Love

Growing up I held onto the secret regarding being molested by my step-father because I believed John would kill my Mother if I did not.  He dragged me by my hair and showed me the little vials at the top of the medicine cabinet.  “See these?  I can kill her anytime.  I can kill her and no one will know I did it.  I am a doctor.  I know how.”  I believed him, and although I toyed with telling and letting her die, in the end I could not.  So, I kept my mouth shut and the secret buried until I was seventeen.  I held on in the face of everything, and I swore that when I grew up nothing like this would ever happen again.  If someone tried to rape me, they would have to kill me first.

I did not know that some promises–even the deepest ones of all–cannot always be kept.

When I first began to talk about being molested, I would say, “He touched me.”  I never used the “R” word–rape-to describe it.  In fact, I would secretly breathe a sigh of relief that he never had vaginal sex with me.  I would whisper to myself, “At least I was not raped.”  As a Junior at Wheaton College, I went to a meeting of “Christians For Biblical Equality,” where a woman spoke about sexual assault.  She described sexual assault–the real term for rape–as being whenever someone forcibly penetrates another, whether this be by penis, hand, bottle, stick, etc.  As she spoke, a little animated movie began in my head of this dark blackness–all in deep tones of gray–with a motion of a hand in-and-out, in-and-out.  It played over and over to the point I could no longer hear a word she said.  I could make that movie today or draw it for you–it remains so vivid.  This image thrust me into counseling within the week, which then led to a three week stint in a women’s mental health unit the following February.  Once the movie began to play, the truth did as well.  I became flooded with memories of being molested daily at home for five years.  All the images I pushed away in my fierce determination to survive rose up and spilled out like hot lava.  A purge began.  I had been sexually assaulted.  However, the “R” word hung in the air like a suspended universe waiting to fall or explode.  I just could not let the word fall upon me.

I still try to only say that I had been sexually assaulted or molested.  I tell people by saying, “This is not a secret…I was molested as a child.”  I just avoid the “R” word in its many manifestations.  I avoid talking about it…personally…seeing movies where there is a rape…listening to stories about rape…the news about someone being raped.  I try to keep the “R” word out of my life all together.  At one point I did try to let it sit on my tongue.  I leaned up against the word while going to a Rape Survivor Group circa 1992.  I just never could own it as a word to describe me or what happened to me.  I left the group–the women in it were too depressing–and for the most part try to keep anyone who has been molested or raped out of my inner circle.  I never want it to be the point of connection, for rape is not life-giving or hopeful.

I tend not to think too much about the particulars of what happened any longer–the movie does not play.  I dealt with the actual events a long time ago.  In fact, when I was in the women’s mental health unit, I can remember thinking about how the easy task was to deal with the rock thrown in the water–the molestation itself.  The hard work was going to be all those ripple currents of not what John did, but instead what I do to myself as a result.  I feel like I have spent the last fifteen years of my life chasing those down one-by-one and healing them as best as I can.  I keep at it because I want to be strong and healthy.  I keep at it because I do not want being molested to be the centerpiece of my life–I want redemption to be front and center.  Ultimately, I do not want that rock to fuck up not only the past but the future as well.  I do have deep moments of fragility, and in those moments I fear the rock is all there is.  I sink low some moments, terrified that “John won” and got all the good of me and the good possibilities of my life.  Just some…not all, and definitely not most.  But some.

Part of why I avoid any stories about rape is I do not want my own emotional dial to be affected.  I possess my push-buttons, just like anyone else, so keeping rape off of my radar screen keeps me focused on the living in the present, even as I am healing from the past.  I try, but I do not always succeed at this avoidance.  Most times I weather the conversation or topic well, but every now and again my wires become tripped and alarm rings though me.  When this happens, I know something still needs to be dealt with from the deep well of pain and loss in my life.  Case in point: While hitting the elliptical at my trainer’s, I was going through the channels.  I caught a clip of women talking on Oprah about rape in marriage.  I tend not to watch Oprah any longer, but I found myself mesmerized by this one story.  The “expert” on the show talked about how “no” means no–even in a relationship.  I was caught off guard, even as I know that to be true.  I preach it to my nieces.  I will emphatically say it to anyone listening.  However there was one night a couple of years ago where I pretended to forget this truth all together because the actual truth was excruciatingly painful.

The story is simple: I was making out naked with a boy, whom at the time was a new love interest.  This was probably our third or fourth date, and most definitely the first time we had been naked.  No sex…just kissing and cuddling after a great massage.  We talked about not having sex–I was clear I was not ready to sleep with him.  He agreed.  So there we are, in the first throes of attraction, lust and friendship, and all of a sudden I feel this sharp pain.  I thought I hurt my back.*  We shifted positions a bit.  Then it happened again and he said, “Oops.  I’m sorry.”  I repeated that I was not ready to have sex.  He repeated to enter me without my permission.  (I can still see the smirk on his face.)

I did not leave.  I did not argue.  I did not protest.  I just curled up in a ball crying softly while he drifted off to sleep.  About two hours later I woke him up.  I told him, “I did not want to have sex yet, but that cannot be our first time.  Please make love to me.  Make whatever that was go away.”  He did; it did not.  I tried to bury it to the point of never telling a soul.  And then I found myself on that damned elliptical with all my buttons pushed stopping to try and catch my breath that was knocked out of me with those simple true words: “no” means no.

I look back now and see how I needed to get up and get out of there.  I see now that I stayed with him for a long time after that–five months actually–needing him to love me because if he loved me then what happened would not have happened.  I stayed even when I knew he we did not share the same value regarding integrity.  I stayed despite the fact we were so different.  I stayed because I thought he was the best guy I ever dated.  I stayed because of all the other beautiful things I saw him to be, which is not dissimilar from John who was an amazing doctor and a pedophile.  I stayed even as I saw the deep rage within him and his unwillingness to deal with his own demons.  I kept trying to reinvent that moment right up until the moment he left me and left me devastated.   Lastly, I see how I held onto my rage at him leaving me because there was this part of me that could not understand how he could leave me after I stayed even after what he did.  He owed me.  He owed me his love and devotion–yet of what value were either?

(The truth can be so disjointed and tragic when we begin to finally tell it to ourselves.)

I know what happened with him happened because of those places in me still broken from John.  Obi Wan (therapist of all therapists) has really worked with me to understand how we are innately drawn to those who will hurt us in the most familiar of ways.  So terribly sad to think I somehow chose this little power play because deep inside it was known and safe.  (Safe in the way the devil you know is better than the possible devil you don’t.)  I realize now my part in all of this–especially in why I stayed long past the point I needed to leave.  But none of my own responsibility takes away from what happened that night, and the promise I made myself that was broken.  None of it takes away from what he did, which was to violate me and my stated desires.  None of it takes away from the fact that he penetrated me knowing I did not want him to and even after I asked him to stop.

I still cannot say the “R” word though.  I just cannot, although I know it fits.

*I recently read in Dan Savage’s column that the opposite of an orgasm is actually a back spasm, which makes sense to me given these events.

Note: This post took over six weeks to complete.  Secrets can be very powerful, which is why I finally forced myself to finish writing it–to eradicate the power this one has held over me for more than two years.  Frank Warren, who does Post Secret, stamps all of the books he signs with “Free your secrets and become who you are.”  I feel this is one of the messiest posts I have written to date, but also the most freeing.  Sometimes you just have to speak the messy truth in order to become who you really are–a whole and healed person.  If you have been molested, raped or date raped, please seek help.  None of us are innately prepared to heal from these things alone.  Cosmo (of all places, I know!) has compiled a short list of places to get help here.

I often feel there is a ghost in the room when dating: the Ghost of Relationships Past. You know, the girl who broke his heart? He missed all the signs–the selfishness, the petty lies, the deep resentments, and prejudices–and gave her all of himself regardless. Now that the signs finally catapulted him to a place of recognition of who she really was, what she really was not capable of, and that indeed their relationship was doomed, he is adrift from his dreams for his life because they all included her. Her–not you. She looms over every exchange, every hope, every little moment where your heart cries out “God…he is so amazing.” He is amazing, and he is amazingly broken. He is broken beyond your repair. He must fix (i.e. heal) himself, which you want for him. You want it for him and in that small corner where you light a candle for him (birthday cake sized so as to not get your hopes up too much) you want it for your life as well; you want him for your life as well. In the meantime, strength requires that you do not get into a love triangle with the Ghost of Relationships Past. Strength to resist this love triangle is always easier said than done.

Being a young woman in my thirties, I know a thing or two about dating men who have tried to stuff their Ghosts in a closet. The funny thing about these Ghosts, they always escape the closet eventually. Slippery buggers! Their hazy smoke permeates moments. With one ex-boyfriend I was shocked to learn that he almost never reached an orgasm through sex. Without even realizing the severity of what I was asking I inquired, “What did your ex-girlfriends make of that?” He replied, “None of them cared. They were just happy to have me focus on them.” In one swift moment all his Ghosts began to swirl around us. What they did. What they did not do. The pattern of being with women for whom his needs were never a priority emerged, and I–the naive one–foolishly believed that by loving him and caring for his needs I would show him what real love was. I did. I did what they would not–could not–do.

He left me to go back to one of those Ghosts.

Is it not amazing how we feel so much more comfortable in the rut of horrible relationship patterns than we do in the uncharted territory of intimacy? Logic would dictate that if you put your hand on the hot stove and are burned, you learn to never put your hand on a stove that is hot again. I am learning–by looking at my own patterns in love–that logic rarely comes into play when we make decisions about whom we will be in a relationship with. This may seem an oxymoron–to make a “decision” about love when it certainly feels like it is not a choice but an emotional by-product of chemistry. However, we do choose. We have patterns where we are comfortable, and without even realizing it we go right for the person whom will fit our pattern. Of course the opposite is true too, we reject those who do not fit this pattern.

Our pattern seeking love-making leads the boy with the controlling alcoholic mother to the girl who will control him and be out of control themselves. Our pattern seeking love-making will lead the girl to the boy who will present one face to the world and have a private rage that leads him to sexual betrayal, just like her father from before–at least that was once my story. These patterns are just that–patterns–not destiny. They are emotional habits that have to be broken in order to be free from them. These habits relate not just to the type of people we feel drawn to, but also those “old tapes” we play in our head. The tapes that say we are not good at relationships. The tapes that say we are unworthy of love. The tapes that say all men are hateful and irresponsible jerks. The tapes that say women are needy bitches. So how do we make new ones? I believe new habits cannot be formed until we face ourselves–not in judgment but in the twin lights of insight (psychological understanding) and epiphany (spirit/love understanding). In addressing the places we attempted to get our root needs met through unhealthy patterns and broken emotional neediness, we open ourselves to allowing unconditional love to flow in us, towards our very own hearts, and then towards others. The old ways set aside through hard intentionality. New mantras of love for our minds to use even when our heart’s old longings for brokenness attempt to get us in trouble.

Building new patterns may seem utterly impossible when we first start out. Not only to us, but also to those who we call friend. A dear friend of mine is just beginning this journey himself to re-write his heart patterns, and in so doing excise the Ghost of Relationships Past. His circle keeps encouraging him to sleep around a bit as the way to expedite this exorcism. I find this to be the relationship equivalent of when a couple looses a baby through miscarriage or still birth and are told by “loving” folks that they are young and can have another baby–as if another baby will “fix” the terrible grief of losing their child. In general, moving on seems to be our modus operandi, but we never really do move on if our patterns are any indication. What my friend’s inner circle fails to realize is most assuredly he will end up dating someone exactly like his ex. He will become involved with someone who will not only leave him devastated but also further sunken into his own fears that he is indeed unlovable. This is the main problem with these terrible patterns informed by the Ghost of Relationships Past–they reaffirm our worst fears about ourselves, our lives, and the impossibility of our dreams coming true.

I have this image of the Ghost of Relationships Past as an elephant chasing you down in the forest. The first instinct–the pattern–is to run away from the elephant. Your gut tells you, “If you do not run, it will kill you.” Really? I cannot believe running is the only choice we have. I believe in healing. Sometimes the only healing available requires facing down the elephant, killing it, and then eating it. The elephant–the pain of the past–must become part of who you are. Take in the lessons, and let the shit go. Otherwise, we will just be destined to be chased by those elephants the rest of our lives–they travel in herds after all. For me, that is one pattern I cannot afford to live within.

I know a great deal about these patterns because I am daily working daily to re-write my own. (Eating my own elephant, so to speak.) Out of compassion, I want to be close to those who are hurting. I also know that a smart lovely boy in the throws of pain will never be healthy enough to deserve my love or truly love me back, even as my heart strings might want to pull me in that direction. I learned the hard way–the very hard way–that you cannot make up for the pain inflicted by the Ghost of Relationship Past. He has to heal himself before you can be with him. Just as you must heal your own heart before he can be with you. Healing allows for true intimacy, the goal of all relationships. And healing–sweet beautiful healing–has one of the most amazing gifts to give us when we embrace it. Healing gives us the gift of freeing those Ghosts once and for all so we are free to love fully present in this moment.

Bon appetit!

Have you ever met someone and just had magic from the very beginning? I do not mean sexual chemistry, although sometimes it does go hand-in-hand. I am referring to meeting a Soul Mate. Someone who makes your soul sing and your spirit dance. It may only be for a short time that your lives are intertwined. I am thinking here of a patient of mine–another Jacqueline–whom I loved so very deeply from the moment we met. I do not believe there is just one Soul Mate for your life–I believe there are many. The hope is to meet all of them.

I met one of mine recently. My new friend inspired an almost instant love in me–”agape love”, as my friend so aptly put it. My friend literally is standing in the wood with the two roads branching off in vastly different directions. I suspect, if they go down the road that seems the most negotiable, they will eventually loop back to where they are now. My own heart hurts to think of all the dreams shattered or suspended in their life at present. My friend is earnestly trying to find the way while grieving “the way it is not any longer.” Given all their gifts of being so very bright, interesting, full of creativity and kindness, and a genuinely soul-full person, there is no doubt in my mind this person will develop their own meaningful road map and find their way home again–find their way to love again.

We spoke at length about the need to be 100% within yourself and not looking for your missing piece or feeling that you lacked anything. Obi Wan (the greatest Hippie therapist of all time) calls this “accepting yourself and accepting that you deserve love.” Acceptance does not require perfection in yourself or even the expectation of perfection in another. He likened it to two hands grasping, instead of trying to make a hand with bits and pieces of two broken ones. I love that image. I could not help by wonder: What if you were left with just two thumbs and a pinkie? Not much good could come of this amalgamation. No, you need two whole hands to get the work of life accomplished. Sure, there maybe a scar here or there. Maybe your hand hurts from time-to-time, for the rains will surely come. But you are a hand, a whole hand, at the ready for its mate.

Shel Silverstein put it this way:

I have a prayer for my dear friend now as they seek to find wholeness and life anew. A prayer to help as the painful process of smoothing those edges begins. My prayer is:

Know that although my support is silent it sings endlessly in the quiet to you. I will sing out to the heavens and to the earth and to the ocean between us gentle prayers of hope for your life. I will mix into the currents a balm to tend to your wounds. I send on the wind a whisper, “You will make it. You will heal. You will be whole.” I will pray that the rain washes away your rage–leeching it away one drop at a time from your being. I will send people from near and far to your door seeking out your compassionate company. May they teach you just as you teach them. I will tell the birds here to pass it to their friends a message that your heart is broken so their insistent song will find you and stitch it back together not unlike Cinderella’s dress. May you be clothed with righteousness and fidelity towards all you hold dear and believe. May you know yourself in a way you never did before and find grace and opportunity in this new understanding. May you find peace.

Amen.

In The Screaming 7 Year-Old I wrote:

I cannot help but wonder: Why do I feel so creative, capable and strong and also feel so stuck, inadequate and fragile sometimes?

This question rattles around my whole being these days. I feel the fear of not being good enough seeping into my pores. The anxiety it brings tingles and makes my heart quicken. Hedged in on every side, again I feel both hopeful (creative) and stuck. A coup at my former employer where the one who lies and manipulates was rendered fully empowered has placed me and my co-workers on the unemployment line. I would never have been able to stay, yet I am still profoundly grieving being let go. I look back over the last seven months and wonder at times if making the move there from hospice was really worth it? I also know it gave me so much–I know I was meant to be there. (Even as I do not believe in destiny.) But for such a short period of time? That was it? More than once, I find myself shaking my fists and crying out to God, “But I am on YOUR side!!!”

The last three weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions. Grief. Loss. Pain. Shame. Fear. But these are not the only feelings, and in many ways they are the lesser ones. Mostly I feel hopeful. I feel on the verge. I feel my life spinning in a new direction. I feel ready to take a quantum leap–to move like those ancient reptiles who left behind walking and running for flying! I have absolutely no idea where I will go, what I will do, what will happen. I am fraught with excitement. I just want to read, meet new people, explore, travel, talk with strangers! I do not, however, want to be a chaplain out on the edge with people any longer.

My professional life has been all about walking out onto the edge with people. Trauma, death, disease, crisis, terror, homicide, suicide–these were the daily staple of my work. I dealt in terror. Again and again I walked out to the precipice and met people. I could not “save” them. I could not pull them back from the edge, but I could stand beside them while they teetered on the brink. I could make sure they were not alone. I could make sure God showed up for them because someone came. I could fill in the gaps where it felt God could not be trusted.

I know a great deal about who God is not. God will not rescue you. God will leave the woman to be raped and set on fire. God will not untangle the chord from the baby’s throat–or the parent’s hands. God will not prevent a parent from losing all three of his children in less than five days. God will not stop you from marrying an abusive spouse. God will not make cancer go away. God will not ensure that while you are facing one crisis other ones will not befall you much like dominoes balanced precariously tumbling again and again. God will be silent while the one who works hard never has enough. God will be silent while the one who is mean and destructive wants for nothing.

I know about how God is not a puppet master. I know first hand that loving God does not guarentee you that your baby will live, that you will find the love you seek, or that you will grow up in a home where you are safe. I know God is not in control.

I went to the edge again and again. Why? For one thing, I needed to prove to myself I could go out there and return. For another, I did not want anyone to feel alone there–alone as I had so long ago. I went to learn about how God acts in suffering, and I learned overwhelmingly how God does not act. This knowledge emboldened me. Something had to be done! So, I stood where I thought God ought to be and could not be counted on to show up. I tried to make up for God’s failure–both with me and with others.

Of course, making up for God is not the only story. I found love and peace out on that edge. I found no one ever died without Love making her grand entrance and embracing her child. I found Emmanuel–God with us. I found you can laugh even with the precipice’s jagged rocks cutting your hands, your feet, your side. I found humanity. I found my step-father wanting only the best for me and letting him go into the deep sleep where he can no longer hurt me or anyone else. I found peace. I found understanding. I found hope. But I did not find God.

This may seem odd. To find God’s presence but not God. I can only describe it as feeling the wind on your face, but not actually seeing the storm front that pushed the air upon you.

So now, I am looking for God. I no longer want to pour myself out so completely for others to the point I feel bereft. I want to acknowledge my deep need–my deep longing for others. I feel so terribly isolated these days. The life I dream for myself has a table of friends gathered around it eating, drinking and talking. I eat alone. The life I dream for myself is full of embracing the world I live in and soaking up the creation into the marrow of my bones. I feel landlocked. The life I dream for myself is full of love and family. I am working on accepting that I am more than enough just as I am and look for opportunities to love without abandon.

The funny thing is holding onto these dreams too tightly squeezes the life out of me completely. I feel called to letting go of fear–this is my truest calling. To give up not only the deep anxiety rooted in me from years of scarcity, but to bring it to my core where God is and let God speak to it. To deal with these fears–to draw close to them–I began praying “The Welcoming Prayer” after my Spiritual Director suggested it to me. Here it is:

I let go of my need for safety and security. Welcome.

I let go of my need for power and control. Welcome.

I let go of my need for love and esteem. Welcome

Now, when I feel the horrible panic of “Where do I go from here?” “Who will love me?” “Will there be enough?” “Am I ever good enough?” I pull that fear close in to my heart. I accept it as part of me. I welcome it. Well…I practice welcoming it into my very center. The most amazing thing occurs when it gets in really close. I find the fear dissipating. As I go to sleep the pain, shame, and loss all crowd into bed with me–taunting me. I say, “Welcome.” I rest. My hands are soft and my fists unclenched more these days. These days I find myself whispering to God with anticipation, “Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

Food and I dance delicately with one another. I work hard to eat healthy, but I also know the times when the planet tilts swiftly beneath me and my emotions cry out for comfort food. My Deserted Island Menu of three items has remained steady throughout the years: broccoli, mac & cheese, and mint chip ice cream. I still eat broccoli almost everyday, but I limit the other two to the “rarely” column. Long gone are the days where cheese is the centerpiece and not a condiment. Now, eating mint chip makes me take a good long look at my emotions and what stress I seek to avoid. Yet, a girl’s gotta eat!

I work with someone who can (miraculously) eat egg whites and an apple for breakfast, a frozen piece of chicken with salsa and frozen brussel sprouts for lunch, and NEVER complain (she does heat the frozen parts). Not me. I can eat the same yummy food day-after-day, but it needs to be homemade. I prefer not to eat Chicken Catchatorie with a side dish of regret, so I work to limit fat, sugar, white flour, and eating out. However, I do leave room for small squares of dark chocolate or Whip ‘N Dip, where a girl can get Light Cream to satisfy the ice cream craving without a shred of guilt. Never being a big fan of meat really comes in handy when one wants to eat healthy. I used to be a vegetarian, and I am back to chicken as my only meat source again. I work out with a trainer these days–”Cupcake” (so named because he has replaced the cupcakes in my life)–so I REALLY do not want to eat something to undo the hard work I do whilst I pay him to torture me for two hours a week!

So, a girl’s gotta eat and gotta eat good and gotta eat good and healthy!

Fortunately, I love to cook. I love knowing I made something not only scrumptious but also good for me and those I feed. (You know who you are!) I love how food binds us together. Conversation flows more easily around a big bowl of chili. Love is folded into freshly baked bread. Illness is soothed. Fear is quieted. Connections made. I think this is why Jesus (and any good Jewish mother!) centered so much of his ministry around the table. You cannot break bread with an enemy without the enemy being transformed into a companion, if not friend. Family is created at the dining room table. Wounds healed.

Here are two of my own favourite recipes–one is my own, the other an adaptation–to make some truly yummy comfort food and food that is good for you:

Chicken Tortilla Soup

You are going to be a bit scared when first reading this, but once you make it you will see how simple it is. I promise. I felt the same way the first time I read Heidi’s site with the pizza dough recipe, but after doing it once I don’t even need to look at it again unless I need a reminder of portion size. That simple once you know it, but daunting the first read. Keep that in mind here too:

• 2 whole chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, split and cleaned up with no fat.
• 2 yellow onions
• 2 green peppers
• bunch of cilantro, trimming off lower half of the stem end, and then cutting the group in half, to reserve the top part for the soup itself
• fresh garlic cloves (Note: I like at least 10 in the soup, and another 6 or so for the chicken.)
• sea salt or kosher salt
• pepper corns
• 2 T oregano
• fresh ripe red tomatoes (Note: I use at least 3 large fresh tomatoes, but more depending on what is in season and looks good. You can make this with only fresh tomatoes, or you can use only canned. This is really a seasonal issue. I prefer Roma tomatoes, but they did not look spectacular at the store this last go around. Instead I used 3 beautiful garden tomatoes with 26 oz of organic strained tomatoes.)
• 26 - 52 oz chopped tomatoes, if needed
• 1-2 yellow, orange or red bell peppers
• 4-8 jalapeños, depending on preferred hotness
• 2 Serrano peppers
• 4 Cups of chicken stock (Note: I prefer Pacific Organic Chicken Broth to all other store bought brands, although I find using the chicken stock from the chicken will work great too.)
• 1 T cornstarch
• 2 limes

The Chicken: To make the most delicious chicken that shreds the moment you touch it and is succulent in this soup…or enchiladas, tacos, etc. you must endure a three hour process. That is the bad news. The good news? This is less than 15 minutes of prep and a 5 minute finish. (Good soup making and laundry go hand-in-hand.) I try and always do four whole breasts, (double the above amount) and freeze the other half at the end, without shredding.

1. Put the chicken in a large soup pot (the same one you will use later) with the lower half of the trimmed cilantro, one roughly chopped onion and one green pepper, smashed garlic cloves, the oregano, some sea salt and a good tablespoon of peppercorns.
2. Add enough water to cover with a half inch of water, and simmer over medium low heat for three hours. Add more water if needed.
3. Take out the chicken, to be shredded for the soup.
4. Strain liquid through a sieve lined with a coffee filter, which will keep out the oregano from the broth.
5. Reserve broth.

The Soup: This recipe started when I made some enchiladas in Chicago with fresh homemade salsa to accompany it. I had the left overs in my kitchen and thought about how much I love Tortilla Soup. In short, you make homemade salsa, but just puree it instead of the rough chop homemade salsa usually requires.

1. Place in two batches the tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onion and cilantro into the bowl of your food processor and puree. (Note: You will need to split the tomatoes over both batches because the water content in them helps keep the food processor working smoothly.)
2. Add to clean soup pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat.
3. Add shredded chicken and broth. Simmer until it turns a deep brownish red.
4. Add cornstarch to 1/4 C cool water, and put slurry into soup.
5. Finish with fresh lime juice and sea salt to taste.
6. Makes 8 servings

You may wonder where the tortillas are. I skip them in order to have the corn muffins below. My favourite store bought brand is FoodShouldTasteGood’s Multi-grain tortilla chip/cracker things. Simply perfect!
Here is the nutritional information, based on the above ingredients put into My Food Diary’s recipe builder:

Corn Muffins

If you love to cook, Heidi Swanson’s amazing site 101 Cookbooks is for you. Everything I try from her recipe trove proves perfect. The pizza dough IS the best, and how I found her site to begin with. I made the Cottage Cheese Muffins, from Rose Elliot, twice now with great success the second go-around by eliminating the salt. (The first batch were too salty given the saltiness of the sun-dried tomatoes.) I use almond flour (Bob’s Red Mill) in lieu of doing my own almonds, which give these muffins a texture not unlike a good corn muffin. Being Southern, I love a good sweet cornbread reminiscent of Jiffy. I thought I could adapt the Cottage Cheese Muffins to be yummy high protein, lower carb versions of my favourite corn muffins. The results were AMAZING!

• 1 C low fat cottage cheese
• 4 whole eggs, or equivalent egg substitute
• 2 T blue agave (in lieu of sugar for those diabetic, like me–can be found at Whole Foods)
• 1 T canola oil
• 1/2 C cornmeal
• 1/4 C soy flour
• 1/4 almond flour
• 1 t sea salt
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/4 t cayenne pepper (more if you like)
• 2 ears of fresh corn cut right off the ear and uncooked

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners or spray with oil and dust with flour.
3. Whisk together all of the wet ingredients. (I find the whisking helps the cottage cheese to become incorporated.)
4. Then add the dry ingredients until fully incorporated. (You could stir the dry ingredients first, but I just go for it!)
5. Fold in the corn.
6. Fill cups and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. (I added a tablespoon of lower fat cheddar to the tops for the last half of the baking. Amazing!)
7. Makes 8 servings.

Here is the nutritional info if made with egg substitute:

I find myself on a precipice. The mountain climbed…the sorrow of a broken childhood, of a broken child behind me. The battle scars emblazon my side, my hands, my feet. I carried the first most horrid of crosses. I survived the plunge of the sword, for John tried to take my very life away by stealing my spirit, my youth, my hope. I did not die. I would not die.

I waited a terribly long time to open to the nakedness love and intimacy require. I ventured first with those safe, manageable, less. I thought I met my equal; I was wrong. In choosing to look away when he lied, I pretended he would not lie to me. He did. I almost died, and almost spent the wellspring of my hope on the despair I became enveloped in when he lied and left. I did not die. I would not die.

Hope; she is my constant friend. She stands with me on this ledge between the past and the future, so uncertain but always imagined. I see us standing against the wind, which whips through our hair. We laugh. We cry. We dream the most amazing of dreams for my life. The sun blazes and the sky dances with colour as we put to bed the despair of this last season of my life. How strange I find it that the setting sun seems to fall so much faster than the heat of the noonday sun. Why?

So my dear love, here I come. Are you ready?

Let us be clear about what I need from you, for I am completely clear about what I will offer you. I need fusion. I do not pine for fireworks shattering the sky with a million stars here for only a moment. I do not desire the rapid fast burn of a nuclear love. I survived one of those, and the apocalypse devastates everyone in its path. No. Give me fusion. Give me two whole people coming together creating a fire between them impossible alone. Leave the divided spirit, the divided desires, the divided will, the divided atom behind. Join. Merge. Intertwine with me. Let us be more than we could have ever imagined on our own. Leave the ashes of simple fireworks to fall back to the earth. Let us be a galaxy all our own.

I will give you creativity. Nothing will be boring. I will always find new ways to laugh and play. I will give you integrity. I will tell you the truth. I will be kind. I will be generous. (Shall we compete to see who can be more so?) I will embrace you as you are, and dream your dreams of all you can do and create for this world. I will give to others. I will not forget you. I will write my name on your heart. I will cheer you on towards your prize. I will pray for kindness and doors to open to you. I will place a soothing balm on your wounds when the doors crash into your broken body. I may not pick you up–for you will have to do that for yourself–but I will lay beside you and kiss you sweetly until you have the strength to rise. I will question. I will fold the laundry. I will be my own person. I will have my own life and friends. I will be good to your family and friends. I will forgive. I will believe in you no matter what they say. I will trust you. I will honor the man you are. I will value your gifts and never think you a pansy. I will fight for you, and at times with you. I will apologize. I will seek your forgiveness. I will deserve it. I will love you. I will fuck you. I will lay you down. I will tenderly caress you. I will make love to you and discover your body anew even as the years pass us by. Every wrinkle, every laugh line, every sag, every cell will be counted with affection. I will embrace your changes. You will be mine, and I will be yours.

Are you ready? Here I come.

Please let me into your secret places. Let me see you. Let me love only you. I know we have it in us to do this together and to create something more than we can possibly imagine.

I stand on the precipice with Hope beside me.

Acknowledgment: The inspiration for this piece comes from Sarah McLachlan’s song “Answer.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Brooker

We live in an age where we are supposed to be confident, have a positive self esteem, and know our gifts. We are also supposed to not be too confident, too braggadocios, or feel we are better than anyone else at something—even if we are. The Greeks were concerned with “hubris” or pride, but hubris always was more about causing harm to another than being realistic about one’s own abilities. If I say that I am good at something, is that done to shame or humiliate you? Even if I say I am better at something? For instance, I am very good at spacial relationships, color, and home design. I decorate my own space in a way that fits who I am. I do not expect anyone else to do it the same way. When consulted on someone else’s design project, I try to offer suggestions in keeping with their tastes…a kind of expert opinion. My opinion is not offered to belittle or threaten, only to guide and support.

We all need expertise. Seeking out an expert requires four things: 1) An acknowledgment that we do not possess the ability or knowledge to complete a process or project; 2) An understanding someone else does possess the ability or knowledge we lack; 3) A willingness to seek out someone else to help with this process or project; and 4) To place our trust in that person to provide the help needed so our main goal—completing the process or project—is met. A simple analogy would be seeking out a car mechanic to fix a broken automobile. But what about more complicated processes, like finding the right doctor when you have been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer? Do you just go to any oncologist? Probably not. At minimum, you seek the opinions of others to find out who specializes in treating the cancer you have. If at all possible, you will travel to where “the best” specialist practices. Why? Because we all understand that even within the realm of “expertise” there are “experts.”

However, sometimes we do not seek out expert help even when we need it most. Why? I think we are often afraid of our limitations, and admitting we need help in some manner means admitting there are areas we do not possess the power we want to have over our lives. I once dated a guy who refused mid-panic attack, to go to a doctor or seek out counseling. Why? The answer given was something along the lines of, “I just don’t do that.” This same guy would call Katmandu if it meant being put in-touch with an expert regarding something he was interested in and needed help with because this type of expert help did not seem like an affront to his masculinity or a threat to the ways he had always “done” his life. Therapy, on the other hand, did feel threatening. He was himself an expert at something, and he relished being able to teach that expertise to others. In fact, he was quite good at it. Yet he would not consider that the inner workings of his being needed some expert attention.

Pride going before the fall?

On the one hand, we have harmful hubris where we try to belittle someone for not being the same as us in some fundamental way we consider paramount to our sense of having a worthwhile existence. On the other hand, we allow our own sense of self-protection to get in the way of accepting the very help we need the most. Pride, self-confidence, hubris, need, problems, and just plain old stupidity make for an awful mess. I am left wondering how to make sense of myself—especially the things I am good at—without needing to add the caveats of the things I am bad at. For instance, “I am really good at understanding where a person is coming from when they describe a problem to me, but I am not good at parking my car straight!” These two things have nothing to do with one another, yet I find myself smooshing them up close when identifying the areas of my greatest strengths. Somehow—in the name of not being too prideful—we feel the social pressure to always add the caveat of “but.”

One night, Pixie and I were talking about relationships. She kept encouraging me that when it comes to being open and revealing myself as a part of intimacy, I did the “right thing” in past relationships. She also used her famous line of: “You are the prize. You deserve to be won.” In other words, Pixie loves me and thinks I am a great girl. I got caught up in our conversation and began to list my gifts and strengths. At one point, she laughed and said, “Yeah…those, and humble too.” I know she meant no harm whatsoever, but the point is clear from a social construct standpoint; you need to believe in yourself, but only to a point. After you reach that point, you enter the world of bragging and need to be brought back to “reality.”

Really?

I often am told that I am intimidating. I am good at a great deal of things. (This is where I would now normally enter all the other things I am not good at, but in an exercise of restraint I am resisting—painfully.) I feel like one of my greatest strengths is playing to people’s gifts. I try and focus on the good stuff. In areas I wish someone would “grow the fuck up,” if I see even one little improvement, I will bless it up and down as good. I figure that complimenting the goodness and ignoring the ickiness goes a long way. I know I receive this back from others too. So why then am I intimidating?

