2008 Presidential Election - The Day After

I am still reeling with the results of the presidential election. Excitement and hope are in the forefront of many emotions. As Oprah Winfrey’s tee shirt proclaimed, “HOPE WON.” Today is, indeed, a new day for America.

I have spend much of this day remembering the hope of John F. Kennedy and his dream of Camelot in 1960. I remember the feel of the steel, as I pulled the lever to vote for him, my first voting experience. The truth is that I couldn’t have voted for him in 1960. I was not yet 20, much less 21. I do know that my idealism and anticipation for an even greater future was real. When he was assassinated, I was devastated. We mourned his death as a nation, mostly united in the mourning process. A piece of my idealism fell away.

Then there was the assassination of his brother, Robert Kennedy. My husband and I had just turned on the 11 o’clock news to see how he was doing in the primary. What we saw was Kennedy falling to the ground and someone shouting, “He’s been shot!” Another chunk of idealism dropped off.

The murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., the senseless beatings of protestors in the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war, and finally students being killed at Kent State by the National Guard took all but a small piece of my idealism.

During this period, there were reports of people who had been “detained” in Nevada for subversive political views. The final vestige of idealism fell by the wayside with the strange circumstances around the death of Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, attorney general under Richard Nixon. Are we living in a democracy or a police state.

From 1976 until the present, my cynicism grew like a cancer spreading to my politics and my religion. I am no longer religious, but I am spiritual, and, until last night, I had no patriotism. The very sight of the American flag turned my stomach because it had come to mean senseless killing. America went to war because of a lie. Long forgotten was John F. Kennedy’s “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

Today, I believe that the tide has turned and that we finally have a president who is calm and who acts, not reacts. For that, I am filled with gratitude.

Waterlogged

Ten days ago, tropical storm Fay whipped into Tallahassee and decided to stay around a few days. Uninvited. I have been in humid, tropical climates most of my life. As Fay settled in on Friday night, I as okay without electricity. I slept well until awakened at 3 A.M. (no epiphany here) when power returned. I began to feel a little waterlogged by the time the power came back on Saturday evening after five hours without it again.

I went out to clean the cats’ box. It was damp, but not undoable. High humidity damp. Yin’s and Yang’s box is located on my roofed and screened in porch, close to their cat door.

Sunday, a break in the weather occurred. I mistakenly went out at ten for a one o’clock appointment. I discovered that Barnes and Noble doesn’t open before eleven on Sunday. Armed with umbrella, my writing paraphernalia and a jacket, I was drenched before I could return to my car. Once home, I discovered that my jacket was gone. I probably dropped it when I tried to close the umbrella without soaking myself getting into my car. My car felt like a cave that drips water from every pore, caused by the dripping umbrella. When I returned to the mall at one, I took a plastic bag for the jacket. Just in case. Plastic shopping bag and a jacket were good to go on the floor of my car.

Sunday night I went out to clean the litter box. The carpet on the porch was soaked, the new box of cat litter next to the house was wet, and water dripped off the plastic scoop and the boxed sandwich bags nearby. I, too, dripped water by the time I went inside. No rainwater fell on me. I may be about 90% water, but at that moment, I was at least 98%. It was as if a wet fog from one of Stephen King’s novels had enveloped me and I would never feel dry again.

Monday, a little sunshine arrived and I ventured out in my car to get cat food. I drove by the turn off to Lake Ella. It was flooded almost to Meridian. My porch was still embalmed in fluid air. Not until yesterday, Sunday, was I able to get outside and clean up my porch. That was after two days of constantly running the ceiling fan on high. I now have dry carpet and a porch that I can enjoy again.

I still don’t have the motivation to clean up my two decks that are filled with debris from the storm. However, I did wash and clean out my car.

I am feeling back to normal. Almost.

