Unspoken Truth

Last night, I stood in a roomful of people, my arm around a friend, and cried.  I wasn't alone.  The seven young women and two men dancing had truly captured the postures of sexual abuse and the healing journey.  Their physical expression of the experience had many of us in tears - sorrow at first, but then of relief.  A collaborative effort of the Va Va dancers and Spirit Dance, it was even more beautiful and moving than I'd imagined it could be.

So, thank you, Amelia and Christianne, Kenn, Stephanie, and Jacqueline, Beate, Olivia, Jasminh, and Alan.  For all the work and practice you put into the dance, of course, but for all the feeling too.

Beyond that, the whole day was amazing.  I think I'm still too close to it to describe it well - it's all superlatives in my mind.  And maybe a little blurred.  So many people came.  People I know, people I care about.  Lots of people I didn't know.  Some folks I got to know.

New artwork in the art room speaks to their experience of the exhibit.  People wrote their feelings, drew their feelings, spoke their feelings.  Themes of sadness, hope, strength, courage, wisdom... pain.  

I had a conversation with someone - I don't remember her name.  "It has to go together,  doesn't it?" she said. "It's only through that struggle, through facing the really horrible things, that you develop compassion."

And I had to agree.  

Last night, the dancers created healing through connection.  Two dancers joined hands and began to dance together.  They connected with a third.  Moving as a circle, they surrounded each of the other dancers, one by one.  Slowly, tentatively, each dancer arose and joined the circle. 

As the circle grew, I could feel the strength of the connection, and it mirrored the feeling of connection in the room.  Brought together by art, united by shared understanding of loss and pain, we were a circle of dancers too.  Encircled by paintings and drawings that reflected lifetimes of sorrow and healing and wisdom, we were supporting and uplifting each other.

The performers leaned on each other, moved together as one, joined in closest community.  And then - one by one - they began to move away.  Joyfully now, moving with freedom, dancing apart and together and apart again.

I think we left the exhibit in the same way - stronger, more hopeful, dancing joyfully into the night. 

Sometimes I'm a dumbass...

I went to Abbey Road on the River yesterday, with my sister, Julia, and our friends, Anita and Kerri.  The weather was perfect and we were just hanging out on the Belvedere, watching all the Beatles tribute bands.  There were early Beatles, with their original Beatles haircuts and dark suits and ties - so adorable.  And Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Beatles, with their colorful clothes and long hair.  Naturally, the bands play - yes, Beatles music.  I get real annoyed when they don't - after all, I love Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix as much as anybody, but there's a time and a place for everything. 

Because we go to Abbey Road every year, we have traditions. Routines.  Possibly even rituals.  We set up our chairs and blanket on the same lawn area of the Belvedere, trying to maximize shade, and just leave them there when we wander.  We always have a smoked turkey leg.  Usually, I share one with somebody.  If I eat a whole one, I get full and can't eat the other festival food I want.  Like roasted corn on the cob, which we also always get.  Soft-serve ice cream.  Although, this year, I had the apple dumpling ala mode, which was fabulous.

We don't use the Port-o-pots; we walk up to the Galt House instead.  You can go in through the patio bar area and use a real bathroom, get ice and fill the water bottles, and cool off in the air conditioning.  It's well worth the walk.

Musically, there's one band on our "must see" list - The Rigbys.  Julia went to high school with Mark, who plays keyboard, so they get to say hello and I get to act like I know someone in the band.  They usually play around 4:00, at an area up near the Galt House.  They are absolutely one of the best bands there, and we'd go hear them even if we didn't know Mark.

So this year we walked up early to hit the bathrooms at the Galt House before we went to see The Rigbys.   There wasn't actually a line in the bathroom, but there were quite a few people, some women with children, so there was a lot of activity.  I'd finished washing my hands when I heard someone say, "Fausta."  

