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Is The Story True?

In a recent column, Maureen Dowd raised the question, “Why can’t filmmakers tell the story as it actually was?” Lamenting the creative license taken in Oscar nominated films, she objected to the fabricated car chase in Argo, done for dramatic effect, and the historical inaccuracy of the voting process for the 13th amendment in Lincoln, done reportedly for simplicity sake.

Creative non-fiction writers have been dealing unceasingly with the issue of truth, since their motto is “True Stories, Well Told.”  In finishing my mother’s memoir due out this summer, I recognize I’ve learned a great deal how complex truth actually is. In my family, as most likely in yours, people who were present for the same events have quite different perspectives on them. My book, Warrior Mother: Fierce Love, Unbearable Loss, and Rituals that Heal tells events from my perspective. My daughter’s then 12 year-old son, her husband, or my son’s stepfather would each have their own views of the events we all shared. As a social worker, I know it’s not productive to ask who’s right? Everyone is right from their own perspective. In literature this is called point of view.

In my retelling of events I discovered that I sometimes misremembered details. An email exchange with my son-in-law resulted in some fact checking on some items I got wrong or didn’t give the emphasis they deserved. And any telling of a long complicated story involves selecting what to include and what to leave out. This selectivity becomes by its very nature, not telling the whole truth. When given the assignment at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival to write a scene from the perspective of someone who is likely to see it differently than me, I discovered that there was a previous scene to the one in question that I hadn’t included. From my perspective it wasn’t important. But telling the story from this other person’s perspective, meant the previous scene had to be included. Later, I decided to leave it in because it added a rich layer to the story.

“Truthiness,” Stephan Colbert’s made up word is defined as something that feels true, intuitively, without regard to the evidence. In spite of it’s being all in fun, I think he’s on to something. In a radio show recently I heard Maya Angelou say that truth is not the same as facts, and that in some instances, facts obscure the truth.  Since the meaning of a communication is in how it is received, I like the notion that feelings are facts too, just a different kind.  

Then there are the secrets withheld, to protect the innocent, the guilty, or to maintain peace in the family. I wrote a paragraph that involved my son but when I shared it with him he said that wasn’t what he said. His denial did not convince me because in my training as a therapist I was taught to write my client notes so carefully that when called upon to read them out loud in a courtroom under oath, I would feel confident of their accuracy. But whether he said it or he didn’t, I took it out and replaced it with another truth we both could agree on.

Published on Friday March 1, 2013 in Book Excerpts, Personal Stories and Writing. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Feedback Part Two

Feedback is the return of a portion of the output of a process or system to the input, especially when used to maintain performance or to control a system or process.

My friend Pam got an electronic activity tracker for Christmas, and like I’ve done with other good ideas Pam has, I decided to copy her and get one too. My husband got a different brand and we’ve been testing and comparing our models. Both offer feedback on how many steps we take each day, the number of stairs we climb, the number of miles we walk, and the number of hours we sleep. Mine even calculates how long it takes me to get to sleep. Using the numbers that are calculated, our trackers estimate the number of calories we’ve likely expended, based on our age, weight, and height, information you put into the system when you set it up. I’m sure motivations to use these systems vary but here are some of mine.

  • Monitoring the progress of one of my most important goals, to move more. I’ve read about the health risk of inactivity as we age and no longer do work that requires physical activity and effort. As a writer, spending long hours everyday at my computer, I don’t want my obituary to read, poor dear, she died from sitting too often and for too long.
  • A reality check – I wanted an objective measure of what I actually do, because my own perception is not always reliable. Some days a mile walk in my neighborhood feels easy, but on other days it can feel like a hike up a steep hill.
  • Rewards – The five year old inside me still likes some version of the gold stars and “good job” my teachers wrote on my school papers. Knowing that my tracker is noting the steps I climb encourages me to climb more of them. It feels like I’m getting credit for my efforts.
  • Learning something I didn’t know – When I saw the estimation of calories I used during my eight hours of sleep, (420 or so), I thought the instrument must be broken. But checking on line, turns out we do use calories while we sleep. And maybe I use more than some other people because I get up often to go to the bathroom, and I turn from side to side fairly often during the night.
  • Accuracy – Sometimes my instrument doesn’t recalibrate correctly, when it switches over from daytime to nighttime analysis. Waking in the morning with the report that I have walked 400 steps in the night (which has happened) gets me to wondering if I walked in my sleep. I know how many steps it is from my bed to the bathroom and back, so that information is not likely to be accurate. Starting off the day with 400 steps gives me a head start on the number I hope to do each day. But I don’t need help in cheating; I can do that all on my own, without any help from a technological accomplice.

