March 4, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 37 Comments

Because every reader is a gift and every comment a surprise–

Okay, here’s my question:

Would you all mind if, every once in a while over the next couple of weeks, I share some of my favorite things with you?

I’m not going to have tons of time. In fact, I may have very little of it—in which case I could wrap up some special treats—foiled paper, beautiful bows—and give you periodic peaks—sort of, my special wishes for while I’m away.

Because every reader is a gift and every comment a surprise--

Now, I won’t literally be “away”—just preoccupied with moving out of Haiti and home to Kentucky:

me,

one disaster-response refugee,

two dogs,

and a whole house full of stuff.

(Good God, the task is daunting!)

So—

Today, in honor of this get-the-hell-out-of-Haiti-favorite-things series, I offer you—

(steel drums playing)

a medium box

calico paper

butterfly bow—

My absolute, favorite movie as a child,

The Sound of Music and (appropriately enough)—

“My Favorite Things”—(now, aren’t you surprised!)

What was your favorite movie as a child?

And, what’s one of your favorite things?

Okay–I apologize.

I woke up to this morning to, “You mean to tell me you build up a readership, and then you throw your audience my “Favorite Things!”

She insists this was a throw-away post, that I would have been better to post nothing.

So, I promise–no more soft posts! I will write, write, write–even through the move! I’ve got a monster in the bed next to me insisting, I don’t dare let you down again–especially if indeed “every reader is a gift and every comment a surprise!”

Sara won’t stop mockingly singing “My Favorite Things!”

March 3, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 42 Comments

News from the Asylum

I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have some crazy news . . .

Sara and I are leaving Haiti— as in “permanently,” as in “forever.”

I’m just as stunned by this as you are, and frankly it seems hard to believe. But Sara’s NGO is doing what a number of organizations are doing in Haiti—

They’re scaling back—

Why?

Because of funding shortfalls—

The fact of the matter is, merely a fraction of the dollars pledged toward the Haitian relief effort just after the earthquake have been delivered to NGOs, because, in reality, donors are reluctant to hand over funds to a country whose political future is uncertain, a country that has a history of corrupt leadership, presidents who funnel dollars into their own deep pockets rather than passing them along to citizens in need.

What?

You might wonder what this has to do with Sara and me—————

Quite frankly, Sara is a key disaster response resource for her NGO, especially in terms of her ability to drop into the aftermath of a disaster and get projects moving. She launched the organization’s effort in Afghanistan after the Taliban fell in 2002 and directed its response to the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia.

More recently, she’s worked a year in Vietnam and another in Haiti, without more than 5 consecutive days at home—an effort that has drained and exhausted her. She needs a break. She needs to rest.

And the organization is smart to recognize this.

When?

Sara will have a three-month sabbatical before being reassigned. This means Spring at home in Lexington—a lovely time of year to be in Kentucky. And though I’m terribly sad to leave Haiti when there’s so much more of the country to explore and write about, I believe this change will ultimately benefit Sara and her ability to serve more successfully in the future.

Where?

We truly don’t know where we will be headed in another 3 months. Before the earthquake in Haiti, her NGO had planned to send Sara to South Africa. I suspect that could actually happen this summer, unless in the next several months there’s a massive disaster in another part of the world.

How?

So, how will this affect the blog—a blog that has largely been about Haiti?

Well, it’s ironic that I began shifting the blog’s focus slightly even before knowing this larger change was coming—addressing the “event horizon” that is my past, while promising to not ignore the “event horizon” that is Haiti.

It could be that I shouldn’t have made that promise. Certainly, I don’t plan to ignore Haiti even now, but it inevitably won’t be a part of my day-to-day experience. Inevitably the focus will shift toward which ever country we live in next.

In the meantime, I intend to address the “event horizon” that was “then”—my personal past, whose story, I think, needs to be told.

Actually, going home to Kentucky will better equip me to research my mental health history—to do it in a way I couldn’t if I were in Haiti. It will give me actual access to boxes and boxes of journals, video-taped therapy sessions, and medical records I already have on hand.

In practical, blogging terms, I suspect this may mean fewer posts and/or briefer posts over the next several weeks, as we pack up our lives here in Haiti and get resettled in Kentucky. After that, I intend to spend the Spring exploring my past and sharing it here on the blog.

So pad your walls.

Things could get crazy around here.

This insane story’s just beggin’ to be told.

February 28, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 21 Comments

Miscellaneous Monday (and more Mindy to come)

It’s Monday. And we’re launching another week’s worth of less-than-brilliant (but often, above-average) blogging here at Reinventing the Event Horizon.