It took me a second to figure out who said it, in fact she said it again, "Fausta," before I turned and saw her.  She was a young woman, maybe early twenties, with dark hair pulled back in a cute ponytail.  She was standing in the doorway of a stall, getting ready to go in, looking at me expectantly.  I tilted my head, raised my eyebrows a tad - you know, that "I'm sure I know you, just can't place you this second" look.

"Amber," she said, and waited.  

I said, "Amber...?" sorting through Ambers in my brain as quickly as I could.  I really couldn't even think of any, except for a woman I work with now. 

"Amber," she said again, more firmly.  "You may not remember me, but I remember you.  I recognized you when I saw you walk by."  

Now I was trying to mentally sort through places I might know her from - escorting?  no.  work?  no.  client?  oh, who knows, could be.  mentoring?  maybe...  omigod, I have no idea.

"Amber.  I'm Amber."  She said it a third time, as if it should be completely clear to me by now.  And waited.  She had a little triangular face, and a half-smile.  She was standing there in the doorway of the bathroom stall, waiting for me to recognize her.

And I was still completely lost.  Blank.  So I did what I've done before in similar situations.  I faked it.  

"Amber!"  I said.  "Hey - it's good to see you!  Really.  Cool.  Oh my god."  Or some such shit.

And she smiled, and went into the stall.  I left, still wracking my brain for who she could be.

Of course, twenty minutes later, while I was listening to the Rigbys, I got a glimmer.  "Amber?" I thought.  "OMG, could that have been little Amber who lived down the street from us in Germantown a hundred years ago when my kids were little?  OMG."  I pictured little Amber, slender, all bones and angles, with wispy bangs and - yes, that little triangular face.  Little Amber.  Could it have been? 

We knew Amber from when she was maybe 4 or 5 til she was, I don't know, maybe 7 or 8.  Maybe 9.  She was younger than my kids, in fact, Julia, my younger daughter, used to "babysit" for her and her younger brother and sister at our house - what were their names?  Brian.  Little Brian, he was the kind of kid who might take a screwdriver and have the door off the hinges if you weren't watching him real close.   OMG.  Julia used to sell them her left-over Halloween candy - in January.   

Could that really have been Amber?  What was the other kid's name - Amber and Brian and ???  I don't know.   

Little Amber was so cute.  And smart.  So sharp.  She was always watching, and asking questions.  God, I loved that kid.  And competent.  She was like a mother hen with Brian and - and - Tiffany!!  Yes.  Amber and Brian and Tiffany. 

I am a dumbass.  If I'd known that was Amber - that Amber - I'd have hugged her and asked her what she was doing now and - omg.  I am a dumbass.  Now I'm not even sure it was her.  But, oh, I really think it was...

So of course I went back, walked back through to the bathroom, wandered around some of the indoor band areas, looking for Amber.  And of course I didn't find her. 

And I didn't run into her later either, even though I kept looking.

AND I can't even remember her last name.  If I could, I could look for her on facebook.  Dave was her Dad's name, her Mom was Angie, Dave and Angie What?  That's ok, I know some people who might remember.  I'll check around and see if I can't find out, then - surely she's on facebook.

But I promised myself last night, seriously promised, I'll never do that fake, "Oh, yeah, hey, how are you?" thing again when I don't really know who someone is.  Never.  I don't care if it takes me a week to remember, I'll just stand there til I do.

It's funny, there's so many things I could have asked that would have clued me in to who she was - I don't know why I didn't.  And of course there's a bunch of things she could have said.   Her parent's names.  Germantown.  Lots of things.

Instead - I keep hearing her say "Amber.  I'm Amber."   It reminds me of - you know how, when little kids dress up for Halloween, sometimes we pretend we don't know who they are, or that we're scared of them?  And when they're real little, they think we really don't know who they are, and they'll say, "It's me, I'm Davey," or "Susie" or whoever they are.  Then they wait, with just a touch of anxiety, for you to recognize them.  

OHHH!" we say, in fake surprise, "I almost didn't recognize you with that clown mask - scary face - makeup - whatever.  It is you!"  And they're relieved.  Even with their costume on, we still know them.  They are still who they are.