 

 

Published on Monday February 11, 2013 in Health, Personal Stories and Technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The Effect of Feedback

Feedback – The process by which a system, often biological or ecological, is modulated, controlled, or changed by the product, output, or response it produces.

It must have been the end of the summer because I remember the floral lightweight dress I was wearing. Our family car, a striped down Chevy or Ford, (the only kind my dad’s company ever provided), was parked on the street in Detroit, in front of our aunts’ studio apartment. The sky had turned dark, and standing in the doorway of the car, I was focused on the sky that was filled with thousands and thousands of stars. As I gestured upward, to point out this amazing discovery, Whack! Dad smacked me across the face, yelled a cuss word, and pushed me into the back seat of the car.

Unable to process what had just happened to me, and what I had done to bring it about, I felt stunned. Sitting in the back seat beside my younger sisters, I wrapped my arms around my shaking body, nursing my hurt feelings, determined not to cry and get myself into even more trouble.  I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong at the time but, looking back it’s clear that wherever we were going, we didn’t have time for stargazing.

I’m not sure how old I was but I had to be 7 or 8 because it was after my first communion and I remember preparing to go to confession, sometime shortly after this incident. At the Catholic school I attended we had been instructed as a way to remember our sins, to ask ourselves how many times we’d disobeyed our parents. I had already developed my own short cut for this task. I would count the number of smacks or spankings, or scoldings I’d received, and then tell the priest I had disobeyed my parents that number of times since my last confession.

But this event, the evening I was distracted by the stars, didn’t seem to fit neatly into my system. I obviously didn’t do what my Dad wanted me to do, given that he whacked me across the face and yelled at me to get into the car. But I hadn’t disobeyed him. I was doing what he wanted. I was just taking longer than he wanted me to take. Kneeling in the church pew, preparing for my turn to go to confession in one of the small little chambers on either side of the priest’s compartment, I came to the conclusion that I had not disobeyed my father. I had only displeased him and there wasn’t a commandment for that.

All these years since I have to admit I haven’t done much stargazing in my life, in spite of being around people, like my husband, who have a strong interest in the galaxy above. Could that instantaneous dramatic feedback on that evening long ago still be connected, in my psyche, with admiring the stars in a night‘s sky?

Published on Monday February 4, 2013 in Environment and Personal Stories. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The Path of a Warrior Mother

In looking at images for the cover of my book, Warrior Mother, I discovered early on that pictures of a skinny woman, dressed in battle gear, brandishing a sword were totally irrelevant. I found in Native American folklore, references to the path of the spiritual warrior, which was more what I had in mind. A spiritual warrior lives everyday, closely aware of his or her own death. And since death is guaranteed to happen to each one of us, no exceptions, spiritual warriors face that possibility every day.

Warrior Mother is the story of my journey as a mother, through the diagnosis, illness, and deaths of two of my three adult children. Looking back, as soon as my 20s something son Ken was diagnosed with AIDS, he was staring death in the face, and so was I. I become a warrior mother because I didn’t want him spending his then waning energy having to take care of me. As a model for him, I felt I needed to be brave and positive. As Dr. Bernie Siegel, who worked with those exceptional patients that defied the odds, said, “In the absence of certainty, there’s nothing the matter with hope.” http://berniesiegelmd.com/

In my readings I discovered the notion that what makes something sacred is sacrifice, not a popular concept in today’s world.  But when my 40-year old daughter called me, five years after her brother’s death, to say she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer, I did whatever I could to help her. It wasn’t want I’d planned for that time in my life, but when the mother of my three grandchildren said, “I want my mom,” that became my sacred assignment.

From all that we learned as a family from these experiences, lessons I hadn’t read about in other places, it seemed I needed to write about them. And since no family will escape having members become ill and die, it is my fondest hope that these stories might be helpful to others facing their own life and death situations. As Peggy Andreas writes, “This relationship with her Death calls the Sacred Warrior to be who she truly is, to live her life fully and completely, to use the power-from-within.” http://dreamflesh.com/essays/warriorpath/

Published on Tuesday January 29, 2013 in Art & Life, Book Excerpts, Personal Stories and Writing. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Learning to Take Turns

The holidays take us away from our daily rituals and that’s both the good and bad part of it, so this is the first chance I’ve had to get back on the horse of my writing practice. As I write, the image of one of the highlights of my holidays comes to me, my four-month old granddaughter, Kyra Joy jumping on her daddy’s knee.  She pulls against his arms that surround her trunk, seemingly poised to jump off of a high diving board into the open space in front of her. Adult relatives gathered around are having their first meeting with her and her charms; her dimples and smiles, and the sound of her laughter, she captivates everyone.