The Glass Powder Box

The glass powder box currently contains French clay used to make a mask for the face. This container is three inches in diameter with a somewhat opaque top, like frosted glass. The texture is coarser than smooth translucent glass. There is a ½ inch scallop curling around the edge of the top, opaque on top and smooth and translucent on the bottom. The box itself is made up of rises and valleys with the rises being smooth and translucent. Looking carefully at the rises, one sees a chain of swans appearing to be swimming in the opaque glass water. The swans are clear glass and smooth to the touch. At first glance, the swans look like partial question marks, no period at the bottom. The glass tastes bitter from the soap remnants on my hands when I pick up the top. It is cool to the touch and without fragrance.

The clay inside this box is a pale green which gives the box a slight tint of gray green. The clay smells like earth and dried clay. It is silky to the touch and tastes bland.

On the bottom of the box, two small cork pads remain. One is missing. The cork provides protection against scratching surfaces on which the box sits. It is the kind of box that conjures up sterling silver dresser sets, crystal perfume bottles and mahogany furniture.

The glass powder box evokes memories of my cousin and I playing with our grandmother’s face powder, also kept in a similar container. My grandmother’s powder box had a tinge of pink from her face powder stored inside. Besides her powder, my grandmother’s box held a large, to two small girls, powder puff, soft and fluffy. In my mind’s eye, I see tiny spots of powder, not yet smoothed out, on her mahogany dresser. That always happened later when we tried to cover our tracks. We weren’t allowed in the powder. We were allowed, however, to get into the other glass box that contained hairpins and bobby pins. My cousin liked to give me new hair styles. With my medium length, straight hair, that meant changing the part or pulling the top and sides back while the back remained “long” and straight. Sometimes we had rubber bands and ribbons with which to work. After our hair was beautiful, sometimes with toilet paper streamers, we got into the powder and the closet.

I would wear my grandmother’s red high heels while my cousin would snag the minks to wear around her neck. Then we were ready for our fashion show.

I miss my cousin who died at forty-five from lung cancer.

Self-pampering

It is Saturday afternoon and I have just finished taking a relaxing soak in my new tub. What a feeling of wealth and decadence to have spent forty-five minutes breathing in the good energy of the moment. I am a firm believer in pampering myself when I have worked hard most of the day.

I did have company in my bath. Yin and Yang joined me, taking turns seeing how the water might feel to their paws. Yin was braver than Yang and walked the tightrope around the tub. She is the risk taker of the two.

I am feeling much more satisfied and settled now that I finished the downstairs cleanup following the bathroom remodeling. Things are either put or thrown away, and I can see order again. It seems to me that when my home is in disorder, my thoughts and my life are in disarray also. I certainly feel much calmer not having to fight my way around boxes and other paraphernalia.

I hadn’t realized that such a disorganized mess drained my energy as much as it did. For the first time in two weeks, I allowed myself to sleep in until I was ready to wake up. I slept until 10:45, terribly late for me.

When I finish here, I will eat a very late lunch and then prepare to attend a dolphin meditation in a group with whom I often do weekend classes. I am looking forward to this treat as I have not done one before.

How good can life get? Not much better than this for me.

Breakfast

Breakfast at our house was a family ritual, missed only in case of death. My mother didn’t allow anyone out of the house without breakfast, regardless of how late we were running. This unspoken edict included my father. She backed up her rule with the fact that she was a dietician. She knew what was good for us.

Breakfast was not cereal, unless it was cooked cereal. Cooked cereal meant oatmeal, the one food you could live on for months if you included milk with it. Eggs, bacon, buttered toast and juice were the usual fare. The juice was always freshly squeezed, orange or grapefruit. If we had tomato juice, she had put it up in the summer. She did vary how she cooked the eggs. If they were fried, they were cooked in the grease from the bacon, or rarely sausage. (I suspect Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was silently influencing her lack of sausage,) She used a spatula to ease the hot grease over the top to set the yolk. Poached eggs were swirled in boiling water and served on toast. Scrambled eggs were my favorite for some reason, Soft boiled eggs, with a dab of butter on top were usually reserved for sick days. I loved the toast because it was always served with homemade jelly or preserves. One day when I was nine, I ate five pieces of toast with strawberry preserves on them. Grits came later, when we moved to Florida.