"I'm Amber."  Damn it.  Sometimes I am a dumbass.



   












  

Renovating the self

My last client of the day came in tonight and settled into her chair.  "So," I said, as I always do, "What are we working on tonight?"  I didn't know what to expect.  She had missed her last two appointments, so it had probably been 6 weeks since I'd seen her.  

"Well," she said, and she shifted a little in her chair, "I think I might need to get a new therapist or something.  I don't know.  Maybe it's me.  It's probably me.  But I just don't feel like I'm making much progress."

I thought a moment, nodded.  "Well, you're right, of course.  We're not making a lot of progress."  She looked surprised that I'd agreed, and maybe a little offended, which amused me. 

But we went on to talk about why that might be, without me even mentioning the fact that she'd missed her last two appointments.  We talked about change, and she was quick to say that she thought change was scary and she didn't much like the idea of it, even though she knew she needed to change. 

We talked about the cycle of change, and agreed that she was in the contemplation stage - thinking about changing, not ready to do it.  I talked about therapy.  I said there were three paths to change.  The first one was the quickest and it involved doing new things - going to group, trying new things at home.  I said, "But when I suggest those things..."

She shook her head, "No, I'm not gonna do that."  

I agreed, "Right.  You're not ready to do that." 

The second path, I said, involved thinking about things differently, talking about using wise mind, identifying automatic thoughts.  I said, "But when I suggest those things..."

She shook her head, "No, it don't seem like those things apply to me."

"Right," I said.

"The third path," I said, "involves you coming in and just talking to me about whatever you want to talk about.  Then I listen.  I tell you what I hear you saying.  You talk some more, I listen.  That's old school therapy, and it takes a long time.  We can do that, but you won't make a lot of progress real fast."

So we went on talking, and she began to be able to describe what she thought she might want to change about herself, and really did some good work in the session.  And she felt better about therapy, and I told her how helpful it was that she could come in and say she didn't think she was making any progress.

But I was thinking about it while I was driving home.  I thought, you know, it's like if you decided to renovate your house, and you hired an interior decorator or a contractor or something.  And if the contractor came in talking about tearing out walls and ripping up carpet, it would make you a little nervous.  And if you agreed in theory that it might be a good idea, but then he came back with sledge hammers and saws and ladders and buckets of paint, you might not want to let him in. 

I thought, if I'm going to make major changes in my house, I want to walk around with the contractor for a while first.  I want him to admire the things that are nice about my house.  I want to feel confident that he won't ruin anything that's good now.  Then I want to think about it some more.  Try to imagine it.  Look at paint chips.  Spend time at Lowe's. 

I wondered how it seems to our clients - is it like we're rushing into their heads with our little psyche sledge hammers poised, ready to wipe out all the thinking errors?  Yikes.  No wonder so many of them don't come back, just quietly disappear.  On the discharge summary, we say, "No longer seeking services..."  and code it "2."  I wonder what stories lie behind all the "2's" I've used to terminate my charts.  

"But wait -" you may be thinking, "Your client wasn't complaining about you moving too fast, she was complaining about moving too slow."  And you're right.

When all the ways I'd tried to move her didn't work, then we didn't begin to move at all until she complained that our progress was too slow. 

That's what I love about therapy. 

More on my Mama

My Mom used to say, "It's a great life if you don't weaken."

I think that approach was probably more helpful before she got Alzheimers. Now, she doesn't want anyone to help her with anything, and that doesn't work so well in nursing homes and hospitals. 

When Mom was a teenager, about 14, we think, her family went back to Italy.  She used to tell this story:  "We hadn't been back in Barga (the small town where they lived) very long when word went out that we were all suppposed to gather on the piazza one night to hear a radio broadcast from Mussolini.  So of course we all gathered in the square; you didn't disobey orders like that very often back then.  And first there was music and singing of course, and then Mussolini's voice over the radio. He announced that Italy was entering the war on the side of Germany." 

