my dictionary, my lost legend: keeping it together; jm muse chronicles

dear dictionary of codes,


because there is comfort in the past ....
    I seek it now

    and upon reflection recollect how I always look to history during my trials

    When I first began to research my alleged father’s background it had such a colorful and illustrious past through the pages of history, and this is where I first began my thoughts upon DNA memory theory— because, you see,
I have always been on the move; I seem always to be fleeing .... and, as well, my mother and her mother and father —and his mother from Russia (from Minsk)

but what about the father’s side....

?

The notorious playboy politician who was the vanguard to a huge change among social awareness and equality. When I first heard of who he was —i remember this day clearly; it was in the kitchen in Amsterdam when she first began her history lessons to me about who he was. When she told me all about this it was like some wild story from a romance novel. Her artist life in New York and then she just bumps into him at some party in Greenwich Villege.

Her stories were always so elaborate. Her photos stunning. My mother was quite a show stopper; blond, beautiful, a perfect figure and she knew how to dress. She was iconic....

a real mommy dearest

I remember watching her leave for an evening out from the crack of my bedroom door as a girl.

To me, she was a movie star....truly was bigger than life....

as I have already stated;

I loved her more than I should have

but then—I wanted —always— to save her


So imagine this man of power she caught the eye of — it is really no surprise to me.

Because my mother was the type who always got the most dangerous and the most powerful man in the room eating out of her hand. No one could resist her charm and charisma;and while she was a wild flirt she always ‘acted’ the perfect lady

But what of this notorious playboy beyond the recent decades if you consider and go back centuries

What hemisphere did his name’s lineage begin? This is never researched in connection to this man but I began a search of my own. It lead me to Jamestown and then I stumbled on a registry listing of some boy stowaway from the sixteenth century shipped out from Wales

I took it further and traced names close to or possibly alias names as the politics of those times had me noting the possibility of secret loyalties of the Crown; the religious politics and this reoccurring theme of religion and political defiance but seeming always to be spawned when faced with a life changing religious experience

Each generation I traced the people always seemed to fit these character traits

But also their other trait that is the yang to the yin that their defeat was always due to some sense of hot pride; pride cometh before the fall

Like I have said, I recognized this trait in him as in myself .... when one becomes their own worst enemy and destroys oneself with spite

a kind of insanity —almost like a Tourette Syndrome —like a compulsive self-destruction and taking everyone down with you..... in the psychological sense

It makes you wonder

how maybe just a little more reflection

could alter the outcome of people’s history

So I do....In these times of trials. You see— something has happened .... something very ugly.... that has triggered ....a flood

& memories .....

because this ‘something’ that happened only confirms all the rest I was never totally sure .... of

And now confirms also.... that you know some people that you knew as children .... yes, they really were born evil

it is a “something” too, that happened, to make me aware how absolute Electra’s dictionary has been ..... for my survival

The story tells the codes.... read the codes

And legend story comes from somewhere else beyond me.

The ‘legend’ is also the path back where all the puzzle pieces blew away ....as we sunk under the morass

I hear the thump and I jump staring outside the window

“Who’s out there?”

I don’t expect his voice

you know how it looks inside a kaleidoscope ....? If you went inside one and watched all the pieces fall down


that is how it looked when all the fragments flew away.... and even the knight walked away

his voice that is deep and dry makes the pieces rearrange

The look on his face causes me to feel concern hinged with another cause for concern that results with a terror.

I think I am starting

    to disintegrate .... melting like the wicked witch

“Tell me who is threatening you,” he finally asks me

The new place we are at echoes because there is almost nothing in it. Just an old Victorian antique bed and some tables

“I can’t —say,” I say this stammering

“You don’t have to, it is pretty obvious,” he says as he studies me. He then says, “what I want to know is how....? Is it with blackmail?”

This question causes me to hyperventilate but not because he’s right. He isn’t right. It is because to answer this question would be like resurecting Satan

Like pages of a note book blown across a subway floor

I need to search within to find why this is happening . It seems it all has come full circle

from the beginning    I have been missing something —some element —no.... some fundamental piece of the puzzle .... what is it?

for me, it is always the obvious that I miss

what is it?