And, in honor of the week’s beginning, I bring you an “inspiring” (at least I’m trying) laundry list of updates:

1. First, thanks to all of you for your kind and supportive comments in response to last week’s news that I wanted to begin moving my blog in the direction of memoir, not that I would discontinue writing about the event horizon that is Haiti, but that I would also address event horizons from my personal past: namely my father’s organized crime connections and the black hole that is my battle with bipolar disorder. (To read these posts click here and here.)

I believe the best writing is inevitably the most honest writing and my not addressing these issues was becoming a form of compositional dishonesty—a way of avoiding the shame associated with my father and the sigma connected to my illness.

One way to lessen stigma is to stop hiding, or, in my case, to boldly address my demons in the blogosphere’s bright light, to share my struggle, to tell my story, both the pain of the past and the hope that is recovery.

2. Secondly, I’d like to announce an upcoming series of posts from my friend and fellow writer Mindy Shannon Phelps. (I introduced Mindy last week. To read her first post click here.) As she finds time, Mindy will write pieces that address our sometimes serious, sometimes silly misadventures in being human.

3. Finally, an update on my dog Lucy’s adventures in Vietnam—her Maltese march, North to South, South to North.

In last Monday’s post (click here to read) I forgot to include a few of the funniest photos—namely Lucy in Halong Bay .

(Some of you may have heard of a recent accident in Halong Bay. A tour boat sank. 12 were killed. To read about this February 17th incident click here.)

In case you’re not up on the geography of Vietnam, Halong Bay is an UNESCO World Heritage site and hugely popular tourist attraction in northern Vietnam. According to legend, the Vietnamese were being invaded by the Chinese when the gods sent a family of dragons to protect the bay. The dragons were said to spit jewels into the water, to build a wall against the invaders, what is, in fact, a series of nearly 2,000 limestone islands that decorate the bay:

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ha_Long_Bay_with_boats.jpg

In fact, a highlight of Lucy’s adventure in Vietnam included a swim with me in Halong Bay:

And last but not least, a photo of Lucy dressing for her outing on the bay:

The bottom line is this, a lesson I learned from Lucy:

Sometimes the most over-whelming of crises can be ovecome with the most obvoius of answers.

Indeed, sometimes the biggest of problems can be conquered by the smallest of canines in the most amazing of hats.

Hats off to our struggles.

Hats off to hope.

February 25, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 39 Comments

Piecing and Pasting: Re-Membering (Part 2)

It’s the forgetting I remember most. The fact of forgetting. The past is fuzzy for me, something that will make memoir difficult.

So, for me, re-membering will partly be a process of re-constructing and re-assembling the story, piecing and pasting. Largely, this is due to trauma. Trauma around growing up in a dysfunctional family whose front door was broken down by the FBI on way too many occasions. Trauma around having a mental illness that at times disconnected me from reality and the people I love.

However, I have a strategy for doing this detective work, because I, clearly, need to research and document the parts of my life I can’t recall.

So today I’ll outline the most obvious steps to take in reconstructing both the story about my father’s connection to organized crime and the one about my mental illness—what amounts to a 20 year struggle to win (and sometimes seemingly lose) the battle against bipolar disorder.

Though I don’t know that my family is entirely comfortable with my writing about my father, who, in fact, died in 1981 (when I was still a teenager), I plan to do the following to document my dad’s story:

File a “Freedom of Information” act, so I can access my father’s FBI file.
Search news paper indexes to locate articles that were published about my father in the Pittsburgh Press and Pittsburgh Post Gazette during the 1960s and 70s.
Access transcripts of court proceedings, so I can understand why several grand juries indicted my dad and can appreciate the nature of my father’s testimony in court proceedings against him.

And in order to reconstruct the bipolar narrative, I plan to:

File for copies of in-patient medical records, so I can review notes taken by doctors and nurses during my many hospital stays.
Request copies of notes kept by doctors and therapists during out-patient treatment. (Some of this I’ve already done.)
Review journals kept from the time I was 15 until the present. I wrote a lot during the years I was sick. And though I don’t recall everything about that time, the journals recorded much of what I don’t remember.
Watch video tapes of several years’ worth of out-patient and in-patient therapy. This will be an invaluable source of information about my symptoms, my behavior, my thoughts and feelings at the time. (This first involves having the videos transferred to DVDs, so I can bring them back to Haiti. Frankly, the thought of watching this material terrifies me. I can’t imagine what it will be like to see myself so sick. I tried to watch one video a couple of years ago, but had to stop. It was too painful.)

As I lay out this agenda, I want you to be assured, also, that I am well these days. No one would ever know I had ever been sick or still carry this diagnosis. In fact, when I’ve shared this information with folks in recent years, they’ve been shocked.

My partner can certainly see how moody I remain. I’m not always easy to live with. As Sara says, when I feel something, my emotions fill the entire house. I still hallucinate at times, but you would never know. I’ve learned to manage the symptoms that remain, the ones that still break through despite the medication.