She seems to know that all eyes are upon her, and she relishes this assignment as the star of the show. Rather quickly, she recognizes our conversation as a game that involves taking turns making sounds. Someone says something, and then another person contributes his or her sounds. Uncle Bill makes sounds, so Kyra Joy contributes hers. Cousin Ethan speaks and Krya Joy answers him. Her utterances are not words yet, but she makes every attempt to improvise sounds with her voice and by changing the shape of her tongue.

As the grandmother I remember her Aunt Corinne at this age, always the center of attention in any family gathering. As the first grandchild on either side everyone saw her as the miracle gift that each child truly is. I remember when Krya’s dad, Kevin, came along two years later he didn’t speak or even much try to talk till he was 3 years old. When he finally did speak, it came in long full sentences, not pronounced very well. I always thought he hadn’t taken the time to practice. But his daughter is starting her practice early and catching on already to the notion that the main idea is not just to create one’s own sounds but to also listen carefully when someone else is making theirs.

Published on Sunday January 6, 2013 in Personal Stories and Writing. 0 Comments Tags: .

Finding That Energy Again

We hadn’t known one another for very long at the time. Perhaps that’s why we took an entire sunny spring afternoon to be together. We walked in a park built around a small man made lake. In those days the park rented small sailboats, paddle boats, and canoes, but not that day. It was too early in the Nebraska spring for such activity. But the weeping willows, some of the first trees to bud, were out. They stood as sentinels on the edge of the lake, their serpentine branches swinging softly in the breeze, occasionally dripping their edges into the lake itself.

On our walk, there was a great deal of silence between us and as I remember it, a deep sense of relaxation. As the light played with the yellow willow leaves, we’d stop and sit on a bench for a spell, then walk on, drawn by a clustering of ducks at one end of the lake. We held hands as we walked, which I guess is why I say we hadn’t known each other very long. That’s a behavior people do in the early months of a relationship. But it was here that the discovery was made.


I’m not sure who noticed it first, but we both definitely agreed, there was a soft energy coming from our hands. We could feel it in our own hands and in the hands of one another. Later I would see pictures of the energy around plants that shows up as light through Kirlian photography, a process that was invented in Russia around that time. As what always happens with scientific methods, controversy has sprung up around it, but for me, seeing the images confirmed what we were noticing that day. For years afterwards, on certain occasions we’d say to one another, “your hands have that energy again.”

Does this energy, and the quality of the light, correspond to the health of the living entities as the Kirlian’s believed? Could it be a measure of the health of a relationship? Is this the life force energy some call “God”? The Stillpoint around which all else in life revolves?

I can’t answer any of these questions for sure. But I know that I miss holding hands, taking time to stroll together with no destination in mind, and I miss especially, the confirmation and comfort of the energetic connection between us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDOi1BLoN3U  Kirlian photography

Published on Sunday December 2, 2012 in Book Excerpts and Personal Stories. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

We The People Won!

In the last few days of the campaign, I sat for hours with eight other women in the garden room of another woman’s house.  Other people moved in and out of the living and dining rooms, all holding lists of likely voters and cell phones, calling to get out the vote for our candidate. We were old, young, and most ages in between, a high school girl, a grandmother, a housewife, a retired teacher. We knew it’s nearly impossible for a single voter to have influence, but joining with others to encourage lots more people to vote, now we have the potential to speak to the direction we want our country to move in the future.

In between shifts on the phone, some of us get packets of names and addresses, get in our cars and drive to different neighborhoods. We climb hills and stairs, knocking on doors, talk to people or leave stickers with information about polling places and the importance of their vote. I met a woman in her 30s, still in her pajamas at 10:30 in the morning who tells me defiantly that she isn’t going to vote. When I asked why she said “because I didn’t want to.”

I wished her a good day, when she gave me this chance to practice the discipline of “bless and release,” an opportunity that comes often when connecting with real people with whom you have a difference of opinion. The women in the garden room admitted in short discussions between calls, this part is rarely easy.

The morning after the election I learned that our team, over the four days had made 10,784 phone calls and knocked on 11,264 doors. Just as someone emailed those figures, the national figures of the get out the vote ground effort arrive. Three million door knocks and 15 million phone calls. No wonder we feel tired.

A lot of us had felt really bad about the 2012 election year process – the extreme amounts of money spent, the negative attack ads, the half-truths and outright lies in the public discourse, and the deafening silence on important issues such as immigration reform and climate change. I had begun to wonder whether our democracy could survive this onslaught to reasoned adult behavior, or whether it even should. It almost seemed like we, as a people weren’t grown up enough to govern ourselves.  

