Harsh Reality

not very good at this.

alien creature burrowing…

breast home to the beast

cancer and its treatments

 

Substantial

Substantial is a word the often moves from the far regions of my mind into the center point where I cannot avoid noticing it standing there prominently.  Substantial stares at me and asks, “Where are you going to write something of substance.  You haiku are cute and all, but I thought you were committed to writing a novel.”  My response, “I know.  You are right, but things have been rocking along so smoothly the last week and a half.  Ever since I came home from Belize and got the diagnosis from the breast doctor.”

“Sarla, there is reason for concern.  Given your history and the type of mass I see, I think we need to schedule a biopsy.”

“Oh, you aren’t going to do it now?”

“No,” the doctor made it clear there was no urgency.  “Get dressed and we’ll go in and talk to the nurse who sets up the appointments.”

I felt a knot in my throat.  How could this be happening again.  I watched myself spiraling down.  I grabbed my purse and followed the doctor into another room.  “Sit right here and we will get you set up.”  Set up for what?  Another lumpectomy, radiation, maybe chemo, tears roll down my eyes.  I ask, “Can I please go get my calendar?”

I stumbled into the dressing room where my clothes were tethered to the hooks of a barely adequate locker.  Put on your clothes.  Calm down.  It may be nothing.  More tears.

I made it back to the nice nurse’s office.  She set up my appointment, March 12, 12:45 pm, and explained the procedure.  Sobbing I left her room and tried to call my friend Kathy.  She was out to lunch.  So I called my daughter, Katie, who talked me down.  I went home and waited for Jimmy to finish teaching his noon yoga class.  I made the mistake of looking up cancer on-line.  Jesus the pictures they post on google images.  I will never do that again.

I wrote my friend, Denise, in CA who has stage three breast cancer and has, with her doctor’s coöperation been doing many alternative things in conjunction with the standard medical modalities, radiation, chemo, etc.  She sent me a list of things to start taking.  I watched this Ted talk: http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=paul+stamet+ted+talk+breat+cancer&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8. If you have any interest in breast cancer, I strongly urge you to watch this talk. I ordered everything Denise suggested.

Here’s her list:

Vitamin D (1000mg/day)
New Chapter Turmeric force (1-2/day)
Calcium/magnesium (at least 600/400 per day)
Turkey tail mushroom (Fungi Perfecti)
Reishi mushroom (Fungi Perfecti)
Melatonin (a brain neurotransmitter, and anti oxidant     promoting sleep/recovery)
CBD rich (if possible) cannabis, 2-3 times daily. Fights cancer cells, and reduces inflammation, anxiety/depression, and aids sleep.

Am doing it all, baby, all of it. I will never again be the victim of the “cancer factory.”  I will be informed and make my own choices about what treatments I will use.  I will be in charge.  This is my life.

There.  I did it.  I wrote something of substance.  Watch the TED talk.  Today!

The ‘forbidden fruit’ of medicinal mushrooms – CNN.
http://www.cnn.com – 300 × 169 – Search by image
But Stamets points to his mother as a living example of how useful mushrooms may be.

Patty Stamets, 86, had stage 4 metastatic breast cancer …

Feb. 15 & 16-One Year, One Day at a Time – Sore

I regret not writing and not posting on the 15th and 16th my reflections on those two days’ event.  We arrived at Akbol late Saturday night so this is our second day.  I miss writing every day.  Making a commitment now to do it tonight no matter what else we do or how late we stay up.  Anyway, after two-day, 5 hours of yoga, meditation, plenty of sun and good food, I a little sad.  Just came up.  Have no idea of the origin, but I feel disconnected from myself.  So odd to me how much writing means to me and how dependent I am on it.  In some ways writing for me is like looking into a magic mirror, one that never lies, tells me exactly what it sees, no bull shit.  When I see myself reflected in my words on the page I know who I am, not who others think I am, but the real, authentic me.