Her voice would drop, "And everyone fell silent.  No one cheered.  No one clapped.  Then one woman began to clap.  And the people around her moved away from her, and nudged each other.  'Sure,' they said, 'she can clap.  She doesn't have a husband, or sons, or any brothers.  She has no one to lose.'"  

Mom would laugh, "Italians are not big on war.   Some people say it's because we're cowards, but I don't think so.  I think it's because we've fought so many wars over the centuries that we know there's no winning, that we always lose more than we gain."

I used to be particularly proud of that back in the '70's, when the Vietnam war was raging.  I liked the idea of being descendants of people who didn't cheer for war.

Mama had lots of other war stories.  After that night, her father and brother had to get out of Italy quickly.  They had dual citizenship and could have been drafted into the Italian army.  Fortunately, they were able to get passage back to the states in a matter of days.  Someone at the Amerian Embassy in a nearby town was supposed to be working on getting my mother, her sister, Clara, and her mother, my Nonna, out of the country too.

"Days went by," Mom would say when she told the story.  "And pretty soon it was a couple of weeks.  It wasn't so easy to travel back then, but we finally found someone who was going to Lucca and would take Mama and me up to see what was happening.  By then, it was probably a month after Eugene and Daddy had left.  So, we get up there and go to the embassy, we have the man's name, and we ask for him."  She would shake her head, "But he was gone.  He had hightailed it back to America, and no one there knew anything about passage for us." 

So they were there for the duration of the war, my mother and her younger sister, with their mamma.   She had hundreds of stories about those years; many of them were about food. 

There was the time they had just made a big bowl of pasta for dinner when the sirens went off warning of bombs.  My aunt Clara grabbed the bowl of pasta and they were racing to the shelter when Clara slipped and fell - and they all cried, "The pasta, the pasta!  Is the pasta ok???"  Clara was highly indignant that they were all more worried about the food than about her well being.  

There was the loaf of bread that they were sending to the ovens to be baked when some bombs hit.  The bread hit the ground along with the woman carrying it, but it was too precious to be wasted, so she brushed it off and took it on to the bakery.  When they cut into it that night, you can imagine how surprised they were to discover tiny stones in it... and she had to confess what had happened.  "But we ate it anyhow," Mama would say, "And enjoyed it too.  There wasn't any complaining about food back then."  

In the nursing home, she hides food in her drawers. Although she rarely has leftovers - cleaning your plate is an important virtue - when she does, she insists on taking them home.  We were forever removing pieces of bread, abandoned sandwiches, carefully wrapped in a napkin, from her underwear drawer. 

But back to her stories - it's funny, I've read articles about women in families where the men tell the stories and the women don't have a voice.  I could never imagine that.  We are a family of storytellers, thank goodness.

So there was the story about when her mother decided that they needed meat, and tried to kill her pet rabbits.  That one used to make Mom cry. 

There was the story about how Barga was liberated by the American army, my Uncle Gene among them.  He snuck into Barga and brought them supplies one night before the army had taken the town, and, the story goes, was appalled at the way my mother and aunt devoured the chocolate bars.  "We were cramming them into our mouths," Mom would say, "I guess it was disgusting to him, he'd probably never seen anything like it.  But you have to remember, we wouldn't have had real chocolate for - well, for years, I guess." 

And of course there were lots of non-food stories.  They have titles in my mind:  Hiding Daddy's Gun; The Night the Soldiers Came; The Time We Went to a Party and Left Nonna at Home with a Flooded Bathroom; Little Mariucha, and so many more.

"It's a great life if you don't weaken."  When she'd say that, I always thought of their years during the war. 