I have to go away. Far away. Literally now to retreat. Not even by my own choice this time

just to survive

so I wonder why.... why must I survive? What is the point? Just like I ask my lord Agamemnon why.... why was I sent back to my body that day when I saw my own body dead? I reached the gate and was told it was not my time. I saw my killer leave my dead body there. This broken little mashed bit of road kill I was. I saw myself —he left me for dead and walked to the dorm room door.

How did he know I was even there?

Is that the piece I have never fully examined?

You see, I did not go back to my dorm that night because I knew he was after me. I told my sister I had to hide from him. She gave me the key to her dorm room. It happened in her dorm room. That window in the picture

How did he know I was there?

I should be dead.

Even the surgeons I’ve gone to have told me this. Based on the damage of my vertebrae as he crushed my throat and waited until I breathed no more. Watched me and laughed at me as he squeezed the air from my lungs, bending my fingers back as I struggled, breaking them and bargaining with me his mercy for something to trade for a quicker end

How did he know I was there? South Hall, across campus by the old gym

The phone call? Who was it?

Who indeed.... my worst enemy from childhood wanting to finish the job begun by the belt wielder

I have been so scared and now I don’t think I care anymore because I’m too tired to keep up the energy required for this fear. I’m getting sloppy leaving my clues around as if I tempt fate because I’m so tired of running. And hiding. So tired of hiding

Why was my life spared? He left me for dead and when that all mighty energy told me to go back, sending me back with a vehemence and a message to fight for my life and I hesitated in that moment of confusion .... no please not back there. Not back. Not to that crumpled little bit of road kill. Not to go back to the demons who wait there for me. Not for more torture only.... the choice wasn’t mine to be made and when I gasped and heard my lungs fill with air.... my killer turned in shock from the door, his noir skin going ghost pale

I don’t understand, dictionary.... please define it for me....

I am to go north

where I can’t be found

I am told

retreat.... to my cave

Write on my caveman walls. I think I am glade in a way. Only— to be spared for that?

This book of codes left in a blog. Like pages of a note book blown across a subway floor. All scattered at random .... whatever .... to be found? Maybe never. Maybe just my small voice from the dark cave reaches just the right pitch for.... some necessary mind to one day discover ....one day. Maybe long after I am gone

I leave in about a week or so.... by my birthday to start a new hidden life ....just a mutated voice from inside a cave

Electra's dictionary; Noir, follow the codes (jmmuse)

“Mariamne” John William Waterhouse

the story hides the codes

……

“I need to go away,” I tell Jörn

I have begun to pack a few things. We are outside the apartment building. It is raining

“Where? What is going on?” he places his hand on my arm, “Why are you trembling?” he goes pale

“I’m in danger,” I tell him

“Who is it?”

“That’s all I can say....” I look away because I can’t bear his eyes today. To leave such eyes again ....and yet to stay would only result in something close to that parallel life’s end

“Where are you going?” he asks me

I look around with a sense of paranoia,
“I don’t know..... can you help me?” I suddenly ask and look up at him, “I need to get out of the city. Away from anywhere I can be found....”

He draws his brows and thinks. He takes a deep breath,
“I know a place way up north ....it’s by Quebec .... no one would find you there.... let me see what I can do— when do you need to leave?”

“Now!” but my voice breaks and have to remind myself to keep it together. I consciously force myself to breath slow then say, “as soon as possible.”

“Let me see what I can do.... come upstairs, I’ll make some calls.....”

Electra’s dictionary....

dear dictionary,

I am in danger. And becoming exhausted....I cannot write what but something is happening and I cannot say .... and it is part of the purpose of why I ever began the dictionary.... I m so scared....it is getting in the way of thinking clearly.... I may not write for awhile.... or if I do it will be in code.... it’s part of the past come again. I’m so scared

(JM muse chronicles continue) Electra’s dictionary; or weed be best friends

Because Ilya seems to have taken full control of running the historical aspect connected to the penthouse’s history, I start to consider this as the green light to hit the road, so to speak

I have not stayed anywhere lately longer than one year and before last year it seemed it was every six months; first from Michigan to Oregon then back to Michigan and then New York which had been an impulse decision to move. And the impulse seems to be returning.