My friend Sheri just wrote to tell me she has submitted a short story to the Memphis Magazine contest.  I am so excited for her.  Really.  But when I read that I had a moment of self-doubt.  My first thought was, well I should probably be working on something of merit.  So annoying to feel great one minute and then to be flattened like a pancake in an iron skillet the next.  Could be that all the twists we have done the last two days have churned up some of the old crap that hides out in my unconscious mind.  I know it is there.  Just can’t say that I like to feel what I feel what those little demons rare up.

This feeling I am having now is like an old friend who comes around every blue moon to remind me that I still have sores to heal.  My motivation for committing to two seven-day long silent mediation retreats at Upaya is directly related to this l familiar, lingering sadness, a feeling that I will never amount to anything, that no matter how hard I try, I will fail to successful.  Silly.  I have been very successful.  Midtown Yoga thrived under my leadership and I am sure Grace will make it even better.  At these times I also wonder if I will ever be satisfied.  After years of therapy there is still echos of my mother’s words whispering out from, lurking behind the darkest corners of my mind.  “You will never amount to anything.  Get your hair out of your face.”  Wow, that is so weird, thinking about my mother fussing over my hair.  It is so windy here in Belize.  Right now my hair is flying across my forehead.  It is up my nose and in my mouth.  My mother hated my hair being a mess.

Other thoughts bubbling up.  The voice of my ever critical, never compassionate mother.  I call them Sallyisms.  “Your hips are jiggling.  You cannot go out like that.  Put a girdle on.  You need a bra that supports you.  You don’t want to walk around with your breast hanging down.  Don’t eat any more nuts.  You will be constipated in the morning.  Why can’t you learn to put your things up when you are finished with them.  You are such a slob.  Don’t forget to wash your face.  Those pimples will leave scars.  What do you mean you are busy with work.  You never have time to talk to me.”

No point in digging through all that old garbage.  Enough to say I am physically sore and mentally a little low.  I find I express myself in Haiku.

Longing

Random melancholy

long for stillness, a quiet place

Ryokan join me.

Solitude

Alone I sit here

deck of the Palapa Bar

Only WI-FI spot

Reliance

Ubiquitous pain,

despair, heartache all too near

solitary one.

Drinking

Blender memories

of oceans breezes, beer,

and margaritas

Vapid

Vacant thoughts, empty

spaces, lonely places hold

mysteries galore.

Aging

I see my wrinkled

brow; a chin hanging, pulling

me down to the grave.

Cancer

Winter brought the threat

of death,  a lump in my breast.

Cut, radiate, kill.

New Friends

Russlana, Felix,

Marius, Keely, Steph and

Rachel.  I like them.

And so an hour after I began I no longer feel tentative, plagued by self-doubt or longing.  I am here amidst the drunks floating  in inner-tubes, drinking beer and smoking.  I am not.

I am writing into the light.   I relax into being who I am in this moment.  What a relief.  I am still sore from practice, but my heart is light.

Albuquerque Morning-Life as Theatre

Good Morning New Mexico. Brown, dry, brittle, savage landscape with brushy trees, scruff y bushes, and wide open spaces framed in smoke covered mountains. I have arrived.

Shared a pot of coffee with my friend Cyndi, bathed…boy is it a relief to be clean, went down to breakfast, steel-cut oats, and a long catch-up with my gal friend. We are so much alike, Cyndi and I. Leos, smart, savvy, energetic, charismatic and we love attention. As Cyndi said this morning, “We are good at it. We know what to do with it.” When we use our exuberance skillfully, we bring our practices into the world. We work to learn how not to suffer or at least to suffer less and then we take our hard-earned experiences, our wisdom, the dharma and use them as fodder for our teaching. We guide others as we others guided us.  As we become more clear, more discerning, we help each other and in so doing we make our practices more vibrant. What we practice imbues our lives and the lives of our students and clients. Yes. Okay good.