And maybe the story about little Mariucha describes it best,what I think of as my mama's attitude.  At some point when the Americans - including the  Bufffalo soldiers -  were getting ready to move into Barga, word came that the people needed to evacuate.  So they gathered together what belongings they could carry, my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt, and started walking out of Barga.  Along with countless other people from the village, they started a trek toward the next big town.  Among them was a family with a little girl named Mariucia.  She was only five years old.  The people walked all day, carrying what they could bring with them, and little Mariucia walked right with them. When they finally stopped to camp for the night, and Mariucia took off her shoes, her feet were blistered and bleeding. 

Mom would pause at this point in the story, and there would be tears in her eyes.  "She had walked all day," Mom would say, "And she hadn't complained once.  She knew that no one could carry her, and she just kept walking."

Mom was a lot like Mariucia, she just kept going.  And she raised us, my sister and me, to be like that too.  We don't believe in giving up, and we don't complain much. 

But I wish she'd ease up a little bit now.  Relax, and let them help her get up, help her walk, help her get dressed instead of trying to do it all herself.  I wish she'd quit fighting and go with the flow a little bit more.  But if there's one thing I know, it's that I can't change my Mama.  So I expect she'll go down kicking and screaming, still convinced that "it's a great life if you don't weaken."

         

My Mama

I've been thinking about quotes from my Mama lately, all the ones that stuck with me, that I passed on to my kids, that I still say. When times were tough, she used to say, "That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger." When even that wasn't working, there was always, "And this, too, shall pass."

So my Mama's in the hospital for being "combative and homicidal." She's 87 years old. 

She used to say, "We spend the first two years of our life learning that the world revolves around us, and the rest of our lives learning that it doesn't." 

When she was 70, she went to India to volunteer with Mother Teresa's nuns.  She lived in a room in Calcutta, in a boarding house, and went out every morning to work.  She pulled sick people off the street and helped push them in a wheelbarrow to the hospital.  She worked in the clinic where the lepers lined up in the morning for medication.  She held crying babies in the orphanage.  She stayed there for six months, and came home with a cough that never quite went away, no matter what the doctors prescribed.

Mama used to say, "The world does not revolve around you.  It revolves around little old women picking up sticks in vacant lots."  My sister, Julia, and I agreed that we never quite got it.  Why little old women? What were they picking up sticks for?  Firewood?  And why vacant lots?  Somehow, I always pictured a parking lot.  We agreed, it was weird.  A couple of years ago, we discovered that she was paraphrasing TS Eliot, which at least makes a little sense.  But the message had always been clear.  We were not the center of the universe.

Mom traveled whenever she had a chance.  Sometimes, she taught English in foreign countries during part of the summer.  One year, it was China, another year in Poland.  She made friends wherever she went, and exchanged letters with them for years afterwards - up until the year she lost her mind, the year I became her guardian.  Julia and I found letters all over the house, letters to her, and scribbled on the back of scrap paper, rough drafts of letters Mama had started.  

Her Polish friend wrote in one letter, "You were always honest, and sometimes more blunt than most people in correcting our grammar and our accents, but we did not mind because we knew it came from love."  That was my Mama.

She's in the psychiatric ward of a hospital, where, they tell me, she's still being aggressive from time to time, mostly when they try to get her to do something.  I'm not surprised.  It was always important to her to understand why she had to do things, and since she doesn't understand much of anything anymore, the world has become a frightening place.  Resistance is her natural inclination.  And since most of the things they want her to do turn out not to be so pleasant anyhow, it's hard to blame her.

Mom taught Spanish in high school for twenty years.   For another twenty years after she retired, she'd run into old students of hers.  "Senora Inman!" they'd cry, many years ago, when they were still sure it was her.  Later, they were more tentative.  "Excuse me, did you used to teach Spanish?  Yes?  Mrs. Inman???  You probably don't remember me, but..."  And she'd say, "Oh, yes, I do remember you."  And she would.  She might not remember their real name, but she'd remember the Spanish name they'd used in class.  