Before last year I never imagined I would ever return to New York

after so many years away and

the fermentation of those memories of those initial very bad ....first New York experiences years ago

like Jörn says, I must be used to flight or fight, because my reflex is to take flight at the first sign of danger

It is walking back to where I live when I see someone watching me from across the street and it is not the same kind of watching as how it felt the other time when that kid gave me the death threat. Instead, I somehow realize, he has been following me for a few days 

because I kept noticing him in the crowd but then I shrugged it off

But it has been since the penthouse museum event that Ilya held because.... I start to realize I recognize him from 

He said he was with The Times, I remember now

I don’t know why it never occurred to me till now that ....people might be curious about who I am seeing me there at the penthouse

I should have thought it through better when they started coming for the museum events that Ilya has been running. You know? I should have thought of this

as my name is on the mailbox and only now I realize how slow on the take I am. Obtuse once again.

In fact I realize a few things now in hindsight

He took a picture the day of the event when he visited, it was after the little tour and lecture that Ilya did.... is currently doing, actually. It was her idea because she’s raising money for a charity that is connected to one of his causes so it is a very good idea actually —so it’s an event she is hosting herself which is now being shown by appointment to the public

and I saw this guy .... he was taking notes and kept looking at me and then later, after —when everyone was looking at the historical documents he separated from the group and seemed interested in the large, framed photograph of Ethan Rhys-Jones behind me

and then I realized he was pointing his phone to take a picture of it but.... it seemed to me he was holding his phone at me —with me in his picture

and I realize too .... standing there as it slowly dawns on me.... in the photograph I am standing under of him— that he wore the same style glasses as I wear. As strange as it may seem, I never really noticed this before

and now too I realize as I stand there that I am in the shot he is taking .... with me ? ....standing under the photo

At the time I did have that moment of spider sense. But I didn’t trust it; I told myself to ignore the feeling but.... I got that weird uncomfortable feeling at the back of my neck.

But was I just paranoid?

Like the way he was looking at me and that I was in his shot or.... was it that I don’t generally like strangers taking my picture and so—maybe I really was just being paranoid

I mean....

One would not automatically guess my connection to Ethan Rhys-Jones —as it has been quite a long time since his face was in the papers. He is not exactly relevant now. Yet, all my life people have stared at me ....you know, over the years and they always say,

“you look so familiar....” and then stare too long to the point of discomfort  .... as if.... because.... they would start to suspect I must be someone —or related to someone they should know

When I grew up my mother did everything she could to camouflage me or to play down my awkwardly hard to blend looks and features. Sometimes I think that was partly behind why we moved to the Netherlands; as a way to hide things about us;  this —because as I grew up my unusual, odd, physical features became more obvious. And people had started to ask my mother about my different bone structure and eyes. Both not like either parent. My eyes are a little like my mother’s were but not as much actually and a lot more like.... Ethan Rhys-Jones. Although usually most tend to think I’m Irish which no one in my family were even close to being

—I think because I’m red-headed, mostly and no one else is that either and I remember wondering too about the other ....different and more telling—and very obvious features that —I always got uncomfortable comments about at school. I was different and I stood out uncomfortably

as a kid as I still didn’t know who I was

and one day it was I was looking in the mirror and I said to my mother, “don’t you think I look kind of Cherokee?” 

Of course she was furious and appalled and angrily reminded me of our Russian ancestry. She started tweezing my eye brows when I was thirteen removing the distinctive arch that was a feature hard not to notice —and cut my hair in a way that also distracted the shape of my face.

I don’t touch the shape of my brows anymore, although I still hide my face from years of habit but if anyone does look close enough it is pretty obvious how much I do resemble that man —who had extremely distinctive features. I noticed the resemblance strongly in my daughter too even when she was first born because she looked exactly like him as a baby! Exactly! and as she gets older ....more and more .... last I noticed from a picture her father sent to me

So noticing this now as I am being followed by the guy from the Times.... I get a bad feeling about this

and feeling I must be putting myself ....too much out there

It’s something I think I must avoid. I need my anonymity

I know about how someone can take something like that and run—decide to make a buck off an old scandal and then the next thing that would happen would be they would make me some kind of tabloid flash-in-the-pan story which ....

would be worse than a living nightmare to me. I detest pop media and I detest being stared at

So it must be time to retreat

which I decide as I walk, ducking into the nearest store in hopes of losing the guy

I wait from inside the store looking out across the street

So I stand inside waiting but I see him on his phone and watching the store where I am

It’s a coffee place and the guy behind the counter wants me to buy something —so I ask for coffee

“What kind?” he points to a menu over his head behind him

I shrug,

“Whatever is your favorite.”