I am sitting at the desk in my room here at the Airport Sheraton watching infinitesimal specks of snow dash in front of the window. It is a “Who” blizzard. Remember the Who who live on the dust particle in the flower that Horton the elephant finds. Only he can hear them. The flakes are so small they could go undetected unless one really looked to see what is there. A snow storm of salt grains flying through the air, angling to extend as far as they can in one breath of wind. Flying with total disregard. No purpose, no mission, just playing on the gusts of invisible air. Thicker and thicker, faster and faster, they fall. I watch. They move. I sit. They dance and then float coming closer and closer to the window. First they rain down, then they mix it up, moving in multiple directions and as if to music, they pause slowly bouncing to and fro, larger particles performing in front of the scrim created by they humble back up singers.

We humans do the same. Sometimes we find the spot light or it finds us. We shine like galactic stars come to earth to impress, entertain and demonstrate. At other times, we hang back, watching those we love, those we envy, those we scorn, and those for whom we have disdain, taking the lead, banishing us from the stage of life, forcing us in to the background where we must learn to be supporting actors and actresses. There is not small role, only small actors. Such is life. We rise. We fall.

Off to the airport to catch the shuttle for Santa Fé. Love being here with Cyndi.

We are here. Hotel Eldorodo. Going for a facial at 2:00 pm

January 31- One Year, One Day at a Time -Hot Bod

Hot bod.  You know that commercial with the Arian man and his south american counter part running up and down the bleachers?  Young, hot girls are watching, starry-eyed, swooning because the two young men have such great bodies.  Really?  I have a hot body for a 62-year-old woman.  Okay is that arrogant, or am I giving you the facts?  Why do I even want to write about this?  Why, because tonight at dinner when the 3 other people we were with talked about procuring second homes, selling and buying condos and the like, I thought, what am I doing with my life?   Writing, teaching yoga, counseling, doing life coaching and ….I have a hot bod.  I just snickered.  This is really quite funny coming from the girl who, in eighth grade heard the gym teacher tell her, “You are weak and terribly over weight.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  You need to lose weight.”  She was so angry all because I could not pull myself up a climbing rope.

And so I was for years to come.   That was a turning point for me. I immediately started dieting, starving myself in hopes of attaining my goal, the perfect weight, 110 pounds.  I only weighed 120 to start.  Was I even overweight, or had my body not quite caught up with my….What am I talking about.  I was at one time heavier than I am now.  Embarrassed about my weight I dieted, took pills, used enemas and tried my best not to eat at all.  If I did eat and especially when I overate,  I took laxatives.  No one, no one was ever going to discover my sordid secret.  I ate and ate more to escape feelings for which i had no explanation.

Today, I do not eat or drink to cover up or hide from who I am.  I do not drink or eat too much to escape my feelings. I enjoy food and alcohol to the extent that i am having fun with friends. Over consumption of food and alcohol does not erase the past.  We each must do that for ourselves. Learning not to be a victim of the past does take time and effort.  No matter who you are, the past does effect you.  Samscaras, our perceptions of what has happened, the scars those experiences created are a sticky spider web waiting to ensnare us.  We cannot change the past but we can kill the spider, that part of ourselves that works feverishly to weave a web of self-made obstacles, false ideas of who we are, illusions of reality, avidya, a film that covers our eyes and hearts obscuring the truth, misapprehending, creating confusion and fear.

Ha, I have to laugh.  My perception of myself, me seeing me as having at hot bod for a 62-year-old grandmother may well be just another filament in the spider web I am trying to escape.

I am falling asleep sitting up in bed.  I must to go to sleep.  I will be back in touch tomorrow.

Suicide – Why?

Today’s Commercial Appeal featured an article by David Waters addressing the very real problem of suicide.  “Suicide takes tens of thousands more lives each year in America than homicide.  Tens of thousands.”  He goes on to quote Mike LaBonte, executive director of the Memphis Crisis Center, “It’s one of those things we don’t talk about, and in not talking about it we create the perception that it’s not as much of a problem as it really is.”