At fifteen, I began pushing breakfast later every day until I reached 2 P. M., but, I ate breakfast. I suspect that was one battle my mother chose not to fight.

I married and the breakfast routine started again. I found this task particularly annoying when I had to be at work at 7 A.M. Annoyed or not, I cooked breakfast. I began to slack off while I was pregnant. I suspect now that it was my fear of morning sickness, which I never had.

In my late twenties, after our daughter was born, I went into full rebellion. I would not eat breakfast except for dinner. However, there were some notable exceptions:

Breakfast with my husband at the Alta Mira Hotel in Sausalito was memorable. We sat outside on the terrace, drinking Ramos gin fizzes while eating eggs benedict. It was the thoughtfulness of the gesture that was most memorable. Our daughter had just broken out with roseola, after a harrowing couple of days fearing meningitis.

I breakfasted, at a conference, with a man who would be my second husband. We sat in the intimate dining room overlooking a pond with ducks. I remember only drinking coffee and talking for hours. It was the most relaxing afternoon I had spent in years.

Sunday breakfast in a French cafe in St. Augustine with a lover. We had delicious French pastries and excellent coffee. The ambiance of the cafe along with delight in my lover made for a fabulous breakfast. It set the tone for a long, lingering Sunday.

While doing some family of origin work for my doctorate, I wrote about the death of my mother’s older brother. She was nine when he died. He was twelve. According to my mother, my grandmother had been up all night with him. Harold came into her bedroom announcing, “Mama, would you please fix me some breakfast. I’m as hungry as a horse!”

My grandmother apparently asked for thirty more minutes of sleep, which Harold cheerfully granted her. Within that thirty minutes, Harold died. Suddenly a piece of the puzzle clicked into place. To a nine year old, going without breakfast meant you die.

Today, when I walked around the lake, I wanted breakfast. Not an ordinary breakfast, but a breakfast with friends in an elegant restaurant. Instead, I’m writing about it.

Gratitude Abounds

What a beautiful day this has become. I got up and out fairly early, taking my car to the shop to see about my air-conditioning and automatic windows. The A/C is fixed and works beautifully. The windows--well, the motor is ordered for the driver’s side and the passenger’s side now works. All of this was accomplished while I read a Margaret Atwood novel. What a treat!

Afterwards, I was able to walk around Lake Ella without feeling terribly strung out by the heat. I wonder if that is because I didn’t arrive over heated. After my walk, I came home and relaxed. I even had lunch outside on my screened-in porch. The first meal I have had outside since early spring.

I read some more and enjoyed the company of Yin who thought I made a good pillow for her while she scratched her head on my book. When it got too hot or too humid, I’m not sure which, I came back inside. I am now doing laundry and reflecting on my idyllic life.

The air-conditioner is running and the sirens scream somewhere on North Monroe or I-10. In a few minutes I will begin to do QiGong and leave the material world behind for a short time.

I could never have imagined my life today when I was in my twenties. Funny, I never thought about now. I guess I expected to be caught up in family without the benefit of my degrees, talents or interests. Instead of being at the beck and call of numerous children and grandchildren, I have time to paint and to write. How glorious is that!

My daughter and her family live in Seattle, clear across country from me. This way I am not in her business, but minding my own. I think it improves our relationship. As I write this, Kim and I are emailing as if we are IM-ing. Thanks to Google’s celebration of Beatrix Potter’s birthday, we were each reminded of my mother and her grandmother who often sent Kim a piece from Potter’s collection for her birthday which comes up in a few weeks.

Several years ago, my first boyfriend and I connected after many years of silence. Had I married him, I would probably have had three children and several grandchildren by now. I would not have a college education. I would not be the artist that I am today. I would not be the spiritual person that I am today. I may have followed the religious path rather than the spiritual path.

I really am glad that I am where I am today.

