Tamarika

A tribute to my sister

This week is the start of the seven month anniversary of my blog. For some reason I have always loved the number seven.  For example, each day I complete seven rounds of Surya Namaskar. I decided to celebrate my anniversary with a number of different posts this coming week. I feel quite festive about it. I survived my first blog crisis this month, and August is the beginning of a new era for me as I start arranging my office, meeting new colleagues, and preparing courses for my new position.

This first post of my 7 month anniversary celebration I dedicate to one of my two sisters. Back in January when I set out as a novice blogger, I wrote about my siblings. Danny had suggested I try blogging and I was quite nervous about it. After all, one mega-blogger in the family seemed enough! Nevertheless I set out on my blogging adventure with trepidation and awe.

Reading Sandhill Trek this morning I was reminded of sisters.

But the real reason I pay tribute to one of my own sisters is because today I received an e-mail from Sue - the eldest. She is, in fact, twelve years older than me. These past few years she has, in no small way, helped me save my emotional life.

Let me explain.

As an early childhood educator one of the most important things I feel I can do for children is give them safety and space to express their anger. I allow young children to rage with me. And as they scream, kick, yell, spit, thrash about, I stay beside them, hang in there, sit as solid as an oak - strong and quiet and with great love. I watch them calm down and most often rest their weary heads in my lap or on my shoulder as they allow me to hold them close, stroking them as I do and saying softly: "Everything is all right. I'm here. You are okay. I am not leaving you. I love you." I especially love it when I hear them give a sigh of relief as the anger abates and they give themselves up to my love.

My therapy with Bob really took off when one day, a couple of years ago, he said gently to me: "Tamar, I want you to be yourself with me. Say what you feel and do what you need to do in our sessions. I don't know if you understand what I am saying to you but I want you to know that I will not leave you. There is nothing you can do or say here with me that frightens me or will push me away. I am not going anywhere." I looked at him directly and understood exactly what he was saying to me. He went on, "All your life people have left you or tried to squeeze you back into the boxes they made for you, when you tried to be yourself. They have made it look like you were to blame when they could not handle who you were or what you were saying. People have been afraid of you. I am not. So try it out! Go ahead! I am not afraid and I will not leave you."

It was not until I had arrived home from seeing Bob that day that I allowed myself to lay my head to rest on the desk in my study, weep and sigh deeply with relief. All my life I had been wanting to hear what Bob said to me that day. Indeed, from then on I started to break out of my chrysalis just as any old butterfly would, and it seems that even though my wings are old and quite a bit tattered I have allowed myself to spread them in many different ways.

These past few years, Sue has been there for me. Spreading my old wings and finding my voice has not been easy. It has been accompanied with not a little rage and things that I needed to say. Somehow, somewhere, Sue understood and allowed me to rage safely with her, never leaving, remaining constant and loving throughout some of my toughest battles. She bore the brunt of my rage even though most of it had nothing to do with her and she was not to blame. With great honesty she told me her point of view even though at times it would set me off again! Each time she returned more loving and stronger than ever.

Now, I could have written about how, as my oldest sister, she taught me to fry an egg, hang up laundry or iron a shirt. I might have told you how she described, in detail, ways I could be an excellent manager as I struggled with learning how to be a Director of an enormous child care center - 200 families and 45 teaching staff in a major university setting. As her younger sister I have always admired the way she dresses and how tall and beautiful she is. With all her trials and tribulations in life (and she surely has not had it easy!), she stood solidly by her daughters even wandering off to the Greek Island of Patmos, or high up into the Himalayas to visit one of them sharing in her living experiences including doing without electricity and running water - whatever it took. I could have written about all her courage and strength in the face of amazing odds over and over again.

But, instead, I choose to write about her standing solidly by me. Because, thanks to her making it safe for me to express my years of built-up rage and anguish, I have been able to heal - really heal - and turn it into forgiveness and love.

Here's what she wrote to me after one of my outbursts:

Pity to be having these kind of talks via email - and not face to face - always comes across more harsh than is meant - without facial expressions, without the ability to clarify with underlying love and understanding - but distance requires this and prevents real understanding - Hope your health is better and you're feeling liberated for having had your say - I regret the angry reactions, you expected them but better to speak out.

Don't you all wish you had a sister like that?