I think one reason is that I just go for the truth no matter what. I am willing to say the hard stuff—almost never to hurt and almost always to heal. I feel so much of my life was lived in a dungeon of fear and lies that I cannot imagine perpetuating those things in my here-and-now. My truth does include the areas where I have some growing edges, but on the whole I am very happy with the woman I am in the world. I am proud of my willingness to grow, change, accept help, invest in others, and care with a sense of radical welcome. I am a neat person, and I do not want to lord that over anyone, or deny my beauty at the altar of social graces.

One of my Clinical Pastoral Education supervisors told me she felt my greatest challenge was to accept being “extraordinary.” My current journey has brought me back to this challenge. In looking back at the extraordinary seven year-old within and the creativity and gumption she utilized to survive, I find myself embracing my own gifts in a new way. I am also working to resist the social urge to offer up disclaimers or stories of “imperfection.” Not because I seek to be perfect–I do not. I only want to fully accept the extraordinary woman within and let go of the fear of being great because it might bring further isolation.

Here is my favourite quote from Marianne Williamson:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Here are my favourite things about me; humility not included:

• Kindness
• Compassion
• Understanding
• Creativity—both with colour and design and with problem solving
• Ability to forgive and forget
• Ability to change
• Ability to move on after great pain
• Scrappy
• A survivor
• Good cook
• Good listener
• Good story teller
• Will go out of my way for a friend
• Tenacious
• Smart—scary smart
• Ingenious
• Loving
• Generous, even when it hurts sometimes
• Not just focused on myself and what I want or what is convenient for me
• Quick learner
• Not afraid to get hurt—most of the time
• Patient
• Take the long view
• Have gumption
• Tell the truth
• Wicked funny, but not mean spirited
• Curious
• Open
• Liberal
• Willing to learn/be taught
• I get “it”
• Cool in my own book nerd way
• Pretty
• Emotionally honest
• I set goals and follow-through
• Willing to seek out help and take advice from others
• Trust my inner voice
• Athletic
• Able to walk out to the precipices of life with people
• Sexy
• A good and honest writer
• An excellent public speaker
• Able to meet people where they are
• An excellent hugger, but an even better kisser—among other things I am creative at
• Well read
• Stellar vocabulary
• Analytical
• Reasonable
• Logical
• Sweet
• Not afraid of sacrifice
• Willing to laugh at myself

What are yours?

As I have been pondering the strange working of my inner child, who at the moment seems to be more of an “outie” than an “innie,” I began to wonder what she looks like. In my mind’s eye, I do not have me at age seven fixed. If anything, I would tell you how I was so much taller than everyone else, awkward, not as pretty, frumpy, and that I had big feet. I set out all my picture boxes and began to look for this girl, only to find a sweet looking beautiful seven year-old with hair the same colour I pay to achieve these days. She looks no different than her friends, although her smile is often more genuine. She seems to laugh from the heart. She does not look frumpy, and by today’s standards rather cute. She does have big feet though–some things never change! Mostly, what I notice about her physically is her eyes. When I was little people would often comment about what big eyes I had–Red Riding Hood style. Here is my formal Seventh Birthday Photograph, where my big eyes really are noticeable:

This is also the same little girl who met a man who would molest her for the first time when he asked her if it was ok to marry her mother. Accepting the molestation went hand-in-hand with the proposal–”I will be your Daddy, and you will let me touch you.” The deep earth shattering need to be loved and accepted by a father after my own real Daddy’s death was met with this bittersweet promise from John. Here are Mother, me and John running through a deluge of birdseed on their wedding day:

Looking at these photographs brings the tears–they flow so easily right now–but these photos also evoke in me a sense of my own strength. I am just a little girl. A sweet lovely child who would write to her Grandmother letters about how her Grandmother was a “doll” and her “very best friend.” This is also the same little girl who stood before her whole congregation with her hands clenched around the microphone and prayed her friend would not die, who laid close to death in the Intensive Care Unit, because she just could not take one more person she loved dying. This little girl ingeniously went away to Summer Camp and made her mother a ceramic dog, given her Mother swore to ANYONE who would listen that her next dog would be ceramic. Jacquie Turner gave her present to her mother, accepted the bestowed gratitude, and then asked, “Now that you have your ceramic dog, can we please get a real one for me?” The Lhaso God would bring her–Mindy–would become her companion and confidant. They would hide together in the closet away from John and snuggle. Is it any wonder having a dog represents life to me still?

gratuitous photo of Emma

This little girl also survived. Can you imagine that? I think now of being harmed in some way, and I do not know how I would make it through except that I know I can because I already did! Somehow–luckily–the gifts of the happy accident of my birth, combined with my lifelong desire to listen to the Still Small Voice of Love inside me, have given me the courage to fight for my life again and again. The most vulnerable and youngest version of me was assaulted in the most vile and vicious ways. And that child–she lived! She fought her way out with the hope–the imagination–that things would change and not always be the same way. She found beautiful ways to express herself, mostly through art. The same love and imagination about God and God’s creativity and love for humanity still beats in my own heart today. She was full of gifts–so am I.

When I look at these photographs of little seven year-old Jacquie Turner I am in awe. This child survived so I might have this precious life I now live. This child survived so I might thrive. This child survived because love is stronger than death–or all of the other ways we seek to destroy ourselves and others. This child survived the best way she knew how, including eating ice cream to try and make John go away and to make the bad feelings go away too. I owe her my very life, so when she is running around on fire and screaming for cupcakes, I understand. I just owe it to her to comfort her with compassion and with honesty, and only every so often a yummy dessert. I owe our future better than just hiding in the closets of my life with Emma, hoping the bad men won’t come and hurt us.

She survived so I could have a real life. I owe her living mine to the fullest.

This little piece is what I presented to my congregation March 30, 2008 for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Please check out the American Cancer Society and the Colon Cancer Alliance’s websites for additional information on this “Preventable. Treatable. Beatable.” disease.

Good morning.

The purpose of my coming before you today is threefold:
1. To help engage your imaginations about the ministry I am a part of on your behalf working with those who suspect they have or who do have Colorectal Cancer. I began in January after leaving my work as a hospice chaplain.
2. To talk to you about the importance of routine screenings for colorectal cancer, given March has been Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
3. And thirdly, to keep my promise to Pastor Laurie to not talk about the poop too much! Of course numbers one and two are all about the poop!

You know, talking about the poop is what makes being in this church—and in our denomination—unique and special. We try to face our fears when it comes to the tough stuff. I grew up in churches where women were told to deny the call of God on their hears just because of their gender. Yet Congregationalist woman Antoinette Brown was ordained by her congregation in 1853. I stand before you today talking to you as a woman minister because of the witness of this congregation in my life these last 13 years of my membership. I am here because of our willingness to come and reason together about what the faithful life entails for our whole person, and because of our covenant together to support one another when the poop hits the fan!

And at some point, it always does.

My work puts me in contact with people from all over the country dealing with the messiness of life.  Some may call me with simple questions about screening, while others face terribly hard dilemmas about the efficacy of continuing treatment when the colorectal cancer is devouring their liver, their lungs, their body. I counsel people about where God is in their suffering. I hold their story as sacred, even as they struggle to understand how Cancer came to their door. I guide. I educate. I listen. And every single day I stand at the threshold of our failed medical system, and often out of compassion school people without insurance or means on ways to work the system to get screening or treatment. Even as I stand here today, I fear my message will strike a chord in someone who needs to be screened but cannot afford it. “Here, at Coral Gables Congregational Church?” you might ask. For at least six years of my membership here I was one of the millions of Americans living without health insurance. Did you know me then? “So, yes. Even here.”

When we are willing to talk about the poop, we are willing to acknowledge that it is not a problem someone else has “over there” that we might sweep in on our white horses and save them from, but instead we acknowledge that it is right here in our midst. Or as the bestselling children’s book by Taro Gomi points out, “Everyone poops.” And because of that, each one of us here is at risk of developing this terrible disease. That is the bad news, but the good news is that with routine screening—starting at the age of 45 if you are African American or age 50 for everyone else of normal risk—colon cancer can be found before it is—well, cancer. Getting your routine colonoscopy every ten years does not just tell you if you have cancer, but can actually be both preventative and curative if you have polyps or one of the early stages of this disease. Even though colorectal cancer grows slowly, getting it out early helps to ensure that it does not have any time to pierce the wall of the colon and spread, which is most often fatal.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among men and women combined—only lung cancer beats it. Yet the only way we see a decrease in deaths is due to screenings. Why don’t people want to get screened? Fear. Dave Barry summarized this fear in a recent essay as, “You don’t want a doctor to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your butt.” And for him, it was only when his younger brother—who did not put off getting screened at 50 like he did—announced that he had colon cancer that Dave finally went to be screened. As Dave pointed out: What if his brother had put it off like he did?  Sadly, he most likely would have had a terminal version of the disease.

The beauty of our faith and our faith community is that we come together to grow to be whole people of God. Whole people. God is still speaking to us, my brothers and sisters, in our day and age with our advances in being able to help prevent this disease. The number one commandment in the Bible—said over 60 times in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures—is, “Do not fear.” So I tell you today the same thing, “Do not fear the poop! God will be with you!”

And I will be in Fellowship Hall after the service with brochures and to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you.

Working as a hospital and hospice chaplain over the last eight years, I can trace certain themes I repeatedly hear from my patients and their families. These themes include: questioning of why bad things happen to “good” people; the meaning in suffering; the timeliness or “out-of-time” sense when someone dies; trust issues with the medical community; causality; God’s intervention (or lack there of) in our lives; and the meaning of hope/feelings of despair. You know…the light stuff! The most common spiritual intervention I provide directed at a single place of spiritual suffering centers on the popular myth: “God never gives us more than we can handle.”

I write the word “myth” intentionally because indeed this is just that–a myth. We human beings created this idea out of our own hope that it might be true, but not based on any ancient sacred text we might hold to within either the Jewish or Christian traditions. There is a text in the Christian Scriptures that does have somewhat similar language, so the popular consensus is that it has been misquoted just enough to get the other idea into our popular lexicon. The text comes from I Corinthians 10:13 where the Apostle Paul writes, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” The part that is interesting four our discussion is where he writes, “[God] will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” I guess we could call this “Biblical Telephone!” One person after another tweaks it just enough that over time we ended up “God never gives us more than we can handle.”

The problem comes from when we go around spouting off this myth as Biblical truth and live our lives by it!  Worse yet, we often tell this to people truly hurting as a way to try and assuage their pain.  Would you feel better to know that when the most horrible pain of your life is upon you–and you feel like you are going insane from not being able to bear it, yet having to anyways–to know that God had allocated this pain for you knowing you could handle it?

Just recently I spoke to a woman on the Helpline I answer who struggled with this notion. She had just been diagnosed as Stage IV, and she was shattered. She endured more grief and loss in the last twelve years than most, and now with hardly any emotional, physical, spiritual, or financial resources must wage war on this horrific disease–after being Stage Zero a couple of years ago and given the “all clear.” In our conversation, the issue of why would God be “giving” her the cancer came up. Why? Because she had been taught (most likely at church!), “God never gives us more than we can handle.” The implication is that God is giving the cancer for some higher purpose. She told me she believes in a loving God, which led me to ask, “Is a loving God then the creator of your heartache?” I reminded my caller–who is a Christian–of Jesus’ own words on the cross, in which he quoted the Psalmist saying, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” I believe those words are the cries of someone who intimately knows what it means to endure much much more than they can handle.

If the ancient Hebrew and/or Christian Scriptures are important to you, let me direct you a gem from Proverbs 18:14: “A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” I do believe that feeling supported, loved and cared for while we battle the diseases within (and the dis-ease without) help us to heal in body, mind and spirit. This is why it is so important to surround ourselves during our healing journeys with those who can listen and hold the most fragile of moments–those times of despair, anger, hurt and loss–and celebrate with us the moments of life, hope, love and laughter we will experience even with disease. No one can bear our pain or illness for us–in that we are totally alone–but they can carry us while we bear it by carrying our spirit close to their own. Without that, our spirits will be literally crushed, and that is too much to bear.

My encouragement to you today my dear friends is this: God is not the author of our heartache or our broken bodies. We are fragile and live in a fragile world where brokenness is par for the course. God (or Love, if that fits your spirit better) is, however, always wanting to be part of the circle of support cheering us on, believing in our power to create goodness and beauty in a place where there is pain, and encircling us with comfort in the living we are doing right now…even when it is truly more painful than we can bear.

In the recent past, everytime I went to lose the rest of the weight I gained as a kid, not to mention the 10 “Post Apocalyptic” (aka post-break-up) pounds, I gained a tiny bit of weight instead. The earth would feel like it was shifting beneath me when someone would mention how I looked thinner, and then the cupcake eating would commence. After dropping over 70 pounds, to find my weight creeping back up with repeated attempts to lose weight was more than discouraging–heartbreaking would be the right word. I knew I was not gaining weight because I longed for The Bean to come back or felt some sense of unresolved emotion towards him. No! I was doing this to myself when I would feel the earth tilt. But why the tilt?

Here is my mental loop: I lose more weight, I become more attractive and desirable to men. I become more desirable, I could even end up dating someone more than three times (my limit last year before booting someone to the curb), and fall in-love. I fall in-love, am vulnerable, and then I could get left. Again. I do not want to go through that again–even as a deep part in me acknowledges this is always the risk of love–so I put on the weight to be less desirable, less attractive, and more safe. Build the walls. Keep out the love. Stay safe.

I could see it, but I felt utterly powerless and without creativity to address the issue. Since December, I could articulate this, and since December I have had at least 5 cupcakes!!! (I could go for one right now while writing this…and let me tell you that if you are in the market for a cupcake the ones at Fresh Market are TO DIE FOR!)

Did I mention that I really am not a big cake or cupcake person? I think (under normal conditions) that they are too sweet. I prefer soft serve ice cream or yogurt to any other dessert. Sweet, but not too sweet. Cold, smooth, creamy. I do not really like cupcakes! Yet here I am CRAVING cupcakes every time I drop a bloody pound.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with their problems. Amongst my loved ones we have a smattering of potato chip munching, cigarette smoking, workaholic, motorcycle riding, Jesus loving, Diet Coke drinking, scrap booking, gambling alcoholics. And those are just the ones who live on the West Coast of Florida! I believe in having a multitude of tricks–mostly healthy–in my arsenal, so when one fails another is at the ready. I ride my bike like a feign; I ration the chocolate; I talk to friends and family; I go for a walk; I play with Emma; I write this blog–but those fucking cupcakes kept calling out to me. “Don’t lose weight! Stay where you are! You will feel so much better and more calm when you have one! Everything will be fine if you just get up and go have a cupcake! Drink it with skim milk–then it won’t be that fattening! You rode your bike twice already today–have another cupcake!”

Fucking cupcakes.

The cupcakes are not the real issue, so having run out of other RATIONAL coping skills I marched myself back to therapy. Now to appreciate my current therapeutic experience, you must first picture a Datsun 280 ZX driving aging Hippie with a “No Nukes” bumper sticker and a Grateful Dead “quilt” (don’t ask) on his wall with his diplomas. The ponytail, vintage Danish/early 80’s office furniture, and Converse canvas sneakers round out the “ambiance.” This is a guy who sits back, listens to every word, is so non-judgmental and smart you suspect he had you figured out when you made the appointment, and then talks to you in such a practical gentle manner that you wonder why the hell you are paying him to tell you what you already know. But then again, knowing is not my issue. Figuring out what to do next is.

Like any therapist worth their salt, Obi-Wan Kenobi (the therapist) poked around in my past in order to get to know me. I did mention to him on the phone that I needed help in the “here and now” and that I had “dealt with a lot of the shit of the past, and really was not looking to dredge up that stuff or start again looking at it.” Uh-huh.

Given how my past includes the issues of disease, death, abandonment, molestation, threats of suicide and homicide, stalking, rape, and trust–I tend to be wary of beginning any new venture in therapy despite how much good it has done me in the past. I always feel defensive and want to shout at the new therapist, “I am ok! I have worked really hard! I am not as fucked up as you will assume I am! Please give me some credit! Please validate my journey before I met you! I am strong! I will kick your ass if I need to!” And under my breath I whisper, “I am totally scared shitless that the past will haunt me again and the next time I won’t make it. I worry that I am a failure at this healing business because I still am working on the weight stuff and because despair still finds me. I cannot control being vulnerable. I hate being in a relationship because I know there are no guarantees. I want to be loved because I have a lot to give, but trust seems like to high a price to pay. I am lonely sometimes. I want someone else to validate my worthiness to be loved, although I know I must believe that for myself first…but sometimes I am so full of doubt I don’t know how to.”

I cannot help but wonder: Why do I feel so creative, capable and strong and also feel so stuck, inadequate and fragile sometimes?

Obi-Wan listened and listened well. He told me my life has been made up of the big issues–not the small ones. They will always be with me. They will always be tinder for some jerk to come along and set fire to…or just life will set them on fire. Life is hard after all. I was vigilant with The Bean, but next time I need to pay better attention to the signs that someone is not healthy. A healthy person and an unhealthy person equal an unhealthy relationship. The Bean left, and my old shit got set on fire.

“Your inner 7 year-old is running around on fire screaming her head off inside of you. You will need to help her heal from The Bean before you can find your way to transcendence and then losing the weight.”

I love this image because it fits. I got it instantly. The Bean is only the second person since Daddy died my inner 7 year-old ever loved and trusted. John, my molesting murderous stalking step-father was the first. After not loving or trusting any man, she loved The Bean. He was fun! He gave her bike, promised to teach her how to do a cartwheel, saw all the good in her–the capacity to trust, to love, to experience, to excel–encouraged her to play, liked how smart she was, and he let her know in a myriad of ways that he would not betray her trust in him. And then he did, which only happened because I–the grown up Jacqueline–let him get close enough to her for her to get hurt. He hurt her. I betrayed her.

Obi-Wan pointed out to me that with The Bean seven-year old Jacquie finally went to sleep and rested. She still would wake up and cry sometimes out of fear, but the fact that I allowed myself to get so close to The Bean that I would allow myself to imagine really being with someone demonstrated my just how far and healthy I am–with her as a part of me. I had earned her trust enough to work through her immature and naive fears, which are never placated with rationality. Nurture yes, but logic no. More than anyone, she trusted me to keep her safe and to tell her who she could trust. More than anyone, she feels I let her down.

Seven year-old Jacquie only knows one way to deal with her terror when she feels she is in a trap where she will lose BIG again. She builds walls…walls of fat. These walls keep the fear at bay, the bad men away, and her safely protected against anymore betrayal or abandonment. They work for her–she is seven after all–but they do not work for me. I am on a journey now to comfort her, build up the trust with her again, and help her to let go of cupcakes making the world tilt right again.

February 28th is my “Reverse Day!” Instead of celebrating the Anniversary of my 28th Birthday, as I have for the last eight years, I am just going to go back this year. So, I am now 35 and have some of my memory back too! I loved being 35, so I think it suits me well! Here are some fun things that I love in honor of my Reverse Day:

Let us begin our gift giving with buying the art work of Philip Brooker. Why? I love how his work is grounded in story and yet some how transcends words with its provocative nature and beauty. I also believe he will be a household name in a year–think of it as a very good investment. You can see his illustrations at www.anicecupoft.com, and be sure to watch the little movie he made starring them.

Doesn’t this photo Barry Lewis took of him just make you smile?

If you can stay seated and listen to TTC’s “Travailler Orgasmic Mix” you must be paralyzed! I am not sure I would have a clue what they are talking about even if my French was better, but DAMN I love this song!

Speaking of things to just out and out love…

I have a major girl crush on Tina Fey. Did you catch this?

Don’t be a hater–I still love me some Obama–but Tina is the SHIT!

I so lust for this bike:

Strong enough for a boy, but made for an ass kickin MTB WOMAN!

Check out hi+lomodern A VINTAGE MODERN DESIGN STORE for some amazing 20th Century artifacts. I love Vera napkins and am always tearing through garage sales and thrift stores looking for them. This poster they have of her work exemplifies the simplicity, bold use of color, and strong lines she is known for:

This ring rocks too:

I cannot tell you how many people have commented when I wore these earrings from Lord & Taylor:

(I gave my pair to a special friend–so Mom…looking for a cool gift for me?)

I love beautiful stationary, and my home town of Coral Gables is sporting one fab store to fall in-love with–Paper and Concept. They have modern, clean stationary, with totally funky touches. I am not one for too much frill or flowers, so I embrace the simplicity of what they selected. I bought these amazing stock fold-over cards and made my own custom seals. I have a yellow fetish at the moment, and the yellow seal I did is so cool I do not want to put it in the mail! If you get it, it is only because I trust your sense of style and know you will appreciate getting it from me! You have to go in person to have the Paper and Concept experience, but their site does give you some of the flavour.

And of course my old standby favourite neighbourhood bookshop–Books and Books.

This is a great place to buy some of my favourite books of all time:

A Wrinkle In Time

Bel Canto

The Time Traveler’s Wife

Here If You Need Me

Honey I Love

Blessing the Boats

And what Reverse Day would be complete without some classic music?

From the Beatles:

And from Queen:

What components make up a “real man?” I hear men talking about not being a “pussy”–i.e. not being a woman–and illuminating the characteristics of being real. These contests often rely more on brawn than the strength of character. You took the dive off the cliff into the ocean’s cool waters. Can you be man enough to leap into a woman’s warm embrace and find solace there? You made the deal of a lifetime. Will you follow-through? You are a good person. Will you live by your word even when it is hard and difficult? Your body can lift the weight of another off the ground. Can you trust another person with your underbelly and know they will not sucker punch you when you are as vulnerable as Atlas?*

I do not think it is easy to be a real man in this unreal world. The weight of the world is firmly placed on men’s shoulders. They bear the burden of protection–physical and financial–from those men and women who utilize their power and brutality to harm the rest of us. Having integrity in the face of a rat race where lying and cheating are expectations, not exceptions, cannot be easy. Working unreal hours must make some men long for the days without electricity, where they were forced to draw up to the fire like Pa Ingalls by seven most nights. How many men do I know who have trouble sleeping? So much to do and so little time. Too much pressure all around to do, to be, to accomplish, to achieve, to surpass. No wonder many of them approach women in much the same manner they would a business deal. What is in it for me?

The so-called Men’s Movement attempts to move men towards a more egalitarian understanding of their gender role in life, while also addressing the often forgotten needs of fathers, the mythology of masculinity, and a reclaiming of it, amongst others. The Promise Keepers charge their followers to adhere to a moral Christian code within the confines of a narrow theology based on misogyny and a broken patriarchy. The gift within the Promise Keepers ideology is its focus on men keeping their word to the women in their lives and calling them to submission to God’s authority over their own self interests. The problem–as is often the case–is whose version of God’s authority wins? The God who smites those he hates? The God who kills the first born children of the enemy? The God who affirms women being seen as chattel? The God who commands colicky babies be smashed against a wall? Or instead will it be the God willing to hang on a tree like so many who are persecuted for their beliefs? Will it be the God of the poor and ill? Will it be the God who calls a woman to lead and not just serve? Will it be the God of Love for all persons, or just the God of persons not unlike themselves?

I see so many men who suffer in this world of flux and responsibility as they seek to rise above the patterns of destruction and disenfranchisement. I cheer them on towards the prize of a life of meaning! I also am cheering one of them on towards finding me, for I know I have the gifts, gumption and giving nature to make a real partnership with someone work. I do not aspire to sucker punch the man of my heart like so many women seem to be doing these days–I know, I keep dating their ex’s. I am so very tired of hearing story after story from men about the inhuman ways women treat them out of spite. Women need to celebrate the beauty and the strength of the men in their lives, and stop with the gender assassination every-time “he” does not do what “she” wants. For myself, I consciously work on never saying “MEN!” in response to some bad thing a particular male person did. I also correct my friends on this point, and name all the singular men of integrity I know–all of whom have an uncommon grace, but are not as rare as some might think.

I, myself, am looking for a man of uncommon grace. After recently finishing Kate Braestrup’s book Here If You Need Me, I felt inspired to articulate ten core qualities he will need to possess. Kate is an Unitarian Universalist minister serving as a Chaplain to the Game Wardens of Maine, and her book speaks of so much of what I find to be meaningful about walking beside people in ordinary and extraordinary ways as a Chaplain. She did not set out on that path, only finding it her calling after her husband died. Towards the end of the book, she writes an amazing passage about a conversation she and her four children have casually one day where they describe what the next man in their lives will be like, having been left hurt and disillusioned by the last. Simple words written by a child’s pencil end up on their fridge, and in time a man fitting those descriptors and so much more comes into all of their lives.

Here are the ten I put on my refrigerator:

1. Funny
2. Integrity
3. Smart
4. No children (or ex-wife)
5. Wants children
6. Willing to go to church
7. Kind hearted
8. Left
9. Serves
10. Active

There are some things, however, I “wish” for but did not make my top ten. Some of them include: rides a bike, reads books, loves dogs, never wears tank tops (click here to find out why), and has a purpose. I think being heterosexual falls into the “goes without saying” category! My friends, The Boys, were quick to point out that they would make the cut on my wishes and needs lists, but alas given they are Gay, they would N.O.T! That is the funny thing about lists, they are just starting off places. I am not looking for anything in anyone I do not have to offer, and I am more than mere words on a page. He must be too.

As I look over the list, I find myself surprised that Plant Geek was really the one person I dated who fit these the very best. And The Bean? He turned out to be 60% Guy. No thank you. I want my 100% Man, with all the surprises of what else makes him unique and special meted out along the way. This is what will make him real to me in the end–the aspects I cannot define but will cherish through the joy of knowing him. And in the meantime, I continue to focus on the joy of being me in the world and on the places I need to grow and change. I have a”little life left in me yet.”

Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside this woman’s work,
This woman’s world.
Ooh, it’s hard on the man,
Now his part is over.
Now starts the craft of the father.

I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.
I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can’t let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can’t stop thinking

Of all the things I should’ve said,
That I never said.
All the things we should’ve done,
Though we never did.
All the things I should’ve given,
But I didn’t.

Oh, darling, make it go,
Make it go away.

Give me these moments back.
Give them back to me.
Give me that little kiss.
Give me your hand.**

*”Farnese Atlas” Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy

The image and idea of the tenderness of men–like Atlas–comes from Norah Vincent’s amazing book Self Made Man.

** From Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work.”

I wrote the following prayer for “Seminarian Sunday” at my home congregation,

Coral Gables Congregational Church.

Today we come together to not only draw closer to the Source of Love—God—but also to one another. Inspired by this love, some of us have made the journey from the pew to the pulpit. For me, it was one of the hardest and loneliest journeys I ever made; it was also one of the most significant, beautiful and amazing journeys. I can remember being on this very chancel surrounded by more love than I had ever experienced in my whole life–many of you were there. Isn’t it amazing how life is like that? The bitter makes the sweet all that much more meaningful and rich.

Maybe you too have been on a journey like this—from student to teacher, from child to parent, from employee to employer, from caretaker to the one cared for, from married to single or single to married, from healthy to ill, or experienced the renewal of your body following an illness. All of us move from moth to butterfly. The ebb and flow of life continually has us in its grip, smoothing out our rough edges, sloughing away our dirt and grime, shaping us. So, as we pray today, let us pray for all of those on the lonely road of transition and transformation.

Loving God, you know us by heart. You know when we rise and when we fall. From far away you see our hearts and tenderly cradle us in your arms of comfort and rest. Even when we long for touch, connection, and love—we are not alone. You are with us. Hear our prayer.

We pray for all those who hear you asking, “Whom shall I send?” Help us to bravely venture forward and say, “Here I am Lord, send me.” May we hear you whispering in our ears to love your children more fully today.

We pray for all those who sacrifice the prestige, wealth and comfort they see their peers obtain in order to humble themselves before the hurting world. Be with them and all who sacrifice their comfort for your good.

We pray for those who fear paying their bills, feeding their family, getting the car fixed, or losing their home. You have given us enough resources and the creativity to take care of one another—help us to let go of our greed so everyone has what they need.

We pray for those who feel isolated and alone as they struggle to transform their body, their mind, their heart, their spirit. Change is never easy, but it is always constant in our lives. Change hurts, and pain is so isolating—even from you dear God. May your hand place a healing balm in our lives and may we feel carried by those who love us.

We pray for those facing a spiritual crisis today, trying to sort out the facts from the mythology, the truth from the minutia, the hope from the despair. May your cloud by day and fire by night illuminate our path and help us come to a place of imagination in what is possible and acceptance in the beauty of the questions.

We pray for those who are looking today for the face of God—waiting expectantly for just one person to listen, care, be tender, forgive, understand or hold. May we be your face of unconditional love in the world.

We pray for transformation, sweet Jesus. We pray to be made new. Come and see the deepest part of our hearts, and revive us so we might be strengthened to love again today. Hear our prayer.

Amen.

I love my niece Morgan. She is smart, wicked funny, hard working, kind and helpful. She is also a smart ass and quite possibly the world’s worst driver. Ever since she realized she could get her Driving Permit at fifteen, she begged to drive. Of course this meant that by the time fifteen rolled around, dear Morgan was sure she already knew everything there was to know about driving, and she graduated herself a world class driver. Unfortunately, this is really only true if there are no other cars, humans, animals, traffic signals, speed limits, or state governments. She has been driving for almost four years, but spent a good six months of that with a suspended license courtesy of the State of Georgia. A friend’s head in the windshield of the Suburban she totaled…moving violations untold…accidents, bumpings and scratchings of other vehicles, and girfriend has yet to get a clue.

Now her need to reform her driving skills with intention is a topic for another day. Today’s topic is her current cockamamie scheme to get a new car. Morgan has an alcoholic truck to haul her horse around, but the car she was driving committed suicide on a mountain road. (Maybe it thought it should just give up before she plowed it into someone or something and it died a wretched mangled death?) Her parents found a reasonably priced used Jetta and began to investigate the soundness of the engine. When Sista told this to Morgan she said, “Well Mom, that sounds good, but I was thinking about getting a new Scion.” (Huh?) “The car costs only eighteen thousand dollars, and I found this really great loan where I can just pay the interest for ten years, and then start on the principle. The only catch is that I need you to co-sign.”

There really is nothing quite like paying down an eighteen thousand dollar loan on a ten year-old car!

I just about fell apart laughing til I pooted and cried when Sista told me this story.  Never fear I am laughing with my dear sweet Morgan! I know better than to laugh at her–I used to BE HER! The only difference to my cockamamie schemes were that they always contained an altruistic spin. If I had proposed this to Miss Audrey, I would have put it this way: “Mom, let’s borrow twenty thousand dollars–eighteen for the car and then I can give the other two thousand to charity!”

Let me give you a real example from the annals of my own childhood of my altruistic scheming: I once convinced my Cousin Bopper that we needed to stay up after our bedtime at our Grandmother’s house and then proceed to make Tollhouse Chocolate Cookies as a “surprise” for our family. You know, there is nothing quite like the early morning surprise of a freshly baked cookie. I could see my mother, aunts and Grandmother awaken at seven in the morning. They would pad out to the kitchen to begin making a breakfast of eggs, grits and sausage. And then it would hit them! They would want a chocolate chip cookie! But dear God there were none at my Grandmother’s house!  What horror and longing they would experience!  Someone had to come to their rescue, so I devised a plan to ensure their deepest desire and NEED would be met. (I am kind like that.)  Cousin Bopper and I would make the cookies! Oh the joy they would experience in the morning because of our willing sacrifice!

The plan was simple: We would stay awake until everyone went to sleep. We would get up and make the cookies. Of course our Grandmother’s home was not that big, and the sound of the beaters might wake up our family and ruin the surprise. The only solution to this problem was to make the cookies in my Grandmother’s single car garage--right on the hood of her white Fleetwood Cadillac!

Maybe we did not get in too much trouble when my Aunt Gail (Bopper’s Mama) found us in the garage because cockamamie schemes are a family tradition. Our mothers are just two of eight, so when family stories include thrown rotten tomatoes, diarrhea in the foyer of a neigbouring apartment building, and exploding cans of tar “someone” threw on a fire, they tend not too be too upset about making cookies on a Fleetwood.

Either that, or they too really wanted a Tollhouse with their morning coffee!

So here’s to Morgan and all the other women of my family who have yet to see a problem and not creatively come up with a cockamamie scheme and solution!

My friend Pixie and I recently began a series of conversations about yummy older men we know. She takes her son to a sexy sixty-something therapist who projects confidence, knowledge and humor in such a way Pixie is more than a tad mesmerized. I have The Scoundrel, amongst others. We agree these men project a kind of allure younger men just do not possess; but why? What makes these men so interesting and intriguing to two thirty-something young women who normally date men YOUNGER than they are?

Now the simple answer might be: You girls have Father issues! I agree we need to consider this possibility, but for myself I reject this explanation. For one thing, spending $100,000 on therapy dealt with the vast majority of my issues. For another, I have been blessed by having a whole series of lovely men serve as mentors to my life in one way or another: Steve Gilchrist, Kirk Whiteside, Tommy Russell, Dennis Nason, Joe Holland, Joe Moran, Raymond Hargrove, Richard Congdon and Bill Koch…to name a few. These men filled the gaps the death of my father and the arrival of John created for me. At all the points in my growing up excellent role models of what it meant to be a man of integrity met me where I was and nurtured me. For me, I reject the idea of my attraction to an older man being equated to unfulfilled Father needs; Pixie will need to speak for herself!

I must admit how surprised I am to find older men so deeply attractive at this juncture of my life, for I have coveted younger men. Feeling I arrived at the Party of Life so late, I really felt owed a younger man with whom I could build the life I thought I might want with the “right person.” I wanted my chance at bat without the already told stories of ex-wives, children, or dreams broken. I wanted my own love story no one else ever had, and I felt I deserved it because of everything I went through to even get to the Party of Life at all. I can remember when I first started dating The Bean feeling like all the shit of the past was somehow more bearable because the path finally revealed a boy who was excited about who I was in the world and who did not seem intimidated by me or my gifts. Appearances were misleading in that regards, but it did fulfill a fantasy of a sort…for a time. In retrospect, I realize his presence also revealed a deep need in me–namely my desire to be with someone who is excited about who I am and what I bring to the world. I also want to feel that way about him.

