Natasha Shapiro, ATR-BC, LCAT

April 5 Poem, Still in Seattle

Some things I’ve learned about food I. Seattle: they charge 10-11$ extra for food delivery; food is more expensive than in NYC. It’s not a gluten-free friendly place, except for delightful gluten free crackers at a Classics Dept. post lecture reception. The pizza isn’t great. The student ice cream place is cheap, $1.64 for a big scoop but there were only 6 flavors.

Here’s the poem

Title: Alas and Alack

Yesterday I heard the word

“Alas”. Said by a lass. Alack Alas

I do not hear such words these days.

The days, they pass. Or Alas Alack?

Those bells at the top of the tower.

I rolled “the clocks” off my tongue

But bells do tell the time.

A lack of bells tolling these days,

Yet all the while notwithstanding, I stand in a quad and see the bell clocks

And hear, “Alas,”— a paltry yet still some small patch of bookery

I do miss and find many Alases bloom in my head these days.

April 4: 4th poem

This one has 5 and 7 syllables rule, but starts as a strict 5-7-5 Haiku, them meanders into: 5-5-7-5-7, I guess it ends in an opposite of Haiku, 7-5-7🥳

I’m in the Suzzalo Library at UW Seattle, one of the most beautiful buildings inside and outside I’ve ever been to.

My Cathedral

This library my

Cathedral: stained glass windows,

The divinities

Of reading, consecrating

Silence. I genuflect as

I sit here writing

This poem under

hallowed arches protecting

Gospels on every shelf.

4/3, Poem, Tanka Plus

(A few extra syllables fall off the poetry tree)

My Petunia

Softness of her hand…

I will tent your eyelids, love.

Her hair finds no trees.

I miss you and fold your hand

Into mine. Is it a dream your

Bed now a shell. Your monkey-

we share the missing.

(Written on way to the airport to look at her first choice college. I have spent a long time being with her while missing her with her here. It’s some kind of verb you’d get if you have one too on too on the cusp of leaving).

April 2 Poem: A Tanka

(5-7-5-7-5)

Title: Not More Mom

The clocks that have stopped.

And frozen my memories.

Dusty pendulums.

In her brain I find old things

But no room for us.

National Poetry Month

For April 1:

My neurodivergent haiku:

I have too many

Words in my head. I lost count.

Where are my glasses?

Neurographic Art Class

I made this today started during an interesting workshop:

Feelings are strange

Therapists are assumed to know all about feelings. I have feelings jet lag. Or maybe that’s the wrong metaphor. First I get angry and depressed and think crazy things which are probably true but then later I realize I’m sad. Like today I realized I’m not such a loser with a shitty life. I’m sad about my dad being scammed and living out his old age with the love of his life he’s been with since age 25 or something. They’re almost married 70 years. He’s 95 and she’s 94. And he doesn’t get to be with the real version of her. She’s got Alzheimers and Lewy Body Dementia. And he’s been in and out of the hospital last year. My siblings just saved from a huge scam and now thankfully he’s not in charge of his finances. He got scammed before. The weird thing is if things were opposite and my mom wasn’t sick she’d never get scammed because the normal her didn’t trust people quickly and could smell a bad person from miles.

I’m lucky to have them at all but it’s heartbreaking. It wasn’t such a bad visit.

It feels like all my clients are going through crazy things. Very stressful. All the secondary trauma. And in one case the client is in trauma and secondary trauma so crazy I got a text from her and called her right after. It was the right thing to do. I go out of my way to an extreme extent compared to other therapists, but complex PTSD is intense. It feels good to be effective. There are people out there who haven’t been seen and valued for who they are or have been used so much they believe they’re damaged.

There’s a line in Noah Kahan song:

“Don’t let this darkness fool you
All lights turned off can be turned on.”

It’s called “Call your mom.” I listen to it a lot; it’s probably very depressing to most people but there’s so many experiences in it I relate to like my friend who’s gone. and finally realized I used to call my mom when I was in the darkness. She was always there. And when other people called her when I was in trouble in my 20s she’d get on an airplane and be there in 8 hours if it was that far.

This is

The only social media I do. Pinterest became awful. Pinterest. Why did they do that? Everywhere is ads.

Anyway I’m completely killed by working at home. I go outside to take out the garbage. I barely move. I stopped doing yoga. It hardly matters what I wear. I have so little energy it feels stupid to eat. Why would I need to eat much if I stay home all the time. I didn’t go anywhere this weekend. On two errands nearby. I was so spaced out I nearly stole something from target by mistake. Sometimes I pick something up or buy something and leave it on the counter.

My back hurts. My head hurts. I spent the last hours playing a stupid phone game. I don’t want to read, watch anything listen to anything draw do art nothing

And I have to get up tomorrow and do my stupid job sitting all day being a therapist. This is what I’ve done with my Priveleged life.

What a waste. I’m depressed. Was it worse to be anxious out of my mind doing paperwork to hand in to lawyers or lying in bed wanting to sleep for a few months.

I’m going to get Alzheimers. My body already hurts or is uncomfortable. I’d like to get rid of it. The universe is going to give me my mom’s disease and I’ll lose my mind forever. I don’t want to be her. Please don’t give me Alzheimer’s. I have every other problem and my adhd almost got me arrested for stealing yesterday. I wonder if they would have understood that I had no intention of taking anything. Maybe I’d be in jail. Whatever. Depression is a jail.

New Series

I’ve been doing these drawings:

That bottom one was after this one:

I stopped and looked at it and B. Said “Stop. It’s done. Leave it alone. You can start a new one.”

This time I listened. He knows my work better that anyone else since 1998.

Anyway I looked at this after I quickly did the one above it that looks the same. They all started in my journals. Then I made this while binge watching “The Horror of Dolores Roach,” one of the best shown I’ve seen since maybe “Schitts Creek”.

It’s a monster breast that maybe was more related to the show than I thought.

On the back of the first of these 3 I wrote: This is who I was. This is what I became. This is who I am now. What’s she doing staying around. I can’t be here anymore. I don’t want her to remind me.

Birthday poem for my mother

“So much to lose of loss”

So much to lose of loss

It couldn’t be this heartbreaking could it

To have my mother not hear her say what she used to say on my birthday

Where did she go -?where’s that phone call and they gave you to me and I don’t remember the rest something saccharine like you were my bundle of joy.

We were both there. You had that moment they took me out of you and I made you happy the third the baby the extra one. I want to be your baby again for a minute and hug you but there’s only cardboard and dust to hug.

I want you back for a minute to be go you were:

At the hospital across the ocean the day after.

Why don’t you love me like that anymore like you used to love me as much as I so vigorously hated myself

You said it was ok to not get there. To try and lose. You’ll be the same to me.

On the phone with

What is in there? I try to see the little things in your brain that did this to you

How could such tiny things in your brain take you so far away from me?

I don’t know how to lose you and I lose you again and again. I lost your love and it will never come back come back

I never want to do that to my girl. You saw her

I can’t go on

I’ll go one without you. You’re gone so I am.

I miss you inside you there’s no you inside you anymore. It’s always night time you gave yourself over to the night

And the night took you away from me.

The night took you away .so much to lose of loss. There’s no bottom to it

I erased the last line. It was good