This is my reply:

I dedicate this post to you, Sue, in gratitude and appreciation for not trying to push me back into a box, and especially for hanging in there with me. I am sure it has been terribly painful, confusing and exasperating for you many a time with me. But I am equally as sure that you are, in fact, helping me save my emotional life.

This week is the start of the seven month anniversary of my blog. For some reason I have always loved the number seven.  For example, each day I complete seven rounds of Surya Namaskar. I decided to celebrate my anniversary with a number of different posts this coming week. I feel quite festive about it. I survived my first blog crisis this month, and August is the beginning of a new era for me as I start arranging my office, meeting new colleagues, and preparing courses for my new position.

This first post of my 7 month anniversary celebration I dedicate to one of my two sisters. Back in January when I set out as a novice blogger, I wrote about my siblings. Danny had suggested I try blogging and I was quite nervous about it. After all, one mega-blogger in the family seemed enough! Nevertheless I set out on my blogging adventure with trepidation and awe.

Reading Sandhill Trek this morning I was reminded of sisters.

But the real reason I pay tribute to one of my own sisters is because today I received an e-mail from Sue - the eldest. She is, in fact, twelve years older than me. These past few years she has, in no small way, helped me save my emotional life.

Let me explain.

As an early childhood educator one of the most important things I feel I can do for children is give them safety and space to express their anger. I allow young children to rage with me. And as they scream, kick, yell, spit, thrash about, I stay beside them, hang in there, sit as solid as an oak - strong and quiet and with great love. I watch them calm down and most often rest their weary heads in my lap or on my shoulder as they allow me to hold them close, stroking them as I do and saying softly: "Everything is all right. I'm here. You are okay. I am not leaving you. I love you." I especially love it when I hear them give a sigh of relief as the anger abates and they give themselves up to my love.

My therapy with Bob really took off when one day, a couple of years ago, he said gently to me: "Tamar, I want you to be yourself with me. Say what you feel and do what you need to do in our sessions. I don't know if you understand what I am saying to you but I want you to know that I will not leave you. There is nothing you can do or say here with me that frightens me or will push me away. I am not going anywhere." I looked at him directly and understood exactly what he was saying to me. He went on, "All your life people have left you or tried to squeeze you back into the boxes they made for you, when you tried to be yourself. They have made it look like you were to blame when they could not handle who you were or what you were saying. People have been afraid of you. I am not. So try it out! Go ahead! I am not afraid and I will not leave you."

It was not until I had arrived home from seeing Bob that day that I allowed myself to lay my head to rest on the desk in my study, weep and sigh deeply with relief. All my life I had been wanting to hear what Bob said to me that day. Indeed, from then on I started to break out of my chrysalis just as any old butterfly would, and it seems that even though my wings are old and quite a bit tattered I have allowed myself to spread them in many different ways.

These past few years, Sue has been there for me. Spreading my old wings and finding my voice has not been easy. It has been accompanied with not a little rage and things that I needed to say. Somehow, somewhere, Sue understood and allowed me to rage safely with her, never leaving, remaining constant and loving throughout some of my toughest battles. She bore the brunt of my rage even though most of it had nothing to do with her and she was not to blame. With great honesty she told me her point of view even though at times it would set me off again! Each time she returned more loving and stronger than ever.

Now, I could have written about how, as my oldest sister, she taught me to fry an egg, hang up laundry or iron a shirt. I might have told you how she described, in detail, ways I could be an excellent manager as I struggled with learning how to be a Director of an enormous child care center - 200 families and 45 teaching staff in a major university setting. As her younger sister I have always admired the way she dresses and how tall and beautiful she is. With all her trials and tribulations in life (and she surely has not had it easy!), she stood solidly by her daughters even wandering off to the Greek Island of Patmos, or high up into the Himalayas to visit one of them sharing in her living experiences including doing without electricity and running water - whatever it took. I could have written about all her courage and strength in the face of amazing odds over and over again.

But, instead, I choose to write about her standing solidly by me. Because, thanks to her making it safe for me to express my years of built-up rage and anguish, I have been able to heal - really heal - and turn it into forgiveness and love.

Here's what she wrote to me after one of my outbursts:

Pity to be having these kind of talks via email - and not face to face - always comes across more harsh than is meant - without facial expressions, without the ability to clarify with underlying love and understanding - but distance requires this and prevents real understanding - Hope your health is better and you're feeling liberated for having had your say - I regret the angry reactions, you expected them but better to speak out.

Don't you all wish you had a sister like that?