I think part of why I never thought much about men older than me relates to my mother marrying someone 19 years her senior–twice! In fact, her current husband is her youngest one ever at just 16 years older. I saw a beautiful 39 year-old woman bury her husband, and Daddy being older played a role in his death. My half sisters had him into their twenties. I could not help but think if Mother had married someone younger I would not have lost my Dad at six. I just could never understand what she found so damn attractive in him when she was 32 and he was 51. I did not understand until Maria’s funeral.

At Maria’s funeral, her husband spoke. His eulogy marked her life and his own. He made the comment: “Forty years ago I can remember being a young man and wondering what my life would be–how it would turn out. Now most of life’s questions have been answered…” In that one moment, I got it. I understood how Daddy offered Mother a man who was not lost or searching to figure out who he was in the world. He offered her a man who possessed self assurance and was settled. He had already become. Mother, at 32, also had already become. She had her own money, a career to be proud of, position, clout, and most importantly, Mother knew exactly who she was.

Pixie and I have been dating all these boys who whine and moan about not knowing what they want to be when they finally grow up. When exactly that will be, we really do not know. I read that adolescence has been extended way past where Evolution would place it because of all of our modern luxuries, and I must say I believe this to be true. How many men do I meet who are in their late twenties or thirties who still have no idea who they are, what they want to contribute to the good of the world, or what passion lights their fire? I know plenty of men who have no idea where they stand on any number of issues–other than a cursory “yes” or “no”–and I know plenty of men more than willing to highlight all of the problems in others or in the world but never willing to do one damn thing about any of it or the shit in their own lives! These same men seem to always meet women not up to their standards, calling many of the women they meet “irrational, emotional, crazy bitches.” And–here is the real kicker–they would rather be with the “crazy bitch” who tells them exactly who they are than be with the woman who wants to know them and delight in their dreams for their life coming true!

I cannot help but wonder: Is it wrong to want to be with a man who does not call his friends a “pussy” when they do not “man-up” and do something the Boy-Code demands? Is it wrong to want to be with a man who wants to spend time cozying up to your pussy, but who also does not think you are just a piece of ass? Is is wrong to want to be with a man who can handle listening to your perspective without needing to call you a cunt behind your back when you are right and he is wrong? Is it wrong to want to be with a man who admires you and in whom you can be proud?

No.

But why does it seem these men only come in older packages these days?

I do believe there is such a thing as too old. The widower of a former patient who is in his eighties likes to tell me how he is in love with me and invites me to live in his home. Silly me, but I do not think it is real love. I think he just needs someone to empty his urinal! He keeps saying to me, “Age is only a number.” Yes; if you are an older man and win the Evolutionary Lottery and have a younger woman interested in you. But when she rejects you because you are too old, it is because age is the only number that counts. As I asked my friend Stepford, “Is there such a thing as too young for an older man?” Probably not. But there is such a thing as too old for us younger girls. Pixie and I will keep up the debate about the age threshold, and keep admiring those yummy older men we know. How could we not? They are self-assured sexy personified!

My Dear Faithful Reader,

We have come to the first anniversary of my blog. First of all, thank you so very much for the affirmation of reading my blog (some of you more than my own Mama!) and sharing with me the places my writing touched you and your story. I must say I am rather surprised by all of this! What started as a way to post photos of my then six week-old puppy Emma–who was still living with her Birth Mother at the time–transformed into something I never expected. I grieved the loss of a meaningful relationship. I worked through much of what it meant for me to work as a hospice chaplain. I highlighted the hilarities of my dating life. And, most importantly, I educated you on men in tank tops!

Given Top Ten Lists are so passe I say, “Nine is Fine!” Here are my favourite nine posts from this last year:

9. I Heart Atheists! This post is dedicated to my patient “Hank,” of whom I wrote. I am glad he is no longer struggling to breathe or to find love.

8. Posting My Big Secret This post received the most private email because people were worried about me. In many ways it was the hardest to write. I reveled an important secret, and in so doing found a way to tell my closest and dearest just how much despair (my definition of anti-hope) I felt following the break-up. This post continues to have meaning for me due to my continuing love of Post Secret, and because I hope by exposing my pain–even as a minister–others fearing the only way through is out might feel comforted.

7. I’m Coming Out: Jesus Know About My Vibrator The year’s most embarrassing and second funniest post. I still cringe when people ask me for my website address thinking about them reading this particular post. Of course this is exactly why it is on this list–I am a glutton for embarrassing myself on this blog with the bitter truth. For the record–and thankfully–I have had sex since I wrote this post! (Once.)

6. The Whispering God Where is God when bad things happen to good people? In part, this post contains my answer to this question and my own thinking about God’s intervention–and lack there of–in our lives.

5. 40 Reasons I Make A Great Girlfriend (and her evil twin 40 Reason I Will Drive You Crazy & Am Not Perfect) This was so much fun, and I met my friend in Austria through putting up the “Great Girlfriend” list on craigslist.

4. A Rose Garden Relationship I continue to think about what I wrote in this post. If there is such a thing as your own writing being a gift to you, it would be this post. I feel it helped me clarify what relationship values continue to remain important to me and also what I ultimately have to offer all of my relationships, including the one I have with myself.

3. You Play, You Pay This post about my prayer for my Aunt Charlyne to come to terms with her cancer and still remains at the forefront of my thinking about her. She finished her second round of chemo, and she will find out next week the results of her latest PET scan. She told us at Christmas she feels the cancer is spreading.  All my work with patients has taught me our bodies tell us the truth–even long before the tests and doctors do–so I cannot help but wonder if hers is telling her a truth now. I do not know what will happen with her body, but I know she will be surrounded by love regardless of the outcome. This is what matters most.

2. Tank Top Wearing Man Candy? The single funniest thing I have ever written! I cannot see a man in a tank top without thinking: “Baby, if you only knew how I felt about THAT!” If you love it too, please go out to Urban Dictionary and suggest “The Tribble Factor” for a word/definition.

1. The Mango Tree My homage to my father and the continuing bonds of love death cannot separate us from and how these bonds continue to inform our present and propel us into our future.

Here is to a wonderful Year Two!

This is the Eulogy I wrote for my patient I called “My Love.” Maybe you will see a small part of yourself in times of great struggle when you read this:

As I began to think about what I wanted to say about my dear patient—whom I loved greatly and who I know loved me as well—I kept hearing the song from “The Sound of Music” in my head where the nuns sing: “How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” “Maria” was definitely a firecracker and a moonbeam! In all honesty, I did not meet the same Maria her family describes because in many ways that version of her never existed in the same way after she after her hospice admission in April of 2005. Maria never could fully accept the myriad of her life changes or heal into the person who rose from those ashes. And yet, her spirit—that “moonbeam”—could not be stopped by COPD or hospice…even if Maria struggled to see that for herself at times.

I once asked her to describe her life before she took that long last final terminal turn. She told me how much she “enjoyed her children” and how they had “always been [her] heart’s desire.” Children and animals…Maria drew close to her the tiniest and the most tender. She described herself as being handy, artistic, creative, fun, funny, and “a pleasure to be around.” She also felt like the disease not only was choking the life out of her body, but also that the process had stolen all the life out of living in the here and now. This was the Maria—“My Love” as I usually called her —whom I met in September of 2006. I met a woman ravaged by a disease and full of dis-ease as a result.

It was love at first sight. You may find this so odd given I am standing here breaking the cardinal rule of Memorial Services and talking about the tough stuff! Knowing My Love as I did, I think she would be proud of me for being willing to be honest about just how “shitty” this was for her these last few years. And no, she would not mind one bit that the Minister said “shitty”—it was a favourite word of hers after all! (She also had a way with the f-word, something I appreciated, but let’s have a tiny bit of decorum here.) I also know she would be proud of me for seeing into her—into her deepest most beautiful and hurting heart—she liked to say to me, “Intimacy means “into-me-see.” And I did see her intimately—broken, anxious, hurting, longing, suffering, grieving, wanting, hoping, searching, funny, smart, creative, insightful, wise, kind, loving, honest—brutally honest. I heard her laugh, rubbed her back as she cried, kissed her cheek, had her frail arms embrace me, and her hand cup my face—not to mention I have been the recipient of her pointed right finger on more than one occasion! I am so sad that I will not see her again…and I am so happy for her that she finally has the peace she sought and needed so desperately.

Part of why I love her so much relates to the tenacity she showed to stay her course no matter what. We all suffer in prisons of our own making, but even in those places where we are literally marking the days on the wall, life is possible. I read about how Nelson Mandela kept a garden on Robbins Island, where he was a prisoner for 27 years. He said it was his lifesaver. Maria kept a garden of her own in many ways. From little rituals that defined her life, to meaningful friendships where the introduction was based on her decline, not her beauty, wit or brains. She tried to sort out the story of her life, to try and find meaning with the terribly unfair thing that had happened to her. She tried to grieve all she lost on the way to losing her life. She sought peace. Maria showed unparalleled strength and courage in the face of devastation. She held on—tightly, mind you—for so much longer than most of us could even imagine doing if we were in her place.

Like all of us, she would often ask me why this had happened to her. She blamed herself for ever smoking, but I am here today to promise you that none of us “deserves” to have our breath taken away from us by a terrible disease. I know it is such a normal human desire to try and make sense of things by figuring out the cause-and-effect. Let me tell you the universal truth of why we suffer: We suffer because we do…it is part of what it means to be human. Human beings break—mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The Blame Game never leads to healing, and when we break, to have courage to try and heal in the face of that brokenness—well that is true bravery. Maria had a brave spirit because she tried, and she held on, and she continued to laugh for as long as she possibly could—even when it was through her panic and tears. Yes, even this last month of her life when she became too weary to talk most of the time, she would carefully spit out each and every word of a zinger and make her family laugh!

Maria was not a superhero; she was just a woman…a human being like all of us here. She never walked on the moon. She never received a miraculous healing and lived to tell about it on Oprah. She never won the adulation of the masses or had her words or artwork revered. But she was a ray of light—a moonbeam to those of us here—and that was something her disease never stole from her. As each of us carries some part of her humor, her love, her life, her mischief, her spirit, her story in our own hearts, she continues to live on and bless us. I don’t think she would want it any other way.

Closing Prayer for Maria’s Celebration of Life:

God, we possess great imagination about who you might be, and we cling to the ideas about you our brothers and sisters share. Our brother David said you know everything about us…that you examine our hearts. Do you know each moment we sit or stand? Do you really count the hairs on our heads? We need you to, for we suffer and need to know you are with us even in the darkest place or the deepest valley. Find us and comfort us with your tender embrace.

God, we wonder if you know our thoughts when we are far away from you? Come quickly and hear them now sweet Shepard. We are full of love, remembrance, humor, and longing for our dear beloved Maria. We are so grateful she can breathe deeply now because her lungs, spirit and mind are at peace, and we are so sad that we will only hear her laughter in our memories. Comfort each one here—especially her family—and may the promise be true that if we ride the wings of the morning or dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide us and your strength will support us. And help us to hold tightly to all of our stories, memories and love of Marsha, so we might speak of her and keep her spirit alive within us for as long as we live. Amen.

Sometimes I fall in-love very easily and shamelessly with my patients. I do not mean to speak of romantic love, but instead of how a special spark will exist and you just love instantly as a result. I recognize how common threads from my life and theirs act as catalysts, but sometimes I am at a total loss for why I feel so compelled by them and their stories, loved ones, life, illness, etc. I had two different “Jacquelines” this year, so I think we can easily trace why they were special to me right from the start! My nurse Wendy and I fell in-love instantly with “Yoda” and for no other reason than the man was a complete gentleman. I also think the way he would speak of his wife and how he longed to see her again touched me deeply–both in my understanding of how death does not end love and in my own longings to have a man feel that way about me. And then there is my patient I always referred to as “My Love.”

Whenever I would come into her home I would say, “Hello My Love, tell me about you today.” If I said, “How are you?” she would always reply, “How the hell do you think I am?” I always met that with a snappy, “Shitty for sure, but better now that I am here!?” (smirk included free of charge) She would snarl and laugh all at the same time! My Love suffered with COPD and with the horrible box of living with a terminal disease. Dis-ease all around her, I felt from the very beginning of our time together in September 2006 that she suffered from Complicated Mourning. The DSM IV (the psychological diagnostic Bible) basically says one suffers from Complicated Mourning when after a year from the initial time of the loss one still experiences the loss in the same way as when the loss first occurred. In other words, one never moves beyond the initial grief reaction. Imagine if you learned of the death of your closest friend…hold that thought, feeling, body trauma for just a moment. Now imagine never letting that feeling morph and heal, but instead staying exactly the same always. Complicated Mourning occurs most commonly after sudden traumatic losses, including but not limited to: homicides, death of a child, multiple losses or concurrent losses, and/or suicide. In the case of My Love, the person she saw herself to be died when she entered hospice in April of 2005, and she never could fully grieve the myriad of her life changes or heal into the person who rose from those ashes.

I can remember feeling intimidated walking up to her large home for the first time…what turned out to be a very pretty prison of her own making. I greeted the most beautiful woman. In her mid-sixties, she could have passed for being in her forties but for her hands, which belonged to a woman thirty years her senior. Her hands told the story of her weakened lungs, weakened resolve, weakened resilience. I always notice people’s hands–even as a child I would compare my own to my Mother’s and Grandmother’s all through the church services. Her hands continued to tell her story in that they were most often clenched. She would sit in her recliner, leaning back to her left with her left hand tight and her right arm locked out straight to her seat. She would wag her right index finger at you to make a point, but the rest of her hand stayed firm. Her hands never lied about how desperately she was holding on, and they never lied about how desperately she was living.

I think of my “Patient Zero” as a mother from when I served as a Youth Minister in North Carolina. She and her husband–both lawyers–engaged in one of the bloodiest divorces I ever witnessed, and I only saw the aftermath. She also had Breast Cancer with mets to her liver. I visited her at Duke after a surgery to help with the spread of the cancer in her liver. Her goal simple: Live until her 10 year-old turned 18. God forbid her former husband raise her or interact with her more than the bare minimum the court ordered! She too held on tightly. She told me as I stood by her bedside following the surgery how she prayed God would help her to let go of holding on with such vigor and desperation. She did not pray for her whole hand to unfurl, but instead she asked God to come and loosen just the tiny tip of her pinkie finger so she might breathe a bit easier. With this image in mind, I often find myself praying the very same thing–for myself and for my patients.

When I left My Love’s home after our first visit, I leaned in close to her and said, “My prayer for you is that you will have just one minute of peace each day. I am not naive. I do not think a feeling of peace will just overtake you out of nowhere. But I do believe one extra minute per day is possible. This is my prayer.” She gripped my hand with her right hand and said, “You understand. Thank you. Yes; pray for that for me.”

See My Love was so terribly stuck. She was near death when she came onto hospice in 2005, but after a drug allergy diagnosis and correction she rallied. When the old version of herself died, so did all her dreams of  this being something she could and would beat. Imagine a plane circling the airport–which in this case represented death–day-after-day but never flying anywhere either. She was terrified of getting sick, and subsequently her precious grandchildren represented the kiss of death. She also missed them terribly and longed to hold them, play with them, and witness the intricacies of their growing up. This is just one example of the ways she held onto her life but never really lived. My Love was so terribly stuck.

My Love never could consciously release herself from her ritualistic hovering over death. A fall a few months ago, and a series of events began to unravel her desperate hold onto a life she hated and hated to have any change to. At the beginning of December her husband moved her to an inpatient facility when her death became more imminent. I visited her there often, and would look painfully upon her still clenched hands. After her death this past Thursday, I sat in the same Family Room where she lived in isolation for these last two and a half years…a room without her chair, hospital bed, commode, mirror, eye brow pencil, pashmina, blush, and oxygen. A room without her. Her family looked at me excitedly and her daughter related something they just had to tell me: “Her hands were at peace the last two days. We noticed it and thought we had to tell you because you would be so glad to know she stopped holding them so tightly. She died with her hands open and at peace.”

Why her? Why did I fall in-love with her? She was a bright, enthusiastic, funny, creative, sarcastic, honest, lonely, hurting, broken woman. I do not know what to say beyond that I loved her deeply because I did. She never “earned” my love…in fact she tried it more than once. I just know I loved her right exactly where she was–clenched hands and all. Her husband asked me to officiate at her funeral. He knows the day of her funeral is also my last day with hospice, so he called it “poetic justice” that my last responsibility for hospice is her funeral. I fully agree, but even if I had already left I still would have done it for her…anything for My Love.

The first time I can ever remember feeling that I loved someone just because they existed and because of who they were to me was when I was three and thought the preacher’s son was just soooo cute. He came to my fourth birthday party, and I knew it was love. The kind of love I practiced with my Barbie and Ken or between Snoopy and every other toy I possessed. He played the Toilet Paper Mummy Game with me, lurking quietly most of the time. In retrospect, the boy had to have hated being forced to go to some younger girl’s party. I was oblivious to this, and only thought he was soooo perfect to marry one day. I cried the day his father announced they were leaving the church. I only saw him one more time–on a visit back to Miami when I was in the eighth grade. I felt relieved that the love one feels at four can be gotten out of at 14! My first love–who never really knew I or my love existed–morphed into a jerk in a military school uniform! What was I thinking?

me at four

Falling in-love and wondering “What was I thinking?” seem to go hand-in-hand sometimes. We humans spend vast quantities of time, money and attention trying to sort out just why it is we fall in-love. Whole forests have given their lives for this exercise…with us waxing poetic, writing and re-writing love letters, and making music for some love who just has to know how we feel about them or feel about their departure from our lives. Whole blogs too! (But I am not naming any names here…gotta have some self-respect!) Yet we still seem at such a loss. Why is it after all these years we still don’t have a clue? Maybe it is because Evolution is such a slow and painstaking process? Or maybe we really do not want to know–it would ruin it for everyone!?

My friend Paulina Ballerina differs from me greatly when it comes to love. She believes that you fall in-love first, and then over time you may find the person worthy of your deep true love. She has been with her current beau for almost two years, and she readily admits she is “in-love” with him. She also says she could love him, but she does not–yet. After two years? I find her position amazing and a bit ludicrous as well. No wonder I am her opposite. I tend to love first, and then if I really love someone and trust them I may begin to allow myself the luxury of falling in-love as well. In my relationships of any sort, I love easily. I look to the good in those around me and value who they are right from the start. “Love” seems the only word fitting for what I see in them and cherish. Opening up my heart to fall in-love, well…that is a whole other matter. For me, falling in-love is a byproduct of trust and quite honestly I never have been in-love.

I find no small measure of shame mentioning this given my age–36–and general sense that I am in fact not the kind of girl boys like, let alone fall for. Dave The Porn Guy (don’t even get me started on how the minister knows the porn producer) put it to me this way: “Just cause a girl is a ten in the categories of personality, intelligence, generosity and success, does not mean she will find a man. She has to be at least a seven in the looks category to get a man of equal or greater value. So, if you are a one or a two in the looks category, and you are a ten in the other areas, you have three choices–1) Give up on finding a man who is your equal emotionally and intellectually. Those guys can get any girl they want because women do not put the same emphasis on looks and so even if they are butt ugly they can land an all-around 10; 2) Become a lesbian; or 3) Go for the loser who works at McDonald’s and who feels grateful to land any girl, even one smarter, who makes more money, and who has a better background than he does. He is a one and won’t balk at dating a one.”

So falling in-love has to do with being a one versus a ten, instead of being “the one?”

I do not agree with all of Dave The Porn Guy’s assessment of the situation–consider the source after all. The guy left his PhD program to make porn, find easy “hott” ass, and avoid depth at all costs. He also refuses to be with the woman he calls the “love of [his] life” out of what seems to amount to just old fashioned fear. However, Dave The Porn Guy did hit a nerve with me reminiscent of how I felt about myself when I was three and four. Even at that young age I felt embarrassed by my feelings. I also felt out-of-control. The little boy did not like me, and I had all these feelings for him. How could I feel something for someone and they not feel it back? These feelings left me vulnerable to ridicule and to others having power over me. How easily my little girl friends could shame me with a few teasing comments! Somehow I equated this vulnerability to my not being worthy of him–or anyone else for that matter–falling in-love with me. Listening to Dave The Porn Guy punch me in every soft underbelly spot of fear I have posses woke me up a bit. Maybe no one ever falls in-love with me because I walk around certain they never could?

No wonder I look for all the good in someone and have to trust them deeply before I can ever even ponder falling in-love with them…it is just too risky otherwise.

Just like any good Beauty Pageant Contestant, I want peace on Earth.

Here are some of my favourite readings and quotes about Peace:

From Peace Pilgrim:

This is the way of peace: overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.

Let There Be Peace On Earth

words by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller

Let there be peace on earth,
and let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on Earth,
the peace that was meant to be.
With God as our Father,
brothers all are we,
Let me walk with my brother,
in perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me,
let this be the moment now.
With every step I take,
let this be my solemn vow,
To take each moment and live each moment
in peace, eternally.
Let there be Peace on Earth,
and let it begin with me.

Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it–always.

Peace Prayer

by St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred,Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, Joy.

O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

From His Holiness the Dali Lama:

I believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for oneself, one’s own family or nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace.

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

Howard Nemerov, the poet:

Religion and science both profess peace (and the sincerity of the professors is not being doubted), but each always turns out to have a dominant part in any war that is going or contemplated.

The Buddha:

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.

Jesus:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

I wrote the following piece for my company’s bi-annual Memorial Gathering to honor those who have died with our hospice. The theme for this season’s services is “The Light of Love.” The first section focuses on “The Light of Remembrance,” which inspires the piece.

In the summer of 1977 my father died. I remember the day as being rainy and very cold, but in reality it was a hot and humid Florida summer day. I guess my little girl mind was so overcome with grief that the only way to describe a day when you lose someone you desperately love is to think of it as being cold and dreary with dark clouds crying. That is the funny thing about remembering the past—we are always looking back at it through a particular lens. I saw that day through the lens of pain and loss for so long that the day itself became transformed to match the feelings.

I also look back and remember holding Daddy’s hand, as he and Mother would lift me up over the curb, swinging me back and forth. I remember seeing his arms outstretched to me, as I would scoot down the high slide at the park by his office. I remember the look on his face when he opened my door to find Kelly Grey and I sitting on the red carpet with the pink ceramic pig smashed into a million pieces.

Kelly lived just six houses from mine, and we were born exactly three weeks apart. We would walk the grass of our neighbour’s front lawns to get to one another’s homes safely. Our parents had taught us to do this, so we were full of four-year old confidence. Somehow we decided this particular day that she would come to my house, but we neglected to ask my napping Mother—out of kindness, of course. As we sat in my room, she asked me how much money was in the pig. We decided to count the money, but alas the pig did not have an opening on the bottom, and the small slot on top did not send the money back to us when we shook it. I offered to go and fetch my tiny hammer from the garage. Daddy bought it for me, so I could “help” him with his household “Honey-Do-Lists.” I marched out to the garage where he was working at his tool bench, took down the hammer, and replied to his inquiry about needing any help with a simple “no thanks.”

Daddy had not had a four-year old in the house in over sixteen years, so it took an extra moment for him to comprehend that there was no need for me to have the hammer that would be qualified as “good”—which also proved to be just enough time for Kelly and I to smash the pig to smithereens. So there we sat on the floor of my bedroom with one dead ceramic pig, one hammer, countless change, and one Daddy staring down at us saying, “What in the world!? Kelly, where did you come from? Does your Mother know she is here?” He had that look I knew as meaning I was in T.R.O.U.B.L.E. He also had the mischievous smirk around his eyes of appreciating my ingenuity. He would know…I got my ingenious and mischievous nature from him!

You may wonder how it is that I remember all these little details of my ever too brief six years with Daddy. The answer comes from my Mother, who never shied away from talking about him and from keeping the light of remembrance stoked within me. She would ask me, “Do you remember when we met Daddy for lunch?” or “Do you remember going on the boat and catching your first fish at the marina?” She kept the memories alive—she kept Daddy alive—even when it must have cut her heart to a million pieces to have to do so. I know she wanted to go to bed and never get up because her heart was so full of agony and loss. My Grandmother had to take her in hand and tell her to get up because I needed her. Being a widow herself, she also promised my mother that she would stop crying all the time—“eventually.”

I am sure Mother wanted to forget sometimes—to forget all the love, laughter, happiness, touch and connection she had with him—because the forgetting might make the pain less. Instead, she held onto my Grandmother’s promise that “eventually” the pain would lessen, “eventually” she would not be crying all the time, and “eventually” she would invest in her own life again. In holding onto that promise, she kept Daddy’s love alive for me by reinforcing all of my memories of him.

Now when we talk of Daddy, we light up with the remembering. He is ever close, ever dear, ever loved. When I drive her nuts by announcing just exactly how we will be going about accomplishing a particular task—step-by-painful-step where she is merely an extra pair of hands—she shakes her head and says, “Just like your father…you are just like your father.” When I tease her or say something terribly funny she says, “Just like your father.” In fact, it has become quite the joke between us. Mother will compliment me on something and I will with deadpan delivery tell her, “Well you know, I get that from Daddy.“ She just shakes her head and laughs! When we are with other people and they comment on how bright I am, we look at each other, giggle and chime together, “She gets that from her father!” We both know how much her love and care for me has shaped me, but in those little moments we bring forward into our lives right now the love, humor and intelligence of a man who has been dead over thirty years. We keep him alive within us, which makes him a real person to even those who never had the honor of meeting him.

Remembering the one you love who has died is a precious flame within you, but you may at times be afraid that it will burn you. I want to encourage you today that the light of remembrance can only illuminate your life and warm your soul. I know because eventually that is what the light of remembering my own lost loves has become.

My friend Pixie broke up with the guy she was seeing. She is in her early thirties and has two teenage boys, whereas he has no children and is in his late twenties. She knows who she is; he is still defining himself. She is in-touch with her body, mind, emotions and spirit. He knows his mind, but the rest of him has a way of getting away from him or being completely stuffed down or ignored. She opens up under stress and blooms into being her best self. When the trial or tribulation passes–as they always do–she feels the pride and the exhaustion. She knows she has it in her to weather whatever storms come her way. She is a survivor. She knows when she must retreat into a haven of love, friendship and rest. She knows that if she does not nurture her soul, no one else will. He…well, he sees stress as something to be avoided at all costs. He runs into a den of silence and retreats from the difficult emotions–in others and in himself.

After Paul, our friend and co-worker’s husband, was murdered Pixie turned to the guy she was dating. She was upset. Her heart broke for Teri, and she worked hard to support those of us in the epicenter of this nuclear holocaust of violence, loss, unanswerable questions, and grief. She sat with me the night he was killed at dinner, and drove me home after I swilled down two cocktails. I rarely drink, but the day deserved a drink to Paul’s memory and one to dull mine. She called me faithfully and sat beside me at the funeral. She held my loss as she held her own. She got angry at the way our company put my Social Worker and I through the wringer and then slapped us in the face with a “stay strong for the patients” without considering that we had nothing left to give. Spent, she needed to talk. She reached out to the guy, and he responded, “I don’t understand why Jacqueline and you are so upset?”

The dividing line was drawn, and he is now gone from her inner life.

I understand completely. When something terrible happens those of us in the epicenter of pain-especially those of us who are caregivers–we need the ones we are closest to in life to provide a safe shelter from the storm and fallout. We need the voices of Love and Friendship to say to us, “I am here for you, so you can be there for them.” We will repay the favor ten-fold. We will love you with undying affection and gratitude. Knowing that your arms will entwine our battered bodies and spirits gives us the courage to face the deepest darkness humanity wrecks upon one another. Your help so we can alight upon a resting place makes all the difference in the world. A quick “let me come and take you to dinner” matters more than all the money in the world.

Unfortunately, sometimes we get only silence. I think what happened with Pixie and her beau is worse though. The accusation is that if we were not upset–because somehow being upset about someone you know being murdered and how that devastates one you love deeply is irrational–then there would not be a reason to be upset. It seems so neat and tidy, but painful feelings are never clean. They are always messy and leave us discombobulated in their wake. As well they should! I do not want to live my life prepared for the worse-case scenario. I would never get out of bed! So, I will stumble, tremble, and fall down when the shit hits the fan. The reproach and silence that can come from even those we trust the most adds insult to injury. No wonder Pixie drew the line.

The person I was seeing at the time was very busy with his life, so I tried to not burden him with it all. I let him call me. Unfortunately, when he would call to check on me he would also talk A LOT about his “irrational and crazy” ex-wife. A dividing line was drawn the night before the funeral, and when he asked me if I would ever be seeing him again I had to tell him the truth–I would not.

And then there are those who just get what we need. When Paul died I wrote a pain-filled email to The Scoundrel, who was living in Paris at the time. He wrote back saying: “This is very very horrible. I love you and kiss you on the head…….I’m sorry………It’s just so horrible….Do you have a friend who can hold you? xxxxx”

So I told The Scoundrel the truth…there was no one to hold me. The feeling that overcame me when he wrote those words to me was “emptiness.” Somehow emptiness seems better than longing. Emptiness implies being open and ready to receive, just the right fit has not come yet to sit in that space with me. Longing is when the one you count on to sit beside you when you are beside yourself cannot or will not come. This is what happened with Pixie–she longed for him to be with her, but he fell to the other side of the dividing line.

Since my father’s death in 1977 I rarely dream of him. One dream during college where I realized the old man telling me not to “throw my heart away” on the man with the Southern Drawl was Daddy just as I awakened ashamed to not have recognized him in time to talk to him. Another dream in High School where my friend and I hit a man on a bike during a terrible and blinding storm. I saw the man was Daddy, and became horrified since we killed him. In my dream, I ran home to tell Mother only for her to laugh as she put on lipstick saying, “He’s been dead for years.”

I am an avid dreamer. In fact, if I could make one film it would be of my dreams. In my dreams I see colours I never see in my life. In my dreams the feelings seem more vivid too. There is an urgency, even with the dreams full of pleasure and humor. Sometimes I wake up laughing…sometimes crying. Often the dreams seem more real than real. Do you ever feel that way? I fall deeply into them and often have to tell some poor soul what happened before the day is set right. This is a pattern from childhood. The funny thing about dreams is that their true significance to us remains only with the one who had the dream. Dreams are completely singular. No one else remembers them–at least not unless we are paying them for their expertise and interpretation! Yet, they become part of our personal history nonetheless.

When I was a little girl I had a dream about a boy from my class I had a terrible crush on that year. As my mother attempted to patiently listen to all the gory details of the dream, she could not resist the temptation to tease me. “Sounds like a nightmare to me Jacqueline.” I replied, “Oh no Mommy; it was a wonderful-mare.”

The week I graduated from Seminary I had my only “wonderful-mare” of Daddy. In the dream, I had just moved into a beautiful and modern building where I could see the ocean. As I descended the grand staircase to the lobby I asked a girl about where I could get ice cream, and she directed me to the boardwalk and an ice cream stand in the sand. As I walked the boardwalk, I went into an antique shop looking for forks for a party. I found my friend Jennifer, and we in turn came upon my “sister” and her “husband.” My “brother-in-law” and I left them to look at an art book in the shop and went off to hunt for the ice cream. He wore a blue button down rolled at the sleeves with madras shorts and brown leather flip flops. I held his hand. He asked me about how things were going. I broke down in tears–now knowing he was in fact my father–and we sat down on a nearby bench. I asked him if I would ever find love, stating that I wanted someone wonderful like him. He laughed and told me I did not want him but someone better! I said, “Oh Daddy, who is better than you?” He pulled me close and told me, “You’ll see.” I asked him if he was proud of me and all that I was about and doing in the world. He kissed the top of my head and told me he was. I can remember seeing the mascara stains on his shirt and apologizing. He again laughed saying, “I am wash and wear.” (Perfectly Daddy in every way.)

We got up and walked hand-in-hand out to the special ice cream stand in the sand, which turned out to be a Dairy Queen (I was robbed!). As we stood in line contemplating our selections, he turned to me. “Jacqueline. You have to promise me something.”

“Yes Daddy.”

“Jacqueline listen to me–this is very important–you have to promise me that no matter what happens you will remember the joy.”

“Yes Daddy.”

“No. Jacqueline. Listen to me! You must remember the joy. No matter what.”

“I will Daddy. I promise.”

“Remember the joy Jacqueline. Remember the joy.”

When I awoke the next morning my heart was humming with the melody of “I’ve Got That Joy, Joy, Joy Down In My Heart.” I could not figure out why. Then I remembered someone told me to remember the joy. I sat straight up in bed and remembered Daddy! Daddy was the one who told me to remember the joy! The whole dream flooded back to me, and I still hold it as tightly as I did then. My one visit from my long gone beloved. How could I not?

I believe in joy over happiness because of its transcendent quality. I believe in the joy of my life because of the love and connection I feel to those I love and to the world all around me. Sometimes it takes my breath away to consider just how much beauty and love there really is all around me and in me at any given moment. My daily worship comes from drinking in the sky when I walk or ride my bike with Emma. These are not religious moments, but I touch Spirit and Love and all that is more than the dissected parts. I touch wholeness. I feel the creativity–the endless creativity–all around me. I recently read a really brilliant line about God being restless and unable to specialize as evidenced by the sheer plethora of divergent organisms.* My contemplative time in the splendor of nature makes me giggle with this thought. The abundance of creativity is because of God’s obvious lack of focus!

Sometimes the sheer brilliance is so much, and I am so overtaken with the joy, I stop in my tracks. I stand still and try and photograph with my mind a singular moment that is not just what my eyes see, but all of the ways my senses are on fire from the beauty, the stillness, the colours, the quality of the air, the hints of perfume lighting upon me. Recently I had just such a moment. The moon was rising and greeting me to the East, just as the sun set in all its bright pinks and oranges. I felt caught between them flooded with joy…pure unadulterated joy.

I could not help but wonder to myself, “When was there another so perfect moment of joy?” And without warning all the joy of listening, watching, laughing, talking to, being with, and touching The Bean overcame me. The rage and hatred at him and myself all spent, I remembered the joy. I burst into a flood of tears and longing for a path that my head never lets my heart look down any longer. I thought of Ann Hampton Callaway’s song where she wonders if there is “some kind of heaven” where old love can go to be used by a long since gone lover when they need it most desperately. I prayed there is–for him and for me.

I remembered the joy between the rising moon and the setting sun; it was a challenge in every way.

*I cannot remember where. Let me know if this sounds familiar to you!