One of our good friends committed suicide some 7 years ago.  She went to Colorado on a business trip, rented a car, drove to a cold mountain lake, walked in and drowned leaving a husband and three children.  We knew she was struggling.  We reached out.  She declined help.  What was it that drove her to such a demise?  We will never know.  She never told us and now she never will.  Maybe she did not believe that no matter what we would love her.  Our monsters are always darker and more foreboding in hiding than when they come out into the light.  Tell your story.  Find someone, anyone, a homeless person, a minister, a therapist, a friend, a partner.  Tell it and keep telling it until you feel lightness returning to your heart, until you are free to be authentic, to share who you are on the inside with those you meet in the world.

In the course of a lifetime, I have considered suicide on multiple occasions.  I fantasized about pulling out in front of a city bus, which I believed would surely end in death, to make it look like an accident.  Why pretend?  Because there is such a stigma attached to suicide.  Someone who commits suicide or wants to do so is weak and selfish, lacks faith, is deeply disturbed, financially troubled, in a legal bind, does not love their family, has been abused mentally or physically, is a sinner.  Now there’s a condemnation.  Suicide is a sin. Consequently, the thought of suicide is likewise a sin.  “For every person who dies by suicide, 30 others attempt it.”

One of the major goals of this blog is to discuss openly those things from which we hide.  “You must meet the outer world with your inner world or existence will crush you. Though we often think that hiding our inwardness will somehow protect or save us, it is quite the opposite.”  Mark Nepo 

People often tell me how brave I am, how much courage I have.  “How can you be so open about your life experiences?”  How can I not?  It is the way my heart meets the world, wide open and free.  For me to live any other way is death.  I cannot hide the truth about who I am without collapsing my heart.  Going forward, no matter what happens, I will not stop writing.  I will not return to the land of the walking dead, waiting for each day to end so I can go to sleep and shut down the pain.  To write is to live.  Today, I choose life.

Expired – Going for the Gusto

There are multiple levels of clarity and  well-being.  I realized today that I have been operating on the lowest of the low, slogging through my days, trying to be motivated, but really having a sense of drowning.   I can put on a happy face with the best of them,  even teach a great asana class, but underneath the façade lurks a murky bog waiting to suck me down.  I have been chronically depressed most of my adult life.  It was not until I turned forty that a doctor finally diagnosed my depression and prescribed Prozac.  I immediately felt better.  Endless days of malaise turned toward sunnier times.  I wanted to be with my children.  I wanted to leave the house.  I was no longer afraid to go to the grocery store where I might see someone, god forbid, who would want to talk to me.  I felt more energetic and more engaging.  That was 1991.

Fast forward to   2005.  I am still taking Prozac not knowing that after years of being on serotonin uptake drugs the effects tend to flatten out.  I figured, “Well I am getting older.  I am probably going to have a shift in energy.”  Then I started studying with Rod Stryker who I heard claim, “If you practice yoga, pranayama and meditation correctly, you should not have to take antidepressants.”  That may not be what he said, but it is what I took away from the teachings.  So I got a mantra, started doing more pranayama, designed my private and public yoga classes, including my personal practice, according to the energetic principles of Para Yoga.  I let go of my vigorous vinyasa practice which included lots of surya namaskars with chaturangas, arm balances, head and shoulder stands and overall steady, but constant movement.  Rod suggested slowing down the momentum, giving the unconscious mind a chance to reveal its dark secrets.  That part worked.  I did heal many old wounds, but the effort to stop taking meds failed over and over again.  I felt like such a failure.  My therapist at the time tried to convince me that my long-term depression was chemical and not likely to be remedied by meditation. In fact, she recommended aerobic exercise.

January 22, 2014. I continue to use my mantra, to meditate and practice asana in a slow, steady way.  But something is shifting.  Yesterday I added Wellbutrin to my antidepressant cocktail.  I am ready to move beyond flat.   I am not giving up meditation or mantra.  I am, however, going to up the ante in my physical practice.  I am 62 years old and I want to be strong physically as well as mentally.  I am bringing back head stand, hand stand, shoulder stand and arm balances.  I am going to play music in my classes.  One of my friends and a wonderful yoga teacher, Jennifer Brilliant, whom I have not seen in years, said, “Everything a yoga teacher tells you eventually has an expiration date.”  Time for slow and steady has expired.  Going for the gusto.