The Cardinal

There was once a young boy named Jack who lived in a big city where it was often too scary to go outside and play. In Jack’s neighborhood the houses were so close together they almost touched, and there was only one tree in the whole block where Jack lived. This tree was in front of Jack’s friend Mikey’s house. Mikey, who lived two doors down from Jack, found all sorts of fun things to do on the street where they lived. Mikey taught Jack where to look for spiders so they could watch them spin their webs on nearby broken window panes. Sometimes, if he was lucky, Mikey would find some birdseed to attract his favorite bird--a bright red cardinal who would visit without birdseed. Mikey said that when the cardinal was nearby, good things always happened to him. In fact, he was watching the cardinal when Jack first came by his house on the way home. When Jack and Mikey weren’t watching bugs or birds soaring in the air, they would often make capes out of bath towels and pretend that they were Superman flying all over town. They usually talked about becoming pilots, like the ones who flew the big airplanes that roared overhead. During these times, they knew that someday they would leave their neighborhood and soar in the sky, like the birds.

Then one day, as Jack was walking the two doors down to Mikey’s house, he heard gunfire and saw his friend lying on the sidewalk. The police came and then the ambulance arrived without its siren screaming. Jack knew then that he would never watch another spider spin its web with Mikey. In the days that followed, Jack roamed in the street on his block wishing that his friend Mikey was there with him. He would be going to school soon, but it wouldn’t be the same without Mikey. He wasn’t even sure that being pilot would be fun without Mikey. As he pondered on becoming a pilot, he saw a red cardinal perched on a branch of the tree in front of Mikey’s house. “Some lucky bird you are,” he was thinking, when all of a sudden, the cardinal flew around Jack’s head. He did a lazy eight and then a loop-the-loop, pulling straight up in the air. Back to earth he came, slowing his dive like he was coming in for a landing--he was. He landed back on the branch and looked Jack straight in the eye.

It was then that Jack knew--he knew that Mikey would always be there in the form of the cardinal. As Jack grew up and things got bad at home, he would always see the red cardinal and be reminded that someday he would leave the neighborhood and become a pilot just like he and Mikey planned when they were little.

Yin and Yang

Yin peers out the lower right pane of the French door; she moves to the cat door, muscles tense, and tests to see if it is safe. Back again. She goes to the French door and again looks for danger. Her brother, Yang, arrives. Yin moves to the cat door and egresses through it. Yang looks longingly out the French door, but makes no move to leave the safety of his home. After all, there is an intruder within barking distance. Yin comes back inside, leaving me to wonder if her excursion outside to the screened-in porch was an act of torment directed at the dog next door.

Yin is a twelve-week-old black and white Manx kitten. Her brother Yang is similar in markings, but Yang has a tight muscular body whereas Yin’s is softer, more womanly. Yin’s fur is like silk; Yang’s is a little coarser, more masculine. Yang is the lover, Yin the aggressor much of the time. Yin gives way to Yang when there is wet food; quite the opposite when dry food is served.

Yang often lies in wait to pounce on Yin as she strolls by his hiding space. There are times when they move as one, reminding me of the syncopated swimming in the Esther Williams movies. I love watching them play, rolling over together, biting and scratching until one, usually Yin, gets mad and stalks off. Shortly after, I find them curled up together, paws intertwined and grooming each other before they fall asleep, looking much like the symbol for which they are named.