PHOTO CREDIT: The Bean

My Team Secretary, Teri Beroldi-Rein, asked me to write up her feelings about her murdered husband. These words were read by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Chaplain at his funeral on Teri’s behalf. During the service, I could not help but think how this lovely and lively man dedicated to public service deserved just such a send-off. Only he also deserved to have it come after he died an old man in his bed, not as a “reward” for being murdered. Utterly unbelievable!

The most moving part for me was the drive to the graveside and seeing all the people lined up on the side of the road with their hands over their hearts and heads bowed. Paul deserved their respect, and I am glad he received this honor. He may have died senselessly, but he also died doing what he loved–public service.

Photo Credit: ALBERT DIAZ/MIAMI HERALD STAFF

In honor of Deputy Paul Rein October 5, 1931 - November 7, 2007

Photo Credit: BSO ONLINE PHOTO

Here are her thoughts and my words:

I must admit it is hard to find words to describe what is in my heart about Paul. I know it, but words just don’t seem to be enough. How can I describe all those little moments of living with someone? A knee brushed at the dinner table with a quick smile, a brief phone call to say “I love you,” his hand holding mine…a million little things that wrote his name again and again on my heart. Our love is like that…so tiny it wiggled right into each and every cell of my being and so large that it overwhelmed me with a million kindnesses.

To say that Paul was a good man seems an insignificant way to describe the purity of his goodness that touched all he did and all he knew. I never could believe I found such a beautiful person to spend my life with after years raising my family alone. My family loved him the moment they met him, and they love him for the way he brought happiness and love to my life. But Paul was never just focused on his family: He reached out with that same goodness to friend, neighbor and stranger alike.

One day Paul and I walked through the grocery store and a young man approached us. He asked Paul if he remembered transporting him to court. Paul told him he did and asked, “Did you do what I told you to do?” The young man told him that he had in fact listened to Paul’s wise advice and cleaned up his act. He had a job and was doing well. You should have seen the look of pride on Paul’s face! His encouragement made a difference in that young man’s life. You should have seen the look of pride in my own face. What an honor to spend my life with the kind of man who would not just look at someone who made a mistake as a nobody, but as someone needing a little fatherly advice to get them back on the right path.

I did not just love my husband; I also admired him. His tenderness, wisdom and willingness to give his very best inspired me. Paul knew what it meant to work hard. He grew up poor, so life was always a struggle in his family. Yet he grew up to do the right thing and live his life with integrity and purpose…he and all of his buddies from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Those guys remained friends these last 70 years. Unbelievable! “The German.” “Germs.” “The Weasel.” “Cooney.” “Mayor.” “Pucky.” “Jake the Snake.” These are just some of the nicknames the guys went by. Imagine my surprise when one of their wives called the house one day asking for “Pucky.” I had no idea who that was! Paul admitted that in fact he was “Pucky.” His father gave him the nickname when he was a small boy, and it stuck with the neighborhood boys. I felt like I finally crossed into his precious inner circle of friends when I found out about “Pucky!”

Paul never took the happiness we had together for granted or took for granted my devotion to him. He knew what a special love we have. Just the other day we were watching “Dancing With the Stars,” and he danced around the den asking me to dance. I see him there full of life, joy, playfulness and love. I see him in all the stories people tell me of his goodness towards them. I see him faithfully going with me different places, not wanting to miss a moment of being together. I see the light of pride in his eyes the night I converted to Judaism. And I see him every night when I would come home and he would say to me, “Here is my darling. Here is my sweetheart. How was your day?”

Paul is my darling. Paul is my sweetheart. I will miss him deeply all the days of my life.

Today is a horrible day. Today my dear sweet Patient Care Secretary lost her husband. Paul died tragically when the prisoner he was transporting overpowered him, struggled with him, shot him, and threw him out of the transport van. (Here is the link to the CNN story.) There are no words that make sense of this horror. I literally am shaken and grieved to my core. For my dear friend, for her family and his, for the future they planned that never will come to fruition, for my grieving team, for myself.

I have been with so many people as they were told of the death of their loved one, and I never had adrenaline overtake my body. However, as she was told my right leg quivered uncontrollably. I am so heartbroken that this did not go differently, but here we are and Paul is dead. I met him and thought he was a lovely and kind man. He came to my Open House just after my birthday in early March. I also knew him through her and all of the tender love stories she would tell. Theirs was a second love, yet it was a gift of unmeasurable joy for both of them.

The news is reporting that the young man who killed Paul had written over his heart “Break This Bitch.” Was that a warning? Did he think his heart could not be broken? Had it been broken so badly that he started down the road of drugs, robbery, and armed robbery that led him to commit a murder? No matter what pain he had been through in his life, it does not dismiss the pain he has caused because of the choices he has made. But yet again I am reminded that if we do not face our pain–not just face it but actually heal it– we set off a series of events that can not only lead to our own destruction, but to that of others as well.

I cannot help but wonder if his heart is broken now?

Last week I wrote two nominations for our Employee Appreciation Awards. One for my nurse Wendy, and one for my Secretary. Here is the one for her so that you might know her a tiny bit and think of her with prayers for comfort as she negotiates the terrible cyclone of sudden traumatic grief and loss:

Three Sets of Footprints

All of us have read the poem “Footprints” about the person who notices only one set of footprints in the sand during all of the most trying times in their life. Inquiring of God why this is, they learn that those were the very times when God carried them. How true for us all! Life cannot be done as an individual effort. Each day we rely on unseen hands to carry us through and make our lives possible. From farmers to the checkout person at the grocery store, cannery workers to those at the recycling center, and loggers to soft toilet paper manufacturers, from the President of our company to our Patient Care Secretaries, our lives are interdependent.

Here at our hospice we think in terms of our Teams, and for our team—Team 151—there is one person we literally cannot survive without…our Secretary TBR. Even our Team Manager agrees that we do fine when she is gone, but those days when T* is out of the office are painful. Our team holds our collective breath until she returns, for she truly carries us through and helps us to thrive out in the field. She is so faithful in the little things, and if she misses a tiny beat she will go off to make sure we have whatever we need, even when we could do if for ourselves. She delights in the giving! T* knows that love is in the details, and although it might seem strange to speak of love at work, it is the only word to describe the dedication and attention to detail she offers. T* always speaks with kindness and concern, offering up love freely to us and to the patients and families she serves with us.

She also will go above and beyond to help her co-workers. She does not want to see anyone fail, for she knows what it means to work hard to keep your head above water. She patiently teaches the new PCS’s coming through, while lending a hand to other teams whenever needed…and not just our sister team! If ever there was a team player—encompassing the whole of our office—it would be T*.

She also takes the time to care about the stories of the individual families we serve. You should of seen her delight and gracious embrace of one family as they celebrated their 70th Anniversary last Christmas. T* was able to be at their home for our little celebration, and she was so tender with this lovely and fragile couple. Seeing the joy in her own face at finally being able to meet them was priceless. She holds the needs of our patients and families close and ensures they have what they need, sight unseen almost 100% of the time. It is no wonder she often is mentioned in our “Thank You Notes” from our families.

Team 151 is a terribly busy home team. In October alone we had around twenty-five deaths, yet our census stays stable. Twenty-five new patients filling our roster just as the other twenty-five came off of it. Talk about paperwork! Yet T* not only keeps us straight (no wonder she usually arrives before seven each morning!), but she will take on the slack when another PCS is out or falling behind. How does she have the time? How does she have the stamina? And to think she does this with kindness, professionalism and intelligence! No wonder our Team Manager knows her place in regards to T*! No wonder we admire, cherish, and love her as we do!

T* embodies the love of God by carrying us physically as a team, but also by the love she extends to us as team members and to our patients and families. When we look back at our lives and our time here we will see three sets of footprints in the sand, and when we see those times with only two sets we will know it was T* who helped to carry us. Please help us in acknowledging her unquestioning fidelity to our corporate values by honoring her as she so justly deserves.

I often think of the themes in my life as acting like boomerangs. Something may happen to me–a great pain or loss–that sends out the very best of me scatted against the wind, but eventually they all return to their rightful home within me. This last year has been full of this kind of scattering, and if you have ever read my blog, you know what I am talking about. A year of more challenges and stress than my body, mind or spirit could handle, and a heart so broken I thought it was beyond repair for most of this year.

Now there is just something about a list that I dearly love. Lists organize my life! I have running lists for the things I need, the things I want to accomplish (like having more sex in the coming year–twice in 12 months is just not enough!!!), lists of places I want to experience, lists of problems I am facing, and, well, the list goes on and on and on… This blog has been full of some great lists:

• A list of my experiences right up to my blindsided break-up: Post-Mortem: My November
• A list of the reasons why I am a good girlfriend: 40 Reasons I Make a Good Girlfriend
• A list of all diseases, losses and freak-outs of the last year: The Stress Mess
• A list of why I don’t trust men in tank tops (and my personal favourite post): Tank Top Wearing Man Candy?
• Not to mention the list of all the men I loved before (go on and hum it, you know you want to): The Dating Game

So in honor of my little list making fetish, I offer up on my one-year anniversary since this unbelievable year began with my emergency root canal the following list of all my gratitude for what this last year gave me–in no particular order:

1. My Ordination. This day was full of more love than I could have ever imagined, and I have drawn deeply from those waters this year.
2. Surviving This Year! If you read “Posting My Big Secret” and “Shift Change” you know that this is an ACCOMPLISHMENT all by itself! Not only do I feel I survived, but I feel stronger, happier and more at peace with who I am than at any other point in my life.
3. EMMA! Gotta love Miss Puppy Girl. She is my joy. We have really fallen in love these last few months, especially after her mean cousin Morgan left! Morgan, my niece, is part of the Puppy Gestapo. Her departure turned on the “My Mommie is not a meanine.” light over Emma’s head. Plus, she is FINALLY growing up…a little bit. She still has to wear a leash in the house–all the better to catch her and take my stolen bra out of her mouth with!!

   

4. Paparazzo. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I do not know how I would have made it through without him. I tease him that he is always “pulling my pigtails,” i.e. driving me nuts just because he can. Yesterday morning while doing crunches on the living room floor, Emma bit my ponytail and pulled hard. The more I would go to stop her the more she would pull. I ended up in a pool of tears and laughter! No wonder the two of them love each other so much–they are cut from the same cloth!
5. Casa Derby. I lived for 2.5 years without my own belongings, so coming home in February filled my heart in ways I cannot even describe. I missed my Red Turkey Rug! I missed my books, music, bed, sofa and enough dishes to host a party for an army. How sweet it is to be home again. Moving home also brought new friends and neighbours. They met me mid Apocalypse and adopted me straight away. I needed the affirmation of new friends, and so I am grateful the latest incarnation of Casa Derby came with some.
6. My Mama and My Sista. These two continue to show me love, love, love, even when I am only full of fear and despair.
7. My Work and Team. I get unbelievable joy knowing I am doing the kind of work that crosses the religious divide and finds people right where they are and ministers to their hurting hearts in that place. My patients and their families are my teachers, and I value their lessons. Ministering to my atheist patient this year, and the work in general, has given me my inspiration as I apply to Vanderbilt’s PhD program. I also have a wonderful team to work with, but especially my manager, my social worker, my secretary, and my nurses Wendy and Lisa. They all make each day a worthy sacrifice. (Trust me! At what I make, the word “sacrifice” is perfect.)
8. My Bereavement Group. If I ever have a friend go through a crushing break-up, I will immediately buy them Alan Wolfelt’s book Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart . Working through this book with my group, and the group’s grieving processes in general, helped me to identify that what happened to me was just the normal grief one experiences when someone you love dies. I suddenly no longer felt so isolated in my grieving, and listening to them give voice to their mourning, gave me an opportunity to accept my own. Once I got that the person I knew and loved did in fact die–metaphorically and literally, in as much as that person was no longer real or real in my life–I could finally find the courage to accept the past as it was, accept the me that I truly am, and move on towards my own best future.
9. My Bike. My Bike. My Bike. I love my shitty bike, and I am accepting cash donations (through PayPal of course) towards my next ride. It may just be one of the crappiest bikes on the planet for someone to ride 50-70 miles a week on, but she keeps on going strong. I love waving to the guys mowing my golf course at 6:30 in the morning with their headlights shining out in the dark. I love riding with Emma! I just love riding her period. Giant, Specialized and Cannondale may get quite a bit of my internet window shopping, but she gets my attention day-in-and-day-out. I would have gained a TON of weight without the bike given my knee, so I am so appreciative to have this bike even if it is not all that good of one or all that cool. She does what she is supposed to do–for the most part–and I am grateful.
10. My Blogs. Writing has given voice to my despair and to my hope, both of whom are constant partners in my dance of life. The affirmation of my faithful readers and the new friends I have made as a result, gave wings to the fact that I did in fact have a meaningful future without the one I had loved. He and I began a conversation–an important one for me personally and one of importance for the world in which we live–and when it ended abruptly I feared the conversation died too. In working on this blog and Don’t Be A Christian (which will be more fully operational January 2008), I found new partners in that conversation, found I could do it on my own (dammit!!!!), and the impetus to be bold enough to go after a PhD. I was once sent an email from someone wondering if this blog was the beginning of something else because she could sense something brewing in me from my writing. The truth is the blog began as a way to show photos of my new puppy! What it has become astounds me, but I also know it has been central to my healing and to my reaffirmation that indeed my middle name is hope.

There are certain songs that have supported me too, but especially the words to two Bjork songs: The whole of “All is Full of Love.” I keep reminding myself that I am full of love to both give and receive, and although it may not come from the places I expected, it is always right there within me and for me. The other song is “It’s Not Up To You.” The lyrics are amazing. She sings, “I wake up and the day feels broken. I tilt my head. I’m trying to get an angle…if you wake up and the day feels broken, just lean into the crack…notice how it sparkles.” This has been a year of leaning into the crack, and much to my surprise it has sparkled in ways unimaginable last year. Me too. I still sparkle.

With gratitude for the 525,600 minutes of this last unbelievable year,

Rev. Jacqueline Hope Derby

Photo Credit: PAPARAZZO

Studying for the GRE–the Graduate Record Exam–has created a crushing pain in my spirit. This pain envelops me and leaves me paralyzed at times. Why? Now I do like to call the GRE “The Graduate Retching Exam” because of all of the math, which I worked hard (okay, not that hard) to forget as promptly as it was no longer needed, but that is not why. The reasons why have much more to do with feeling I am putting my feet on a path that will take me away from a dream for my life…the dream to be married and have a baby. I feel I am choosing to give birth to ideas instead of a family, and I am afraid of the loneliness this path might bring.

I did not date for all of my teens and twenties. I never kissed anyone. I never felt anyone was even interested in me as a girl, let alone as a girlfriend. I got the message very early on that I was not in-fact, “girlfriend material.” Oh sure, I had guy friends. They love me! But I was never enough…not pretty enough, not thin enough, not cool enough, etc. Or I was too much. Too smart. Too opinionated. Too radical. Too fat. Too fucked up by my past. I kept getting the message that if I could just be, well, not me, then and only then would I deserve the love and respect of the men I liked or was involved with (after my thirtieth birthday).

Much of why I did not date for so long had to do with me and only me. I was just terrified of anyone coming near me. Terrified they would get close and see how fractured I was from being molested. I did not want anyone to see me naked. Shit! I hardly let anyone see any skin when I was fully clothed, always in long shirts buttoned way up even in the Miami summer. I felt so unsure of who I was as a woman. What did that even mean? I was asexual in many ways. I never looked at a guy and thought about sleeping with him, actually that still takes a lot of work on my part. Those feelings never come easily because even my fantasy life is cautionary. The one place where I could have a real mental free-for-all, and I judiciously practice safe sex with only emotionally well-known partners, who I actually do not know because I refuse to fantasize about people I know but am not dating! In other words, in order to get it up for an imaginary boyfriend I have to create a whole back story, emotions, etc. It is a whole hell of a lot of work!

Somehow I made it though that wilderness and found a way to be naked physically with The First, but I kept much of my true self to myself. I can see now that I only slept him because it was safe and controllable. Well, those and the fact that he would sleep with me. I was thirty-one after all and a virgin. I just wanted to have sex because I was afraid that if I did not at that point I never would. What a terrifying thought, but also a real one. I see that other than The Bean, everyone I ever got naked with had some element of safety to them. My biggest safety net being that if they were fucked up in some manner, then I felt it would be okay if I was a little too.

You get what you pay for; right?

After Plant Geek broke up with me because he “could not be attracted to someone like me” and just went out with me because “I was so healing,” I called Tammy Wayne to pour out my heart. I felt like I worked so hard through therapy, getting up at six in the morning to work out and drop some fucking weight, trying to accept my body, my heart, my mind, etc., and to actually trust and be naked with someone. I worked so hard, but no one was going to love me. I still was not good enough. I still was too much or not enough. I got all “dressed up” for the love party, and regardless got stuck against the wall with the other “flowers” nobody wanted. I came away from that conversation feeling like I poured it all out and maybe could just accept that it was not going to be my destiny to be loved in time to have a baby. Yes; it might happen, but it was unlikely.

Then I met The Bean and really trusted and loved someone for the first time in my whole life. I was thirty-five, and it finally happened to me. But only to me.

Here I am. I am thirty-six now, and I walked, crawled, dug, scratched, ran, swam and Tae Bo’d my way out of the hell of my first twenty-five years. I made it, but I still have never been loved by a man. I have never laid against someone in the dark and heard them whisper “I love you.” in my ear. Maybe the me that exists is not “girlfriend material?” I may be the “exception to the rule” girl, and as much as guys might want that in some ways, the truth is it scares the shit out of them. Scares me too sometimes, like right this very moment. I see what a fucking challenge I am! I take life seriously. I take my life very seriously. I am passionate to a fault. I insist on being me. I do not let myself get away with much, but I especially do not let my emotions go without investigation. Need proof? Here I am, up from bed, writing down all of my feelings on this topic well past my bedtime, with a stack of wadded up tissues on the desk from crying so hard as I write this.

I started this particular thread months ago and called it “Baby Blues.” I wanted to articulate a deep understanding about who I am fundamentally and my own acknowledgment of the price I might pay for being me. I am me. Just me. I only want to be me, but the message I get from most men I know or have known is: “Could you be a little less?” Often men tell me how “silly” I am. This “silliness” is usually over “thinking too much” or giving a rat’s ass about something they feel is a ridiculous waste of time. I often hear Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For A Girl” playing in my head during those moments of confrontation over my “silliness.”

Hurt that’s not supposed to show
And tears that fall when no one knows
When you’re trying hard to be your best
Could you be a little less

Do you know what it feels like for a girl
Do you know what it feels like in this world
What it feels like for a girl

Strong inside but you don’t know it
Good little girls they never show it
When you open up your mouth to speak
Could you be a little weak

I made it this far in my life because of my own inner strength. I made it because I believe in a Love greater than my own comprehension that weaves us all together. I made it because of all of the love from those in my life who never want me to be weak, or less, or other. In large part, I loved The Bean because he never called me silly or gave me the impression that I was not enough or too much. (Granted, he did feel this way and told me so after we split.)

My mother really valued what The Bean brought to my life because she understands how lonely and isolating being smart in my way has been for me. Sometimes I wonder if during my life she has felt ill equipped to help me with these feelings? I think her own pain at his leaving had a lot to do with feeling like finally there was someone in my life who not only got me, but also genuinely was excited to discover all my inner nooks and crannies. She sees me, but does not always get me. And it is the “getting me” part that is difficult to do and difficult to accept without wanting me to “be a little less.”

So when I think of my own “baby blues,” I realize I could get married and have a baby. If it was THE most important thing to me, I would allocate all of my resources to it. I would be willing to give up certain things that I consider paramount, like my career or calling. It would also require a willingness to dumb myself down in order to find someone who might consider me both girlfriend and wife material. I am not saying all men would require this, instead I offer that if marriage and a baby are the most important thing to me I would do anything to get them, even that.

Marriage and a family are not that important to me. I will not give up on who I am or what matters to me in order to have them. At thirty-six I must acknowledge the time reality of finding the right person to add to who and what my life is already about is not in my favor. And then there is Grad School. My mother is right when she tells me how she hears how lonely and isolated I am right now intellectually. She kicks me in the butt over the GRE because she knows I need what a graduate program can bring me, and what I have sorely longed for since The Bean left.

I will be the first to admit that I freaked out when Mr. Joy  told me that he did not see himself leaving South Florida or having a child. I freaked out because I feel like that desire of mine is just a small thread in my hands. I can feel the weight of the world and my own sense of calling pulling against that fragile thread. One day it might very well be fully un-spooled and gone forever. We parted ways given the heartbreak destiny we could see awaiting us, and I am still a little bit sad. The worst part was the wanting to stay in South Florida, not the baby part, in my final analysis. I do not want to give up the dreams I am in fact willing to do anything difficult or painstaking to achieve…not for anyone. I am only “Jacqueline Material” after all, and if Jacqueline finds herself a girlfriend, or wife, or mother, then great; but I must remain Jacqueline regardless of the roles and responsibilities of my life.

I would not want to be anyone less.

I just began dating Mr. Joy. He radiates happiness, hence the nickname. We got to talking about the one word we would use to describe one another from the night of our first date. My word for him was “happy;” he chose “fun” for me. Don’t you just love it when you meet someone and they radiate love and hope? I want to be like that, and even though in some ways I am what one person once called “ridiculously optimistic,” there are parts of me that deeply remember all the sadness and lack in my life thus far. I get up and keep trying not because of some silly ignorance at the truths of life, but out of sheer force will to not allow the shit of my life to win and weigh me down.

That shit has been a real pest this last year. I feel a wind blowing through my soul and lifting it up and out. This process is difficult; I have used it as a fuel to get to this place in my life. I use it at work to create Healing Bridges day-after-day. Yet I still trip on the old fears of abandonment, value and loss. Life has been offering me opportunities of late to let go of the past and my fears of the future and just live in the gift of the present. I feel like Mr. Joy is a part of that gift in the now for me. My Cousin Bopper believes life brings you what I need, and I need joy in my life. I already have it in my family, friends, in who I am, and in my sweet Emma.

In that spirit I offer you the following photographs of glee and bliss, also known as “Emma goes for a bike ride with her Mama.”

The dog trainer came out a week ago and hooked up a “Canine-Cruiser” to my bike. Emma is attached by a bungee chord. We are riding about 4 miles a day now. She loves it!

And her Mama loves how she comes home POOPED OUT!

My busy puppy has finally found her inner napper.

Can you feel the love?

Emma truly makes our home The Glee Club!

The “HBO” chair was my Granddaddy, Heber Burton Osborne’s. Emma loves it too!

All photographs were taken by our wonderful Paparazzo and his bazillion dollar new camera.

Do you know what “rumination” is? “It means obsessing about problems, about a loss, about any kind of a setback or ambiguity without moving past thought into the realm of action.” (link to article by Ellen McGrath) You know…when you mind spins out of control. My mind is constantly going, but when it spins I can feel the difference in my body. I feel the tilt of the Earth. My thoughts circular, so I just keep looping back to where I started. I get stuck. I feel trapped. Despair overwhelms me.

My recent Healing Touch workshop stopped all the rumination. Somehow–like a hand reaching out and grasping my spinning mind and heart–the healing took hold in me in those gentle moments of comfort and learning. I found silence. I found peace. I found love. I lay on the table, and the latch opened. The spring released. I felt hope again.

The hope seeping into my spirit feels like an in-breaking. A little crack in the wall of helplessness. A shift change. Not a 180 degree turnaround, but a five percent move. These last nine months of my life have been full of noise, and now the volume is finally turned down enough to think, pray and hope again. I feel it in my bones.

When I lay on the table during the different practice sessions, all I felt was love. I would clear my mind, focus on my breath, and love would come to me. I could feel the love towards myself especially. A forgiveness. A prayer of thanksgiving for who I am and the joy I know I bring to life. A gratitude too for all the love in my life. I kept thinking about how much love Paparazzo has given me this year, and how much I love him. He is so beautiful, funny and kind. I thought of my family and how my aunt’s cancer has given us the gift of closeness. We lost some measure of it when my Grandmother died. I thought of my friends and how they encircle me with tenderness and fidelity.

I also thought about work. I realized I am missing out on being creative, and the places where I feel like I can soar creatively speaking seem to also be the places where the system of corporate chaplaincy requires acquiescence. I thought of the love I have for my patients and their families. I told myself, “I forgive you for having such a shitty first year there.” I also realize I cannot serve my call to God and also serve a corporate mindset. I made a promise to myself to stop trying. I still am some days, but then I play a new mantra in my head: “Do what you think is best as a minister, for them and for yourself.” I feel more empowered and much much less angry. I am still working on the fear though.

I did not think of The Bean. Somehow I guess that is important. I recently went over the worst of what he could have or might have done–the cheating, the lying, the pretending–and imagined sitting there hearing a full confession. I said all the hurtful things I could say in my heart and realized they were only directed towards myself. All the feelings of failure were about my not being good enough, and I felt terribly uncomfortable speaking to myself that way. So, I imagined the conversation again, but this time I thought only of loving myself as I am right now. In that imaginary confession my response was understanding. Pity, even. None of it belonged to me any more. Maybe it never did…

I came away from the Healing Touch experience and reached out for some help. I must say I am rather proud of myself on that front! Not easy, but so necessary. I do not feel like I am in it alone, which is always a place of despair for me. In allowing my heart to feel the love of those who support me and believe in me, I decided it would be okay to tell some of them exactly where I am–even the messy parts about wanting and planning to die in January. I cannot even begin to tell you how hard saying those words was, but I did. I said them.

Little changes. My life looks much the same as it did prior to the workshop, but I feel the new trajectory that the five percent shift change brought about. I feel open to all sorts of new possibilities, and I am even going to apply for a PhD program in NashVegas. I may not end up there, but I want to keep the future open to go wherever Love leads. Ah….Love leading me…I guess that is what I got connected back to in those moments of quiet. I know it seems like there was a lot of thinking, but these thoughts all came to me like the smells wafting out from a kitchen. They perfumed the air of my mind.

Here is a favourite quote from the poet Rumi that sums up where my mind and spirit are working to rest right now:

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love. Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover. If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive.

It is funny…this post has been simmering in my mind this last week and reworked quite a few times. Normally, when I sit down to write I write passionately and furiously. Everything sort of pours out. Not this time. Not now. The change–the letting go–the settling–took the stinger out of it all.

For those of you who read my blog consistently, you will find elements of this sermon familiar. I used the story I wrote earlier in the summer to commemorate my father’s death as the jumping off place for a recent sermon. The text from the Hebrew Scriptures is Genesis 17:1-8, 17-22, the story of Abram and Sari being renamed and told of the coming birth of a child late into their barren years.

In the summer of 1977–the summer my Father died–a mango tree was planted in our back-yard. Dear friends of my family gave the tree to us shortly before they moved back home to India. The father finished his PhD at the University of Miami, so it was not too long after Daddy died that the tree was planted. Their six-year old daughter and I played and attended kindergarten together. I can remember jumping on the mattresses at her house; they sat on the floor, so her mother felt our safety was not endangered! Her home always smelled of warm spices. I can remember being jealous of the pretty red dot her mother painted so carefully on her forehead. I can remember the cool embrace of her mother and father, always so glad to see me come to play. Her parents’ car had rotten floorboards, so you had to hold up your feet. I loved watching the road go by, especially in the rain.

The tree commemorated my friendship with their daughter, my Mother’s addiction to mangoes ( I still have nightmares.), and Daddy’s life. I can remember the father digging the hole and planting the tree. A small tree, with stakes and ropes to keep it upright. The hole was too big, but my Mother felt it would help the tree to mulch around it, so it was never fully filled in to the top of the hole. And mulch we did! Year after year, the best of the table scraps, grass clippings, and refuse went under that tree. Even the dead bunnies from a prolific surprise by my rabbit Baron (who then became “Baroness”) went under this tree. The offerings to the gods never were as thoughtful or as sacred as what we offered our dear mango tree.

When we sold the house ten years later, we still had never tasted one mango off our blessed tree. She never bloomed. Not once.

We sold the house on 100th Street to a Greek Orthodox priest. He invited to his open house to see all the renovations he made to our old home. We walked through the house noting each change, including the central air conditioning we never had. My room was now an office. The interior garden taken out, paved and a big hot tub put in its place. The Buddhas and totems were gone. The little concrete pond where Kelly Grey and I poured a whole bottle of bubble bath before turning on the pump and filling the patio with bubbles, gone. A huge satellite dish could be seen looming in the back yard. So much change, yet so much the same. We noticed and took in all the ways “our home” had become “his house.” As we finished our tour, we walked through the master bedroom and bath, then the laundry room, which put us at the very back of the expansive indoor patio and overlooking the back-yard. Mother and I saw it at the same time. The mango tree laden with fruit.

Mother turned to me and said, “It is time to go.”

Our faithfulness to our little mango tree not too unlike Abram’s to God. Dutiful to a fault, yet the promises of fertility beyond the grasp of reality. Don’t you just love it that Abram hears this covenantal blessing from the Holy One and laughs? Can you see him? I can. I can in large part because I have been him. All of us come to that place where we feel “settled” and accept—in a sense—our lot in life. Things may not be the way we originally hoped, but things are what they are and we try to hold onto that little corner of the world we call our own.

We do not look to the sky to see promises like stars painting the eternal ceiling above us with abundance. We do not want to be renamed anything other than what we are right now in this very moment. We only want to stay the course, keep things the same. Maybe we might complain about how they used to be when they were better, because the past somehow seems better in the rear view mirror than the uncertain future ahead. We did not feel that way about it when it was our present reality—of course—but now the luxury of time has given us the gift of forgetting the bad parts and putting on a pedestal the good.

Abram understands this too. He cries out to God to just let Ismael—his illegitimate child with his wife’s slave—be “enough” of God’s blessing for him. Let us look at our text again:

Abraham fell face down; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

Abram wanted to keep the status quo, and changing it—even in ways that brought forth more fruit, more complication, more change, more work, more legacy, more life—inspired great fear, trepidation and well, laughter.

One of my responsibilities in my job with hospice is to lead a bereavement group. Week-after-week I often hear the same stories repeated about the way a loved one died, the ways in which modern medicine failed, the ways in which other family and friends just do not help with all the hurt, the ways in which life will never be the same without the one who died, the ways death changed life and the anger at those changes. I hear these stories from the same people week-after-week, and my heart hurts for them because I see how stuck they are, and I long to offer some kind of healing balm that might validate their pain, but also inspire them to embrace this change and the fruit it might bring to their lives. That old mango tree in the yard of my childhood home keeps coming to mind.

See once upon a time, I dated Plant Geek. Plant Geek is getting a PhD in Horticulture from the University of Florida and works down in South Dade studying Mamey for his dissertation (of all things!). His adviser went to Costa Rica for six months in 2005. Plant Geek house sat and dog sat in his absence, and this was the time of our dating.

We walked around the yard, moving between all the various fruit trees and plants. What else would you expect from a horticulture professor specializing in tropical fruit?! When we came to one particular mango tree, Plant Geek started to pick some of them off for me and Mother. He always considered himself to be her “Dealer,” given she really is a Mango Junkie. And what a good Dealer! More varieties. More mangoes. Needless to say, Ms. Audrey loved how it worked out that I dated Plant Geek during mango season!

As we stood under the tree, so laden with fruit, I thought of our tree on 100th Street. I told Plant Geek the whole story of our mango tree–even the dead bunnies–and how it never blossomed or gave us fruit. I told him about finding her drooping with fruit just a year later. I wanted to know one thing: Why?

He told me the answer was simple. We had been too good to the tree. Trees need stress in-order to bloom and give off fruit. Reproduction, which is what the fruit is all about to the tree, comes about when the tree gets scared it might die and so it sends forth the fruit to ensure its survival in the next generation. In commercial growing, he told me, they actually use drought and flood to force stress their trees into better production. Our tree never experienced a single stressful moment until we sold the house to a man not quite as dedicated to her nurturing. She did the only thing possible. She freaked out! She brought forth fruit for her survival.

How often all of us get stuck thinking life should be about rocking along and keeping everything nice and even and happy. Oh to have an easy stress free life! What wouldn’t we give for that! And, how much we need safety, security, good food, water, and tender loving care to grow to be strong, healthy and happy. But the truth is that part of what inspires our imagination and makes it sparkle with possibility much like the stars in the darkest night sky, is stress. And like Abraham, we too shake our fits at God and want things to just stay the same and for our lot to be secure.

Unfortunately, life is not like that. I recently remarked to my bereavement group that given how I am younger than all of them, and I know “life is not fair,” I was sure they knew this too. “So,” I asked, “What did you do in the past to help deal with the ways in which life was unfair?” The room fell into an awkward silence, and when someone finally spoke it was to tell the same story from the week before about trying to keep some piece of their loved one “alive” in their home.

Now do not get me wrong, all of us need places where we can bemoan, mourn, and cry out in anger and anguish the terrible changes this unfair life brings to each of our doors. We all go through terrible emotional droughts, and for many in my group that is where they are and where they should be. I understand. When my father died thirty years ago his death ushered in a terrible drought in my life. From his death June 28th, 1977 until the one year anniversary, I saw more than some see in a lifetime. Daddy, Grammy, and my best friend from church all died. My sisters came to Mother and told her they never wanted to see us or have anything to do with us again. With them went their husbands, Aunt Clem and Grammy, before she died later in the Fall. Our dinner table went from nine to two in less than one month. Losing my family like that has proven to be the most powerful loss of my life.

But my life has not just been about those losses, just as Abraham and Sarah’s was not just about barrenness.

For now I seek to embrace the good covenant I have with God, one you have too. The covenant that no matter what happens God with be with us. The covenant that grace is enough and mercy plentiful. The covenant about loving God, my neighbour and myself. The covenant that focuses on forgiveness and inclusion at the dinner table of all God’s children, even when they are barren or stressed out!

I want to embrace with gratitude all the love wrapping itself around my life. I possess more love than I know what to do with from both friends and family. When I was ordained last fall, the most beautiful moment for me came during “The Laying On of Hands.” Being surrounded by all of these loved ones blessing me and my calling to walk beside all of God’s children surpassed any other moment of my life. That moment did not come easy. Years of study, poverty, questioning, giving up, trying again, waiting, wondering and working had to transpire before I found myself on my knees at the altar surrounded. I felt more love in that one moment than I had ever experienced in my life. I could feel the mango tree of my own life overflowing in fragrant fruit.