Maybe I'll write more about her teaching style.  For now - one of the things she taught her students was a poem.  They used to have to memorize it, don't ask me how she worked it into the curriculum, but I'm sure she had a rationale for it.  The poem went like this:

"If of thou mortal goods thou art bereft
and from thy slender store
two loaves alone to thee are left,
sell one, and with the dole,
buy hyacinths to feed thy soul."*

That was my Mama.



*According to the internet, this was written by MOSLIH EDDIN (MUSLIH-UN-DIN) SAADI (SADI), who was a major Persian poet of the medieval times.

Starting over - again

It would be redundant to say "starting over - again," if it weren't so true, and true on so many levels.  Starting this blog over, not for the first time.  Starting over in relationships - not for the first time.  Starting over in trying to focus on accomplishing something, instead of acting like life is one big facebook page and I can just scroll through and click on whatever I want to look at for the moment.  Ok, maybe my life has been like that lately, but I was reading something somewhere the other day that suggested that might not be the most productive way to go through life.  And I know that's true.  Fun maybe, but not so productive.

And I've got plenty to focus on!  Escorting (at the abortion clinic, not the other kind of escorting!) trying to pull together a book about escorting, my own book that I've been neglecting for way too long, helping plan for the art exhibit in July focused on promoting advocacy and healing for abuse survivors, the mentoring program for the lay counselors in Rwanda, my own work - the work I get paid to do, that is, developing some training for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT,) further developing my skills in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and that's just a beginning.

There's exercise and reading and finding time to meditate.  There's church and my nephew's basketball games and spending time with The Julias and Megan and Kayla. There's no end to the fun. 

So why would I think this is the time to add blogging to my to-do list?  I'm hoping that it will help me capture and let go of some thoughts and ideas.  That way I could move on to other ideas without feeling like I'll lose what I'm thinking already.  If that makes any sense at all.  We'll see. 

My World Talks

I've been seeking out opportunities to talk about race for a couple of years now, and last night I had the opportunity to be part of a planning group for a discussion on race scheduled for next month. John Mark Eberhardt convened the group - he's the director of The Steward's Staff, a new non-profit organization that works on building leadership among youth. (www.stewardstaff.org)

The group that met last night was fairly diverse - about equally mixed male and female, black and white. One gentleman was from Belize, which will be interesting, since his experiences around race have been very different. Most of the group was young, well, except for me, of course. (I guess I was the age diversity!) Most of the other conversations I've had about race have involved older people, and it will be interesting to see how age impacts the conversation. I'm assuming it will different because even just last night I noticed a few things.

While I can't prove that it's an age difference, I noticed that the group seemed less tense than other groups I've been in when the topic was race. I don't think that all of the members already knew each other well, so that wouldn't account for it. And of course we were mostly talking about planning the discussion, rather than our own experiences. But still, with older people, I sometimes get the feeling that there is a vast pool of feeling - so much hurt and anger - just under the surface. Even if we don't actually tap that reservoir, I think I can feel it simmering. When we do tap into it, the feelings may erupt in a passionate outburst, which can be very powerful and moving. I didn't sense that last night, although that doesn't mean it isn't there.

I think the group last night was more hopeful, which is exciting and energizing for me. They're realistic enough to know that there are huge problems, and that we don't have the solutions, but they don't seem wary of being disappointed.

We had some interesting discussion about whether or not we wanted to involve "experts" in our upcoming conversations. We decided to start with a more experiential approach - what are your experiences, what are you feeling - rather than giving information, which I thought was wise. At the same time, they recognized that there are so many misconceptions and so much misinformation out there that giving information will be helpful at some point.

So I came home really excited about what we're doing. I offered to help set up a blog to be used to continue the conversation that will be started in the discussions. (Although really, I don't know what I was thinking. It's not like I have any technical expertise. But John Mark looked at me and kind of nodded, like, "oh, you have a blog, you could do this," and the next thing I knew I'd volunteered.)

But it's also inspired me to start doing something with this blog! I have a really clear image of what I want it to be. So I'll put my committment in writing - I'll add to it at least once a week. And I'll learn to post pictures and do links and all that neat stuff too!