I want to be her, the lady pictured below, in twenty years.

Money=Happiness?

I opened a yoga studio, MIdtown Yoga, in 2001.

At the age of fifty I started a business at least that is what my husband called it.  There was no business plan because I had no intention of making money.  I simply wanted a space in which I could teach yoga.  People came.  Rodney Yee had just been on the Oprah Winfrey show.  Christy Turlington was on the cover of Time magazine.  Unbeknownst to me, I was riding a wave destined to become a world-wide phenomenon.  Yoga went from something that only hippies and naked Indian gurus did to something celebrities and soccer Moms did to get in shape and relieve stress.

Being a studio owner was hard work.  I taught 14 to 18 public classes a week, managed other teachers, promoted and put on workshops with famous teachers like Rodney Yee, Shiva Rea, Richard Freeman, Cyndi Lee and others.  My bank account grew.  I put my son through college.  He went to NYU.  I bought a new car.  We traveled  to India and across America to study with world-renowned teachers of yoga philosophy and meditation.  My little studio, Midtown Yoga, made a name for itself.  I was successful.

Fast forward to December 2013.  I sold my studio a year ago.  I am one of the lucky ones.  I found a buyer who was willing to take over the studio and pay me for the years of hard work I had put into building and establishing a “yoga business,” two words I never dreamed would come together.  When I began, in 2001, having practiced and taught yoga for several years already, I only knew there was a need and I had the tools to fill it.  As time went on, running Midtown Yoga, became more and more about bringing in more students, promoting visiting teachers, organizing and spear-heading a teacher training program that produced over 100 certified yoga teachers.  I gave myself completely over to the business.  I missed weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties, vacations, and lost hours of sleep worrying about the studio.  The passion I once felt for the practice of yoga dwindled.  I started out as a  humble yogini and ended up an over-worked CEO.  I wanted to quit, to find someone, anyone who would take over the business.  I tried unsuccessfully to get my husband to run the business side of the studio.  I delegated responsibility in hopes of finding some relief from the stress and wear and tear, but the truth is, I did not want to give up the income. The more money I made, the more addicted I became. The little girl who grew up with nothing, who never had an allowance, who shop-lifted to get the clothes she so desperately wanted, was now a successful business woman, well-known in the community.  I became so strongly identified with Midtown Yoga that I forgot who I was.  I drank more, played less, and complained a lot about being over-worked.

Three things happened that change the course of my life.  My son died.  He was dead for seven minutes, his heart kept beating only by the CPR he received from a bartender who happened to be in nursing school.  Nothing mattered to me more than his recovery.  Somehow the studio managed without me.  A year later, I found a lump in my left breast.  It was malignant.  I gave myself over to the “cancer industry.”  On the advice of my doctor, I had the lump removed.  After two weeks of recovery, I began 45 days of radiation which left me exhausted and unable to teach yoga.  Again, the studio somehow managed without me.  At that same time, I learned my daughter was pregnant with her first child.  I suddenly realized I no longer cared about the studio or teaching other people how to be happier and healthier.  I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a tired, sad, lonely, and exhausted woman of 59 who wanted her life back, but I was still unwilling to let go of the income stream I had created.

As a product of the sixties, I grew up believing that women were second class citizens.  We voted, we worked, we held public office, but many men still thought a  woman’s place was in the home.  I worked in the private sector as a paralegal.  I was underpaid, “hit on” by one of the partners, told to quit and stay home after the birth of my daughter, and finally driven out of the office by a demotion to subrogation clerk.  So, yes, I was proud of myself for building a successful business, for starting something with nothing (I cashed in a $20.000.00 insurance policy), and for making a name for myself.  When I left my first husband, he told me “I found you in the gutter and that is where you will end up.”  That was not the worst of it.  Because all of our credit was in his name, I had none and did not qualify for a credit card.  When I left him, he gave me $7000.00 and nothing else.  He kept the house, all the furnishings, our dog and my “good name.”