So, tell me friend, what about your own tree? Do you feel the stress of your life bringing forth new fruit and the abundances of creativity, friendship, compassion and love? Or do you just laugh when God wants to bring you out of your barrenness–even if it is painful and stressful–and pray for the status quo?

After writing my last post about my sexless love life and dating disasters, I felt inspired. I put up my list (basically–I did make some small edits) on Craigslist to try and dip back into the dating pool. I received many interesting responses, including quite a few lists from men of their own Top 40 Reasons to date them! Some of which were really beautiful. Although I did get a bit offended that this one guy thought I was too much of cow to date, but did use my list to create his own list and then posted it on CL to attract the skinnier girls. WTF? I am too ugly, but my list is too good to pass up copying? PLAHHHEEESE!

I also got quite a few men saying that not only was a the “perfect” girlfriend, I would also make the “perfect” wife, partner, etc. I found myself always writing back to them to let them know how un-perfect I really am. Too much pressure to live up to, in my estimation. I was also totally flattered. So, in the spirit of full disclosure and imperfection, I offer to you the following list…with many thanks to Janeane Garofalo for the perfect quotation to start off my own thinking about what it means to be imperfect me:

“Many people feel that mass acceptance and smooth socialization are desirable life paths for a young adult… Many people are often wrong… Don’t bother being nice. Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong. The masses have never been arbiters of the sublime, and they often fail to recognize the truly great individual. Taking into account the public’s regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in.”

- Janeane Garofalo

1. I do not want to think or be just like everyone else.
2. I hate the suburbs. Architecture should be interesting and diverse; it should surprise you. Most suburbs are based on the idea that everybody wants basically the same thing.
3. I prefer old to new. I would rather recover an old chair fifty times than buy a new one. And if I buy a new one, I want to make sure it is well made so my grandkids can recover it fifty times.
4. I do not want my children–if I ever have any–to fit in completely at school. I want them to have it tough. I want them to have to build emotional muscles and empathy, which only comes from the school of ridicule.
5. I will judge you based on what kind of car you drive. If you have a gas guzzling SUV in the city, I will look down on you. If you are a man in your forties with three hundred dollar shoes and an expensive haircut and drive a Cadillac convertible, I will think you are the scuzzy Sugar Daddy type. If you drive a Mini Cooper, I will think you have a clown fetish.
6. I hate the words “nice” and “fine.” They mean absolutely nothing. My acronym for “nice” is: Not Into Connecting Emotionally. And from the movie The Italian Job, fine stands for: Freaked-Out, Insecure, Needy and Emotional. Let’s use them in an exemplar sentence: Only really nice people ask you how you are doing and when you say “fine” are satisfied.
7. I will freak out about the emotional strain of working with patients who are gravely ill, dying or dead sometimes. I will be bouncing off the walls and need copious amounts of holding to settle down. Sex and sleep help too.
8. I cry when I am exhausted, feel like I cannot express my emotions, or feel overwhelmed by not meeting my own internal high marks for myself. You are not responsible for this, but I appreciate it when you do not make me feel like shit for crying. I cannot handle the pressure of whatever is making me cry and then the added pressure of trying not to cry because you do not want me to, with the bad feelings that you cannot allow me to cry and just be there for me, which lead to the subsequent feelings that you must not even care about me.
9. I hate moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer. I hate it if anyone else folds for me. I am a total weirdo about folding. I love. I need it. I gotta do it for myself.
10. I will talk and talk and talk when I feel lost, happy, excited, overwhelmed and/or needy. If I can just be quiet with you, know that I finally trust you enough to do so and love you deeply.
11. I am skittish about opening up my heart to you and begin to question how I can make it if you leave me and break my heart. Stick with me, and I will sort it out and stop holding on too tightly. This gets really bad between the fourth and fifth month, and finally gets better after the sixth. Can you last that long?
12. I will try and run away between the second and third month. See above.
13. I love giving head and might make you pass out from my ministrations. You will go nuts!
14. When I feel insecure I will pay for everything, even though I will never make more money than you do.
15. I will remember everything you say. This can be a really good thing, because if you say you love Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, I will not only remember but get your favourite kind for you as a surprise. If you say you will do something for me, I will remember when you do not. You will not be able to get away with anything.
16. I have integrity about everything I do. I even obey the rules at the dog park! You will not be able to get away with shit.
17. I will put my dog before you if she needs food, walking, etc.
18. I go to bed early and get up early. I hate waking up though, so I will hit the snooze just enough times to make you want to throw the clock right at me.
19. I will make you an amazing dinner and expect you to clean up the dishes. If you do not offer, I will resent you for thinking I should do everything for you. If you do offer and I say “no,” I mean it.
20. I am both super analytical and super emotive. I think logically about everything, including my feelings.
21. I ask tons of questions.
22. I will talk to anyone.
23. I will challenge you and all of your assumptions.
24. I will not allow you to criticize faith traditions from a strictly anti-fundamentalist standpoint. You will have to dig deeper than that.
25. I narrate my life through the lenses of loss, hope, despair, faith, logic, creativity and curiosity.
26. I will laugh until I cry, and cry until I laugh. You may feel like you are on a roller coaster!
27. I will be fatalistic sometimes and sit down (metaphorically) and not want to get back up.
28. I will get back up, and I will not allow you to not get back up too. If you try to hide the shit of your life and say it does not mean anything, I will force the issue as it pertains to us or your wellbeing. I will leave you if you refuse to help yourself grow the fuck up and deal.
29. I never get my car washed enough!
30. I will try and find an explanation for everything.
31. I will not allow you to make racist comments or jokes in my presence. I won’t let your family or friends do it either. If I think you do behind my back, I will leave you.
32. I will not like it when you refer to not doing something as being a “pussy.” The worst insult to most men is to call them a woman. I hate that.
33. If you tell me your definition of what it means to be a “real man in the world” but then you totally disregard that and act like a self indulgent boy, I will see your crap and call you on it.
34. I know how to use power tools.
35. I will want to do it on my own, even when I really need your help. I will hint at needing the help and hope you offer. Then I will say “No, I can do it on my own.” at least once before accepting your help.
36. I am on time, almost always. When I am running late, I am so late I will want to cancel.
37. My body will never be what it would have been if I had not gained 40 pounds in fourth grade, and learned to protect myself with food and fat. I keep working on this one.
38. I freak out about feeling the overwhelming weight of scarcity–of which there has been a lot in my life–but will still try to find ways to be generous in the middle of that. If you looked at my check book at any given moment, you may find that I spent my last $20 on you or doing something with you so you would not know just how bad it really is to be a poor chaplain. I walk around terrified about this much of the time.
39. I will explain when I do not have to because I will be afraid you will not love me for being human, needing things, or needing human kindness too.
40. I will analyze everything. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. I am working on letting go more and just being. This is hard for me, but I want to change so my life can have less anxiety over trying to figure everything out. I do not do well with emotional messiness, but I have plenty in my own spirit. I am sure that once I figure this out I will no longer need to analyze everything quite so much. (Irony intended!)

Can you handle Little Miss Imperfection?

So, I had to cut the latest date loose. Dear Lord! What is up with a guy being in his thirties and having “fish mouth” when it comes to kissing? (Think guppy or bottom feeder in the tank.) Ewwww. First, there was Woody Woodpecker with all the in and out, in and out of that jack hammer of a tongue, and now Fish Mouth! What is the dating world coming to?

I told Paparazzo–after properly grossing him out with a full on description of Fish Mouth–that I sometimes feel like I ended up on the Clearance Rack at a bookstore. All the best sellers have been scooped up. Some returned, mind you, but the best of the best were bought a long ass time ago. I somehow ended up next to: From Guy to Guru: Divorcees Do New Delhi and Accept Your Fetish: A Guide On How To Braid Your Nose Hair. Am I the rare first edition tucked under all the trashy novels and travel guides to Siberia? Or am I just sad story of yet another 30-something “great girl” who cannot find a good man gathering dust?

My thirties have been rough in the dating department. Let’s see: I spent the first 497 days a virgin. Not that good of a start, but also just the way my life unfolded. Thank God for day 498!! I loved three people these last five years, but only totally loved one of them. I have had sex with three people in my whole life, and made out naked with another 2.5. I realize I cannot put “2.5″ without some explanation…oh wait! Yes I can! This is my blog and I can do whatever I want! Let’s just say that only one of us was nakkid, which is why it does not really count all the way. I also have spent 61 of the last 76 months without sex at all! What is a girl to do? From a strictly statistical standpoint, these numbers do not bode well for my sexual future.

(Please do not post the statistical results of my sex-less future based on these numbers in the “Comments” section of this post. Give a girl a break. I will not be able to face myself in the mirror, let alone my destiny if I knew THE TRUTH. Ignorance is bliss after all.)

Now, let me just tell you: I make for a great girlfriend. In fact, I have been known to be the “exception to the rule” kind of girlfriend. I zig–in a very peaceful and understanding manner–when a guy thinks I will zag just because of my chromosomes. Need space to play video games naked? I understand. I need space to pluck my eyebrows, fold my sheets (I get too much pleasure from being able to fold a fitted sheet.), and blow fart kisses on Emma the Puppy’s belly. Not to mention, how can I talk about you behind your back if you are always around!?

I have a lot of compassion, creativity, humor, understanding, fun and intelligence to offer. And I cook too! I am never above helping–although I will resent you just a tiny bit if I Magic Erase your whole fucking house a couple of days before you break up with me–or too snitty to laugh at my own ridiculous behavior. I will even try and–brace yourself–change! Yes, that is right folks. I, Jacqueline Hope Derby, will change and grow the hell up if need be. I also practice forgiveness and unconditional love towards others and self.

And did I mention that I have only had sex 15 of the last 76 months? I am always down for making up for lost time.

How about those 40 reasons? Feel free to pass them along to any completely single, completely heterosexual man who reads books, eat vegetables, likes to go bike riding, enjoys witty whip smart women, and is willing to consider a woman who owes the price of a Ferrari to Duke Divinity School (oh and younger than 36–my age–is always encouraged). Here they are:

1. I think really fast.
2. I give Diana, Gladys and Roberta a run for their money in my car!
3. I own my share of sexy heels, but I am almost always in flats or sandals.
4. I will do the right thing even if it hurts to do it.
5. I can cook most anything I try, but I really should not bake.
6. I’ll laugh with you but not at you…okay, maybe at you sometimes.
7. I have a dog who can make a room warmer just by panting.
8. I can do puzzles, but I cannot park worth shit.
9. I color coordinate my bra and panties to what I am wearing.
10. I am honest and kind.
11. I would rather go for a walk or a bike ride than watch TV all the time.
12. I love to give massages.
13. I kiss like I mean it.
14. I am pretty much happy wherever I am.
15. I am weird and entertaining…at least that is what my friends say.
16. I once fed a boa constrictor a live chicken.
17. I over tip.
18. I like ice cream, but not too much ice cream. I will share.
19. I went back to finish my degree after flunking out the first go around, taking a 3.5 year break and changing majors–again! I also got my master’s from “The Harvard of the South.”
20. I know how to pop pop-corn on the stove.
21. I never sleep with homeless guys or idiots…call it my anti-fetish.
22. I dream of being a published writer.
23. I take imaginary vacations on the internet.
24. I love cooking for my friends and having dinner parties, but not a party girl at all.
25. I pump my own gas.
26. I like it rough and gentle…and gentle and rough…and then rough and gentle. I like it. I like it a lot.
27. I set goals and write them down. I make lists. I always put “have more sex” on both.
28. My mother says I am her favorite daughter. I am an only child.
29. I don’t chew with my mouth open…but I will laugh.
30. I am really good at listening, even though I love telling a good story.
31. I can order dinner without freaking out about needing to make a decision.
32. I am spiritual, not religious and super liberal. I am a minister.
33. I work stuff out over throwing temper tantrums.
34. I love good books, baths, and boys.
35. I rarely have too much to drink.
36. Everyone calls me “sweetheart.” I guess it is my vibe.
37. I like (this week) Damian Rice, Stevie Wonder, Sia and Bjork.
38. I never mind doing it myself, but I also will ask for help. I believe in Relationship Chi.
39. I love boy films over chick flicks.
40. I am game for anything.

Back when I dated Plant Geek, I would often go to sleep in his bed with his hand on the center of my back. Sweet comfort found with a simple hand. Sweet safety in touch. A gentle connection. Even after he and I parted ways, I would lay restless in my bed and just think of the hand to my back and then tumble into a peaceful rest. Just the thought; it was all I needed.

In another relationship, I learned even more deeply the power of touch. I never heard of Reiki before this small introduction. I must admit to being both open and skeptical. Despite my own spirituality, I often put my analytical mind into overdrive and question, question, question. My first experiences with Reiki forced me to reassess some places in me needing to just be and not think. As the other hands held me and meditated over me, I felt the release of pent up energy and fear. Tears would often well up and spill out on the bed. I learned how much I internalized my life and how the scars of my life were flaring right in the depths of my body and disrupting my energy.

I knew of the word “chakra” but could not tell you anything about them. Now I can name all seven of them and their functions. I can assess them and work to try to find a balance in my energy fields and in those of others. (Here is a great link to a page about them and their functions.) My Root Chakra–that which grounds me to this planet and informs my sense of safety–often gets out of whack. The first line of the meditation for the Root Chakra on the above page says: “It is safe to me to be here.” As I said, when Plant Geek first put that one hand on my back I felt safe. The other experiences with this type of healing touch rooted me deeper to my life, my place on this planet, and the abundence of life and possiblity.

Unfortunatley, as soon as any new trauma occurs with me the first thing to go is my sense of rootedness. I can remember being very sick with a virus when I was 23 and in bed for a month. My fever did not fully break for two months, and in the beginning they soared over 103 degrees F. Delusions came and went. At some point, Mother crawled in my bed and fell asleep. I awoke to find her there and became terrified at this stranger in my bed. I did not remember who she was. I screamed out, “Who are you?” I was certain she was there to kill me. She told me that she was my mother. I cried, “I do not have a mother!” I can remember the feeling of dread overcoming me. I knew, just knew, I did not have a Mother. She calmly reassured me that in fact I did have a mother, and she was my mother. I finally realized who she was and began weeping. “I do have a mother.” I fell into her arms and cried out all my terror.

I fell back to earth and found my gounding again in her healing embrace.

My patients often describe to me feeling the pull of death upon them. Dying does not hurt or cause them fear, but when they tumble back into their beds and awake to find themselves back on earth they report feeling disorientated and unsure. I understand. I can still float away easily. Maybe this is why I feel the most protected and at peace when I am in water? The warm cocoon makes the floating feel normal and not do discombobulating. Alas, I am not a fish. I live here on Terra Firma and being rooted heals the feelings of being able to fall right off the planet’s edge. Being rooted to my life helps me feel real and of value.

Those first tender and amazing experiences with Reiki opened my spirit to the healing powers of touch. I do not mean this in the way one might experience a charismatic or ecstatic moment of miraculous healing that looks exactly the way the one seeking the healing expects…i.e. “I was blind, but now I see.” No, this type of healing is more about inner vision than anything else. This healing is about seeing yourself as you really are–the true you created by love, existing in love, persisting in love. This healing is about inner peace, creative hope, and forgiveness. Yes. Forgiveness. As Carolyn Myss said, “Every great act of healing is preceded by an even greater act of forgiveness.” This healing is about allowing the flow–the Chi–to be about unconditional love towards self and others.

I attended a workshop this weekend on Healing Touch. After witnessing a patient die whisper quiet and with minimal problems, when her disease normally creates a gruesome death, I became entralled with learning about Healing Touch. Her daughter has taken many workshops and did a great deal of energy work with her to facilitate this peaceful death. Healing Touch does facilitate peace, and my workshop served as a wonderful reminder of the need in my life for my spiritual practices to root and ground me as I provide compassionate care and touch to my patients. It reminded me of the need in my life for my spiritual practices to root and ground me to my own life and the process of my own healing.

As I lay on the table during a Chakra Clearing–one of the most profound experiences of tranquility I have ever experienced–I lay there thinking about my need for touch. Touch connects us one to another. When the one we love leaves, we miss not only their presence in our lives but also laying down on the sweet bed of love and companionship and resting in their tender embrace. The widows in my bereavement group tell me how utterly painful it is to crawl into their too empty beds and weep over the one person who would hold them in their void…the one person missing from their lives.

I need to be held and assured. I need that tender embrace. I need the hand on my back in the middle of the dark nights of my life. I need all the “compromised” places of disorganized energy to be healed with the gentlest of touch and by the kindest of hearts. I need the hands that heal placed on me.

I am waiting.

The first time I met a new patient of mine, I found myself surprised to see her sitting outside on the patio given that she is on Continuous Care. We only put you on Continuous Care when you are having medication issues or for immanency, and I heard she was on due to her death being expected shortly. A young woman in her fifties shrivelled from cancer and aged by at least thirty years. The visit with her was short given how easily exhausted she becomes. She fell asleep numerous times while we spoke–even in the middle of sentences–so I sat quietly praying for her and for her daughters.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my nieces. I will do anything for them. In many ways they contain God’s greatest gift to me. No matter how much they might drive me nuts, I always can come around for them. I just love them–and forgive them and me for our humanness–that much. So when I meet other young women of a similar age, I find my heart picks up the same rhythm it has around Morgan and Piano Girl. For this reason, I offered to come back and speak at a more convenient time to my patient’s twenty-something daughter. I thought about my nieces and what they might need from a chaplain if Sista was dying. And I gave thanks that for at least one more minute I am young and cute (if I do say so myself), which goes a long way in reaching out to someone also young and cute and facing one of the most horrible losses of her life.

I arrived as agreed and met “Stacy” in the parking lot of their complex. Right on time, she came whirrling into the lot in her bright orange sports car. The car fit her personality, at least what I saw of it ever so briefly on my first visit. We went inside and she flitted around like a butterfly on acid ordering Chinese food, talking to her mother, and to our nurse. For a brief moment I thought she was going to cancel our conversation, but finally she looked up at me and asked, “So, where do we do this thing?” We ended up sitting next to each other on the couch and with a rush she began.

“I am really having a hard time. I can’t lose my mom–you know, I kind of still have hope she will pull through this–but I also know in my head that she is going to die. I do not trust anyone. I need help, but I can’t let anyone help me. I push people away. I am really independent like that. I think my sister is going to take a leave of absence and come down. My boyfriend is always trying to help me…but I have to find ways to pay him back. I feel bad if he stays to help me, like he has better things to be doing than helping me with my mom or because I am scared. And my friend from work–well, I pushed her away a couple of weeks ago. I always do that. I have a hard time making friends, especially with girls. I do not trust them. Not that I trust guys, mind you, because they all cheat. I mean my dad–before he died–cheated on my mom. My step-dad too. Every man cheats. I know my boyfriend cannot be trusted. My step-dad beat my mom, but he helped so much financially. She stayed with him because of us. I do not know who to trust or have help, so yes I am young but it is all up to me. That is why I like to help people and want to help people for a living. I am good at that. So, what exactly is it that you can do to help me?”

As I sat there listening to her I felt prepared. I heard this story once before, just with a slightly different cast of characters. At the time, the story was just a personal history. I filed it under “everybody goes through shit” and this is the shit The Bean went through. I look back now and see the signs he would eventually implode, but at the time the story was just that. A story. History. Past tense. Over. Done with. The imploding, however, got my attention as I lay devestated from the nuclear fall-out.

I looked at her ever so softly and asked, “Who was the alchoholic…your mom or your step-father?” The answer: Both of them.

I read a book about Adult Children of Alcoholics after The Bean imploded and left. I paid attention. I saw much of my own family dynamics, and the ways I continue to practice day after day healthier ways of living and relating in the world. I saw just how fucking hard it is, as best I can for someone who did not grow up that way, and how much work it takes to really deal again and again with it as it comes up. I learned some things I shared with this terrified girl, most importantly that being in relationships–especially intimate or fragile ones–wakens the beast of fear and that she did not have to reinvent the wheel to find her way to safety. The path has been walked by many, and they are availible to help her find her way.

When she repeated to me again that she just cannot trust anyone, I gave her the only promise I know: “You can learn to trust yourself, so that when people fail you–and they will because we are all human and make mistakes, even Chaplains– you will trust yourself to get through it and figure it out.”

I sat there so grateful I grew up in some terribly important ways…so grateful all the imploding shit was not just left to rot out me and my heart, but could be used for good somehow. All of a sudden, in one conversation all the pain of this terrible heartbreak was bearable. All of a sudden, I was glad I met The Bean, and I was ready to say that I do not regret meeting him. All of a sudden, everything was okay. All of a sudden, everything came full circle.

Now this is the place where some of my dear readers might be saying to themselves, “Yes. Everything happens for a reason.” I do not believe in that lie. If everything happens for a reason, then The Puppet Master we call fate, or destiny, or God, is intentionally causing terrible things to happen to us in order to teach us a lesson. I posses no freedom of action, just freedom of emotional reaction until I get to whatever reaction this Puppet Master has deemed pleasing to itself. No thank you.

I do, however, believe things happen for the reason we give them. I believe in our limitless creativity, which I think continually surprises God in its joy, love, forgiveness and at times, cruelty. I am the one who can with all the love in the universe take back a thing meant only for my harm and find a way to make it into something life giving for myself or others. I am the one who can invite God into that space to whisper in my ear “potential” when my heart is crying out “impossibility.” I am the one who can forgive, let go, reshape, build anew, and design good things for my life with whatever comes my way. As I said to Stacy, I can trust myself even when others prove untrustworthy.

So, I changed what I wrote about him in The Dating Game.

Here is the old version:

The Bean. Bank Robber, Cynic, Musician, Writer and Atheist. I must admit that he possess lovely qualities: whip-smart, funny, kind, playful, an amazing teacher, generous, fun to be around, reads books, talks about real things, compassionate. Or at least that was The Bean I experienced until his ex-girlfriend called, he went to have dessert until after 2 in the morning, and… Loving him changed me forever and in beautiful ways. I never want losing him to take away those things or change me into someone more cynical, more fearful, and less trusting, but so far, it has. I only want to be my true self–like I was when I met him and with him– regardless of the pain he caused when he left. Although he is the only person I feel I ever really “fell in love with,” none of it remains as sweet as it might of if we had broken-up over not being good together and with integrity. He said, “I only dated you because I was lonely.” I believe this to be true. Unfair. Wrong. But true, even if only in part. Given this, I wish I never met him, which is terribly hard and painful to say, but given the lies my joy was based on, it is also really honest. No one likes to be the fool, even if everybody plays one sometime, so every memory, every thought, every feeling became tainted in one cruel week. As I said, I wish I never met him.

Here is the new:

The Bean. Bank Robber, Cynic, Musician, Writer and Atheist. I must admit that he possess lovely qualities: whip-smart, funny, kind, playful, an amazing teacher, generous, fun to be around, reads books, talks about real things, compassionate. This is The Bean I experienced until he “imploded” (his word). Loving him changed me forever and in beautiful ways. I never want losing him to take away those things or change me into someone more cynical, more fearful, and less trusting, so I have worked very hard and intentionally to not let them. I only want to be my true self–like I was when I met him and with him–because I really like her. She is a good girl. I think I understand now that he did the very best that he could do, and even while it may not have been the very best for himself or for me, it was all he was capable of. The day it ended I told him I remember who he really is. He replied, “I am glad one of us still does because I don’t.” I carry that beautiful, imaginative, kind young man who really gets it in my heart and only want the best for him. I want that for me too. I give us both countless amounts of freedom to find it for ourselves, by ourselves.

Amen. So be it.

A recent post of mine contained the story of the first time I had sex at thirty-one, and some of my complicated past that contributed to the long period of abstinence in my life. I worked on this particular story for over a year given it will appear at the bottom of a photograph of me fifteen feet high in Paris later this year. I worked hard, but I never could seem to capture all of what I wanted. The story is complex for me with many different currents running through.

I was raised in a fairly spiritually conservative environment, although with my stepfather being a physician and Mother being a nurse, science was never downplayed in my home as irrelevant. In fact, quite the opposite was true. I like to joke that although I was not allowed to read anything I considered important during dinner–say, Nancy Drew–my parents would allow the Bible, the Journal of American Medicine, and Science magazine to be read…their only exceptions. They wove together science and Christianity to help teach me about my sexuality. Anatomical drawings on the back of Burger King placemats detailed every falopian tube and prostate gland. “Wait to have sex until you are married in order to be safe,” their spiritual message.

The irony, of course, was the same caring physician sitting across from me and quizzing me about ovulation cycles also went home and molested me day-after-day. A wonderful doctor and a terrible father rolled into one human being. I received all sorts of education from him, some of which I still work to process and heal from. I can remember being in the hospital at twenty-one and seeing my name on the psych unit’s Team Workroom dry erase board. Beside my name were the words “violent abuse.” You’re telling me.

The year of my going into this hospital for three weeks became the major turning point in my whole life. The staff taught me coping skills I still use and practice. I know I would be dead by my own hand without all I learned there. A seminal moment for me came when the therapist working with me took my hands, placed them in my crotch and said, “One day you will want a man to touch you there, and that will be okay.” I did not believe I would ever want to be touched, but I did know I wanted to want to be touched. She lit a match.

The fire of my own sexuality burns within me fifteen years after her words. Christians, ministers, faithful persons, etc. do not talk about these fires unless forced to speak of our own limited understanding of sexuality or when we are trying to put them out in another. How much disconnect and fear have the so-called faithful roused up against homosexuality? I often think the real problem is not with anyone else’s sexuality, but instead the problem lies in our not being able to deal with our own. Christians historically look to scripture to teach them about sexuality, even with its limited understanding of human relationships, genetics, reproduction and the equality of all persons, male, female, trans-gendered, gay, straight, bi-sexual.

I must say I possess a bit of trepidation speaking about my own sexual identity and exploration because of both the shame of being molested and the imposed upon shame of my historic religious tradition. Christians are really bad about making the body and its desires something “ungodly” and despairing anyone who dares to embrace what God gave them. We have whole churches where membership requires a myriad of lies in order to participate. I grew up Southern Baptist, and the inside “joke” is not if there are any gays in the church, but if there are any choir directors who are not. I do not find this funny; I find it tragic and fundamentally against everything I believe following Jesus ought to be about. For me, following Jesus requires that we speak the truth of who we are and practice radical difficult love and inclusion of those in our midst. I cannot help but wonder what amazing things would happen in our congregations if we embraced the GLBT community in such a way as to help their gifts flourish in our midst, instead of insisting they hide their God-given lights under the proveribial bushel/closet?

So, I am coming out. I, Jacqueline Hope Derby–wait!–REVEREND Jacqueline Hope Derby own a vibrator, and I love it. Jesus loves me and my truth. I know the Jesus of “do not fear” would never want shame in any form to fill me because of the truth of who I am. Here is my truth: I am a woman. I am a minister. I am a sexual person. I know my own body. I would not survive sexual dry spells without my vibrator. I am not married, nor have I ever been. I love men and love having sex with them. I chose to do this one at a time and in a relationship. This is me.

Writing this story for my artist friend has pushed me to uncover some old shame left in my heart. In the end, I tossed out the prior version and re-wrote my piece for him. This time I left behind the fear of being “found out” and said just want I really wanted to say. I hope when you read these words you will feel provoked, comforted, inspired, angry, and mostly curious about your own God-given sexual self. Here is the final story that will appear with my picture:

When was the first time I had sex? Was it at seven? Twenty-one? Thirty-one? Thirty-five?

Was it the first time my stepfather molested me? He would tickle me on the outside of my clothed private parts until I would pee all over his hand. As my tiny breasts began to poke out, he would tweak them under my shirt or point to them. He played with me never pushing me to act too much like an adult; it was all a dress-up game in high heels and shorts. His hands ran up my thighs while we watched cartoons.

Did I lose my virginity the first time I had an orgasm? Finding a book on female masturbation the summer I was twenty-one taught me about my body. The book inspired me to explore my own body and sexuality, but I still felt shame. My self-exploration a secret; my sexuality known only to me.

Was it when I first had sex at thirty-one? I still covered my real body with layer upon layer of fat, but I allowed certain parts of me to be seen, touched and explored by a good friend. I kept most of my heart locked away from him though. Sometimes it felt like I was watching us have sex and not really present in the moment. I slept with him because I could and because I knew nothing real and lasting would ever happen between us. He was safe.

Or did I lose my virginity last year when I fell in-love for the first time? Many of the layers of fat gone, I let him touch, taste and see every single inch of my body and my heart. Sometimes sleeping with him would cause me to laugh hysterically, the waves of bliss overwhelming me. At other times, I would cry without understanding the deep wellspring of complicated emotions pouring out. I imagined door-after-door in my locked soul opening up as the pure light of love poured into the rooms and illuminated them. Shame melted away. I found my heart and body capable of things I thought the abuse stole away from me forever.

After six months he left me saying he only dated me because he was lonely. I almost died. Am I a virgin again?

I am trapped in the Rage Cage. I want to let go of all of my anger, but I just do not seem to be able to do this…yet. I feel my body, mind and soul overflowing with rage. Rage at The Bean for all the unanswered questions and betrayal. Rage at work for trying so hard, and rage because I leave feeling overwhelmed, overworked and angry. Rage at striving so diligently to heal the past because sometimes feel I got to the party too late…what is it all worth? Rage at not being paid a living wage. Rage at myself for feeling entitled even when I know better. Rage at Mother for putting even more pressure on me right when I need her to just swoop in and help me out, again. Rage at needing help at all; rage at needing help right now. Rage at my body for falling down before I could heal my heart.

I am trapped in the Rage Cage.

I will admit I once was an Oprah devotee. Certain moments stay with me. Maya Angelou saying, “You did then what you knew best to do. Now that you know better, do better.” A group of very angry lesbians talking about misogyny (an important topic that I agree with many of them on) and a woman in the audience asking, “If you hate men so much, why do you try so hard to look like them?” Damn! I just about died laughing, and to the credit of those amazing women, they did too. And then there was the time Andrew Vachss sat with Oprah for an hour talking about sexual abuse. Oprah’s public struggle to make sense of the sexual abuse in her past helped me to come out of the proverbial closet. I give her all credit for helping to debunk the stigma and for showing that women who have been raped can possess real strength and beauty.

She sat there heavily upon her chair speaking to him and not quite agreeing with him about the rage victims of sexual abuse carry with them. Andrew Vachss said, “Your anger is the weight you carry.”  She immediately understood and agreed.  Epiphany!

The light went on for me in that one sentence too.  Why am I here fifteen years later and still sorting this one out?

I had so much anger then. Anger at Daddy for dying, my sisters for leaving, my Mother for bringing John into our home, and anger at John for hurting me so profoundly my DNA altered. I write these things now and feel so little of the sting. No. The sting is not gone completely, but mostly now just makes me uncomfortable when the present reveals a place of vulnerability. So much of this anger has been released. As I spent the last few years working my ass off–literally–and saw the pounds slipping away one painful ounce at a time, I saw the anger melt and the Rage Cage lift.

I survived these last months in some part due to eating to lessen the blows to my shattered defenses. So much has happened to me this year that I find myself in a brand new Rage Cage. I keep sorting through all the reasons why I am so angry, and trying to figure out what I need to do to let go of this anger that is hurting me. I want to go back to the place where I feel free and strong, not where I eat to stuff down my rage at my circumstances and failed or flawed relationships. Now do not misunderstand, I believe anger is an important and healthy response…to begin with. I also know at some point we all must let go because the anger only destroys us like an insidious cancer. I can feel it eating away at my optimism, my spunk, my trust, and my openness.

Ultimately, I want my anger to morph into a fuel to empower me to love more, and love with a greater attention to detail. I realize this may seem strange, but “passion to love” is too similar to “passion to hate” for me to ignore anger’s power when it comes to love. Letting anger melt allows real love and intimacy to grow. I know, I have seen it happen in me before, but it seems to happen only when I let go of the past being any different. (Going back to my post on forgiveness.) Ultimately, I want it to empower me to forgive and practice grace and mercy towards myself and others. Practicing grace and mercy are key. Grace being the place where I extend unconditional favour, and mercy being the place where I extend unconditional abandonment of my expectations in the face of them not being met. I need both right now because I keep hearing myself saying–pleading really–both out loud and in my head, “I am just one person!”

As I rode my bike on Thrusday morning, I envisioned myself in the Rage Cage. I fell deep within its claustrophobic den out of all the anger I feel towards The Bean. Add to this the rage at myself for both hitting below the belt twice when he left and for not seeing it all coming down the pike, and my whole being felt oppressed. I see all the “trying” and all the ways I feel like I am failing, not just flailing about. I thought about what I needed and what I want, and I counted all the ways these go left unanswered. The bars just seemed to get stronger and press more tightly against my already ravaged body. I looked it over for a door, bars I might bend to wiggle through, a lock for a key or key for a lock…I just want a way out.

I do not possess the needed tools to just “poof” myself out of the Rage Cage. No fairy dust. No magic wand. I did, however, find rather unexpectedly a tear-filled conversation, with a small epiphany, helped alleviate my shrinking prison bars. My epiphany? Letting go of The Bean being wrong feels like letting go of my being wronged. Just admitting this all too human fact allowed grace and mercy to find me for a bit and for them to apply their tender balms of understanding and acceptance.

I cannot help wondering how much longer this will all take, but I also know that when I am no longer hurting to the point food makes it all feel better the Rage Cage will be lifting off of me.

I sat yesterday for a photograph that will be fifteen feet high when the show opens in Paris later this year. Under the photograph of me will be the story of the first time I had sex. Here is what I wrote:

June 2002

I had no idea how people went from dressed to naked and fucking. Thirty-one and a virgin. I did not even know what I looked like naked! I stopped paying attention.

I spent my thirtieth year looking hard in the mirror at my naked form. Imagine my dismay to learn that my breasts fallen down after years of ignorance and lack of care! When did my belly become so squishy? I hate my arms. This is me? My skin glows! I have beautiful shoulders. I love the turn of my chin and full lips. The small of my back has a tuft of wispy blond hair that calls out to be caressed.