“Rocky and Bullwinkle,” he says

“Great,” I hand him my card as it’s not a self serve transaction and wait as I watch the window

I get a text from Jörn:

<Where are you?>

I reply:

<Snookies>

The guy hands me back my card

I see the guy across the street start to cross over and now I begin to panic

Another text:

<?>

Instead I press voice call and he answers

“Where are you?” he asks

but the guy comes in!

I move to the back of the place and hide behind the refrigerated beverages and whisper into the phone

“Snookies!”

“Why are you whispering? Who’s Snookie?”

“No.... it’s the shop down the street.... you know, next to the bodega....”

“What bodega?” he asks

“Jörn! You know the place— you got a cinnamon bun that time.”

“Oh, that helps—what’s wrong, should I come get you?”

“Someone is following me!”

“Ok, don’t move I’ll be there in five minutes—don’t move,” he says.

I discover there is a hidden back part to the place where a few tables are and most of the tables are occupied but I find one in the back corner where I can see out the store front

It is actually about five minutes when I notice the door swing open and see Jörn breathless and sweaty, wearing his jog clothes

I wave at him and he looks around trying to figure out what guy I’m talking about

He comes right over,

“who’s the guy? Which one is it? I can get the van here in five minutes—“

“No no no, don’t Jörn—he’s from museum night!”

He shakes his head at me and draws his brows,

“What are you talking about?”

“The event at the penthouse Ilya did last Tuesday—he’s been following me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” and he moves as if he’s ready to bash the guy’s head in

“He’s with the New York Times!” I say and grab his arms to pull him from doing anything

This stops Jörn’s intent but he still looks like he wants to bash the person’s head

“What is going on, Duva? Why were you whispering into the phone— do you think he’s dangerous?”

“I think he believes he has figured out who I am!”

Jörn suddenly goes completely limp and pulls out a chair to sit down. I realize now how much he’s sweating as it is such a hot day

The coffee guy comes over with the coffee drink. Rocky and Bullwinkle turns out to be an iced mocha with crumpled chunks of truffles,

“here, drink this,” I tell him

“What is it?” he asks me

“Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

He looks at it and then at me,

“Ok— so I just sprinted three blocks because of some journalist from museum night....?”

I decide then to taste the coffee, then look back at him,

“Wow! You know—this is really good!”

There is a moment where he seems not sure if he wants to yell at me or laugh and then .... reaches for Rocky and Bullwinkle

He drinks half of it in a matter of seconds.... sadly.... but I notice at least he seems less annoyed and not as sweaty

“Lets go— why don’t you finish Rocky Stallone—“

“It’s Rocky and Bullwinkle—“

He takes it from me and drinks almost all of it,

“finish it and let’s go—“

“Is he still here?”

He stands up,

“what does he look like?”

“He looks like a hipster,” I tell him, whispering,“green tie and pinstripes.”

So I wait and watch as Jörn walks through. I see him open the door to the refrigerated beverages and grab a water and go up to pay but as he does this I see the guy— who looks right at him. Jörn says something to him and I see the guy look back at him awkwardly. And then go white as a sheet. After Jörn gets his change the hipster journalist leaves suddenly and Jörn comes back over to me,

“you ready?” he asks me

“So.... what did you say?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s not going to follow you anymore.”

“What did you say?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

It is about a block later when I ask again and he says,

“I told him that if I ever find out he’s writing a story about you I’d have him arrested for illegally buying weed.”

“How did you know he bought weed?”

But he just laughs at me as his answer

Knots inside a pattern; truth blends with myths; it’s all there, written on the mural walls

Wake up disturbed, dear dictionary, and find I cannot sleep


....In dreams I always see the cold frozen ground and the gray sky but he was not there in time, he came too late

and he stands there over me staring at me with those eyes....how long I’ve searched for those eyes; they have haunted me all my life



“Gone in a flash, unreal
But you knew all along.....

“.....To watch you numb

“I saw you there
You were on your way
You held the rain....

“You kissed me cold.....

