Once upon a ghost story, fractured fairy tales and a handful of wishes

     Once upon a ghost story.
     My story. 
     I was a ghost before I became the captain of a very nearly capsized ship. Sounds sad. But it isn't. This barely floating ship is my life raft. It may look ratty and un-seaworthy to those who skim the waves in beautifully crafted sloops, but I tend to think that most folks muddle about the waves in paper boats.

    I likened myself to a captain, albeit one that will probably have a mutiny on her hands. Now I am likening myself to a ghost. These are just descriptors that allow me to explain the many facets of who I am. So many of us contain many different characters inside of our selves.  Walt Whitman exclaimed that he was large and contained multitudes and so it is with me.  Most likely so it is with you.

     This leads me to offer this post as another introduction. If you will, the prologue to the previous introduction. The history behind the history....

     Once upon a time there was a girl who let all of the hope she had for herself sit in the hands of other people. This girl loved a boy and they had a baby and the girl believed that she had everything she had ever wanted; the boy, a girl-child, a very fat, very short dog and a house to hold them all safely inside.

All was right in the world until the boy told the girl, who was holding their sweet child in her arms, that he wanted to rip the girl's arm off and beat her to death with it.

At that moment, the girl remained a girl no longer. She became a ghost. Or so she thought.

The ghost-girl and her daughter, together with their very fat, very short dog, struggled to find a new home.

And they did.

Ghost-girl and her daughter, together with their very fat, very short dog struggled to find renewed hope.

And they did that, too.

Happiness was theirs but only for a little while because you see the ghost girl, feeling very ghost-like and therefore not very substantial, found another person to hold all of her dreams. Again.

Silly ghost-girl. When will she ever learn?

Now, to be fair, ghost-girl was becoming less ghost-like every year. She was growing her skin back and her heart no longer beat so painfully on the outside of her chest, but instead was moving back inside where it belonged.  At first glance, ghost-girl seemed almost normal but she wasn't quite. Why? Because she wasn't the keeper of her own wishes. She gave that job away to someone else.

Many of the posts in this blog are chronicles of ghost-girl, of the lost and sea sick captain. The blog recounts my pilgrimage toward re-animation and regeneration, if such things are available to non-amphibian beings who have lost significant parts of themselves. My re-animation allowed for a love story to take shape.  A love story between a woman and the girlish pile of bones that she had been and between a woman and man who was really two men; the man that was and the man that is.

My love story with Jack and the near misses and rogue waves that have threatened to swamp us have served to help me understand that my hands are not made of ghostly mist but are solidly prepared to hold the wishes that my heart only needs to whisper into them.

Polly want a "mama"? The case of the aphasic parrot.

This post is about me finding hilarity, and therefore finding sanity in the daily absurdities that shape my life. The catalyst for the hilarity, sanity and absurdity is Jack. As I had stated in my introduction, Jack is my fiancé of five years and for three of those five years he has been  living with a brain injury.

Once upon a not-so-long-ago, Jack was a brilliant and verbose neurologist. Unfortunately, a particularly nasty stroke rode into town on an embolism, shot up the joint and left town with Jack's short-term memory and speech centers in it's saddlebags. Damnable thug.

At some point in the future, I will post stories about Jack's stroke and his rehabilitation but now is not that time. Now, I want to write about Jack's aphasia. Aphasia, or in Jack's circumstance, Expressive Aphasia, is a condition whereby a person has lost the ability to construct fluid and meaningful speech.

Pre-stroke, Jack was a splendid wordsmith. A talented language weaver. Post-stroke, the clearest language that comes out of Jack is curse words and these he says without difficulty and with a great deal of color. This is a nod in the direction to his many years spent as a Captain in the United States Navy.

Pre-stroke, Jack had a whole host of lovely pet-names for me. Post-stroke, Jack can't remember my name to save his life and has taken to calling me "Ma!" or "Mama!"

Yeah, you read that one correctly.
"Ma"
Even during our more intimate moments.
All I can say is that Freud would have a freaking wet dream over that one.  Surprisingly enough this  doesn't bother me as much as you think it would. What bothers me is that he doesn't even like his mother.

By and large, most of what my dear Jack says makes not one bit of sense and I am frequently left scratching my head trying to piece together what it is that he may want. In truth, Jack and I, like twins, share our own language. Gestures, head movements and facial expressions are the order of the day and when that fails, Jack is known to spit out "Shit Fuckers!" in an effort to settle us both down and get us back on track.

Even though, Jack can't say "jack" ( sorry for that, couldn't resist ) about much, he understands every. thing.
For a man that had opinions and insights and a desire to share those opinions and insights, this is a terrible cross for him to bear. I try my best to help him carry this cross because I love him. This is the kind of thing that people in love do for one another. We carry what the other person can't. Simple as that.

I can live with being called "Ma!" because it could be worse. He could have called me "Dad!"

Now, what does any of this have to do with parrots, you ask??

Jack wants one. More specifically, Jack wants to train one.

To speak.

Hmmm.

This ought to be interesting and my life is nothing if not interesting. Now my home will be filled with an avian incomprehensibly muttering, occasionally screeching "Shit Fuckers!" and, of this I am absolutely certain, continually calling out "Ma!"

The joy. The hilarity. The sadness. The straight up craziness. The love.

My life.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Introduction

 These will be the musings of a slightly unhinged, quirky single mother who is master and commander of her domestic ship.
I am not a very good captain as my ship takes on alarming amounts of water, lists like hell to port and I am prone to seasickness. As of now, we are afloat and that has to count for something..Right?
The crew of this listing, mess of a vessel consists of the following:
Gracie, my precocious 10 year old daughter.
Jack, my newly brain injured fiancé. ( Note to self: don't let Jack navigate as much as he would like.) 
Two bumpus hounds and one psyco-kitty. They are collectively known as The Animal Menagerie

You are welcome to climb aboard but please grab a pail on your way in, toss me a box of Dramamine and kindly point out "North" to Jack.
 Oh, and before I forget,
Please don't feed the animals.