I will admit I had phone sex prior to having real sex. The phone sex did nothing to keep us from being shy and anxious; it did not last long. Soon we found ourselves naked, kissing, holding and fondling. He touched me where I wanted him to touch me. We did not have sex right away, but when we did—damn. I could not tell up from down or left from right. I was taken completely unaware by what it felt like to be touched by a man. We made love; we had sex; we fucked. My first time with him was sweet, passionate, lovely but not tentative. I remember that, but it was not the best sex we ever had. The best sex came one night when he and I made love at four in the morning, and I could see this orange glow in my room even though it was pitch black.

June 1977

I was six when my father died. It was just my mother and me.

March 1978

After my father’s death, more than anything I wanted to be normal again and have a Daddy. The first time John put his hands on my crotch and fondled me, he asked me if it would be okay if he married my Mother. I happily said, “Yes.”

He would tickle me on the outside of my clothed private parts until I would pee all over his hand. As my tiny breasts began to poke out, he would tweak them under my shirt or point to them. He played with me never pushing me to act too much like an adult; it was all a dress-up game in high heels and shorts. His hands running up my thighs while we watched Little House on the Prairie.

January 1982

I threatened to tell on him and what kind of person he was. He pulled me by my hair into his bathroom. I remember how tiny the little glass bottles with metal lids lined the top shelf. He pointed to them and told me that he could kill Mother any time he wanted. He was a doctor; he could do it in ways no one would suspect. Then it would just be the two of us. I needed to “shut my God damn mouth.”

He kicked me on the floor when he turned to leave.

July 2007

I fell totally in-love last year. The woman I saw reflected in his eyes was the same one I see in my own. He left me, and I almost died.

But I did not die. I am stronger than that. No more games of Hide and Seek for me. I still get scared that I will not survive Love’s brutality, but I also know the walls must never be stronger than the woman I truly am. My beauty comes through. I see me, even when men don’t.

I recently wrote about “Bastards and New Boyfriends.” Since then, I keep thinking about the last paragraph…about wanting someone who will hold me to the task of dealing with my life and letting go so I am really free to love without the shit of my life weighing me, and then us, down. I keep looking at what my niece Morgan calls “One horrible minute at the end of a relationship that caused you seven months of hell.” I keep trying to figure it all out, as if the past contains a secret I must decipher in order to be worthy of love in the future.

I want to let it all go, but I am still angry sometimes. Angry about how much more scared I am now than before I met The Bean. Angry at him for not treating me with respect when he left, and how that cuts at my self-esteem even when I do not want it to. Angry at myself for not being the “typical girl” about a lot of things. He always called me “an exception to the rule” because I do not act like what many guys expect from their girlfriend–I understand the need for alone time to play Half-Life every now and again–and I do not wig out easily. Should I have been demanding and dramatic and needy? “No.” And that answer leads me back to where I started: Content with who I am and how I act in the world. Glad not to be with “That Bastard,” and scared shitless I will carry Baggage a la The Bean, which will hurt my ability to give trust and my true “exception to the rule” heart to someone who will love and respect me.

Do I need to forgive him?

I spoke about this with my friend Harlot last weekend. I confessed to her that I lied to The Bean in April when I told him I forgave him. Bull……shit! He never even apologized. He only said, “Ditto.” to my apology and blessing for his life. I think of him as a total emotional coward, and I do not want to be that way. But how do you forgive someone who is not even sorry? Harlot’s take on forgiveness is that it falls into two categories: 1) Someone asks for it, and then it is up to you to accept and let go. You may not forgive them, but they did their part in the asking; or 2) You look back at the past and let go of it being any different than it was. You no longer replay every conversation, every moment, every move and try to figure out what you could do differently. You allow the past, even as horrible as it was, to stand. This is not a “get out of jail free card.” They are still responsible and accountable. You just let go of holding onto it and trying to shape the past into another form.

I think this idea of the nature of forgiveness is just brilliant.

I started off by saying, “I keep trying to figure it all out, as if the past contains a secret I must decipher in order to be worthy of love in the future. ” For this kind of forgiveness to come into my life, I must accept the past as it was. The Instant-Reply-Button has to be left alone. No more conversations with The Bean in my head. No more wondering why all of this happened. No more regretting the past. No more doubting myself and my ability to love. No more doubting my ability to pick the right person for my life. No more projecting his shit onto my own sense of worthiness. No more wishing it was different. Acceptance in my present of the truth of the past. It is just what happened, and I cannot change it anymore than I can change him.

I can, however, change myself and forgive the past for not being any different than it was.

Isn’t it funny how letting go of wanting the past to be different can be so hard? I mean, it already happened! I do not own or have access to a Time Machine. It’s not like I could–or would–go back. The acceptance still has not come easy. Why do we replay every moment when we know the outcome will be the same every time?

Charlie Peacock has a song called “Forgiveness.” I remember this one line…”The one thing we need more than to be understood or to be known is forgiveness.” How true it is.

I got tagged by Grace from 13 Graces for this little bit of fun, however, I am so new to the blogging world I know practically no one else who blogs! I got tagged “You’re It!” and now am sitting in the A/C enjoying a margarita and letting everyone else play on without me. Hope you enjoy these totally weird but true facts about me:

1. When I was a baby I screamed for a couple of months. It was so bad, my parents considered relocating me to the garage, per my pediatrician’s advice. He also said that “studies show these kids are really really smart.” Mother finds ways of working this into conversations as a way of saying, “My daughter has been brilliant since birth.” I always reply with: “Yes, Mother. I get that from Daddy!”
2. I had my mouth bitten badly by a German Shepard when I was 3. I still have the scars. My mother was getting mangoes, which she remains addicted to up until now. I have dreams where she is trying to get me to steal them for her. We are in full-on mango season now, so the nightmares shall commence shortly.
3. I went to private Christian school in Miami from 4th grade through 10th. Then I went to public again, but I dropped out my senior year. I ended up graduating the same day from High School that I moved into my dorm room at college.
4. When I was in late Elementary and Junior High, I volunteered at a wildlife rescue. I would catch chickens to feed to the boa. Gross, but fun.
5. I went to camp in NC most summers of my childhood. I would ride a small rodeo there each week, and do the Barrel Racing, Chug-A-Lug (usually hot Hawaiian Punch–yuck!), and the Hog Catch. My favourite was the Hog Catch-N-Wrestle where the pigs would be greased up with Vaseline and you would throw yourself in the mud to get them. My times were camp records!
6. I use a “u” in colour, favourite and neighbour in honor of my Grandfather from England. In fact, I love all things British, except some of the food!
7. I have perfect colour sense, much like some people have perfect pitch. I can remember colours like other people remember dialogue or music. I can also match colours perfectly. I was used as the “example of what to do correctly” while taking Colour Theory in college, but it was my Professor for Leonardo Da Vinci who told me it is called “perfect colour sense.” I am loosing some of the yellows as I get older or maybe because of not working with colour as much. I tend to second guess the yellows sometimes…but not always!
8. I cannot park my car worth shit. I have excellent spatial relationships outside of things. ..when I can see them from above. I would have made an amazing architect, but I suck at anything that requires me to use my body too. Parking, dancing, walking in a straight line, etc. I always end up crooked. Let me apologize now for bumping into any of you if we were to walk somewhere together.
9. I come from a matriarchy, and I love that. The women in my family are amazing and fun and a bit nuts. They also drive me batty sometimes with a ton of questions, but I also know they only ask because they are so interested in me and my life. They are my biggest cheerleaders.
10. I am a fan of the “third way.” I always think there is another way to look at something…not a compromise necessarily, but a third option. Example: I am not a fan of evangelicalism, but I do not think converting them to atheism is the only solution. I do think there is a way to reinterpret one’s faith and give up the certianty of a particular mindset while still finding a way to speak of faith without causing harm to self and others. I like to try and think of another way to get at something without just replacing the original idea with a mirror image, albeit a different one. In other words, don’t replace Fundy 2.1 with Atheism 2.1. What do you really have? You may still find Atheism 5.4 is your best expression of beliefs, but it is not just drop loaded as an “either/or” paradigm.

And for extra credit: I am moving my blog to my own site–still using Wordpress, but .org instead of .com–as of August 1st. Don’t worry, I will keep you posted on the move when it happens.

Until then BLOG ON!!!

In the summer of 1977–the summer Daddy died–a mango tree was planted in our back-yard. Dear friends of my family gave the tree to us shortly before they moved back home to India. The father finished his PhD at the University of Miami, so it was not too long after Daddy died that the tree was planted. Their six-year old daughter and I played and attended kindergarten together. I can remember jumping on the mattresses at her house. They sat on the floor, so her mother felt our safety was not endangered! Her home always smelled of warm spices. I can remember being jealous of the pretty red dot her mother painted so carefully on her forehead. I can remember the cool embrace of her mother and father, always so glad to see me come to play. Her parents’ car had rotten floorboards, so you had to hold up your feet. I loved watching the road go by, especially in the rain.

The tree commemorated my friendship with their daughter, Mother’s addiction to mangoes, and Daddy’s life. I can remember the father digging the hole and planting the tree. A small tree, with stakes and ropes to keep it upright. The hole was too big, but my Mother felt it would help the tree to mulch around it, so it was never fully filled in to the top of the hole. Year after year, the best of the table scraps, grass clippings, and refuse went under that tree. Even the dead bunnies from a prolific surprise by my rabbit Baron (who then became “Baroness”) went under this tree. The offerings to the gods never were as thoughtful or as sacred as what we offered our dear mango tree.

When we sold the house ten years later, we still had never tasted one mango off our blessed tree. She never bloomed. Not once.

We sold the house on 100th Street to a Greek Orthodox priest. He invited to his open house to see all the renovations he made to our old home. We walked through the house noting each change, including the central air conditioning we never had. My room was now an office. The interior garden taken out, paved and a big hot tub put in its place. The Buddhas and totems were gone. A huge satellite dish could be seen looming in the back yard. So much change, yet so much the same. We walked through the master bedroom and bath, then the laundry room, which put us at the very back of the patio and overlooking the back-yard. Mother and I saw it at the same time. The mango tree laden with fruit.

Mother turned to me and said, “It is time to go.”

Once upon a time, I dated Plant Geek. Plant Geek is getting a PhD in Horticulture from the University of Florida and works down in South Dade studying Mamey for his dissertation. His adviser went to Costa Rica for six months in 2005. Plant Geek house sat and dog sat in his absence, and this was the time of our dating.

We walked around the yard, moving between all the various fruit trees and plants. What else would you expect from a horticulture professor specializing in tropical fruit?! When we came to one particular mango tree, Plant Geek started to pick some of them off for me and Mother. He always considered himself to be her “Dealer,” given she really is a Mango Junkie. And what a good Dealer! More varieties. More mangoes. Needless to say, Ms. Audrey loved how it worked out that I dated Plant Geek during mango season!

As we stood under the tree, so laden with fruit, I thought of our tree on 100th Street. I told Plant Geek the whole story of our mango tree–even the dead bunnies–and how it never blossomed or gave us fruit. I told him about finding her drooping with fruit just a year later. I wanted to know one thing: Why?

He told me the answer was simple. We had been too good to the tree. Trees need stress in-order to bloom and give off fruit. Reproduction, which is what the fruit is all about to the tree, comes about when the tree gets scared it might die and so it sends forth the fruit to ensure its survival in the next generation. In commercial growing, he told me, they actually use drought and flood to force stress their trees into better production. Our tree never experienced a single stressful moment until we sold the house to a man not quite as dedicated to her nurturing. She did the only thing possible. She freaked out! She brought forth fruit for her survival.

Daddy died thirty years ago today, and his death ushered in a terrible drought in my life. From his death June 28th, 1977 until the one year anniversary, I saw more than some see in a lifetime. Daddy, Grammy, and my best friend from church all died. My sisters came to Mother and told her they never wanted to see us or have anything to do with us again. With them went their husbands, Aunt Clem and Grammy, before she died later in the Fall. Our dinner table went from nine to two in less than one month. I was molested for the first time the following spring when John asked me if he could marry my Mother. You might find this strange, but I do not think being molested was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Losing my family like that has proven to be the most powerful loss of my life.

I see six year-old girls and think about how innocent and little I was. Who of us can process so much loss at one time, let alone a six year-old? I still work at it. I get scared of losing those I love, and as a result, I get scared of loving too much. The place I see this the most is in my intimate relationships, and unfortunately, the only place to work on these fears is in an intimate relationship. I just cannot touch it otherwise. I do not know if I will ever find anyone who can love me through the adjustments…I thought I had, but I was wrong. I pray I do.

In the meantime, I embrace with gratitude all the love wrapping itself around my life. My Mother continues to be such a source of love, affirmation, help and friendship. She is one of my Soul Mates in life. My Sista is too. Who would I be without her? My own biological half-sisters left thirty years ago, but Sista has been in my life for the whole of it. Our blood may not be the same, but our hearts are one. She is my champion, best friend, mentor, and pain in my ass! Love truly is thicker than blood.

I have such amazing and lovely friends. My other soul mate is Tammy Wayne. I can always count on her to remember me, what I love, who I love, and celebrate my life. Paparazzo’s patience may have been pushed to the limits with all the grieving these last six months brought, but he never wavered in his love for me. Harlot never fails to call me. Paulina Ballerina always accepts me. Miss Douglas, Fundraiser, My Best Friend, the list goes on and on. I really do possess more love than I know what to do with from both friends and family. When I was ordained last fall, the most beautiful moment for me came during “The Laying On of Hands.” Being surrounded by all of these loved ones blessing me and my calling to walk beside all of God’s children surpassed any other moment of my life. I felt more love in that one moment than I had ever experienced in my life.

See. My mango tree is laden with fruit.

After a really funny conversation with Paparazzo last night, I thought I would share with you, my dear readers, my thoughts on the importance of a new boyfriend to help get over the last one. See, I am now in that place where I realize that although it is always possible that The Bean might gets scads of therapy, deal with emotional integrity towards himself and others, and actually apologize for all the cruelty towards me at the end of our relationship when he bailed and most likely had sex with his ex-girlfriend while I was at home praying he would finally be able to put her rejection behind him, I also realize it is highly unlikely. * I also think it is possible I might one day be a size 2, but only after being put away in the Internment Camps and starved for my beliefs…if I make it that long! I am built for a camp-fire roast, literally!

Being a realist–such as I am–I do not sit around and think The Bean will come back to me in any way shape or form. I also still miss him. I wish I never met him, and I miss him. As I said before, being smart and thinking about the things I do has been lonely in my life. The Bean has been the only person I ever met to really “get me” and want to talk about those things with me. I felt like my whole life opened up with him, and being so wrong about him left me devastated. Shit! Friends and family alike would come up to me and say, “He’s a keeper.” I did not know we would make it in the long term–he is an Atheist; me a real live Reverend–but I agreed with them from a character standpoint. I knew–just knew–in my heart that regardless of our love story, our friendship would be lifelong.

I was wrong.

So, I feel I finally have arrived in that place where I can see myself with someone else. I feel ready for New Boyfriend. I also know, there is nothing like New Boyfriend to help me get over the last lingering longing and thoughts about “That Bastard!” When I first started dating The Bean, I can remember thinking, “Oh. My. God. He is so wonderful. Thank you JESUS he is so amazing and different from Plant Geek!” I think the Number One Expectation we have in a new relationship comes from the place of our greatest pain with the last one; we want the new one to act as the total opposite of the old one in one key way. This proved true with The Bean. I never felt more beautiful or sexy than when I was with him. With Plant Geek, I never felt more ugly and undesirable.

Over time and while dating The Bean, I would think of Plant Geek and miss the fact I could cook for him and he would eat the vegetables off the plate without complaining or looking like he was about to throw-up. Never wanted to get back with him, but I could value certain aspects of him as he moved from “That Bastard” to “A Guy I Used to Date.” The Bean is still in the place of “That Bastard,” and only New Boyfriend can help move him along. Call it Relationship Physics. The only other force great enough to move a guy along in your heart–and not always–is for them to be arrested for a crime they committed. I think it is key for them to have actually done the offense, otherwise feelings of protection and defense for “That Bastard” will rise up and over take all the hard emotional work you did to get over him already. Nothing like a wrongfully accused ex-love to send a girl back to the Mint Chip, her therapist, and tissue box of tears while listening to “Stand By Your Man.” Now a good armed robbery, and the lingering feelings for “That Bastard” are gone!!!

I may have turned to Mint Chip Ice Cream to help me deal with “That Bastard” in the beginning, but I am now in a place of riding that shit off every morning at six on my Relationship Swag, aka my bike.  Now I am in a place where I choose New Boyfriend over the armed robbery. I do not get to have sex with the robbery scenario, but with the New Boyfriend…oh yeah…chicka bow wow.

I must take some responsibility for dating these bastards, otherwise I am destined to repeat the offense and be back here writing about it AGAIN in a year’s time. As entertaining as that may be for you, my poor heart needs more kindness than another round with an emotionally unhealthy guy. Of course the fact that neither of them were as emotionally healthy as I thought (or decided to perceive) is all on me. Plant Geek admitted he dated me because I was “so healing” given both of his parents are dead. The Bean admitted he dated me because of “being lonely.” My fault for dating both of them!

I realize I looked for men who had been through something because I have been through so much. I wanted it to be okay to have a complicated past. My niece, Morgan, lives with me right now. She said almost the same thing to me at the pool last night about her ex. She thought he “got her” because he had been through stuff. She said, “None of the guys in school are attractive to me because they have had it too easy.” Uh-oh. She too has been put through the wringer by her father, so she looks for the guy who won’t judge her for his actions. Just like me.

Maybe the right New Boyfriend is the one who will really think twice about all the shit I have been through, and the one who will really look at me hard to see how well I dealt with it, deal with it, and have a plan to deal with it, before offering his love to me. Someone who puts real value on emotional health and does not want to try to rescue me or teach me how to trust. Someone who expects me to do those things for myself. (See Red Flags on the Field of Love for more on this topic.)

And can he also read books, talk about real things, be kind, be funny, have a good job, want children, have beautiful thick thighs, AND eat vegetables?

Nahhh….that might be asking for too much…vegetables and funny???? What am I thinking!?

* One problem with dating is that I get asked “Why did you and The Bean break-up?” I still do not have a good answer for this, but given how badly saying “We were closer than ever, and forty-eight hours later his ex of fifteen months called and he left me.” has gone, I now have a new line. “It just did not work out because we are too different.” Every single one of these guys, plus some friends, tell me that he slept with her. The only explanation that fits. I actually asked The Bean the next night if he had slept with her. He said that he had not, but he also was pressed up against a wall (literally), looking at me with this look of horror, and telling me that he hoped I could remember who he really is because he could not. Not really understanding how all this happened makes answering the question bewildering as well. When I confronted him in the parking lot, he actually said, “At least it was not like I left you for greener pastures.” Uh-huh.

The year: 1977. I remember First Baptist Church of Seminole was having a church picnic when we arrived to find my Grandmother that Sunday evening. The plan was simple: Leave me with my grandmother for the week, while my parents enjoyed a week to themselves following a terrible year of Daddy being so sick with Myocarditis. He would finally return back to work the following Tuesday, July 5th. He never did.

I wonder now if he realized at all he would never see Miami or our home again. When was the last time he saw my sisters? What did he say? I remember being outside in the bright heat asking for just one more hug before they left Monday morning for Ocala. Daddy said, “Jackie. I will give you a hug when I get back.” Funny how promises not kept stay with us forever…

They drove our truck to Ocala, where they went antiquing and checked into a small inn. A couple owned the place and lived there as well. In the evening, my Aunt Charlyne met them for dinner and a dip in the pool. I see them in my memory now just as I saw them Tuesday morning around nine when Mother sat in Grandmother’s Florida Room and told me every detail. The sky twinkled with stars. The pool glowing against the dark night. Mother in her turquoise bikini, which always made her look more like an Amazon than a sex goddess. Daddy’s tan skin with the greying chest hair. I could see them floating around and laughing. Especially laughing. Aunt Charlyne has the most distinctive low hackle of them all.

After she left, Mother and Daddy went back to their room. Did they make love? I realize children usually try not to think of things, but I know from my own losses how unsettling it feels to look back and realize the last moment you lay with someone skin-to-skin. No one tells you it is going to be the last time. Would I have cherished it more if I had known? Would I have tried to cheat fate and find a sweeter moment to be the last? Who knows what happened for my parents, but that year of illness must have given birth to lonely consequences as the illness took them away from each other physically.

I know he went to the bathroom at some point and returned saying he did not feel well. Mother, being both a nurse and a wife having been through the mill, suggested they go to the hospital. “Jack, after all we have been through, I would feel more comfortable getting you checked out than not.” They dressed, went downstairs to the owners watching television, and they gave them directions to the hospital with best wishes for a speedy return. Daddy was in full cardiac arrest before they got out of the parking lot.

He wanted to drive, but Mother wisely thought this was a ridiculous idea. She also thought she should make a run for the ER, instead of waiting for an ambulance. Racing towards an unknown hospital in an unknown town, she forgot the directions as she leaned over and gave him rescue breaths. Using the truck’s CB, she cried out for help in getting to the hospital. The whole time she massaged his heart with her right hand as best she could.

I can see her with Daddy. Full of panic, yet calm and doing what had to be done. She is at a red light where there is a slight hill in-front of her. She turns the CB station again, unknowingly hitting the police band. A trooper responds. When she tells him where she is, the night sky becomes illuminated with flashing lights. He is just beyond the hill waiting for her, and tells her to run the light as soon as she can. She follows him all the way into the Emergency Room driveway.

This all happened late in the night. The evening shift of nurses, getting off at eleven, were just coming out of the hospital as they pulled up. Three nurses in total. One ran back for a gurney, while the other two took over giving Daddy CPR. One of those nurses stayed with Mother the whole night, even driving her to Aunt Charlyne’s at three o’clock in the morning. I know I think of her when I sit with a family during the wee hours of the morning paying back the universe her kindness in part.

At some point, a doctor came and told Mother what she already knew. Daddy had a massive heart attack. I know she called our pastor, Rev. Reed, in Miami and talked and prayed with he and his wife as she waited. Then, some time after two the doctor came again to say Daddy had another heart attack, they did all they could do, and how sorry he was, but “your husband is dead.”

At Aunt Charlyne’s, they talked and cried and decided to wait until Grandmother got up at six to call her. Why ruin her sleep? She would need her rest in the coming days. Over the years I have pondered my Grandmother going through her morning routine with a lively six year-old running around and knowing my world was about to change forever. How did she hide her tears? How did she feed me breakfast? How did she go for the mail? It came early those days. When it arrived, a package from Mother and Daddy held a little red toy. I ran through the house playing and singing, “My Daddy is going to hug me again when he gets back!” How did she not cry out in anguish?

This was all that happened before Mother arrived without Daddy, sat me down on the love-seat by the steps down to the Florida Room, and told me the story I based my inner movie on exactly what it looked like when Daddy died. This is what happened the day before my world tipped over and changed forever.

I am helping a patient of mine put together her “goodbye letters.” Really, they are love letters to her closest family and friends done with knowing her death will come soon and wanting to leave them something tangible with her imprint of love all over them. This last week she dictated a letter to her future daughter-in-law. The future girl of her son’s dreams has yet to be found, and from what I gather he does not date too much these days–more your recluse type–so this letter is for the future hoped-for by his mother. Now I did hear that her son promised to get married by thirty-five, a good ten years off, at least that is her prayer for him. (Poor dear.)

As we worked on the future daughter-in-law letter, my patient would consult me to see if she covered all her bases. She wanted the opinion of a “future daughter-in-law,” whom she sees me to be given her palm reading from the week before! (Too funny; right?) I tell you what…this patient is such a joy to see! I really look forward to each visit because regardless of how sick she is, she possesses an amazing spirit and looks at life with joy and gratitude. I am learning a great deal from her about love, forgiveness, optimism, and most importantly, letting go of fear and trusting God.

In the letter to her future daughter-in-law, she wrote the following: “Be kind and gentle to each other. Love and marriage are like a rose. As they blossom, they get sweeter and open more with each passing day. When you argue with each other (over the next fifty years or so), remember inside that grouchy man is the same young guy you fell in love with. Please take excellent care of each other.”

Do you know much about roses? They are not difficult to cultivate, but they do require knowing a thing or two for them to flourish. I am not a rose expert by any means, but I did help someone plant a new garden and learned about roses in the process. Sista’s parents, Gram and Granddad, cultivate roses out at Lawless Landing. I wrote to Granddad to ask for some advice on the rose front, given there being just one straggly rose bush with one bloom every now and again in the garden before we began. What were we to do?

Granddad offered his sage rose wisdom. “Don’t be afraid to prune. Spend the time and money to make the right mix in the soil; roses can be picky about that. Water. Water. Water. If you tend to them, they should bloom abundantly for years to come.” In the end, the old rose was out, and two new ones purchased to be planted in deep pots with just the right soil and mulch top. A careful brew of moss, manure, soil and fertilizer to help these little plants blossom and grow.

I think many of us treat our relationships the same way we treat roses. We either buy them on the side of the street (you know who you are!) or at the store, but then throw them away when the blooms wilt and the water turns rancid. Maybe we feel sentimental sometimes, and turn over a bouquet and try to dry them out, but dried flowers are never as sweet at fresh. At other times, we do go ahead and actually “buy the bush” (terrible pun not intended, but noted) but become dismayed when the plant dies from our neglect. Into the mulch pile and onto another new plant thinking, “I just need to get one that is in my favourite colour, then it will work.” (Or something like that.)

The same person I helped with planting the garden remarked to me at the time, “I just want roses, but I do not want to have to mess with them.” Don’t we all! Relationships are hard. They require pruning back the dead parts of ourselves and allowing for that growth time in the one we are with after we help prune them. We must be honest, but we can never be cruel for cruelty always takes away more of the healthy plant than it can survive without. We have to nurture and tend to the soil. It takes the right balance of the shit of the past processed enough to bring added joy and life to the mix of regular ordinary life and rich healthy soil in order to have a full future. We must water our love. Love dying of thirst has no hope at all of blooming. And we cannot be afraid of being stuck, pricked, poked or cut by the thorns. Thorns are part of life, and I have found in my limited rose experience that often the sweetest most beautiful roses have the sharpest thorns. Put another way, if passion for life and love rules one’s heart, deep waters of sadness or informed understanding will often be their gentle companions as well.

I know part of the pain of my own past centers on feeling the burn of being tossed into the mulch heap. None of us like to feel tossed away because of our thorns, especially when we feel we have worked so hard to cultivate amazing blossoms with the fertilizer of our lives. Having been on the mulch heap these last six months, I spent my time pruning back so I would be ready for replanting a garden with someone else. My gut and heart believe the new blooms can be even sweeter than the last, but I still get scared sometimes. I do not want to be thrown on the mulch heap again! I guess this is why when my patient spoke of love and marriage being like a rose, I could not help but think to myself how appropriate a metaphor this is, only for me it is more like a rose garden. One that requires patience, nurturing, attention and forgiveness in order to enjoy the sweet opening blooms year after year.

I, for one, am willing to put in the work.

Photo credit: The Bean

I often hear people say, “It is all in God’s hands.” What do you think they mean? I think it often means we no longer know what to do about a terrible problem, so we hope–have an imagination of some sort–God might still intervene and make things right. When God does not make things right the way we think we need, then we often progress to the axiom, “God must know something you don’t know.” I heard this one in the hospital when people died all the time. Often it took the form of: “God must need them in heaven now.” The idea that people die because God needs them in heaven always seems to make me a bit ill. Why would God need them? To sing in the choir? To lay the gold on the streets? To help bring in the harvest? For that matter, why not to teach God how to use the Internet or the joy of the Kama Sutra? The word “ludicrous” comes to mind.

I remember the night my thoughts changed and matured about God’s intervention in the world. At the time, I worked doing twenty-four hour on-call shifts at UNC Hospitals and still attended Duke. The Pastoral Care on-call room was located up on the eighth floor of the Neuroscience Hospital with Carolina Air Care. Air Care tolerated–barely–99% of the chaplains given a particular elder chaplain in a silk robe had mistakenly (???) flashed some of the staff one night. I, however, developed a close relationship with the Peds Team and the bond translated into my not getting the same static as most of the chaplains. The bond became so close, they would just pound on my door to announce the fun time about to begin, instead of waiting for someone to page my ass downstairs to the ER. This night the pounding began before the kid even hit the heli-pad.

The story of how he came to us has been told plenty of times in plenty of places. Drunk kid with sports car given by parents totals the car and his (or her) life in a series of bad decisions. Thinking about him, I still see him being brought out of the helicopter–a hot lift no less (no time to cool the bird due to how bad he was)–and throwing up everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I can smell it. I can hear the team moaning and groaning about cleaning all that shit up. The chills come again too…right up my arms and legs. Damn.

His parents come to the hospital. His Daddy had that farm swagger in his cowboy boots and Wrangler jeans. He paced in between going out to our smoking lounge (only in North Carolina). Back and forth. Back and forth. I already knew the news. Having been in the ICU just prior, I knew his son would die soon. No medical interventions would stop the total devastation of his injuries. Brain and body in a race to the death. I sat in a chair watching him pace and listening to him as he spoke to me about God.

“I pray chaplain. I’m praying right now. I keep asking God to help. God is all I have. God is my only hope. God must give me a miracle, otherwise…well, otherwise I do not know what I will do.” He went on, now forgetting my presence, “Oh God! Oh God! No! Help me! Help my son. I cannot bury my son. I won’t. I just won’t. Dear God please! Listen to me. Stop this from happening.”

And then he stopped pacing and stood looking stoic. Ever so slowly he turned and faced me. “If God could stop this from happening now, why not just stop it from happening all together? Where was God when my boy really needed him? You know, out there on that road in the car?” [Now before you go down the path marked, "Your boy drank himself into this problem, sir. No sympathy here buddy;" let us remember his story is not so different from any of ours. We all screw up, and those we love do too.]

So, where was God prior to the boy being on that road and when he was getting loaded? Why did God not intervene?

I completely reject the idea that everything is in God’s hands. If this were to be true, God is a Puppet Master, and we are God’s toys, not God’s children. And children make choices. Right ones. Wrong ones. Indifferent ones. So where is God in my choices, if God is not in correcting or protecting me from my outcomes?

In my vision of God, I see God leaning into the boy’s ear saying, “Son, you know better than this. You have been taught right. Drinking like this and then driving cannot lead to good. Stop now. Don’t get behind the wheel. Let someone else drive. Listen to me. Your safety is important to me. Your life matters.”

We live in a world full of bad luck. Bad luck that just happens, bad luck we work hard to cheat, bad luck we create. I also believe in Immanuel–God with us. Love finds us even in those places where we are sure and wrong, just like when love finds us where we are unsure and right. I believe in the Whispering God cooing in our ear and heart. Can you hear God?

You are my child. I love you. I made you to be human, which can be quite fragile and limited, but also beautiful and capable. I made you to be in my creative image, and I am constantly surprised by what you come up with. Come up with something really beautiful and good today. Come up with a special gift of kindness. Come up with forgiveness where you feel betrayed. Come up with brilliant violet where everyone else expects grey. Come up with laughter instead of hurt feelings. Come up with mercy instead of judgment. Come up with understanding instead of more pressure for yourself or anyone else. Come up with life, not fear. Love. Love. Love, today my child. I know you can do it. I made you that way.

Amen.

Again I find myself thinking about the nature of suffering and friendship because Paparazzo is on Percocet. He needs it. Fucked up ankles and broken bones require the good stuff. You can check out all of the pics on his blog, but here is my personal favourite:

I feel a bit nauseous looking at them, and then a bit guilty for thinking “cool.” He goes through all the gory details on his blog and at Free Ride South, but the long and short of it is doing something you have done a million times with success does not guarantee you won’t crash and burn at some point.

Frequent readers of my little blog know Paparazzo means the world to me. He is my best friend. I do not know how I would have made it through these last six months–in particular–without his sunshine in my life, let alone moved! Twice! I told everyone my move into a first floor flat was due to Miss Audrey’s knees, but really it was because Paparazzo would have K.I.L.L.E.D. me if he had to help haul my gorgeous green buffet down and up any more stairs, given it weighs around one million pounds. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to keep her friends!

You know, us girls tend to be much more expressive of how we feel in general, but also towards those we love. I always tell those in my life how much I love them and the neat things about them I just find to be the bomb-diggity. Take Paparazzo: He is brilliant, funny, annoying (in an endearing way), always on-time, kind, would help any friend or stranger, has an amazing eye, game (he did go with me to Jacksonville and back in one day just to see puppies for an hour), athletic, fair, a great employee and boss, a good listener, honest, and a treasure trove of worthwhile insight. I also think he is brave. When he first moved down to South Florida he knew basically no one, and time and again that boy has put himself out there to meet new people and make friends…let alone a love connection! In fact, we met because he saw Paulina Ballerina and me sitting at the bar of P.F. Chang’s (his own personal “Cheers”) and fought for the seat next to us. A grown-ass man drinking a Shirley Temple with his calamari caught our attention and the rest is history.*

So, dear reader, I love him. It broke my heart to see him laid up in the ER without any pain meds for two hours, so I did what any good chaplain would do. I became the sweetest pest around! “Hi. You’re Adam? I’m Jacqueline, Paparazzo’s friend. He needs some pain medicine.” To which Adam replied, “I am getting it right now.” And with honey dripping from my voice I said, “Goooood. It has been two hours, so I am glad you are on it!” Sharp look of: “Don’t let that fucking happen again Nurse Boy.” and the meds were delivered then, and later, promptly. Trust me. In these types of situations, I am at my best. Car repair, reconciling my checking account, and understanding the hearts and minds of men…not so much. Blood, guts, doctors, hospitals, drugs, interventions, craziness, and emotional break-downs…I’m your girl.

You know, as a Hospice Chaplain I get asked all sorts of questions about the nature of suffering. I cannot even begin to count the times I have been asked the whole, “But I was a good person; why is this happening to me?” question of the ages. I try to just sit with them over the pain of feeling abandoned by God or life. I know, from my own experiences, not much that I might think to say in the moment of touching such a profound sense of just how fragile and unfair life really is will help my patients and their loved ones. It never helps me. But, I do say to myself–in that small corner of my heart where I speak the brutal truth–”It is just your turn.”