This is my reply:

I dedicate this post to you, Sue, in gratitude and appreciation for not trying to push me back into a box, and especially for hanging in there with me. I am sure it has been terribly painful, confusing and exasperating for you many a time with me. But I am equally as sure that you are, in fact, helping me save my emotional life.

Meme: the Interview

After Danny interviewed Amba, and seeing as I was once delegated as the poddess of this particular pod, I decided, "Hey! I want to be interviewed too!" and so I asked Amba to interview me.

Amba wrote to me, "Your blog's honesty sets an awfully high standard for this assignment. You ask yourself such great questions. But here are mine." [so saying, the standards are set even higher, Amba. I hope I won't disappoint you]

Here goes - Amba's questions to me:

1. Is there a place on earth that feels like your soul's home? Where, and how did you find it?

Well, well, Amba. This was my hardest one. I left it until last and still I struggle. I do not think my soul has found its home yet. Oh yes, I feel at peace on any sea shore, wild or tame, stormy or calm. I love the smell, sound and feel of the sea and its beaches, cliffs or shores. I always feel really good when I visit the Garden of Gethsemane Church in East Jerusalem or the Garden Tomb where some say Jesus was buried. My soul felt at home with Charlie and Mar-Mar as they died - so much so I almost felt like I wished they had taken me with them - so, perhaps, in hospice care. Sometimes when I do yoga and always when I hold a child in my arms. Sitting on the floor watching the birds through the window with Ada as she chirps sweetly at them. Oh, and Paris! Ah, wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, ancient, artistic, aesthetic, the food, les mille feuilles - any and everywhere in Paris. The heat and rains in Africa, especially the pungent smell of the earth after the rain in Zimbabwe ... or, singing around a campfire ...

No, I really do not think my soul has found its home yet and, quite honestly, I have no idea how to find it.

2. It's hard to live without at least one beloved vice or addiction. What's yours?

This question reminds me of The Actor's Studio: "What turns you on?"

Love and acknowledgment as a vice or addiction came in the form of feeling or thinking I was sexually attractive, and mistaking it for love. Not only would I get a real high on that, the worst part about it was I would feel worthwhile because of it.

Wanting to be acknowledged is a terribly painful addiction. Last night I saw the movie: Something the Lord Made. At one point Vivien Thomas' father mumbles in passing that a person should never wait for thanks for doing what's important or meaningful in ones life. I thought about that. So much of what I have done in my life has been to please or be recognized by the imaginary, internal, significant adults of my childhood. These, of course, have been transferred later in life to colleagues, people I work with or admire, friends, lovers or husbands.

In my self-alteration work through the years, I learn to feel worthwhile without all that. It's not easy ridding oneself of an addiction. Becoming older certainly forces me to realize that I am worthwhile without being sexually attractive! Oh dear! But I do achieve a tremendous amount of satisfaction in doing things lately just because they interest me or I want to, and not for the thanks or acknowledgment I used to crave so pathetically, desperately. And thank goodness. Because it just never was forthcoming. It was always an illusion.

Oh yeah, and talking of addiction: I still crave and enjoy a really good cup of coffee, of course.

3. What was your biggest "road not taken"?

Okay. My answer here is going to be really boring. I have wracked my brain around this one. Sure, it could have been my abortion. It also could have been a couple of guys I "should have" married. And then there was the opportunity to complete my doctorate at Urbana-Champagne after I was invited by one of the top experts in my field. I chose to stay in Buffalo to please my then adviser. Big mistake in OH so many ways.  But, and here's the big but, the boring but: quite honestly lately I am done with regrets. I really feel that what I have done in the past was pretty much the only way I could have done it, with who I was, knowing what I knew, feeling what I felt, at the time. I have learned so much from it all. Indeed, the main lesson for me has been that I made those choices then and I am able to make different ones now.

And so, my answer to this question has to be that I could not have taken any other road and no longer regret the past. In fact, I believe all those mistakes and painful choices have made me who I am. In fact, they have given me the opportunity to learn how to make different choices. Of course I do not for one moment think that I am totally in control of my life or choices even now! Life, circumstances, events, situations, interactions, accidents happen (even as we are making other plans), ever intersecting, interconnecting, inter depending. However, I do think, or at least hope that I will approach life or choose to handle situations differently from how I used to.

4. If there is one work of art (of any time, in any medium) that you would most love to have created, what is it and why?