September 28, 2007

The Moment I Knew-an exercise 9-30-06

The water gently laps among the reeds. Distant traffic murmurs like relatives talking in the next room. Doors open and laughter tinkles into the evening air. City noises are muted and add to the dreamlike quality of the moment. I miss the honks of the geese and the quacks of the ducks who are tucked away for the night. A train whistle blows in the distance. A small rowboat passes, its oars kissing the water. Life is settling down to rest and quiet is falling upon this miniature pocket of nature. Voices soften. I watch the darkness creep across the water like a thief in the night waiting to steal the moment. His words are tender and gentle as we speak of our experiences in this moment. The dampness of the earth combined with fresh mown grass triggers a deep longing within me. I yearn for this moment to last forever. The sound of love is in the air as our energies meet and merge into a gentler persuasion. He feels excitement and yearns to keep the spiritual connection that he feels to me. I feel a deep sense of serenity and contentment. As the water flows up the river, an occasional log bumps onto the shore before dislodging again and moving on. The patterns of noise begin to show up in the air. Sometimes the traffic leads and sometimes the lapping of the water leads, depending upon where I decide to punctuate. Periodically a sharp siren or the squeal of tires interrupts the quiet and serene murmurs of the evening.. Silence speaks volumes now. Hearing his voice in the stillness gives me a sense of safety and peace that I rarely experience these days. His voice is deep and powerful with a gentleness that commands respect on the one hand, and a sense of safety and security on the other. He reaches for my hand. I know. I know even before his lips touch mine, tentatively and gently, waiting for permission. I know.

Fear of Fire

It is a hot and sultry summer night in Charleston. I am about three years old. I’m wearing the red polka dotted dress that my Nana made for me. I am sitting on Nana and Papa’s porch in my little wooden chair with its rattan seat. My chair is painted blue with pink, yellow and red flowers. Now that the sun is setting, the porch awnings are being raised to let the cooling breeze float through. My parents and grandparents are talking about an explosion and the resulting oil fire in Texas. “So many people killed . . . spreading even faster now. . . . The winds have picked up. . . . out of control . . . heard on the news . . . not certain when they will be able to contain it . . . get it under control. Houses are going up in flames all around.”

I feel the fear rising in my body. My tummy begins to churn and my heart beats faster. I see the flames licking the earth moving towards us. It is growing bigger and bigger. Will it burn all the way to Charleston? My house could burn down. I could burn up. Daddy and Mommy could burn up. Nana and Papa could burn up.

I am getting sleepy and want to crawl into my daddy’s lap and be safe. Instead, I sit in the chair, rocking with my thumb in my mouth. The air is cooling down and I can hear crickets over the sounds of traffic. The noise from passing cars comes from the bridge beside the house; sounds also come from the boulevard in front of the house. The air hangs heavy with the sweet smell of freshly watered plants and damp earth coming from the large concrete planters behind my chair. As darkness falls, I can barely see the large goldfish bowl behind the glider where my parents are sitting. Sometimes I get to feed oats to the resident fish. I feel the difference in textures under my feet where the straw carpet meets the smooth gray concrete of the porch. I don’t tell anyone that I am afraid.

I go to sleep that night and dream that the earth is burning. I can escape the fire by climbing a tall ladder up to heaven. I am afraid of open stairs and ladders. I begin to climb and I am very afraid. I don’t get very far when the quill from a bird’s feather scratches my leg. I am now marked to remain on earth and burn up in the fire. I awaken and I am afraid. I tell no one. Little do I know that this will be a recurring nightmare for several years.

July 2006

Ponderings from the Weekend

I attended a weekend course which has left me pondering many things about myself. I am beginning to see patterns repeating themselves in my life. Years ago, an older friend told me that the more things change, the more they remain the same. I believe that this is what is happening with me at the moment.

During the weekend, one of the instructors, in trying to explain the concept of personal rule making; i.e., how we each make rules and expect others to abide by them, talked about the rule of eating tomatoes. If he ate tomatoes as a child and didn’t like them; tried them again several times in his life, he had a rule that he didn’t like tomatoes. Then one day, he had tomatoes cooked in a delicious sauce and liked them. Time to change the rule, “I don’t eat tomatoes.”

What is happening with me is that I met someone who lives in Gainesville. I lived in Gainesville for almost two years and loved every minute of it. He is an economist and I had an “I hate economics” experience when I was first married. My husband majored in economics and would try to get me to read this boring book that always put me to sleep. Now I am interested in learning more. I wonder why I wasn’t when my daughter majored in it.

I’ve been thinking about that marriage since I spent some time with my former husband and his wife a few weeks ago. He is just another person who was in my life years ago. I like his wife so we get along beautifully. Dinner was pleasant and then it was over.