Years ago I read a story in a women’s magazine about a woman who had a miscarriage. In times before, when her own friends had been through one, she would tell them things like: “It is going to be okay. You can have another one. This one was just not meant to be. God needed this baby.” As she lay in her hospital bed after her D & C following the loss of her baby, her friends poured through the door. One by one, they too offered empty words of support. Then one friend, a friend who had herself gone through the loss and pain of a miscarriage came to see her. Weeping the author pulled her friend to her and asked her, “Why did this happen to me?” Her friend replied, “It was your turn.”**

This story has been freeing to me in so many ways. Life is full of bad luck. We all stand in line waiting our turn at the window marked “Shit Happens.” Sometimes it is your turn. Sometimes it is mine. These last six months have been brutal for me. I still sometimes wonder how I will find my way towards life and love again. I do not want to be the one who has to get back up AGAIN and pick up the pieces. I do not want to be the one who hears the other person say, “Well, I treated you like shit, but I saw no need to apologize because I knew you could handle it.” I do not want to handle shit sometimes. Sometimes, I just want it to go the fuck away.

Yet when it was my turn, I got through in large part because I had wonderful friends and family who understood it was also my turn to receive extra measures of love and care. Paparazzo surely did. So, now it is his turn to be in Shitville, and my turn to stand beside him. I know it is hard to be on the receiving end–we all value giving over receiving–but the ebb and flow of friendship and life and love require give and take. Those who only take are users; those who only give, martyrs. True friends do a bit of both.

And have no fear. One day, I will again be at the front of the “Shit Happens” line and hear the teller say, “Next!” I know Paparazzo will be there for me then, even if he will claim that his old ankle injury will not allow him to haul my gorgeous green buffet anywhere!

*In reality, it was cranberry juice and vodka, but it sure did look like a Shirley Temple!

**Mad props to the original author of the article. I cannot remember the magazine, let alone the woman who wrote it. If you know, let me know.

These last few weeks the roller coaster I found myself whipping around on lacked any thrill or fun. My emotions all over the place–think Jackson Pollock–and the chocolate consumption has been at an all-time high. Hormones, regrets, dead people, poverty–take your pick–all had me feeling the crunch. I kept wondering to myself, “When will I get to the last of it?”

I can remember being in therapy at twenty-one and thinking, “all the pain of the abuse of my childhood will be worth it if my going through this helps it to happen less from now on in the world.” Then I realized by listening to other survivors’ stories, just how naive my thinking was. Total devastation at the time. I could find no line in the sand to draw…no bearing it so others would not have to…no end in sight. I found myself only one of many.

This realization touched off another more important understanding in me. I questioned my therapist, “I will never be over this, will I?” She told me, “No. And yes. Yes, right now you will find a way through towards life and wholeness. Yes, you can learn healthy ways of coping. Yes, you can get to a place where you are not terrified all of the time. You will also grow up and circumstances will change. One day you will no longer be afraid of someone touching you here (taking my hands and placing them in my crotch), but you will want them to touch you. You cannot face every piece of this at once, and life will bring the other pieces to you. As it does, you will have to look at them and deal with them, but you cannot prepare now for having a seven-year-old daughter and seeing yourself at that age. Just make a deal with yourself now that when those moments come, you will get the help you need. Don’t be afraid Jacqueline of needing to look at all of this again and again. Each time will be hard for its own reasons, but your emotional muscles to deal with what is coming up will be stronger too.”

I can remember after a good $100k of therapy (one three-week hospitalization helped propel the figure), my mother asked me when would I be”done.” Done? Damn! I was livid. I screamed back at her, “How the hell does a person who was molested almost every day for five years–and who had to try and commit suicide for it to stop–ever get DONE with dealing with that shit?!?” At the time, I sat in the mire and filth of my life. I owned it. I needed it. I wore my Girl Scout Survivor Badge with the neon lettering of MOLESTED emblazoned upon it. I held my head up high as I went to the Rape Support Group.

Over time, gentle imperceptible shifts occurred. I took off my badge. I stopped going to the group. I no longer needed to think about everything in my past in order to know life existed for me in my future. I did not find the last of it, but I found “the last of it for right now.” The shifts came again and again, and my therapist from the past was right. When something big reared its ugly head, if I got the help I needed I found my way. When John died. When I did my Advanced Bereavement Facilitator certification. When I decided to drop the walls of weight. When I found myself deeply loving The Bean and opening up all these magical rooms in my spirit I thought did not exist for me because of the molestation.

And then there is now; this terrifying place where I struggle to trust myself in the wake of The Bean’s shit. I get that he is not trustworthy, but I still cannot understand how I got him so wrong sometimes. This makes me question my ability to judge who is trustworthy in my life and to trust those I already love. I took a big hit to my own compass. I read the tea leaves wrong. I put emphasis where there was none out of my own desire to believe not only in love, but in love for me.

I have three personal holy days: my birthday, June 6th and June 28th. June 6th is holy because on that day my parents married in 1970, I was conceived–also in 1970–and my niece, The Older One, was born. I first connected with The Bean on June 6th last year, meeting him face-to-face the next day. Meeting him on my holy day gave our meeting greater import, I must admit. Fate. Destiny. Whatever. Not on that day, of course, but in the days, weeks and months to come. When I looked out five months later at my ordination and saw him there in the church–knowing in my heart what courage and love for me it took for him to be there–I felt like he was my “reward” for all the shit that ever happened in my life. He took on the role of being my “line in the sand.” My life before him somehow making sense because (at the time, of course) having him in my life connected so many dots, filled so many places of emptiness.

Now, I feel I must explain the emptiness. I need to protect my honor! My life has be characterized by a particular loneliness due to seeing the world in a particular way, being “scary smart,”and willing to question anything or anyone–including authority–right from the womb. No one “gets me” and usually people fall into one of two categories: 1) They love me as I am, but do not understand me; or 2) They feel the need to put me down for being who I am. With The Bean, I thought I found someone who not only cared about me but who also actually understood me and where I was coming from. I felt trusted for all of the ways I am such a complete “weirdo”–leaned into in those places instead of pulled away from.

Fast forward to this last Saturday. I stood in my living room crying my eyes out to Bubbie. As I cried, Bubbie gave me a big ol’ hug and said, “It is okay, you are just crying out the last of it now. It has been almost six months. It is the right time.”

I did not realize until Sunday night, while talking to Paparazzo, that the tears had his name on them, not The Bean’s.

See, Paparazzo does the Ft. Lauderdale Street Ride on Wednesdays. So does The Bean. When Paparazzo and I talked on Friday about all the ways the Ride fell apart with break-downs last week, his bike included, he mentioned how The Bean gave him a fucking bolt. Just a bolt mind you, and I had a world class melt down. I did posses enough presence of mind to get off the phone as quickly as possible on Friday. But the next day when I got a bit of shit for not being that into the sublime invite to maybe go to the movies, I lost it. Figuring out why proved hard. Why did Paparazzo mentioning The Bean make me flush with burning panic?

The tears with Bubbie were over losing my cool and falling apart (again! fuck!) with Paparazzo on the receiving end. I felt threatened. That horrible insecure place where my sick fantasy (or is it a nightmare?) saw The Bean and Paparazzo sitting around having one Mojito and one girly fruity drink with an umbrella (you get to decide who drinks what) and laughing about what a total nut-job I am. Maybe they would even talk about how I never seem to get over the whole being molested thing and the subsequent abandonment fears and how ugly I am and not that funny or cute or…or…or…?

I love Paparazzo. No friend has ever been more true to me–even if he is a total G.U.Y. and keeps his cards so close–or been more game to make me play even when I wanted to lie down and curl up in a ball. I just cannot bear the thought of losing him too.

The last of it had nothing to do with losing The Bean. He is long gone, which is good. The last of it–for now of course–had to do with being scared shitless that the losing won’t stop and finding my way back towards trusting my heart again. The same heart that knows without a doubt Paparazzo would never speak ill of me to The Bean.

There are all sorts of things I never think about any longer. Pain healed, forgiven, let go of, and forgotten. I would tell you about them, but I just do not remember. I do, however, know all about pain getting into those deep sacred places I rarely show anyone or even admit to possessing because they are so vulnerable to both love and loss. The Bean and his loss are in there, but so is all the love I have in me for Paparazzo.

Last week I gave my Hospice Team the Holmes Rahe Stress Scale as a quiz of sorts. Basically, if you score over 300 points you are in danger of being totally stressed out and having health problems. The scale gives a point value to major life events experienced over the last year. Now, you may need to assign a close value to something not exactly put in their terms. For instance, I gave myself a “60″ for my break-up with The Bean. I made this number up given you get 63 for the death of a close family member, and he is still alive to others, but pretty much dead to me (seemed only fitting). Feel free to go out and score yourself, but for fun (trust me–you are going to feel SO good about your life), let’s look at why I scored a whooping 862:

Breaking-up with The Bean: 60

Personal Injury or Illness: 159 (53 x Lyme Disease, Mono, & the Chicken Pox)

Change in the Health of a Family Member: 44 (Aunt Charlyne’s Cancer)

Sexual Difficulties: 39 (I am 36, was a virgin until 31, and keep dating men whose emotional issues impact their libido. In other words, I have not had nearly enough sex.)

Gain a New Family Member: 39 (God love Emma, but a new puppy is w.o.r.k.)

Change in Financial State: 76 (Went from poor to making it back to poor again with my recent move and new puppy.)

Change in Frequency of Arguments: 35 (I feel M.A.D. about the “business” of chaplaincy at work and get all feisty about it all the time.)

Change in Responsibilities at Work: 29 (I should get more given my new job changes our requirements all the time.) 58 (One time for the bull-shit requirement to spend 60% of my week in direct alive patient care, with another 20% minimum working on bereavement. I am not listening to anyone after awhile with over 30 hours required per week, plus four hours of Team Meeting, and driving around over an hour a day, and making appointments, and having to work from home but go to the office to chase paperwork in triplicate, and…well, that is why I gave myself the other 29 points. Constant failure.)

Outstanding Personal Achievement: 56 (Once for being approved for Ordination, and once for the Ordination itself.)

Change in Living Conditions: 50 (Lived with Parental Elements, lived with Biker Girl, living on my own–THANK YOU JESUS!)

Revision of Personal Habits: 24 (I have lost, gained, lost, gained, and now am losing the same fucking 10 pounds.)

Trouble with Boss: 23 (I just know I will be fired any day now for being out of compliance at work–see above–and dread seeing the Supervisors as a result. I just cannot physically keep up, let alone emotionally, so I decided to give myself these points too.)

Change in Working Hours of Conditions: 20 (Wow! What changes!)

Change in Residence: 40 (Moved twice in six months this last year.)

Change in Recreation: 19 (Got back on a bike after 20 years and loved it!)

Change in Church Activities: 19 (The move north has taken me further away from church.)

Minor Loan: 17 (Refinanced with the Bank of Mom.)

Change in Sleeping Habits: 16 (Back to waking up to go see dead people in the middle of the night.)

Change in Eating Habits: 45 (see above personal habits)

Minor Law Violation: 11 (I bumped into a car parked illegally behind mine, but the damage to my insurance has been worse than the $804 in damages to his car.)

Christmas: 12 (Although, I did not celebrate it this year. I just worked and cried my eyes out missing The Bean.)

So, in summary, it is amazing that I am not dead. Plus, they did not factor in being shot at or having to call 911 on your roommate’s ex while he beat some guy at the house. Maybe we should just round my score up to an even 1000? And to think my score would have been under 100 prior to August 2006. In other words, all these life changes happened in the last nine months! Yet here I am, still funny and everything! (At least I think so.)

Yesterday I attended the death of a patient whom I really cared deeply for. Now there is no code at work to put down for when you just feel sad some days because people you care about and care for always die. Shit! This is Hospice after-all. I see how I need time to mourn all these deaths so I can go on to the next ones. So, yesterday I mourned a bit for the patient who died in the morning and for two others I really loved who died last week. I know part of what makes me good at what I do centers on letting people in my heart. I would not have it any other way, but I also must let them back out a bit when they die.

Funny…I did not intend to write any of this aspect, but now seeing it in black and white I realize how much I needed to say I do not work unscathed.

What I started to say was that the family of the woman who died commented to me about what a peace and glow I seem to project. Now yesterday I KNOW “glowing” did not get checked off in my beauty regime. I woke up late, felt like shit, had paperwork from the day before, and found myself with wet hair, no make-up, and still in my pjs when I received the call to attend the death. I walked out of the house within 10 minutes. The dog taken out, clothed, in my right mind, with blow-dried bangs (only) and make-up, but I looked less than my best! And I still glowed? How can that be?

I really do believe the reason I walk upright–even though these last months required some major lie down and cry time–centers on my attitude towards the shit of my life. Yes, I currently may be a stressed out mess in some respects, but I choose to be a funny, sarcastic, horny, wicked, kind one at that. I know recently I have been bitching about not wanting to always have to be resilient, but maybe there is just no other way to be in this life. Otherwise, I might end up with the shit of my life–much of which I have no fucking control over–weighing me down completely. Stubbornness possess gifts too. I try to focus on those elements I feel powerful over, and my reactions always are within my control. Do I get all Snappy Bitch sometimes? Hell yeah! Can I almost always be talked off my limb? Yes. Mostly, I know Love never leaves me and will always be stronger than death. (See Song of Solomon 8:6-7)

I look back at all of this and think to myself: “Damn girl! I am so fucking proud of you!”

Everyone is just a little bit prejudice, and one of my BIGGEST prejudices is against men who wear tank-tops. I see a man in a tank top and I run the other way. Men should not wear tank-tops, but if you must wear one, please be gay. The Gays can carry it off–sometimes–but I have yet to see a straight tank top wearing man rock the sleeveless wonders. Here is why:

• Many of the guys who wear tanks, especially to the gym, do so to show off their muscles. I understand this. I like to rock my best features, which is why the boobs are always pushed up to where God intended and my hair shiny and soft. Tis’ human to highlight and accentuate, however, when a guy highlights his arms I immediately (remember, I told you this is a prejudicial issue for me) think, “Buddy…not too smart, are you?” Can you believe how pedantic I can be about appearances? I figure a guy showing off his arms like that has to do it to make up for being a complete idiot.
• I also find the guys with the tight workout tank-top cannot get enough of looking at themselves in the mirror. They go to the gym to show off their bodies and announce how hot (which I think means “fuckable”) they are. They want hot girls to see them and want to sleep with them. If my former roommate is a good litmus test, this plan usually works for them. Now you probably are thinking, given my own confession of not being a “hot girl” previously, that I am just jealous. Two amazing bodies see each other across the room and instantly want to fuck like rabbits never happens to me. The wallflower in Nike capri’s and her Duke Divinity tee-shirt does not get the “fuck me baby right after this rep” look ever! You are right about that! Jealousy though? Not on your life. Again, if my former roommate is any indication, these guys also have more drama wrapped up in them then you can find on a Telenovela. Do not even get me started on the insecurity issues either. They pump up for more than just health for damn sure!
• I find myself staring at the guy’s arm pits. The shirt stops right there! I never swoon over the muscles bulging, but instead find myself mesmerized by the little hairs sticking out. Now, when I guy is naked (really the best way to size a man up) I embrace the underarm hair. I will even embrace it when he is naked from the waist up–most of the time. However, standing next to a guy in a tank, I find myself totally grossed out by the underarm hair. I want to scream, “Cover that shit up man!” Sometimes, a guy will look all cute and athletic until you see the little Tribbles poking out their heads.

Dear Captian Kirk Up to His Pits in Tribbles.

• On the topic of not being mesmerized by a guy’s muscles…the WORST case scenario is when there are no muscles at all to size up! I speak from experience here. My arms flail in the wind. I know not to wear tank-tops in public unless medically necessary, by which I mean I find myself in the midst of a peri-menopausal moment and coolness wins over “Cool Factor.” Flabby arms on a guy, plus one tank top, equals REDNECK. Sweaty, stinky, beer can tossing, tractor pull going, NASCAR lovin Redneck. And for the record: A wife-beater is a tank top.
• Add some zits to the above and the ick factor quadruples.
• Lastly, and most importantly, when I see a good looking guy, well-groomed, athletic, etc. in a tank I a.l.w.a.y.s. sigh and think to myself, “God bless the Gays.” In fact, I discussed this whole Tank-Top Man Hating Thing with The Boys (a totally fab gay couple and good friends of mine) and Bubbie piped up saying, “But I have a tank-top that I work out in, what would you think of me?” With that The Joker hit him over the head and howled, “She would think you are GAY!” And she would be right.

In summary, boys if you have the muscles to highlight in a tank and are gay, feel free. I still find it a bit weird–Tribble Factor and all–but who am I to judge? (HA!) If you are not gay, keep those biceps under cover and let me use my imagination. I especially like the imagination part where I run my hands up your arms…wait! I do not write that kind of blog…

If you do not read Post Secret every week, you are missing out. I always laugh and cry. I find someone I can relate to deeply. Sometimes it just scares me shitless…

I told Fundraiser when he called me for my birthday in February what mine would have been…

I did not tell him about wanting to kill myself. I kept promising myself I would go for my final swim in the Keys when I could no longer tolerate the pain. I did not want Fundraiser to know just how bad it had been. In fact, I got Emma to try and stay alive. I almost didn’t get her. In the end, I figured I was due some unconditional love just about then. If I had not gotten her, I am not sure I would have made it this time.

I tried to commit suicide in sixth grade. Thirty-six aspirin one afternoon at school. God only knows why I did not die. I also had a pretty good plan when I was 17 and in Jamaica on Choir Tour with church. The Jamaica trip served as a turning point in my life. I finally went to get help for all the buried shit from my childhood. I told the truth for the first time. I said, “John touched me.” I told my mom the day I got back from Jamaica. And I worked and worked and worked. I used to believe I worked it through enough to never want to do it again. I am smarter than that now. I know how once you try it trying it again is not all that difficult. But I would not try; I would succeed.

Working as a “Mental Health Professional” of a kind means I know what happens if anyone finds out about your plan. You get locked up. I do not want to be locked up, so I keep the times I feel utter despair to myself. I think of despair as “negative hope.” Given how I see hope as having an imagination things will change, or how they might change, despair looks like things not changing at all. Of course, I do think of suicide as hopeful because it means things can change once and for all. My lifetime of suffering (not the only stories–I know) will come to an end. No more rejection. No more heartache. No more isolation. No more loneliness. No more fear. No more struggling. No more panic.

I see now how I wrapped myself in the warm comfort of ending it all after The Bean left and extinguished my star from his sky. The irony? I do not know how I would have made it through those really awful nights, days, minutes, seconds without its tender embrace.

I do not live in this same space now. How do I know? I am talking about it. I speak the truth of my secrets…posting them even. Plus, I no longer protect or censure what I say about The Bean. I did in the past under the heading of “just in case he comes back.” Now I feel I can say whatever I damn well please!

Want to know another secret? I still find joy in being me and in my life. I am just ridiculously optimistic like that even if it is hard-won.

I keep going over in my mind the differences between “burying the past” and “letting go of the past.” We all do both, but one–letting go–somehow gives more life to us than the other. One puts more cellulite on my ass, the other helps it come off. Why?

I never try and pretend I was not molested. I was. I also recognize its indelible mark upon me. My DNA changed the first time John touched me. The boundary between the girl innocent and unmarred and the one raped crossed once and for all. I will always wear my scarlet “I” for incest. I could not run away from it, although I tried. I ate and ate ice cream all day long to make my body as unattractive as possible so John would not touch me. Then I found out he still would, but by then the binging comforted me too much to go back to the thinner version of myself. Plus, once I grew up and away from his terror I insulated myself from the panic another man would touch me–even one I might want to touch me–by keeping a hundred pound wall around me. You could not look at me and pretend something bad did not happen. I wore it from head to toe.

I did bury my feelings of loneliness, isolation and general grotesqueness in the weight. With each pound I gained I sank further into a world where all the true dreams for my life mattered less than the all consuming fear in the present. I flourished in the areas I could control–school, friends, family, church–and floundered terribly in the one place I knew no one could ever love–the whole me. See, no matter how much love and intimacy the love of family and friends brings, without sex it only goes so far. Thankfully. I would not want to have sex with my family at all, and a good 99.9% of my friends! I really only want one person for sex, and one who really loves me, the whole of who I am and who I will become with life transformations.

The first time I slept with someone–The First–I weighed over 260 pounds. I let him bore a hole through all those walls and find me. He felt safe because of his status as a good friend and because I knew I would never be with him for the long term, even as letting go later proved difficult. I found sex allowed me to un-bury the past in my cells and begin to let them go. Ounce by ounce the weight dropped off my body. I worked hard at it, of course, but the inner work let the outer begin to reveal itself from its mask.

The inner work of my life consists of over $100k of therapy and an utter determination to face the shit of my life. I know if I do not face things, the only one buried in the past will be me. I practice complete honesty. I say “practice” because I realize how similar to playing an instrument or a sport truth telling really is. I find I must apply myself again and again, and I can never rest on the truths I told before. I understand the truth of yesterday may not be life-giving to me today. Today, I must find and tell the truth again.

Today’s truth is that I keep gaining weight here recently. I talk to myself about it over and over again. The Mono back in November took me down to within six pounds of my birthday goal, but by my birthday I regained six additional pounds. I probably am up ten all together now, but I do not see the end unless I find the truth of why I need to gain. Yes…need…I need to gain the weight.

I feel all the ways I am free from the pain of The Bean. I know he is not the reason, although I also know the truth about why I needed comforting food at Valentine’s Day and my birthday had his name all over it. I am a thirty-six year old woman and no man has ever really loved me. Not even for a minute. I never received a New Year’s kiss or a Valentine, and I guess I thought this year would be different back in November when my heart flowed with love for The Bean. I really believed he loved me too, but he did not. I allowed myself to dream and expect in places where I never let myself. Year after year of disappointment–in myself as much as anyone else–teaches a girl not to use her imagination in places dead to her. I never begrudge anyone any silly holiday because being on the outside of all of them creates a longing so deep I would never want to take away one precious moment of happiness from anyone else.

I think the trust it took for me to let The Bean into my life fuels the current weight gain. I trusted and lost. I feel like I wasted my heart on someone who took it, saw it for what it really really contained and could become, and then threw it away. He threw me away. I do not want to trust again like that. I need to hide. I can feel still–feel all sorts of things–but it kills me. I keep trying to push away the moments of trust, curiosity, desire and longing I feel. I want to hide behind my thighs again so I will not be in a position of trusting someone else who will automatically possess the power to destroy me.

I also know I must practice risking this again. If I do not, The Bean will be buried on my thighs and forever written into my DNA. There will be no room for anyone else. No room for loving again. No room for sex, with all its glorious fucking and making love. No room for my desires. No room for my dreams. No room for me.

I guess letting go is that moment when I risk just a tiny bit towards the future instead of holding onto the pain infused past. My run this morning contained more than a few steps in the right direction, but I do not know if I will find my footing and momentum today.  I guess I will just need to practice again and again.

After one month I deleted The Bean’s phone number out of my cell. Of course, I made sure to write it down in my Address Book, but not on the front page with all the other folk with last names that began the same. I guess I figured if I wrote it on a page rarely seen, it would not count.

After two months, I returned all of his things to him. Meticulously. I made sure not to keep anything, even the first gift he ever gave me because throwing it away seemed too cruel and keeping it too painful. The gift was this little ceramic wall hanging of a guy zip-lining in Costa Rica. My “Flying Bean.” When we first started dating he robbed a bank there and went down the line, video on You Tube and all. He brought me the “Flying Bean” back from his trip, and I cherished it. Letting it go hurt like hell.

Keeping the Mac Mini, desk, chair and bike also hurt. I really wanted to give them all back–preferably by throwing them through his front window–or at least pay for them. Deep inside I get all wicked about any man buying me anything. Old shit from John given how I would manipulate him into purple bathing suits from Burdines and extra Hello Kitty for keeping my mouth shut. I hate feeling paid for, so when a man breaks my heart I want to throw up every meal, scrub off every caress, sterilize my mouth and pussy, and return every fucking thing he ever thought to give me. Fortunately for me, most men I date never give me anything. Unfortunately for me, The Bean did.

So, I sit here writing this on the Mac he bought me off a truck through Craigslist, at the desk he bartered for, in the chair he got for free, with the bike in the storage unit that he bought for his sister, but then gave to me to ride. I guess they are mine now. I would have liked my actual stuff back, because unlike when I gave him his things, I never got back my things I did not think to take with me on the way out the door. During the Parking Lot Confrontation I did manage to get back a CD he just happened to have in a case in the car–The Bean I knew only used his ipod in the car–and forking it over was not too much of a problem. The case is probably in the bottom of his closet somewhere. He denies having some things, flat out kept others, and then offered to write me a check. Fuck that noise! I wanted them given back to me because he knew they were mine, but I settled for him knowing what a thief and wimp I found him to be after it was all said and done. I wanted to make sure he knew the score. “Jacqueline was more generous,” which is a lie–neither one of us really was there at the end–but given I tried and he never did, I win.

I work hard to make sure the score favours me when my heart feels at stake. Maybe some times I really am more generous, however, when I find myself so very low I will scrape your eyes out to be on top. Case in point: Right before the break-up, and during a time that turned out to be really really tough on me financially (although I did not know how bad it would get when I did this), I paid for the tax on The Bean’s fantastically expensive bike as his Christmas gift, got him monogrammed towels (a joke, but not a cheap one), got him some more long sleeved shirts for riding, and bought him “Nacho Libre” on DVD. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING? Oh yeah! I thought I loved him, and sacrificing for him made me feel good inside. The night we broke up I gave him all this loot–which were to be his Christmas gifts–because in my crazy heart they all had “The Bean” stitched to them.

In the third month, I deleted all his old emails–except the first ones–I need to go do that now. I also tried to have casual sex with Frenchie. What the hell was I thinking there? Twenty-eight and looking like a member of Depeche Mode was not such a bad thing. But! Between the smoking, weird silences, not really liking anything but oral–and I only like oral with the one I love, not the one I fuck–and then…well…imagine a pencil…

I never fuck someone for the sake of fucking them, so I figured why start now?

Here in the fourth month, I deleted everything about him off my computer. All the beautiful pictures of he and his mom in Vancouver last Fall. Gone. All the angry, loving, forgiving, painful, pain-filled, longing letters deleted. All the photographs thrown away or lost in an envelope somewhere. All the disappointment over him missing out on Emma. All the sadness he never sat at my dining room table. All the hope he might change. All the dreams of what might have been. All of what I once was with him, but I decided to keep the really amazing parts of whom I transformed into.

What else remains? My Ordination blog–I just cannot delete him because it would be all wrong without any pictures with him, but it now looks like this photograph book found tucked away in a lost piece of luggage from the Titanic. The tears I weeped into the blue paint on my walls. Catching my breath sometimes when I awaken in the middle of the night gasping for breath after dreaming again of making love to him where I see his face just as it was before: pure bliss. Then there are the nightmares of running, drowning, killing, melting, and being abandoned just one more time by him, usually with a baby in my belly. The random thought of “Oh, I need to tell The Bean that.” when I hear something or read a thought he would connect well, but then I remember. I still steel myself a bit in his neighbourhood, which overlaps my own in some places, but the energy got let out of that with the conversation last week.

Of course there is the Mini, the bike, the desk and the chair. My Mini, my bike, my desk, my chair.

I do not know how we became a culture obsessed with “closure,” but I admit I love the damn thing. I hate the feeling of unrest in my gut from awkward, ugly and hurtful endings, especially where I feel my heart never fully heals due to the love cut off at the quick. When The Bean left, I reeled from the swift and unexplainable exit. I could not fathom how it seemed to me that we were just getting to the good stuff, and he “imploded” (his word) and left body, mind and spirit. I needed closure and answers to my questions, but if someone does not acknowledge that you are alive closure tends to be elusive. Well…at least until I saw him driving to the Bike Shop.

As I turned my car around I cried out to myself, “What I need matters too!” So there we were in the parking lot face-to-face for the first time in four months. I just wanted to know from The Bean, “Do you know why you left me?”

He kept talking over and over again about when he did the “Post Mortem” on our relationship. I found strange comfort in his words given the pain of losing him set me on fire like a death. I led one of work’s Bereavement Support Groups the day before, and I kept thinking to myself, “It is okay that I have been so lost and incapable of almost anything–I just have been grieving.” Grieving like death. Something died between us, but I never wanted him out of my life, so maybe I would be better served to say something died in him. Maybe.

He told me that the reason why he had to leave immediately and cut me off fully centered on his feeling judged for not wanting to look at the effect his past might be having on his present. He said, “I learned everything I could back when those things happened, and I never want to think of them again. The longer we were together and the closer we became, the more pain I found myself in with you. You live in your past, present and future all at the same time. This way works for you–its what makes you so good at your job–and I know you were not intentionally judging me, but you require the person you are with to look at things, and I did not want to. I did not need to. I already got what I could out of them and want to leave them buried in the past where they happened.”

Figuring that I had already been pegged correctly, and that it was no time to stop being my own damn self, I said to him, “But when you saw Ana (THE EX), you said that the shit of her life was weighing her down even more because she refuses to deal with it; yes?” He agreed. I went on, “So, it seems strange that you would want others to deal with their stuff, but you do not want to deal with yours. Plus, I did not set out to root around to find your past pain, I brought up these things because they were hurting you, and us, in your present.”

When telling all of this to Paparazzo, he asked, “What was his major in college?” I told him what he already knew, “HISTORY.” Paparazzo replied rolling his eyes, “Just checking.” Irony. Irony. Irony.

Now granted, The Bean could have just been blowing smoke up my ass with all of this, but I do not really think so. He left me because I got inside the facade and that is not how he does things. He is the one who gives and never receives. He is the one in control. He is the one there for the girl–and he does love to date girls who have been molested–and all her problems. I brought disorder to the delicate balance of chaos and control he exerted over his life, but the disorder possessed a rightness to it because it centered on his needs being important.

Remember those drawings he did? Ours was an equal relationship. He could not be in control with me given the pain of my past. Not this girl. Not this time. I am the fucking poster child for recovery. I deal with the shit of my life. And he is right; it does work for me. The problem is that even if my way does not work for him, neither did his.

Given how this is my damn blog and I can say whatever I want, you would think I would bash him royally. You would think. I just cannot do it because I know too much. Too much about him and too much about adult children of alcoholics. I bought a book. I read up, which is another point of irony given my being a well-trained chaplain that I never really thought so much about this issue when we were together. One thing I read turned on the big light bulb over my head. In Children of Alcoholism: A Survivor’s Manual by Seixas and Youcha I read, “The inability to trust [their] own feelings and perceptions puts [them] in a precarious position. Trying to do away with uneasiness by hiding it and hoping no one else will see is exhausting…” and as a result “secrecy, evasion, and deception all [become] as acceptable as the truth.”

I kept seeing The Bean over and over in the pages of the book. I did not want to see him. I wanted to believe he would be the exception to the rule. I wanted to believe he would be the poster child for figuring it out on your own and getting it right. I wanted to believe he would not be just plain typical, but I kept seeing him over and over again.

The book put new light on why he lies to his parents all the time, why he has no real idea what he likes to receive–he can never trust anyone would take his desires seriously–and why all these things came up for us when they did.  The book talks about how real intimacy will cause the adult child of an alcoholic to fill with panic, which is actually a good sign of new life being right around the corner.  They do  best to face their past while being supported by love, especially intimate love, in the present.  I understand that, for being with him helped my whole being to heal in ways I could never approach without the kind of connection and intimacy real trust with sex can only bring.

I do not know what it was really like in his house as a kid, but given my own history with incest my imagination is probably pretty damn close. Even with all the really hopeful and helpful information contained in the book, I realized just how painful and distorted growing up with an alcoholic really is. Who can you ever trust if you cannot trust your parents? Yes. Both parents. The one who drinks almost ends up making more sense than the one who stays and allows all the craziness to continue. Nothing is real. Your perceptions are not real. You are not real.

So I stood talking to The Bean thinking,”You did the best you could.” I felt so sad. Sad. Sad. Sad. Here is this amazing, beautiful, brilliant man who just cannot go the emotional distance right now. I still hope he will one day, but I know I will never see it. He has been practicing and perfecting burying the pain for a long ass time. He will have one hell of a journey if he ever makes the changes necessary to accept and give real love. I know. I have been practicing them for years.  That is why I walked away thinking how good it was for me that we parted, and maybe not the best choice for him.  Maybe.  Or maybe I started something - planted a seed in a fertile garden perhaps - that will grow and flourish one day when he can go the emotional distance and not keep reburying things over and over again.

I am reminded of Robert Frost’s first lines from Mending Wall:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

So I stood there knowing how much I could go the emotional distance. I told him how angry I became over him leaving just when things got interesting. I got to the core fears and wanted to face them head on because of how much I wanted to be with him healthy and whole. I wanted to give him my very best and keep raising the bar again and again. I wanted to be more real, more loved, more loving, more giving, more free. I could see how we challenged each other in every single way and were on the verge of something great for ourselves as individuals and together as a couple. (Check out this great article about getting to the good stuff.) And then it was over. Sad. Sad. Sad.

I found closure to the most important and devastating chapter of my adult life standing in a parking lot. I found a way to bless him and our time together. I found a way to voice my anger and disappointment in him and the way he cut me out of his life. I told him about the destructive path of his verbal rage and emotional extinction. I told him how profoundly sorry I felt to find I caused him so much pain. I found forgiveness again.  I found a way to say goodbye to my first real love.

I found closure.

November, the month prior to my break-up with The Bean contained more emotionally, physically and spiritually intense–let  alone draining–events than we ever could prepare for.  So many things transpired that even now they do not seem real. It is almost as if the whole month happened in “super-slow-mo” and the tape playing in my head only makes the “waahwaahwahnan” sound over and over. Writing it down still stuns me.

