Friday, December 07, 2007

From The Mixed Up Files Of Ms. Lily E. Maniac

I have just spent an hour on the phone with a television news reporter (anchor) from my hometown. Last week when I posted about Havoc's turning nine, what that meant to me and how it was connected with the traumatic disappearance and murder of my childhood friend, I linked to a story about a new suspect they had in the case. There have been stories every few years for the last few decades - new evidence, new speculations on old information, and recently new techniques to apply to old evidence. This week the case was broken - or maybe it's still breaking. It hits me on so many levels that I haven't been able to break off bite size pieces to blog about. The first level is gratitude to have some closure and to take some comfort that this guy has been in jail for a majority of the intervening decades. I feel vindicated on behalf of our neighborhood and particularly on behalf of the young boys that were persecuted unjustly in the quest to solve Marcia's case. I have extremely mixed emotions with regards to the police and with regard to myself as a writer. I have been working (off and on in between all the family drama) with a writer (a crime blogger) on a book project about this very case. We've been working to tell the story from the center of the ripples on out. How this one little girl's life and disappearance affected the neighborhood, the city, the region. How it brought people together and blew things apart at the same. I have written so much about this personally in order to settle it enough that I could write professionally the story I feel needs to be written. It's unsettling in the very best way to have the whole project go sideways. So much of the challenge has been to write and ask about something that has remained a disturbing mystery. And now, there is an expectation that it will not be a mystery for very much longer.

I want to talk and I don't want to talk. I want to say more of what is swirling around in my head and heart. I also don't want to link back or say specific things that could be searched and have my ex find randomly my site. I feel wide open to the healing process that comes with the new revelations. I feel drawn to add my voice to tell the part of the story that is mine to tell. I feel protective of my children and my life. I want to make peace with all the many layers. I feel rambly and incoherent. The news anchor was fantastic: warm, personal, easy to talk to, and insightful. I look forward to speaking with her again. I feel relieved, grateful, trustful (which is soooo unexpected for me where the media is concerned), angry, ambivalent, and drained.

And I have yet to open the ominous letter from my attorney that has been sitting on my desk for two days. Bleck. It is too cold to run. I don't have a pool or gym membership. I don't have a way to work my physical being into a state that will help absorb and process such big chunks of emotional/intellectual turmoil. Contemplative silence is the only other tool I can think of for this much churn. I don't know how to manage it, but I need to sit today. I will sit today. My head might explode otherwise. We don't want that now, do we? So, dear web friends, I will be sitting when I normally visit and comment. I won't be thinking of you because I'll be trying not to think of anything (which is a tall order for my buzzing brain), but I will be back as soon as I can. Peace!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a way you can block your blog from showing up in search engine results. I think it's a simple as inserting a little bit of code in the blog's "header." Your significant other may know what I mean.

And silence... is good. I don't use it enough myself.

Your crime-writing friend :)

April said...

and peace be with you.

meditate, contemplate, and the rest of us will be here when you can return.

Anonymous said...

Peace, my friend. I certainly know how the whole event floods back as if it were yesterday when pieces of the puzzle fall into place many years later.