A large family home, estate for orphan children from everywhere. When people used to ask me what I would do if I won a million dollars this was my answer. My dream creation would be to gather the best care and education people I have seen work with children, and together we would live on a large estate. The environment would be child sensitive and friendly with beautiful, aesthetic gardens and animals.

We would have two rules for the children in our orphanage: I want everyone to be safe here, and nothing you could do would be so bad that we would send you away.

In 1990 I read a book called You are My Brother, which told the tale of Father Wasson's Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos. It was exciting for me to read that someone had already created what I had always dreamed of. I based my two rules on one "basic condition" for the children:

... the sense of absolute security - which every child at Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos has, namely that he [she] will not be dismissed for any reason whatsoever. This principle is really the principle of unconditional motherly love. A mother loves her child unconditionally. If mothers loved their children only because they performed well or they did what the mothers liked, most infants would die.

Inherent in I want everyone to be safe here, for me comes I expect you to make an effort to be responsible for yourself and our community.

Why do I wish I could have or still would create this orphanage?

Because I believe to the depths of my being that many, many people, orphaned or not, are or have not been given a safe emotional environment nor have received unconditional love. Instead, education for socio-emotional behavior always seems to start out with labels, stereotypes, conditions and ostracism, and become eventually cruel and violent, including all forms of punishment and threats, isolation, exclusion and, even, in the extreme ... death. As Bruce Perry says, our society is child illiterate, we invent our socio-culture - it is not genetic, and every generation has choices about what gets passed on.

Oh dear, I have so much to say about all this. Making connections between early childhood and our global socio-emotional systems. Talking of perpetuating violence as socio-cultural solutions, I love Doris Lessing's five essays, Prisons We Choose to Live Inside about how we are influenced by our "savage past." For example, she describes how our leaders start using the word "blood ... [to] raise our temperatures [and then] ... this is a sign that reason is about to depart"

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." ... "The blood shed by our soldiers will inspire us in the time of peace." "Only through blood can we be reborn." "The blood of our martyrs shall be our inspiration: never shall we forget the blood that has been shed for us all."

Oh well, lest I go on and on ...

In essence, I would like to create my dream orphanage for all children because basically I would like to live in an environment where I could practice what I preach.

And, if I am brutally honest with myself, it is really because I need to live and act out unconditional love in all its forms in order to rebuild my own inner child who suffered so much without it.

5. Describe a favorite childhood game that you made up and played alone or with a friend.

There were two.

I describe in detail the one played alone in my post: I Dream of Dali.

The second is the game "notes" I played with my friend Mimi described in Child Bloggers.

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Amba, thank you so much for these questions. They sure got me thinking, searching out sources and squirming with honest self-divulgings!

Dear readers, if you have had the patience to read to the end of my ramblings and navel-gazings, and would like to participate in Meme: the Interview:

The rules of the game are as follows:

1. Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

2. E-mail the blogger of your choice or leave a comment saying "interview me please."

3. Your chosen interviewer asks five questions of his/her choosing.

4. Update your blog/site with answers to the questions.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, ask them five questions.

Just be yourself

Quote of the day:

...to tell you the truth, I should keep awake, working, but I am just too tired of being myself. Ernesto

**********

July 30 is the time.

And Ronni Bennett will be there.

Gee, I wish I would be too. Never mind. I am wishing Ronni all the best and waiting to hear all about it when she returns. Plus with all Ronni's generosity and intelligence I have a feeling we older people will be well and truly represented.

Bye, bye, Ronni. Come back soon.

**********

And speaking of meeting bloggers in the flesh ... amba does.

**********

Today feels good.

Weather milder, great feeling about my new job coming up soon, and after talking with a friend on the phone not long ago, I feel quite smiley and confident within. It seems that being me is A-okay.

Plus, I have decided to keep on blogging because, as we talked, I realized that all the self-work I've done these past months has been enhanced, supported, clarified and strengthened by my web-log.

Woo-hoo - and that's thanks to all of you, too. Surely you know who you are?

Today is a good day ...

For now ...

How are you? ... really (update)

This piece over at Richard Cohen is exactly the kind of blog-post that gets me thinking.

For starters it happens so seldom: People asking me how I am, really. I mean mostly people just say, "How are you?" and social skills training has taught me over the years that they are pretty much only emotionally prepared to hear the response, "Fine."