It took me a year of therapy to process money was not the key to happiness.  On the contrary, studies have shown that once we have money enough to meet our basic needs with a little extra for enjoyment, an increase in income does not equal greater happiness.

Money and Happiness
In order to be happy we need enough money to pay our bills and have a little room to purchase extras. There appears to be an income threshold where making more than this amount contributes very little to being happier.

Having a household income below $50,000 is moderately related to happiness. A household income above $50,000 results in a vanishing correlation between money and happiness. There is some data indicating that the income threshold may be a little higher or a little lower than $50,000.

Americans who earn $50,000 per year are much happier than those who earn $10,000 per year, but Americans who earn $5 million per year are not much happier than those who earn $100,000 per year. People who live in poor nations are much less happy than people who live in moderately wealthy nations, but people who live in moderately wealthy nations are not much less happy than people who live in extremely wealthy nations (Gilbert, 2007, p. 239). ( excerpted from What Makes us Happy by Jamie Hale)

Bingo.  More money does not correlate to greater happiness.  Then why was I working so hard?  For the same reason so many others do.  We forget what really matters: family, friends, laughter, helping others, being a good neighbor,  and doing what we love to do, not for the money, but for the sheer joy of doing it.

Here I am.  At the computer, doing what I love to do…Writing.  Will I be famous, will I be rich?  The future is not mine to see.  I write because I must.  I write because doing it reminds me what real happiness is for me.

When I was just a little girl,
I asked my mother, “What will I be?
Will I be pretty?
Will I be rich?”
Here’s what she said to me:

“Que sera, sera,
Whatever will be, will be;
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera,
What will be, will be.”

When I was just a child in school,
I asked my teacher, “What will I try?
Should I paint pictures”
Should I sing songs?”
This was her wise reply:

“Que sera, sera,
Whatever will be, will be;
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera,
What will be, will be.”

When I grew up and fell in love.
I asked my sweetheart, “What lies ahead?
Will we have rainbows
Day after day?”
Here’s what my sweetheart said:

“Que sera, sera,
Whatever will be, will be;
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera,
What will be, will be.”

Now I have Children of my own.
They ask their mother, “What will I be?”
Will I be handsome?
Will I be rich?”
I tell them tenderly:

“Que sera, sera,
Whatever will be, will be;
The future’s not ours to see.
Que sera, sera,
What will be, will be.
Que Sera, Sera!

(Lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans))

Near Death Experience and Beyond

Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see
(Do you see what I see)
Way up in the sky little lamb
Do you see what I see
(Do you see what I see)
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

My husband teases me when I say, “Do you see what I mean?”  He laughs and asks, “Did you hear what you just said?  How can I see something you are saying?”  I respond, “How could you not?”

In school, I performed best on tests when I reread the material the night before the exam.  Then when presented with the questions, I could see in my mind’s eye the answer as it was printed in the textbook or in my notes.  People tell me, “You must have a photographic memory.”  Perhaps.  I believe I have second sight defined as ” a form of extrasensory perception, the power to perceive things that are not present to the senses, whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen, or about things or events at a remote location.”  This ability to “see” what is not seen comes and goes. The more I read, the more I write, the more accessible it becomes.

My grandmother was paranoid schizophrenia.  She was institutionalized, so the story goes, after she took a butcher knife out into the neighborhood and threatened to kill someone.  I knew then, what I know now, that that is not what happened.  Go back with me.  I am three years old.  My grandmother, father and I live in a tiny duplex on Miami Street in South Bend, IN.  It is early morning.  Dad has been up all night, reading and drinking.  He is belligerent, pushing grandma up against the refrigerator.  I am in my crib in a sliver of a room behind the kitchen.  I cannot see them, but I know exactly what is happening.  Grandma is wearing her half-apron.  She was cooking oatmeal when Daddy confronted her.  I see her stirring the contents of her favorite iron skillet, the one she never washed.  There are not words, only pictures.  Grandma pinned up against the refrigerator. Daddy pounding her chest with his finger, then grabbing her shoulder and shaking her until her head bounced against door.  She reaches for a butcher knife lying on the counter and points it right in his face.  Stunned, he backs off and she runs outside hoping to get help.