“And for the first time
Heaven seemed insane
'Cause heaven is to blame
For taking you away

“I cry the wound
In gray afternoons— “

~quoted from ‘Tear,’ song by the Smashing Pumpkins from the album “Adore”

https://youtu.be/av_2DlLeaC0


.... so the surgeons tell me they cannot fix me

this is nothing new to me; I have known this for many years

it was always their opinion but even if they did not know how to fix me I was always determined to prove them wrong

and I have


The thing that made me different from Dr. Rothschild’s statistics was that I was born stubborn and I have my own way,

call it willful or rebellious

I survived the statistics approximation for the kind of early fucked up shit that happened to me; both physical and emotional both sexual and ....sexual violence

I saw it all, had it visited upon me; violated in every possible way by not just one demon, nor one demon parent nor only those two family members, it was more than two

Only it was him that I defied

One day the man I believed to be my father went to go strike me as he always did across the table at me

But I had by then heard at school that what he did was a crime which I had not known and so instead of flinching away and letting myself be afraid I forced myself to laugh!

I laughed in his face

I was so scared but I remember thinking that I already knew the worst of what he did with his cruel hands and a strong arm with the belt that I realized I was sick of being afraid

I did not want him to win. You see

I was shaking in that moment. I lived in such fear of him but ..... I laughed ....

..... because I swore he would never see me cry again

I dared him

I was by then nine. After years of this and so sick of it. It was soon after Pat had died and I was somehow fearless


but he was like Hitler to me; so cruel and evil, so ugly when he went to take out his fury on me. His face went red as a beet. So ugly

Pat made me make this promise to her and it was just before she overdosed.... she was crying and she grabbed hold my arm and she said, with red eyes pouring down her beautiful face .... she said,
“Dawn, don’t do what I did..... promise me you won’t waste your life. Don’t do drugs, be tough— win for me, do it for me, don’t let the assholes win!”

And she was dead two weeks later

I was devastated as she was my idol and I was young to lose someone and well.... that is when .... that is when we put her in the cell inside and I put on the costume that was once my idol’s

I shut that me away. The one who got squashed by everyone. The one I did not want to be.... and I created a new one and sometimes we visited.... we.... the sides of a me that split. Not different people, a one just split, the one who just could not face the world and live up to this promise that I made Pat

statistics say that most kill themselves. I dislike numbers especially statistics— I always want to prove the numbers don’t rule over the power of the mind .... but what is mind? Is it soul? Is it self? Is it some eternal self? I know it does not end in death. This much I do know. I know because I tripped past that live fantastic the night I was raped and left for dead.... Dr. Rothschild wanted to know why I was not a drug addict; why I did not kill myself and she could not offer me any help on how to be released from the darkness that is inside; my real demons but she said,

“you have made it further than any known case, you’re trail blazing — maybe you have a message that you are meant to share.”

I would have preferred she had some prescription for inner peace but now she was asking me to create world peace; what irony

About ten years after my assault the injuries began to show those indelible fingerprints and doctor after doctor only told me my doom. One said my hands would be useless in ten years another said I would not be walking

but I’m a rebel, you see and I made this promise not to let the assholes win. I had to do it for her. And maybe too the one in that cell. The Celf inside, the one we left there with the codes ..... the notes

It is only because I am stubborn they were all wrong. I learned to be my own doctor and now I look twenty years younger than I should only because I’m stubborn and a bit obsessive about it.... a bit neurotic and certainly stark, raving, mad but— what other solution did I have

This code is like a combination to a safe. The pins line up




It is in the penthouse office that Jörn has taken over, apparently, the next time Willem stops by I ask him,
“why did you approach me that day at the Dugout?” I guess I want to see his eyes

“Well you know the neurosurgeon you went to when you were fifteen saw you had de damage on your vertebrae and he reported it— ve vere already vatching you—“

“Why me? Why would anyone bother with a fifteen year old American?”

“Haf you vorgotten about how seriously de Dutch take crimes against humanity? And ve vere looking vor enathing to get yur fadder on. Dere vas a dentist who lift under yur vloor an’ he sed dat he alvays heard the loud shouting an’ de hard footsteps—he vas sure you vere in danger zo.... i vas sent to meet you dat night to mek my report about you.”

“You made a report about me? What kind?”

“To send a henchman to your vader—I had to mek s report to proof ve had reason to threaten him....Your demeanor.... an’ de vay I could tell dat you had been abused by someone. It vasn’t hard to figure out who did it. Men like dat pick on children dat can’t fight back .... dat code you haf buried .... you know, I dink you should consider de hypnosis.... it might actually free you of dat monkey on yer bek....”

https://youtu.be/av_2DlLeaC0

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