My name is Cathy White and I live in Tofino, BC. These poems and paintings are a response to my six-year journey with head trauma, right-sided abdominal pain, weight loss (60 lbs.), depression, anxiety, vertigo, neck pain, vestibular migraines, and all the symptoms they involve.
These paintings were therapy, a life line and a response to the trauma I experienced. I know some of them are dark, but they are a reflection of those negative experiences. The last painting is mainly dedicated to my husband Kim, who passed away a year and a half ago, as well as to the doctors who have tried to help, and to other caring practitioners I have seen. I’ll end on this hopeful note – sometimes at the worst of times hope is all we have to cling to.
Pain Management
In the crowded hospital room,
after a long midnight journey,
after months of constant pain
And feeling fearful.
Thoughts of suicide crowding my being.
Trying to manage my pain
with a bouquet of drugs,
and clouded by an overwhelming hopelessness.
The nurse turns and asks,
“Do you still feel like killing yourself?”
This is what is called pain management.
Rebalancing Vertigo
I was so unprepared
for your coming
thinking I was healing
thinking I could start being.
I heard you visited him long ago.
And, I know now why he sliced his ear
and shot himself in that field.
I understand and dream
of following.
Those strokes of swirling
ultramarine, purple, yellow ochre,
and vibrant green
Were what he felt
inside
all the time.
And anyone would beg
To make it stop.
I dream of sitting still
on a
starry night
With only the earth
spinning
Gratitude Revisited
You know who you are.
In the wreckage of my despair
you were there.
Dressing my wounds,
swaddling me
in your arms, and
leading me out
of the darkness of the woods.
You were the light that
protected me
from harm.
Holding me in the palm
of your hand,
trying to heal my trembling
soul, and trying to
understand which creature
was pacing
in the shadows.