Grandma was never crazy.  She had second sight too.  She had visions of angels and talked to God.

When my son died, the paramedics resuscitated him on the floor of a bar in Memphis.  I was far away in Pennsylvania when I awoke suddenly in the middle of the night.  At that very moment, my cell phone began to ring, a very strange phenomenon given that there was no reception in the building where we were staying.  To use our phones, we had to walk a distance away from the building.  Never had there been reception inside.  It was Leah, my ex-husband’s wife on the other end.  “Jordan is dead. I mean, he is alive, but he died.”  She tried to explain what had happened, but I already knew.  I saw him in the ambulance.  I saw myself beside him, holding his hand.

He was in a coma in ICU when I finally took his hand in mine and calmly said, “Jordan, I don’t know if it is your time to go or not.  I know you see the light.”  ( I could see him walking toward the light.  My grandmother was there and my father with her.  They reached toward him, welcoming him into their arms)  “Honey, I want you to know if you are ready to go, do it.  I will be fine.  We will all be sad, but we will be all right.  This is your choice.  But if you want to come back, if you want to live, do not walk toward the light.  I know it is tempting.  It is beautiful.  But if you want to come back to us, listen to my voice.  I am going to keep talking.  You decide.”

The next day, Jordan opened his eyes.  Leah and I were sitting on five gallon paint buckets outside the ICU doors ( the waiting room was being re-built) when the sweet Indian doctor whose name I cannot remember appeared and offered me his hand.  ( I must explain something here. The odd thing about my second-sight is that I have a terrible memory for dates, times, names, and the details of events that actually happened.  My inner eye has 20/20 vision while my real eyes see and remember very little.)   “This is nothing less than a miracle.  We did not think your son would come out of the coma.  We rarely, if ever, see this kind of recovery.”  I threw my arms around him.  Leah cried and ran to tell the others.  The doctor stepped back. Still holding my hands, his eyes piercing mine, he repeated, “This is truly a miracle.  Now we must wait.  There may be brain damage.  Time will tell.”  I knew Jordan would make a full recovery.  He did.  He had decided to return, to come back from the dead.

I have many more stories like this one.  The time I was standing at the kitchen sink and I heard a voice, loud and clear, “It is time to have baby.”  I was never, ever going to have children.  I knew I did not have the skills to raise a child. Nine months later, my first daughter, Katie, was born.  As an aside, I was told I would never be able to bear children because I had a prolapsed uterus.

Then there was the time I walked into the building at 524 South Cooper, an old, run-down beauty school, and instantly saw what would be Midtown Yoga.  It was as if someone had snapped a photograph of the studio, what it looked like in the future, and held it in front of my eyes.  I told my husband, “I see it.  Yes, this is a yoga studio.”  And to this day it is a vibrant, thriving yoga center.

And then there was a time I was at Myrtle Beach, asleep in my bed, when finger tapped me on the shoulder and a voice said, “Wake up.”  I rolled over to see who it was.  No one was there.  The next morning, I received a message from my husband that Jimmy’s father had died.  Odd?  A coincidence?  Maybe.

Or the night I heard from my sister that my father died.  I dropped to my knees next to me bed and called out, “Daddy.”  He came to me.  He was with me in the room.  I smelled his cologne, his cigar breath.  I felt the smooth skin of his cheek next to mine.  “I love you Daddy.”   “I am with you,” he said.  “The past is behind us.  I love you.  Let me know if you ever need anything, anything at all.  I am here.”  To this day, I call on my Dad when I am confused or depressed.  I do not ask him to for miracles.  I just ask for guidance.

The psychiatrist at The Wiillows treatment center told me I was hallucinating when I responded in this way to her questions.  During my intake interview she asked, “Do you hear voices?”