My daughter is suggesting that I move closer to her. What a nice thought. I am happy and content here. If I were to move, it would be out of country. More things to think about.

Back to rules: what other rules have I made that don’t serve me? Don’t write men first. Don’t call men. I can’t be in a relationship with a much younger man. This is a big one. Some of my rules around relationships do serve me: Love myself first; otherwise I can’t love another. Practice forgiveness. Better yet, practice letting go of judgment. Let go of all rules that interfere with connection.

The Decision

The Tampa summer between her junior and senior years of high school was hot. Her bedroom was small and without air-conditioning. She spent most of her time there, writing and reading. To gain a little more room and in the hopes of achieving an oriental effect, she dismantled her bed frame and put the mattress on the floor. The gray-green of her bedspread and drapes had a soothing, calming effect on the room. Her small white bookcase was jammed with books from her childhood and adolescence, including a couple of books of very sensual and provocative poetry. “I will write like that someday,” she thought.

As she sat on her bed, she made the decision to become an extraordinary writer; and she knew that she couldn’t write the great novel or poem until she had suffered sufficiently. After all, she had just completed a year of studying great literature and its authors. She was taken with many of the significant poets of the past. In learning about the lives of these notable writers, she thought they seemed to suffer greatly. She had just completed reading Camille by Alexander Dumas when this seventeen year old made the decision to suffer enough to become a writer of eminence.

From that long forgotten decision, she proceeded to live her life so that she would “suffer.” She chose to suffer for ten years with a man who was unfaithful from the first week of their marriage. When they divorced, she gave him custody of their daughter because he would provide well for her and would also encourage having contact with her daughter. And . . . her daughter would have two parents immediately. She chose suffering.

One time within the next three years, she was involved in a bank robbery. As she was measuring the men against the wall and noting their clothing, one of them demanded that she go to the vault and get all the money from there. She had always been told to give a robber whatever was demanded of her. When she replied that she didn’t have access to the money, it was construed as arguing with the men by someone in the home office. Consequently, she made the decision that her life wasn’t worth $2000.00 when she was praised for arguing.

Three years later, she married an abusive, active alcoholic. She took six years to figure out that she had choices and another six years to choose to leave. She went back to school, divorced that man and ended up marrying her best friend. This was an easy marriage, in which she finished her bachelor's degree and began her masters. Four years into their marriage and six months into the master's program, her beloved husband was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. He died a little over a year later; she received her masters degree in clinical psychology within a few months of his death. She suffered by conscious choice.

It is only recently that she remembered that long ago decision. Only once did she consider the idea that she was suffering. However, when people told her that she had lived such a tragic life, she only remembered that she had many exciting and wonderful adventures along the way.

Fear of Fire

It is a hot and sultry summer night in Charleston. I am about three years old. I’m wearing the red polka dotted dress that my Nana made for me. I am sitting on Nana and Papa’s porch in my little wooden chair with its rattan seat. My chair is painted blue with pink, yellow and red flowers. Now that the sun is setting, the porch awnings are being raised to let the cooling breeze float through. My parents and grandparents are talking about an explosion and the resulting oil fire in Texas. “So many people killed . . . spreading even faster now. . . . The winds have picked up. . . . out of control . . . heard on the news . . . not certain when they will be able to contain it . . . get it under control. Houses are going up in flames all around.”

I feel the fear rising in my body. My tummy begins to churn and my heart beats faster. I see the flames licking the earth moving towards us. It is growing bigger and bigger. Will it burn all the way to Charleston? My house could burn down. I could burn up. Daddy and Mommy could burn up. Nana and Papa could burn up.

I am getting sleepy and want to crawl into my daddy’s lap and be safe. Instead, I sit in the chair, rocking with my thumb in my mouth. The air is cooling down and I can hear crickets over the sounds of traffic. The noise from passing cars comes from the bridge beside the house; sounds also come from the boulevard in front of the house. The air hangs heavy with the sweet smell of freshly watered plants and damp earth coming from the large concrete planters behind my chair. As darkness falls, I can barely see the large goldfish bowl behind the glider where my parents are sitting. Sometimes I get to feed oats to the resident fish. I feel the difference in textures under my feet where the straw carpet meets the smooth gray concrete of the porch. I don’t tell anyone that I am afraid.

