m already down.
I cannot get any lower.
From all fours, I straighten legs,
I rise to downward facing dog,
an upside down V,
stretching my lower back.
JoAnn, using belt around hips,
pulls back weight to my heels.
Sandbag on hands
outweigh hidden train conductor’s
control of old patterns.
My shoulders extend
with controlled power
I actually feel graceful
Stretched muscles get weary.
I lower myself down.

Later in rest pose,
I lie down on my back and
place feet on chair with knees bent
to avoid right hip problem,
arms spread, palms up,
I remember to breathe
as tired muscles grow quiet.
I enjoy the paradox:
a powerful woman
with a disability.
Electric flow slows.
I lie still.