Without thinking, I said, “Yes, of course.  I talk to my father and grandmother all the time.”

She responded, “You mean you call them.”

“No,” I said.  They are dead.  I talk to them when I need help.

And you know what the psychiatrist said?  “You know that is crazy.  You are delusional.  No one talks to the dead.”

I do.

Maybe my ability to “see” is simply a combination highly refined memory, visualization and intuition.  I don’t know, nor do I care.  I see what I see and I trust what I see .  When I sit down to write I wait for the word or phrase or idea to present itself to me.  I have no idea where it will take me.  I put my fingers on the key board and it begins.  I trust more will be revealed.  Thy will be done.

Decision: To Drink or Not – Follow the Questions.

I saw my therapist today.  I do not think I can fully explain the magnitude of the session we had.  Those who have been reading my blog since I began 2 years ago, and those who know me well are well versed in the abuse I suffered as a child.  I am grateful to no longer be a victim of those events.  However, I learned today, that I am still strongly influenced by the emotional distancing and the verbal triads my mother rained down on me.  I have worked diligently to separate her from me.  I thought her death 12 years ago would set me free.  I was wrong.

I often talk to family members who have “passed.”  My Dad watches over and protects me from beyond.  The same is true of my grandmother and my step-mother, but not so my Mother.  Could it be that I can not reach her through the astral plane because she has not fully passed over.  Is she trapped in purgatory waiting for her final sentencing?  Has she set up housekeeping in my mind and body where she continues her life of suffering though me?  Albeit far-fetched, I know without a doubt she lives on in me.   I told my therapist, “I need an exorcism.”  He agreed.

He suggested I focus less on my drinking and more on my tangled, dysfunctional, guilt ridden, shame filled relationship with my dead mother.  He did not say I should drink.  He said if I did choose to drink I should do it out of a plastic insulated tumbler just like the one my mother used daily.. When I see my mother, when I say the word, Mother, when I think of my mother, I see alcohol.

There she is long, filtered cigarette in one hand, vodka tonic in the other.  When I drink, no matter how much or how little, I see myself as mother.  Consciously or unconsciously I fear being her.  I hated her.  I blamed her drinking.   She was mean,cold, distant and evil to the bone.

I went to my daughter’s house just after my therapy session to pick up come velcro rollers and a curling iron.  She took one look at me and said, “Are you okay?  Is something wrong?  Do you want to talk?”  I struggled to put my recent experience into words. “Mom, you are nothing like your mother.  You do not have it in you to be like her.  She was evil.  Some people are just like that, born to be mean.  She knew what she was doing. Don’t give her so much credit.  Alcohol did not make her bad.  She would have been horrible if she didn’t drink.”

Revelation.  In order to understand my mother’s inexcusable behavior, I blamed her drinking.  How as a child, or even as an adult, could I reconcile her hatred of me?  She was, it seems, by nature vindictive, narcissistic, judgemental, untrustworthy, insensitive and distant. She did not need booze to be cruel.  Her only conversations with me consisted of complaints.  She blamed my step-father, her mother and father, the depression and me for her miserable life.

One more thing.  While talking to my therapist, I realized that my drinking has always been a way to stay connected to my mother.  The times I felt the closest to her, the most loved, were when we were sitting down over cocktails.  What does all this mean?  Only time will tell. Do I drink because I am an alcoholic?  Do I drink to be with the mother I never had?  Do I have a problem with alcohol or is my real problem, my mother, who refuses to die?  “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

No doubt this post will arouse a myriad of reactions from my readers.  I stand ready to hear what they have to say.  This is my journey.  I am not concerned about what others think.  I know I must answer these question for myself  I know I must make my own decisions. somehow along the way, no matter how confused, how depressed, how suicidal I have been, I have always come to the truth of my situation.  I will write until my writing brings me face to face with my own internal, radiant light.

I am created by Divine Light

I am surrounded my Divine Light

I am protected by Divine Light

I am ever growing into Divine Light.