I go to sleep that night and dream that the earth is burning. I can escape the fire by climbing a tall ladder up to heaven. I am afraid of open stairs and ladders. I begin to climb and I am very afraid. I don’t get very far when the quill from a bird’s feather scratches my leg. I am now marked to remain on earth and burn up in the fire. I awaken and I am afraid. I tell no one. Little do I know that this will be a recurring nightmare for several years.

July 2006

Deciphering the Messages

“It is quite possible to be so influenced by the ideals and commands of your neighborhood that you don’t know what you really want and could be.” Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth


“You can’t become a psychiatrist because all that education would be wasted on you. You will simply get married, have children and stay home”
And , , , in almost the same breath, “You need to be prepared for whatever life brings you. You never know. You need a college education so that you will be prepared.
“Be smart. Don’t let him know how smart you are.
“Get an education. If you go back to school, it will destroy your marriage.
“An eye for an eye. Turn the other cheek.”
So many voices, so many conflicting messages in the neighborhood . . . trying to heed them all became so self-defeating that I stopped listening. I remained confused about the conflict/peace dichotomy of my life until I read about Mahatma Ghandi’s life. He grew into the peace-making person he became as an older man. I worked on a psychiatric unit. For some reason, I ended up with many victims of sexual abuse and violence. When I questioned the spiritual meaning of this, my mentor said that I was just good at what I do. Years later looking back, I can see the patterns and spiritual meanings of my life.
My parents always had their “discussions” behind closed doors. As a child, I never heard my parents argue. Indeed, the first “adult” argument I remember hearing was on a hot summer night when I was nine. The windows in my bedroom were open. I could hear the neighbors next door. I don’t remember what the argument was about, but I heard threats of violence between two alcoholics, an elderly mother and her adult son.
I was afraid. My stomach churned and I called out to my parents to comfort me. I was so profoundly affected by this, that it wasn’t until I was doing co-therapy with a cohort in graduate school that I began to lose my fear of loud, verbal conflict–unless I was the aggressor.
As an adolescent, I seemed to attract all sorts of conflict with my mother. Conflict followed me for a number of years, culminating in a study on domestic violence. I was married to an abusive alcoholic for thirteen years. That marriage taught me a lot about conflict and violence. It took me six years to realize that if slept in another bedroom when my husband was drunk, I wouldn’t get thrown out of bed in the middle of the night. That marriage led me into a growth group and the decision to go back to school. Because of the abuse in the marriage, I did volunteer work getting women into a shelter. The first semester of my doctorate program, I began my study of family violence, culminating in a dissertation on the effects of and meanings made by children who were exposed to family violence.
It was then that I realized I couldn’t be a peacemaker until I understood conflict from an emotional, mental, physical and spiritual level. Consequently, I discovered my life’s purpose: to create peace, one person at a time, beginning with me. I have moved from the neighborhood.