Yesterday evening my nephew called me up to ask if I had been feeling sad all day. I was so surprised with his question that I literally sat down. "Why do you ask?" I said quietly. He replied that he had read through the brevity of my e-mail replies to him during the day and thought that perhaps I was sad. We talked for a long time about our lives and when I hung up the phone I realized how grateful I was to him for knowing me so well and caring enough to find out. If he would have called up and said, "So how are you?" I most probably would have replied, "Oh, just fine, thanks, and you?" Instead, I was able to tell him that I was sad because of a confidential family matter, Mar-Mar's death, thoughts that perhaps the Lyme disease was still niggling at me, anxiety about the new job, and frustration that the sabbatical was drawing to a close. He listened. He is so good at that. We discovered today from one of his clients that he is probably good at listening because his Hebrew name has in its root the meaning: to listen or hear.

I asked T. this morning what he thought about an old friend contacting him after a long time with an e-mail one-liner: “So how are you really?”

T's reply was immediate: "I would think he was in trouble and needed me to ask him that question actually."

For me, I would love it (and do) if a friend would add "really" to the asking of how I am. You see, I don't believe anyone is at all interested in me. My nephew knows this about me. Once when I stayed overnight with him and his family he came to me when I was politely retiring to my room to keep out of their way after dinner, and said, "I wish you wouldn't try and make yourself invisible like this. Come out and be with us." And so, when someone, anyone, asks me how I am, not only do I usually just reply, "Fine," but often forget that I have any news to tell at all. For example, one of the things I have consistently had to work on in therapy is allowing myself to stay for the full fifty minutes or hour that I am paying for. After awhile I become uncomfortable and sure that I must be boring the therapist with all my senseless chatter, and sometimes I get up, say, "Well, that's enough now," and walk out thinking he or she can't stand hearing me another moment. It was a day of celebration for me when I was able to talk with Bob and not even notice that I had gone over my 50 minute session by two minutes!

I need the help, Richard, and so if an old friend would write that one-liner to me: I would feel warm and safe inside, overwhelmed with gratitude that they took the trouble and time to notice me and care enough to want to know, I would smile wide and deep, and tell them all they wanted to know about me.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Updates:

Richard takes the subject for another "fast lap" here and asks, Wassup?

Mark Daniels wrote about it here.

This morning I received an e-mail in response to this post. It meant a lot to me that someone was willing to share themselves so openly with me. I was given permission to post their response, so I do so, here:

Recently each time I read your blog I cry.  It is the recognition that someone else feels like I do deep down and I  have been trying [to] ignore. I have been trying to ignore much lately.  The many conflicted feelings of anger and love, of compassion for and anger against. Some growing paranoia and much fear, that being in London is all about just now.

For the first time in a long time I wish we could go back to July 7^th and re write history. I am so filled with fears and anxieties that I cannot write now. I feel often quite hopeless. I listen with despair to my [spouse] speak about [their] experiences of living in a Muslim country.  [she/he] sees everything right now in terms of us and them. I feel despair, are we really so polarized? When [she/he] says as [she/he] has many times in the past few weeks, “I came to live here to get away from this,” I think of the Israeli woman and the Afghani man, both refugees from their countries, who came here to feel they could live freely and without fear, both killed in the July 7 bombings.

Though I was somehow consoled that you described how difficult it is for you to stay with an entire counseling session. Mine is the full hour! And I thought of how sometimes I can fill that hour, and other times I want to go. But of course that is my attempt to get away from how I recognize in myself that feeling that nobody is interested in me.

How are you really?  Maybe it is a question that never occurred to me to ask you because in your blog you say how you are, with much honesty about your feelings and about your vulnerability. An honesty that I envy as much as I admire. Because it is often so difficult to say how I really am without having to go to that place which is fearful for me. So thank you for helping me to touch what is fearful.

From blog to riches

A friend sent me this link today.

And then asked if this would happen to me, would I still speak to my friends once I became wealthy ... I replied:

Not only will I talk to you - I will take us all on a world tour to wherever our hearts' desire! And we will have many of those 12 course "tasters" we love so much with buckets of our favorite wines and many, many favorite deserts ...

But, of course, it ain't going to happen. My blog just isn't that juicy.

Ah me, ah my!