The arduous rundown:

1. I broke a molar and had root canal the first few days of November, just before…
2. I was ordained on November 5th. Now The Bean continues to have major issues with any sacred or religious space (Let’s be sure to keep the two separate, because not all religious spaces are sacred or vice versa.). As a kid, his parents–one an atheist Catholic, the other Jewish–were blackmailed by the priests running the private school into having him baptised. The Bean did not want it, nor did his parents, but it allowed them to keep their illegal immigrant child in school. I have issues with baptizing any child, but against a grown child’s will and that of their parents and demonizing said child is abuse. Period. So, when I looked out and saw my dear sweet Bean sitting in my church I came undone with love for him. I knew what it took for him to be there, and I knew how much he cared for me to cross that threshold on my behalf. Pure selflessness in the place of pain for him.
3. I told him, in the throes of Ordination Bliss, the night of my ordination, that I loved him. He held me closer, and we fell asleep at the hotel.
4. November 7th we went to dinner. He said something to me over dinner about how he did not remember anything after we got back to the hotel due to being so tired. It turned out that this included what I said, which I repeated (feel free to judge me now). He replied smiling, “As if I did not already know that!” I said, “Right back at-cha.” The conversation brought up so many fears for me, especially the Big Kahuna: abandonment. I also talked to him that night about how I felt I had gotten really “busy” in our relationship due to my own fears of him leaving. Overcompensating. I told him about how I would drop yoga for him week after week–wanting him to keep my boundaries–but never expected him to not go on his weekly ride. I told him to expect some big changes from me in the coming weeks, not because I did not care about him, but because I realized I needed to take a step back and care for myself. I apologized for making him responsible for what I needed.
5. November 8th, The Bean called me at work to tell me how upset he was. I felt like he might be experiencing a panic attack and urged him to leave work “sick” and go to the doctor. He desperately stated how he needed a break and all of the pressure seemed to be too much. I got it and took him seriously. I also urged him to consider therapy, if that might help his anxiety coupled with all the really smart and hard physical workouts he already incorporated into his life for stress management. I heard a great deal of anger–rightly so, I might add–that I thought a therapist could help him with processing in ways that empowered him more than leaving him feeling helpless. He listened, but he never went further.
6. I took a terrible fall off my bike on my way to The Bean’s house on November 9th. He rode towards me but was on the opposite side of the road. Even after not finding me, he never thought to cross to the other side. Given my “safety first” alarm bells, I never would ride on the side where he rode due to there not being any street lights and it was at dusk. He found me, patched me up, and took me home following dinner. I felt just awful, in part because I wanted him to care for my boo-boos (only fair given how I had nursed his from a bad fall in August that he took), but I also realized that–for whatever the reasons–he needed to be alone that night. I told him later, “My wants got trumped by your needs.” I felt really grown-up for getting the difference with him that night.
7. I woke up at his house on the 11th with the worst sore throat of my life and a fever. By the end of the day, I was up to 103.7!
8. I went to the doctor and found out I probably had Mono on Monday the 13th. By Thursday, I had the confirmation. My official first day off Probation at work was the 13th as well, so I used my Paid Time Off on the first day possible and until I ran out. In the Month of November I worked only six days and out some of December too. This left me one whole paycheck short, not to mention all the medicine, doctor visits, etc. November would have completely ruined me financially if not for the money people gave me at my Ordination and some help from my congregation.
9. The next week I developed Thrush in my mouth. So, now I had the most exhaustion I ever experienced, could hardly go downstairs to get food, and now could not put anything in my mouth. Add to this diarrhea and nausea. The Bean planned a bike trip with a friend the day of the 18th. I felt so disappointed in him for planning that trip while I was not only so sick, but also because my Aunt Charlyne had just been taken to the hospital with life-threatening lung problems and Miss Audrey and Baub were up in Ocala for her that weekend. I never asked him to stay; I only told him that I was hurt he would plan to leave. In the end, he did not go due to spending the night with me in the ER. I could no longer speak or open my mouth, finding myself in terrible pain, dehydrated, not able to keep anything in me, and trying to throw up. That night still shines out to me for other reasons as well. The Bean told me of how he drew up these schematics of all of his relationships that day while at lunch. In the end, he drew them for me. He showed me how all of his other relationships were so “out of balance” with the relationship overshadowing him and his needs. He had no life outside of whomever he was dating, other than work and his own family–although they were enmeshed there too. When he drew out how he saw us, he drew equal circles placed beside each other, but with some distance between them. He said, “I see us as individuals now and always, but I can also see that we are moving closer together…not to overtake one another or become ‘one’ but to be right up next to each other as full partners.” He showed me how he had balance in his life for the first time. He had his own friends. He expressed concern about how large and dominating work had become. I asked him, “Is there anything you need from me or need for us to work on to help you in this?” He replied, “No. I would not change anything about us. What we have is really working and brings me a lot of happiness.”
10. The night of the 18th, we lay in bed talking until five in the morning. The Bean needed to talk about the pain his most recent ex (from over a year before, and the one who will call him December 1st) caused him when she left saying, “I do not love you.” He told me how he could not think of her without “feeling searing pain,” and how this applied to the good times as well. We held each other. He cried. I cried. I told him I knew he could find his way to holding both the pain and the good times in such a way that the pain no longer robbed the good, but also where the pain no longer robbed his present either. I must admit I feel as though I am betraying him for saying this at all, but I also know that I still protect his identity from most and how important this moment felt to me. I firmly believed that until he could let go of the pain she caused him, he could not fully open to the love I wanted to give him or receive from him.
11. Thanksgiving night he surprised me by coming back early to see me. He told me of how he shared with his family his deep thankfulness for me because I “challenged [him] in every way.”
12. Saturday the 25th, he went on his ride. I suffered the effects of a new colon infection IN PUBLIC, but I did manage to buy the plants for re-doing his front garden. We wanted to get it in last Fall, so it would be beautiful and ready if he tried to sell this Spring.
13. Sunday we worked and worked and worked on his front garden. By dusk, it really looked amazing. He asked me if I would help with a work thing, which ended up taking almost four hours but gave him some sleep he never would have gotten otherwise.
14. We worked on getting his resume ready the next few days to send to a personal friend of mine for help in finding The Bean a new job. His work life had become unbearable and his boss utterly unkind and unprofessional, in my opinion.
15. Wednesday the 29th, we sent off his resume. The Bean lay down next to me on his couch and told me, “Baby. I needed you. I never need anyone, but you were there for me. Thank you.” I told him how I could not believe my ears, but “thank you” for letting me in to help you. I also thanked him for all the amazing ways he helped me during my illness.
16. This is as good a place as any to mention the last time we had sex was in November.  Due to the contagious nature of Mono, we just would look at each other with longing.  God!  How I missed him!  Every single part.
17. I tried to go back to work on the 30th, but my boss took one look at me and sent me back home. Thankfully.
18. December 1st: The Bean and I sat in the car driving to his parents’ house to pick up something and then out to dinner. His ex called him, which he called “disturbing.” She called again. He did not answer. He became very silent and upset. I wanted him to go and see her. I wanted him to forgive her–something he told me in the Summer he wanted to tell her–because I felt we could not go on until he had full closure with her over the past. He was to call me when they were done talking, so I would know he was okay, even if he could not talk about it. He texted me at 2:30 in the morning.

We never really spoke about that conversation with the ex, other than him telling me that “the shit of her life is weighing her down more now than before.” He told me that he was “imploding” following talking to her, and after a week of time in his Man Cave, I went to see him. He told me that he did not love me, only dated me because he was lonely, and we were done. Two days later, I went back to him and told him that I did not know if we were doing the right thing–if I was doing the right thing–and how mad at him I was. Then I got the “your star is extinguished from my sky” email, and I was officially dead in his world.

Funny thing is, I was not dead in mine, nor was he.

So, when I saw his fucking car–for the first time ever since we split–on the road last week, I followed his ass to the local bike shop (I just knew where he was going.) and confronted him!!!!!! I have GUMPTION! And I must say how proud of myself I am. Damn!

I do not know that The Bean left our relationship to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, but I admit the high possibility. I am not stupid. You go to dinner with me, then out to “dessert” around 10pm with her and text me at 2:30 the next morning, and the questions will come. Even though at the time he said he did not sleep with her and their getting back together was not even discussed, I still possess great doubts. It sure would explain why he had to “extinguish [my] star from [his] sky.” If I was pushed completely out of the scene then I would not know just how low down and dirty a bastard he could be.

Us girls do like to give all the psycho-babble explanations we can find, but I realize–despite my own propensity in this direction–that ultimately the only person who really knows is The Bean. And he refuses to acknowledge that I am alive, let alone able to have a conversation with me to answer some questions. I used to feel ill just thinking of all that falls into that category of “unknown” when it comes to how he left. The questions did not just fall into neat little piles marked “What he did.” and “What I did.” No. The worst category was marked: “Am I unlovable?”

My half-sisters walked out after Daddy died. I went from having nine at the dinner table to only Miss Audrey and myself. I knew, as only a six-year-old can know, I made everyone leave. They left; The Doctor came. He came and molested me because he knew I was trash too. I possessed amazing powers to repel those who loved me and attract the one who would use and abuse me by seven. And why would they all do this? They did it because I had no value…deserved nothing…would get nothing…marked as filth so grotesque and horrible that to ruin me again and again became sport.

And then I grew up. I got a shit-load of therapy. I got as super healthy as one can get when your DNA gets fucked over every day by the ones who are supposed to love and protect you. I became the Poster Child for the sexually abused and healed, as one therapist put it. In fact, my pre-Ordination psychological testing showed just how low my suspicion factor is, which is unbelievable given a childhood of trauma, abuse and abandonment. Somehow I keep trusting and believing in love, even with all the evidence to the contrary in my life.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am far from perfect. Even with The Bean I found places where I needed to grow up so as to make myself even more healthy. I can see it though. I can see where I would get “busy” in our relationship and try to earn his care for me. I would tell him how I could see it, and try and work on it too. Old fears of abandonment creep up. I guess I just figure my best “Plan of Attack” is to try and deal with them when they do. Practicing sinking into being good enough also helps.

Relationships of the intimate variety do require me to practice. Practice trusting. Practice opening up. Practice letting go. Practice just being. Practice relaxing, for I can be so hyper-vigilant about my life. I never let myself off the hook–the old damaged goods record gets played too much–because I do not want to be seen as damaged goods, even if I am. Dont’ worry; I see ironic circular thinking on that one.

The time with The Bean felt like my reward for all shit I endured in my life. I could not believe how lucky I was to have found him. Someone finally got me! Someone finally thought it was amazing that I was smart! Someone finally understood how much pressure I put myself under and wanted to be a healing balm in my life! Someone thought it was cool and beautiful for me to be the “exception to the rule” girl! Someone dated me because I was “amazing!” (At least that is what he told me.) My relationship with The Bean empowered me and opened my heart in more ways than could be quantified. I found room after room in my soul that I thought my past had demolished. I opened up. I could not have been prouder of myself and the emotional risks I took.

Nothing in my past has kept me from risking my heart. I had been demolished in my tender underbelly before in a dating situation. When Plant Geek broke up with me he implied that any man attracted to me must have some sort of “fetish” and would have “to be into that sort of thing.” This was a direct attack on my being a size 16 and not a size 6 or less. Why do we have to resort to hitting the other’s tenderness as we leave them behind? Both Plant Geek and The Bean could have left me without leaving me to question my value or desirability, for that is what happens when you punch hard that tender underbelly. The old “you are grotesque trash” message starts playing and overwhelms my heart, mind, spirit and body…at least for a time.

When Plant Geek called into question anyone being genuinely physically attracted to me, I knew what he meant. My breasts could be higher and firmer. They are not. Shit! I make cellulite whenever I look at broccoli, so anything “fattening” dooms my thighs yet again! My belly is not flat. My hips are wide. My ass spreads. I have sensitive skin that becomes easily irritated. I look pasty without some blush. You cannot see my eyelashes very well without mascara. My chin is not as sharp as it will be when I get to my goal weight. I have psoriasis on my right sole. My nails do not grow long. I have flabby arms.

I am not perfect. I do not have the body anyone would look at and say, “Damn! She is hot!” But that does not mean I am not beautiful or fuckable. I just fall into another category…my very own with only my name on it. I am Jacqueline. Period. My smile can light up a room and calm the fears of the dying. My eyes will tell you my life story before I even open up my mouth. I love my full lips, and I bite the bottom left one when I am nervous or when I am thinking about kissing someone. I have strong lovely shoulders. My skin is soft and milky all over. An artist drew my hairline before my life began, and my hair is always soft. I smell good too. I have beautifully shaped legs. I have a really cute dimple in my ass that only gets more adorable the more squats I do! Each toe is unique at the end of my long feet. I have strong hands. I have a graceful back. I am all woman and will be a girl even when I am an old lady in my deathbed.

I also build emotional muscles daily. I am resilient. I am kind. I am sensitive. In seminary a friend talked about different people’s reputations. I was curious. What was said about me? She told me that my reputation centered on one thing only: “You are scary smart.” I loved that! I see it too, and I am no longer afraid to show off my big beautiful brain.

I forgive easily. I listen. I try. I respect. I honor the humanity and potential for beauty in those around me. I still believe in the created worth of each and every human being and believe God has a dream–an archetype perhaps–of whom we could be, if only we would choose to be that person. God knowing our capacity for greatness. I am funny. I am creative, and I am proud of the way I put things.

So then, why would The Bean treat me as if I was less than anyone he had ever known? What did I ever do to deserve that treatment?

The ex-girlfriend prior to the one at issue here slept with his best friend from High School and that guy’s wife. He still wanted to be with her and work it out after that fiasco. The ex whose call ended our relationship could easily be labeled “Dysfunction Junction” given how the “shit of her life just weighs her down” (per The Bean), but he…well, I know he wanted her back for a long time and maybe always did. The only person from these fiascoes to be given the “You Are Dead To Me” treatment was his former best friend for seducing the one girl, who was particularly vulnerable due to her own emotional shit.

So if I get this right, I am in the same category as that guy? WHAT THE FUCK?!!?

My friend Miss Douglas asked me yesterday if The Bean could have found out something about me that would have made this happen. What is there to find out? He knew most of my secrets, and the two that he did not know were not life shattering. No. This all happened for reasons only he knows, and I believe no matter what they are they all qualify for “Fucked Up In The Head” status. Paparazzo rides with him on Wednesdays, but I would never ask him. Miss Douglas asked me about that too. I will tell you what I told her: “Not only would I not want him in the middle, but I really do not want to know anymore.” She still thinks that enough time has gone by for Paparazzo to say “WTF?” to The Bean, but my fantasy of that moment would have to include a hard right uppercut as well! (Damn! That makes me laugh!)

My heart is not such a swirling mess any longer. All the “What the fuck?” questions the royal eye roll treatment now. I shake my head and embrace the not knowing and how that must be a more gentle answer. What would I do with knowing anyways? Would it put me back playing the old recordings of being unlovable again? I found a miracle when The Bean and I broke up after he told me that he did not love me and only dated me out of loneliness. I knew I was worthy of love, and all I felt was love in that place…if even for just the most critical of moments. I knew that I loved me. I knew God loved me. I knew I loved The Bean. Somehow in the worst place, I found the love I had been seeking but just not from the sources I thought would bring it.

Unexpected love in an unexpected place.

When I was eleven Miss Audrey sent me off to Theater Camp out at the Dade County Youth Fair Grounds. I played some character in Pinocchio, but I do not remember who any longer. I do remember going to the public pool for a bit each day and swimming until she came to get me after work. The diving board on the right side of the deep end and the diving platform to the left. I would go off the diving board again and again. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Jump. 1…2…3…splash! I wanted to go off the platform so badly, but I was scared. I climbed up, teeth chattering, palms sweating. I stood at the end of the platform breathing deeply. Then pinching my nose before jumping off, I went for it! 1…2…3…?????Where is the splash????Oh my god, is there water???Am I going to die???HELP!!!HELP ME!!!!!!!!!S!P!L!A!S!H!

I find myself on the High Dive again. I keep putting myself out “there.” I find the corners where the pain The Bean caused makes me hesitant to not only date again but invest again. After Plant Geek, I wanted to get other opinions of the person I dated. I dragged The Bean in front of friends and family time and again. The resounding affirmation was: “He is a keeper.” We were all deceived? Probably not, but none of us saw his underbelly for not only what it was, but also what it was capable of doing either. So much not knowing, even as I try to keep the tangled mess of questions about the past in the past.

What I do know is I feel the corners where I still need to heal when one guy tells me that I am “very very beautiful” because I feel skeptical of his intentions. When I think another guy is terribly smart and interesting, I fear it a bit. When I want to kiss someone in particular, I talk myself out of it…for now…because what if I get rejected? I find myself scared shitless! But one of these days…well, I will jump off knowing that the splash may take a bit more time, but once I hit the water I am golden because I am a really strong swimmer. Not to mention, I love the water!

But until I take the leap, I will stand on the High Dive with my heart racing, my palms sweating, and my teeth chattering. And there will still be that corner of my heart that is suspicious that I am in fact unlovable…because no matter how much this Poster Child heals, the old questions journey with me. I just keep trying to find ways to love with them, instead of thinking I can get rid of them all together.

On Sunday, I got up at six in the morning with Emma and began to cook. My aunts (Aunt Charlyne, the one with terminal lung cancer and Aunti Sandi, the one she now lives with) were set to arrive a mere 12 hours later, so I needed to get started! Time was a-wastin! I planned a fully home cooked meal in their honor, given that my one aunt should start chemo on Thursday. I bought most of my groceries at Whole Foods, including organic lean beef for my beef stew. Fresh rosemary, French butter (does it really taste better?), Russian Banana potatoes, the finest chocolate, organic raspberries, etc. I made the beef stew from scratch, used Julia Child’s master recipe French rolls, and finished with a lovely flour-less chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. By the time I crawled back in bed for a short nap at 11:30 am, the bread was doing its second rise, the stew was cooling for being refrigerated, and my finger was properly smashed in a battle between the bottle opener and the bottle where my finger lost!

Despite almost passing out, I pressed on with my cooking. I tasted the stew multiple times. I added more Worcestershire, a splash of vinegar, some Dijon mustard. I kneaded the bread, trying to keep both blood and cotton ball fragments out of the dough. I chopped the chocolate, measured out the sugar, began the sauce, found my candy thermometer, and turned the AC down to seventy degrees. I vacuumed. I dusted. I cleared the paperwork off the dining room table and put it in neat piles away from where they would notice. I picked out fun china; I posses around 10 different ones, so this is not an easy task! Napkins, glasses, silver, serving pieces, all placed just so in-order to welcome them with sight as well as smell.

I could not help but think of Babette’s Feast as I laboured. In the movie, Babette has run away from Paris, where she worked as a renowned chef, as a political refugee. She finds work cleaning and cooking for two elderly Dutch spinster sisters. She cooks rather bland pitiful fare due to their preference. The sisters avoided pleasure all their lives out of devotion to God. (Of course, if God wanted this type of dutifulness, why did God create an entire world for us to delight in? But I digress.) There is no colour, no joy, no flavour, no mirth, no spirit (or Spirit?) to their lives. For many years, Babette toils in this grey existence, but love flourishes within all three of their lives even in this world of grey tones. After winning a small lottery, Babette plans and creates a beautiful meal for the sisters and their fellow congregants. This Feast does not just serve to delight and astound their senses, but also to pour out Babette’s love on the sisters for their kindness to her. Babette’s Feast is indeed a form of Holy Communion, which never should focus on strict table laws, but always on an open table of love and community. Babette works for days to create her Eucharist, and she selflessly pours her whole heart, body and soul into each and every dish. The delight the sisters take over each morsel left me both jealous–although I am not too sure about the Turtle Soup served–and open hearted at the love flowing between everyone at this meal. The grey banished in the light of love’s myriad of colour.

Jacqueline’s Feast could not compare when it came to epicurean delight, but I did manage to knead love into every roll, sprinkle compassion into the stew, and stir mirth into the cake batter. We sat down, with a short prayer by me. I passionately prayed that God would be with us, and especially with the person most deserving of winning at Super Boggle. My Aunt Charlyne said. “Nice try, but prayers cannot help you now.” We all broke out laughing.

See, I have only beat her at Super Boggle and Trivia Pursuit one time apiece. In a recent email to her–where I urged her to consider not doing the chemo at all–I reminded her of these two seminal events. I wrote her saying:

In my mind I go back over my whole life experience with you. My first memory? Being out on the horse farm with you and calling you “Aunt Charlyne.” You told me that you were “nobody’s aunt” and to call you Charlyne. I guess I am a true Osborne Woman–headstrong and all–because my whole life I have completely ignored you and called you “aunt” anyways! (laughing) You are not just my mother’s sister, but you are my aunt, and I love you. You have a place of honor in my heart, and my experiences of you are real. I remember the family times when you would be pissed off (The Trinity-as I like to call Aunt Frances, Mother and Aunt Gail-can be a real pain in the ass and very self righteous sometimes.) and the wonderful fun, humor and intelligence you brought. Of course there is also my fear of your amazing game-playing abilities. I can still tell you the year and the holidays that you have ever been beaten at ANYTHING by me! Christmas 1989 Betsy and I beat you at Trivia Pursuit on a Sports and Leisure question (our biggest weakness) where the answer was Martha Graham, whom I had just studied in my college Humanities class. Then in 1997, again at Christmas, I beat you at Super Boggle. All my friends know about this and that I figured the only way to even the playing field between us was for you to get Alzheimer’s! Not that I would wish that on you just to be able to beat you, but it did cross my mind! (really laughing now)

Jacqueline’s Feast ended with me and Aunti Sandi being shown our hats by the Whiz, but also with being able to say and hear, “I love you.” What joy to hear her laugh, throwing her head back and cackling! How fun to see her reach for her third roll and smear it with lots of good butter! How precious to show both of

them my Granddaddy’s newly recovered chair sitting in my Living Room, and to show her where I put the antique dresser they drove to North Carolina to get for me back in 1991. Most importantly, what a wonderful sacred moment with those whom I love, especially the one who has spent so much of her life separated from us all.

I spent a good part of Monday crying–and here I am at it again–over how precious her time really is and how much I want each one of her moments to be poured to overflowing with more love, care, good food, laughter, family, games, and joy than she can handle. She has spent a lifetime without enough, so I figure it is high time she gets too much. (See my other post about this.)

So many of us are starving, like my Aunt Charlyne, for more love, more joy, more kindness, more understanding. I really believe in being the very thing you think is lacking in the world. Too many mean people? Be kind. Too much noise? Be quiet. Too much media? Turn off the TV. Too much fighting? Be peaceful. To much pain? Love more. Not enough time? Spend what you have loving and holding and cherishing before you miss the chance.

And of course: Chocolate batter on the spoon? Call “fins” and lick it up!

(”Fins” is a family expression akin to “shot-gun” or “dibs.”)

I am so tired. Never having had a young puppy before, not to mention a job and being an old lady celebrating anniversaries of her 28th birthday since last century, I had no idea! I behold the sunrise every morning, every day. In fact, more sunrises graced my mornings this last month than all of the months of my life prior. Often, I get to see the morning sky without the sunrise–we are up just that early! I get up and pee–Mama’s first around here–and then fetch the pup crying, “I gotta go. I gotta go. I gotta go. Mommmmmieeeeee. I gotta go. I gotta go. I gotta go.” Of course the fact that she really would rather not go outside due to being afraid of it does make this a bit tough, but out we go. First time we pee and poop. Times two though five we go to pee again, otherwise I am on my hands and knees cleaning up the floor. I hate cleaning up the floor, and not just for the obvious reason. My puppy is addicted to the cleaning spray and would prefer I just squirt it into her mouth. I think she has the Alcoholism gene because she also really loves it when I take off nail polish, so I figure the lure of these things is all about the alcohol. Not only does the pooch love the hooch (ha!) but she also loves cayenne pepper. I found this out when I sprinkled it on the wood of the sofa she thinks would be fun to teethe on, and instead of her crying and backing away, she licked it up. Thankfully, I also know now that she hates mint. Needless to say, my house is minty fresh these days.

You may be asking yourself why in the world I would put myself through all of this torture. Trust me! At five in the morning, I too am asking myself what the heck I got myself into. Then I see her cute little panda marked body bouncing around and melt. She really is a love, and she is putting a lot of F.U.N. back into my life. I needed the fun and her as my teacher. I can be sooo serious sometimes. Plus, knowing she was coming into my life really helped me to start planning for my future and stop looking back over my shoulder at the painful past with The Bean.

Those early morning wake-up calls ground my whole day towards taking care of her, and in so doing I also take care of my own soul. As we played catch this morning at eight, instead of our usual 6-6:30 stint. What a God-send she woke up at 7:30, with a tiny bit of encouragement at 5:30, 6:15 and 6:45, given that I was on-call last night and went to a death until almost 3 am! So in my sleepy haze tossing her ball down the hall and praying to not hit the china cupboard, I started to think about what I am learning from little Emma. Here are my musings:

• The adage “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” is really smart. When she nips at me, I wish the wrath of the puppy gods upon her cute little deranged head with the sharp needles for teeth! We can all nip at our bosses about this and that–my favourite nips center on the antiquated systems that make everything take forever to do, coupled with “productivity” requirements (Yes, even Chaplains have quotas!)–not always taking to heart that if they had a magic wand they too would fix the DOS system that makes their life a living hell as well.
• Toys are fun, but even more fun when you play with someone else. Emma never steals things that are not hers unless I am ignoring her. She demands attention, that is for sure, but she also has a lot more fun when we play together. Take me: I always went to the movies by myself over the years. Even when I was in High School! But now I really just like going with a friend, especially Paparazzo. So much more fun to talk about it with someone and share the experience. This holds true for me and bike riding as well. I go further, have a better workout and enjoy myself more. I guess I am not as much of a loner as I embraced at an earlier time.
• A good day includes eating both your meals and some yummy treats, pooping and peeing, walking around outside, being curious, playing with friends, and loving on those around you, so do not worry too much about all the other complicated stuff. Granted, Emma is cared for because I get up and go to work, etc. She has an easy life, which I lecture her on when she is a pain in the rear-end. But she also shows me that keeping things more simple can lead to a really amazing walk on a cool evening or some precious cuddle time with a wiggly puppy in my lap. The Internet or TV are never as wonderful.
• Kiss, kiss, kiss is always better than nip, nip, nip. In our world, Emma kissing me is always better than when she is a mouthy puppy. The Bible puts it this way,”A kind word turns away anger.”
• Jump into the arms of the one you love. My heart fills up with sheer glee when I see her bounding towards me, leaping into my lap and arms, and snuggling in to get close. So often we see those who matter the most to us and say, “Hey.” That is it!???! How much better to just fling our arms around them, hug them tight, and say, “I am so much more happy now that I see your beautiful face. I love you.”
• Naps are good. This one is self-explanatory, and causes a great deal of jealousy around my house. I put her down for a nap and sulk away from her crate. Pitiful!
• Napping with another warm body beside you, even better. I need to work on this in my personal life as well as my puppy life! She prefers napping in her bed than in mine. Plus, if she is in my bed, she insists on checking my head for fleas. “Mommie is not a puppy,” gets said around here quite a bit. Mommie also knows that just any warm body will not do in her bed. Only one encasing the heart of a man who really loves me for who I am will do at this point. I am glad I get that now.
• Accidents happen. I keep thinking of that old Bissel ad that said, “Life is messy; clean it up.” Shit happens; we all do it! I try to focus on cleaning things up and moving on with life over getting all upset that it happened in the first place.
• Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. She is growing up and has to learn the rules, test the rules, and grow into accepting the rules. I try to be as consistent as possible, and fair. Sometimes I just mess up on the Mommie end, and often she messes up on the baby end. I must forgive her in order to wipe my heart clean of my anger at the “mistakes” and to be open to loving her fully again, so I might train her to be the dog I want her to be. I also have to forgive myself for not always doing the right thing or for getting overwhelmed, etc. A girl has to work, ya know? Grace has to be the cornerstone of all of my relationships–even the one I have with myself–in order for them to grow and flourish. Forgiving the nicks along the way means that I understand pruning as being a part of life.

Emma and I are both growing up around here, and I am honest with myself about that.

The following is a true story told to me by a live-in health-care aide at one of my patient’s homes. “Mary” worked in a large nursing home before starting to work privately, which is the setting for this story. I regret I cannot write in such a way that you could hear the melodic Haitian lilt to her voice. You will just have to use your imagination.

Let me tell it to you as she told it to me:

“Once when I worked in the home, every day they give to me 10-13 patients to clean, help use the bathroom or bedpan, bathe, feed…all the help they needed for daily living. One woman on my floor had THE worst reputation! She had no legs and only one arm left cause the diabetes get to her so very bad. I hurt to look at her, but she was not nice. She was mean. I tell you, she was mean.  Always yelling and cursing at everybody.  People would saw terrible things behind her back about what a horrible person she was.

One day another aide went to bathe her, and she had the most terrible bed sores you ever saw. She messed herself, so the aide had to clean her. Given how ugly she was, always yelling and talking down to people there to care for her, the aide was not gentle when she bathed her. She used a washcloth and scrubbed her clean until her backside was not just raw, but also bleeding. I guess she thought she would teach her a lesson

The next day, they give her to me. I go to her and ask her if she was ready for me to clean her up. I could smell that she had messed herself again. She told me, “Get out of here! Leave me alone! Go away!”

I say to her, “But you are dirty; you need to be clean. Won’t you feel better when I clean you?”

She tells me to go to hell and to leave her alone.

A little while later I go again. “Don’t you want me to clean you? I will make it so you smell nice and feel good.”

She starts yelling at me, “Why don’t you just leave me here and let me die? Go away. I do not want you or anyone else to come near me or to touch me. Get it?!!”

I say to her, “But you will feel better. Please let me clean you.”

She only glared at me, so I left her again. I tend to my other patients and when they are all done, I go back again. Three times Chaplain! Three times I go to that woman, but I just cannot go home knowing that she is lying there in her filth.

I go in again and say, “Please let me help you.”

She looked like she would explode and tells me that she will call my supervisor if I do not leave her alone. She will have me fired!  I tell her to call. I just do not want to leave her like that all the time. I am a good person and just can’t go home and leave her in her own mess.

Somehow she softens a bit and tells me that she was rubbed too hard by the girl the day before and that her backside is raw and bleeding. This is why she does not want anyone to rub her or touch her or bathe her. She would rather sit in her filth and die than have that much pain again.

I say to her, “I will be gentle. I will not use the wash clothes but the wipes. I will get you clean and put lotion on your sores to heal them.”

She say to me, “You promise that you will not hurt me.”  She was almost crying at this point.  So, I promised her that I would be very careful.

So I wash her very gently. I clean all of the mess away. She never cried out, not even once. I rubbed the lotion to help soothe her skin. She smelled so good when I was done with her!

She then says to me, “Only you…I only want you to give me my bath from now on. I will tell them what a good job you did. You were so kind and gentle. It never even hurt.”

The Christian Scriptures teach us that when we care for the least among us, it is as if we were doing it to Jesus or the Holy One.

This is dedicated to my aides: C, P, E, M, F, & L.

When playing on the field of love, one needs to know the rules. I, unfortunately, do not actually know them. Somehow I missed the day in Junior High when they passed the dang thing out! I know this because I never seem to have any trepidation about beaus meeting The Parental Elements. I never think, “It is too early.” I never worry that this will freak anyone out or put on the pressure. I do not want a beau to meet them right away, I just do not prevent it from occurring naturally. Shit! When I lived with them while on my extended “vacation,” meeting them kind of came with the territory.

Red flag!

The Bean told me the day after everything fell apart that when I told him I loved him after my Ordination it was “too soon.” We dated for five months at that point. Then, when we broke up less then a month later, part of what he said was that he knew he loved his other girlfriends by the time the six month mark came around. He felt he “ought” to love me, but since he did not know that he loved me at that very moment, he figured he never would. So, I guess in the rule book it says, “If you say ‘I love you.” at five months that is too soon, but if you do not say it by six months, it is too late to ever love the other person.”

Red flag!

I have been so angry about all these fucking red flags! Angry I do not know the rules. Angry the rules change depending on the person. Angry my rules–kindness, humanity, forgiveness, working it out, humor–seem to not really count. Angry being myself seems to be the complete opposite of whom I need to be to get a man to love me.

Get a man to love me? What a load of shit! Me? How can that love be real if I am pretending to be someone else? I posses all sorts of red flags–my father died, I was molested, I carted my ass through year after fucking year of therapy trying to heal and figure it out, I am spiritual and a minister, I am not HOTT, I say what I mean, I cry, I fall down, I get back up, I owe money because Duke is so fucking expensive and the UCC and my church did not give me one red cent to pay for school, I work for nothing, I am over thirty, I have cellulite, and I hate my breasts much of the time–all these red flags to drive the men away.

(You may be saying at this point, “Who needs them?” Let’s be honest here. I am a woman, and I have needs. Needs of all sorts. Needs that require the love of just one good man. Just one, but one indeed.)

I went on my first alone time with a guy following the break-up, aka “a date.” Just a walk and some ice cream with a nice guy. Later he told me that he had read more of this blog and it had raised some questions…particularly about the fact that I was molested. Here is the funny thing: If I was his friend, knowing what I know about how hard it has been to become the “Poster Child for the Good that Can Happen if You Work Really Hard and Deal With Being Molested”–per the Pastoral Counselor who executed my psych evaluation prior to my Ordination–I would tell him to stay the hell away from a “survivor.” Red flag from every referee on the field!

Paparazzo agrees. He told me that being sexually abused equals being a “head case.” My heart totally broke when he said this to me, but I also agree with him. I only have one friend who experienced molestation as a child, and she has her shit together and knows how to cart her ass to therapy if the need arises. She also had her season of mourning not marrying in time to have a family with the love of her life…well, so far. Coming out from that pit must be one of the toughest climbs to make in life, but I know it is possible. I made it out! And, yes, I am a head case in some respects…I still find places that need a healing balm or kiss.

I never felt so alive or beautiful than when I lay naked with The Bean. Whole rooms of my heart sprang back to life. I could see myself running from room to room in my heart and feeling such unimaginable joy and bliss! I always thought my heart tore apart so much from The Doctor it no longer resembled the mansion destiny intended. Being with The Bean convinced me of all the love possible within me. No words. There are just no words to describe this experience for me. Even his saying that he did not love me cannot take away the immense and intense love I experienced flowing between us and how that love healed me.

The Bean once told me he saw three red flags about me, one of which centered on my talking so easily and often about The Doctor. I disagree. I know being able to integrate the terrible abuse, losses and healing–the most important love story of my life–means that there are green flags waving “Life is here!” all over my field. Stuffing things down, pretending they never happened, mentioning them once and then never discussing them again does not work when it comes to the major life shaping currents we experience. He did not want me to talk about it.

Red flag on the field.