July 2006

Therapist and Client -- The Reluctant

“This is where we met,” Ellen said as we walked around Lake Ella. I have found that movement is often a good way to begin a first therapy session. Ellen continued, “I was walking off a dose of self-pity because my playmates had gone away for the holidays. Anyway, I was walking along when this man ran up to me and, seeing my sweatshirt, said, ‘Western Carolina University, that’s in Cullowhee, isn’t it?’ I stopped dead in my tracks. Most people have never heard of Cullowhee, much less known how to pronounce it. We talked about twenty minutes before he asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee. Over coffee, we discovered that we had many things in common. We were both runners, private pilots, and loved to go boating and hiking. We even had a North Carolina connection. He owned a cabin located about an hour from where I had lived and gone to school.”
Ellen was a lively, elegant woman. With her red hair and green eyes, I could see how any man would be attracted to her. As we walked, Ellen continued talking as if stopping to take a breath would make her story disappear. “We talked about our interests, our philosophies of life, spirituality, and even our views on relationships. Before we parted, I asked him about his marital status. ‘Divorced for fifteen years.’ I even checked out his views on committed relationships. He was adamant that he never wanted to remarry, but he would like to live with someone in the future. He was so open and genuine with me that, when he asked if he could call me, I gave him my phone number. I don’t remember giving out my number to a man upon first meeting him.”
As Ellen talked about this man, her energy picked up and her speech became more and more animated. “He called me a few days later and we began seeing each other on a very limited basis, maybe once a week, sometimes two. He became my playmate. We would rollerblade, bicycle, fly, go canoeing or sailing his Sunfish. Whatever we did, we had fun. I didn’t think much about not seeing him because I certainly had little time to become too involved. I was still taking classes and struggling with a complicated statistics course. He even made me dinner and brought it to me one night when I was knee deep in statistics. ‘You have to eat, don’t you? What if I fix us both dinner and bring it to you?’ What could I say? That certainly endeared him to me.
“We began having sex after about six months, but I wouldn’t let him spend the night until it became almost time to go to his cabin in North Carolina for a long weekend. Still, I wasn’t getting too involved with him. He was great fun to be with, but I had a doctoral program to finish. He was very understanding whenever I needed to work.
“A recent physical in January revealed a nodule on his prostate; the diagnosis was prostate cancer. He came over the night of the diagnosis, and we knew we could get through this together. When I told him I loved him, he said that he’d been thinking that for awhile.
“The other night, he told me that he is still married,” Ellen said with eyes welling up and lips quivering. “I don’t know what to do. I feel hurt, angry and betrayed. I can’t leave him while he is going through this. What should I do?”
“What’s this man’s name?”
When she told me his name, my heart stopped and anger rose in my throat. “I’m sorry, I will have to refer you to another therapist. I am his wife.”

The Unreliable Third - An Exercise

The Trip from Tampa to Jacksonville
An Exercise: the unreliable third


He was upstairs on the third floor of their home, working in his office, when the phone rang. He picked up the phone and heard her voice like tendrils traveling through the line to reach him and grab his heart. God, how he loved this woman. “Hi, I’m leaving Mother’s now and should be home in about three and a half hours. I will see you then. I love you.”
He really loved this woman to whom he had been married over five years now. He felt so lucky to be married to her. She was twelve years younger than he and looked even younger than that. It made him mad when she was mistaken for his daughter, and yet he was secretly pleased that she looked so young. Tammy was a very attractive woman at thirty-nine years old. She hadn’t aged much at all in the six years they had been married. At thirty-three she was still being carded when the drinking age was eighteen. He liked having her on his arm when they went out.

Tammy was not too tall, slim, with a body that showed her years of yoga practice. With her short, dark hair and penetrating blue eyes, she turned heads whenever she entered a room. Tammy had a presence about her that attracted all sorts of people to her. He was really glad that he could afford to have her dress well and provide her with good jewelry to show her off to his friends.

Hmm, she is really a sexy lady. I know all the men at the construction sites like to ogle her, particularly her breasts and her behind. Just yesterday, I overheard one of them talk about getting her into bed. I know she is having an affair with him. I’ll bet he is the one who calls and hangs up when I answer. It’s either him or that professor she is seeing at school. I know he calls her every day. He calls her on the private line, like I won’t know what is going on. It’s getting late. I know she has stopped and is probably having sex with one of those drivers on the interstate. That is just like her. What a slut. That bitch. How dare she! She thinks I don’t know about all those affairs she has had since we’ve been married.

“It’s about time you got home. You have been screwing one of those truck drivers you flirt with on the interstate, haven’t you? How dare you, you bitch!”

“I stopped for gas in Ocala like I usually do. I may have spent an extra five minutes because the woman at the pump next to me discovered that her credit card wouldn’t work and she didn’t have any cash with her. Since she was from here, I put her gas on my credit card and gave her my name and our address so that she can send me a check. You’re drunk again.”