I hope some of you will help by holding me accountable with regard to the strategy outlined above. Renee over at “Life in the Boomer Lane” recently posted a two-part series on memoir writing (something you should check out by clicking here and here). But in the second of those posts Renee suggests assembling a supportive group of friends to keep oneself on track during the process of writing a memoir. (So, I hope some of you will be willing to “support” me with periodic kicks in my memoir-writing ass.)

Thanks to all of you who read my blog. Please know how much I appreciate your on-going support. You all have given me the courage, the faith in myself as a writer, to finally take on this task I’ve been avoiding for years.

Peace to each of you and, as always, hugs from here in Haiti,

Kathy

February 24, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 29 Comments

Re-Membering the Past is Not an Easy Task

And for me it is, indeed, a matter of re-assembly. Sorting and piecing , cutting and pasting.

(So, today I have a confession to make.)

From the beginning, I’ve wanted this blog to be an avenue into memoir, since, in many ways, the story of my past is far more interesting than the narrative that is now. And, in fact, the most significant “event horizons” in my life happened a long time ago.

I know that may be hard to believe, as the life Sara and I have lead over the past several years has been an exciting one—taking me to places like Bangkok, Hanoi, New Delhi, Port-au-Prince.

But in many ways to travel backward in time is the bigger challenge—more over-whelming, more frightening, yes, but also more meaningful, and perhaps even profound.

The story of how I’ve gotten here—how I’ve gotten “now” is one that must be told. And how I’ve gotten here involves telling at least two stories, requires that I follow two narrative threads. (There’s actually three but only two I’m even close to comfortable sharing now.)

The first is the story of my father’s involvement with organized crime and the second is the story of my twenty-year struggle with bipolar disorder.

Neither of these is easy to tell. And honestly I’m afraid.

I still intend to write about Haiti. I still intend to write about the “now” that is the life I share with Sara on this troubled island. In fact, I believe the struggles Haiti faces nationally are not dissimilar to the personal challenges I’ve endured. My story and the story of Haiti both involve sickness and corruption, oppression, endurance, even hope.

In the coming days and weeks I’ll outline my strategy, share my goals, my hopes, my fears.

I don’t know how to tell this story. I don’t know where to begin. I feel swallowed by the enormity of the task, dwarfed by it.

So, I’ll pray for peace—and if you’re a praying person, please offer your own prayer; if you’re not, please say you care, please say you’ll share.

I still need that massive infusion of grace. I still need that holy yes.

February 19, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 10 Comments

poem about a table?

“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—“

–Emily Dickinson

in the center where the people

should be is a red and white

checked cloth which covers the

dining room table where the

parent is working. the parent

has cut up the picture in order

to save space in the sticky

plastic-covered pages of the

family photograph album.

i want to write a poem about

this picture with a hole in the

center where the family should

be, but the parent says i should

write about something else.

perhaps then this is not a poem

about the picture. perhaps it’s

not the picture that’s important.

perhaps it’s the table.

think about the table.

February 17, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 15 Comments

Writing Angst: Take Two

Still struggling to create, still struggling over all. So, I’ll share another poem I wrote a while back. Thank God I have this stuff to pass along on off days. My apologies for this deviation from the normal fare. I hope this gives you another sense of who I am as a writer.

Meditation

Summers I plant petunias

arrange them on porches

and watch from front windows

The burrowing of cats

kneading

the almost gray

of almost morning

The lawn is mowed

The hedges trimmed and

still

I am haunted

By the rose which is not a rose

Silence

Breath

Scent

call it yellow

elbow

below

itself

sinking

paying homage to palms

I do not know you

I do not know myself

We are in ruin among the apple seeds

February 16, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 33 Comments

A holy yes?

I’m one of those people who, for better or worse, can only write what’s true. And the truth for today is ugly:

I’m overwhelmed.

I’m tired.

I’m disappointed by my seeming inability to cope.

I need a massive infusion of grace.

A holy yes.

So I offer this poem about my struggle to even write:

Country we come to only by leaving

There are no words

with weight and

density

only a limp

phrase which

sags in the

center like

wet clay

dampening the tips of

fingers

moistening the verbs

the hinges are in place

but there is only

the low blank

noise of sentences

(alone)

I remind myself though that writing is never a solitary act.

That is the holy yes!

Yes?

February 15, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 39 Comments

Verizon Wireless is the Devil

(And I’m not even exaggerating.)

This story is about the heartless and dishonest action taken by a company that claims to not only be “America’s largest and most reliable wireless network,” but also the one “more people trust.”

Clearly, America’s trust is ill-founded. And I am about to show you why.