Don't tone it down

Yes! Ronni Bennett is a must read:

At Time Goes By, we don’t “tone down the old;” we get it out in the open air where it can breathe free. We appreciate, in others and in ourselves, the knowledge, experience, understanding and sometimes even that elusive quality, wisdom ... that are gained only by packing on the years. You can’t get these things from a book. No college degree grants them. You have to live it. That’s what we do here.

And so is Danny Miller:

It’s only when I see people like Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson that I realize how few images we ever get in the media of people over 60. I actually came home from the movie last night and felt better about myself when I looked in the mirror. Oh, look, I’m getting older…less hair, thicker all over, some skin discolorations here and there…how interesting! I believe that our country’s obsession with youth is fucking all of us up, even those of us who aren’t suffering from rampant Body Dysmorphic Disorder and think we accept the inevitability of the aging process.

Walled off or wide open

I am sitting at the Buffalo Airport, drinking coffee and eating tomato and mozzarella. Fox News blaring behind me, and I look around as people are faced to the television, faces glued, eyes staring with expressions aghast. All I hear is blah-blah-ing – rubbish, stuff and nonsense, hysterical, dramatic, superficial, stereotypical reporting about “terror,” “evil,” “we will not cower in fear.” It feels as if I’m living in a science fiction novel or movie, enveloped in darkness. Empty, ignorant, frightened, and paranoid facial expressions around cause me grief, distress, disgust. I am reminded about one of my most intense biases: ignorance.

Reflecting on the last two days, I am grateful for the past 17 years in Buffalo. I arrived at age 39 as an adolescent. Friendships were developed here. Life-long, heart-felt, caring and loving friendships. In my forties, I completed a college education, and with the skilled observations and guidance of my therapist, I learned to allow into my heart the support and kindness of many people who became my friends: Janna (who moves onto new adventures very soon), Cheryl, Bob and Anya, Alan and Judy, Jeff and Elizabeth, David and Carolyn, Susan, and Marion. My friends became my family, believing in, validating and accepting me for who I am. Thus, filled with their love and the knowledge that they will always be there for me wherever I may roam, I was able to grow into an adult, and move on – with Tom, to Philadelphia, a new life, and profession.

On the train from Baltimore to Philadelphia I complete Geneen Roth’s The Craggy Hole in my Heart and the Cat Who Fixed it: Over the edge and back with my dad, my cat, and me. I don’t know what attracted me about the book when I picked it up at Barnes & Noble in Buffalo the night after Mar-Mar died. There are some quotes from the book that I want to share with you. How strange. They have relevance and it feels as if she is speaking to me personally about my emotional and spiritual life.

Geneen and her mother:

I learned to sense her mood by the way her mouth looked, her eyes narrowed, the timing of her breaths and I adjusted myself accordingly. If I could figure out what I did wrong before she said it, I could do it right. If I made her unhappiness happen I could make it unhappen. If I chirped enough and didn’t get in her way maybe she would be glad to see me. I never stopped spilling myself like cake batter into a thousand different molds to make her smile, make her happy, make her love me, and I never stopped believing it was my fault that she didn’t.

Geneen about her father’s money when he is dying:

It isn’t the money I crave; money is only the transport, the red caboose on which my father’s love hitched a ride. I don’t need a million bucks … I need to know I am worth a million bucks. I need his love to be so grand it illuminates me, fills me with absolute, irrevocable permission to take up space, be alive.

Geneen on the difference between a spiritual teacher and a therapist:

A therapist sees the problem – you had a father who treated you like an object – and tries to help you heal the wound that came from it. A spiritual teacher sees the problem – a father who treated you like an object – and believes the wound is not in what he did, but in what you did to survive the situation. The wound is that you left yourself. The wound is that you forgot who you were/are in the desperate attempt to be loved … with a therapist you learn that you are loved. With a spiritual teacher you learn that you are love itself.

And ... finally, Geneen Roth writes:

It seems my heart has two positions: walled off or wide open

I arrive home.

The last breath

This morning Mar-Mar took her last breath. She was encircled by her daughter, estranged son, loving nephew, nieces, neighbor and friend. I was privileged and grateful to be with them as we held, stroked and accompanied Marion Boyd to her death. I spoke softly as I stroked her head and held onto her daughter who wept and cried out, "Oh, Mama, don't leave me." I said, "Go in peace, Mar-Mar. We love you so much. Everything will be all right. We will all be okay. Just let it go." And then, she gasped aloud and lay back into death with peace, and dignity.