My partner Sara and I live in Haiti, where Sara directs the recovery operation for one of the world’s largest and most well-known international aid organizations. I live in Port-au-Prince with her and blog about Haiti’s need for more relief, more aid, more care, more prayer. Sara does the work. I spread the word.

On the weekend of February 4^th, Sara and I were in Miami for a long weekend away from the stress and strife, the grit and grime that is Port-au-Prince. But before hitting the beach and soaking up the sun, we wanted to upgrade our phones and renew our Verizon Wireless contract.

Up until that Friday I had an unlimited international data plan for my mobile phone—something that was essential to my functioning in Haiti, where access to both electricity and wireless is limited. I needed to upgrade my phone because I blog and the WordPress software I need was not available on the model of Blackberry I owned. Sara also needed an equipment upgrade, since her BlackBerry had stopped working several months before.

Frustrated that our access to electricity in Haiti had not improved even a year after the earthquake, we stopped at a North Miami Verizon Wireless store on our way in from the airport. We were eager; we were enthusiastic as we burst through the door and were greeted by a Verizon employee with, “Would you like to buy a Droid today?”

“No,” I sighed. “Really, I’d prefer another Blackberry, perhaps the Storm.”

The Verizon representative was willing to show me the Blackberry but eager to point out how difficult it was to type from the touch screen. He suggested I try. I did. Indeed, it was difficult.

“Really,” he offered. “The Droid 2 keyboard is more user-friendly and easier to operate.”

To make a long story short—

I tried the Droid. I love the Droid. Sara tried it. She loved it. We were sold.

We were in the store for close to two hours. We explained our circumstances to our now friend from Jamaica, who understood our frustration, as he too had grown up on a Caribbean island. We discussed my need to blog from my phone. He even loaded the WordPress software for me and moved the icon to my home page for easy access.

He empathized. He insisted the Droid was truly the answer to our data needs in Haiti. He referred to the unlimited access to email and internet we would enjoy. Things would be better.

Two hours later we left the North Miami Verizon Wireless store 2 Droids richer and $600 poorer—

Since, when we got back to Haiti the following Monday evening, we discovered we had no unlimited international data package. The phones were useless to us. We spent $600 and, in doing so, lost the very feature that made the phones useful to us, in fact, essential to us.

We had been duped.

So the first thing Tuesday morning, I called Verizon to have the problem resolved. I spoke with a “customer service” representative. I spoke with 2 managers.

Finally, manager Lenora empathized with our situation and agreed to submit a claim to the “Inactive Pricing Committee. “

Now, 7 expensive phone calls to US “Customer Service” later (Verizon refuses to remove the roaming charges associated with those calls), I learned this morning that Verizon has denied our claim, because we bought Droids and the unlimited data package had only been available on Blackberries.

If only we would return our phones to the nearest Verizon store and trade them for Blackberries then the committee MIGHT be able to reconsider our claim.

Maybe the “customer service” representative offered we could mail our phones back to the US.

Yeah, right—mail 2 VERY expensive phones from a country that doesn’t have a national mail service.

Yeah, right—mail them safely from a country where we can’t even trust our own gardener not to steal our tools—not because he’s a dishonest thief, but because he is that desperate to feed his family and might be able to trade the hammer on the street for a handful of rice, a cup of beans.

We won’t be using these phones for economic gain. Really, I‘d be a lot more comfortable blogging from the US, and Sara would be more relaxed if she weren’t trying to house the 1.3 million homeless Haitians living in Port-au-Prince.

We don’t make nearly enough money to pay the $70 per month for the 7 GB of data per phone that won’t come close to meeting our needs.

International aid work doesn’t pay well. Blogging about Haiti pays nothing.

Bottom line—

Verizon refuses to restore the unlimited international data plan we had until February 4^th, when a Verizon representative dishonestly persuaded us to buy Droids rather than the Blackberries our unlimited access to data depended on.

Verizon has essentially crippled us in our ability to function in Haiti.

Verizon may be the wireless company most Americans trust, but God forbid, the Haitian people place a similar trust in corporate America’s willingness to meet their needs.

Verizon insists there’s really nothing more they can do.

Verizon Wireless is the devil!

(If you are willing, please pass along this story of corporate greed at the expense of the planet’s poor. Please help me hold Verizon accountable.)

February 11, 2011 by Kathryn M. McCullough - 29 Comments

Writing Neurotic Strikes Again: Your Blog Could Be At Risk

BREAKING NEWS: Writing Neurotic is on the loose.

(In the unlikely but fortunate event that you’ve not had an encounter of your own, click here for background documents.)

Authorities had sentenced her to silent detention at a Guantanamo she couldn’t hack, but released her recently due to excess verbage at the facility for terrorist editors and enemy censors.