And when everyone had left the room I stood alone by the window and wept softly - tears tumbling and falling like rain. I wept for the love that surrounded her, the honor sharing that moment together, and because I am going to miss her so much.

She is in my heart forever.

Thank you, dear readers, for being "out there" to share this with me.

Back in Buffalo

I have been called to Buffalo again. Flew in last night. Mar-Mar has been moved to Hospice and her time of parting is near. I am relieved to have made it in time to hold her hand or her tiny body in my arms for a last farewell. She has been amazingly strong. We thought we had lost her in January but she held on for another six months.

So for now, join me in wishing Mar-Mar a safe passage in this last part of her life-journey.

How strange. It is exactly this time, this week, four years ago that Charlie died. In the same place.

And I’ll write again soon.

Thoughts about it

Quote of the day:

Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze. Wallace Stevens

What better way to think about quitting than to blog about it? For, I can assure you, the torment is acute!

Yes, of course I am heavily influenced by what Danny says in his comment to my previous post: "Too busy with new job and upcoming BOOK PROPOSAL? " My forced sabbatical is rapidly coming to an end and new obligations and commitments loom up ahead even as they are full of promising and different adventures. However, I know that usually the more I have to do the more my energy grows - so that cannot be why I am thinking about calling it a day! That sounds more like a baloney reason.

No, no, for me, of course, there has to be something else, deeper, psychological. I once took a life-changing grief counseling course as part of my minor for the doctorate. At the beginning of classes our Professor asked us why we chose to take his course, and, he added, "Don't give me a baloney reason." He meant that we should think more deeply about why we might be attracted to a grief counseling course, other than generally wanting to be a counselor or even as a requirement. At the time I realized my reason had to do with abortions I had been encouraged to have as a young woman. And, indeed, I then proceeded to grieve my unborn children for a period of three or four years, with Frantz's expert guidance, as if, finally, having been given permission to do so for the first time. It did not stop me from being Pro-Choice nor did it explain to me why I had become an advocate of quality care and education for young children. Indeed, I have understood that my passion for early childhood education came from my need to understand more about my own inner child development. As Frantz once said, "We tend to teach that which we want or need to learn."

I have never really allowed me to enjoy myself - simply, fully, and completely. I see I thought about this way back in January when I first started blogging. As soon as something starts to feel like pleasure, my brain clouds over with guilt, nostalgia and pain. When I was young and sang in a couple of piano bars or around a youth camp fire I would enjoy it so much. And then, wham! The next day I woke up with my throat aching and presto, coincidentally, I would develop a throat infection.

Blogging gives me pleasure. Terribly, purely and utterly. It is like singing silently through the keys. Like discovering myself over and over again. Somehow as I write alone here in my study these past six months watching winter turn into spring and summer outside the wall of window overlooking beautiful Fairmount Park and the old, old trees of Chestnut Hill, I find myself. Jumbled feelings of years and therapies gone by that have confused and traumatized me seem to fall onto the screen of my computer and take some kind of clarified shape in my brain.

I simply become able to express myself.

Is it the fact that there is a supportive and interested audience out there, I wonder? As Winston said so correctly in his comment previously: "I believe we as a community, and some as individuals, are equally important to you." Is it the time in my life when all came together - as I bid farewell to a third and deeply meaningful period in my life in dear old Buffalo, New York at age 55? Was it the influence of a strong, loving, supportive and constant friendship with Charlie who died four years ago this very week?

Or was it the years of Bob, the therapist's relentless and focused reminder that I do not have to buy into an old myth about me: that I am a bad person who causes trouble, as if destroying people, or ruining their lives when expressing and being true to herself?

Or perhaps I just simply love writing.

I have been reading through my archives lately and thinking about which piece I like the most, and why, and where I was in my head when I wrote it: There's this, or this, and I especially like this one about grief - it's all about grief! And I did so love wondering how or if the blog nurtures me.

So back to the thinking board I go ...

... and while I think, and in between preparing for my new, fall position in my mind and on paper, or writing that proposal Danny was reminding me about (so sweetly) - I guess I will have to gather "new impetus," as Jean suggested in her comment.

For, what can I say? I love blogging. It gives me so much pleasure in writing, and the reading of others. And sometimes what I have to say is worthwhile and interesting and, so far, doesn't seem to ruin anyone's life.

Thank you, all, for bearing with me as I struggle with my "out of confidence" and navel-gazing once again.