But this morning after I’m feeling elated about the election process I got to be a part of. It seemed to me that we, the people won. I’m thrilled to see that the practices I found so abhorrent did not work. Not one candidate was able to “purchase” an office by using the superpack money of billionaires. Most candidates did not achieve an office as a result of their negative attack ads, and those men who proposed preposterous theories of science and behavior were defeated. And especially, the attempt as voter suppression failed.

I saw in that room where I was calling from, and in the long lines at the polls, and in my conversations with people who voted, voter suppression efforts only fueled people’s determination to exercise their voices by voting. Those of us who cared, and it was great to see how many people did, reached out to others who may have been discouraged or sufferings in other ways, and encouraged them to vote. It made all the difference because in the final hours of election day, the only thing that really matters is whose team shows up at the polls and actually vote.

When the election was over, I felt relieved that both candidates came up to what the moment required. Romney’s gracious, and compassionate concession as he vowed to support the president, Obama’s expressed gratitude to all the people who voted for him, the thousands who worked to get him elected, and those who took part on the other side. I loved hearing him declare his willingness to be the president of all the people; those who voted for him, those that voted for someone else, and those too disheartened to vote at all. Perhaps we are grown-up enough to take part in our own governance.  

Published on Thursday November 8, 2012 in Gatherings and Personal Stories. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Desert Song

We’re in the desert again, this time to attend a baby blessing for our granddaughter who lives here. There’s something about deserts that call to the spiritual side of people. I remember visiting Barry Stevens in Moab Utah, in 1973, and our family vacation in Sedona, Arizona in 1997; the red rock formations, evening light shows against the mountains, dry creek beds and sand everywhere. Maybe it’s the sand. There’s so much of it, and all those tiny grains help remind us of where we fit in to it all.

My son invited some monks to bless his baby daughter, a day and a month after she arrived. Friends and family gathered for the occasion – actually the grandparents gathered ahead of everyone else because mom and dad hadn’t had much sleep and gotten behind on house and yard maintenance. So we cleaned and swept and raked the sand, inside and outside, getting the house ready to welcome the monks and the baby’s new community.

We knew that the monks wouldn’t eat anything because they would have already had their one meal for the day. They’d take water, (seems a necessity in the desert) whatever your spiritual practice, but apparently they said yes to some iced green tea. My son told me they needed one more tea and glass of ice so I brought them and placed the items down in front of the monk who didn’t have anything in front of him. Just after I did that, the head monk picked up each of the three glasses and bottles of teas and placed them down again, in the same spot as before. It seemed odd to me, but later, when I learned that my daughter-in-law had been the person who placed the other glasses of ice and tea in front of the first two monks, I realize that this action was necessary because the monks cannot eat or drink anything presented to them by a woman.

The baby blessing began with the monks inviting the entire group to mediate with them while they chanted. We were instructed to first send loving kindness to ourselves, because if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love anyone else. We were instructed to send loving kindness to all those that we love, our family and friends, then next to those suffering with ill health or recent losses. Finally, we should send loving kindness to the whole world, to those with whom we disagree, and to the ancestors on the other side. The chanting of the monks supported our meditation and I came to a place that I’ve come to many times – everything becomes easy when we love. That changes the world from the love of power to the power of love.

Especially since the baby we are celebrating is a girl, I prayed that everyone gets this message soon. The world I see for her is one where women and girls are respected and treated with dignity and respect. Where men accept with gracious gratitude, what women have to offer them. And where practices that do not reinforce these values, fall away; as the desert lets go of whatever doesn’t work in the environment, and where only what is essential survives.  

Published on Monday October 1, 2012 in Personal Stories, Rituals, Songs and Women, Girls & the Feminine. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Happy Birth Day!

Enter the darkened birthing chamber. Nurses scurry around, a mother wipes her daughter’s brow, step-dad and the doula have cameras at the ready, the baby’s daddy massages and coaches the soon-to-be mom, while she follows the movements springing from her belly with her chant-like breathing.

Relatives and friends have been excited for months, looking forward to the miracle of these moments. There’ve been doctor appointments; scans and sonograms, prenatal vitamins and infant care seminars, parenting and breath classes. Baby showers and contest winnings have provided enormous amounts of baby paraphernalia, now all at the ready for this momentous event.

But the baby’s coming three weeks early from her expected date! Are we sure the carpets don’t need another cleaning? There are still some paper work matters we’d hoped to get handled before this time. The mural in the baby’s room needs a few more butterflies. And for added drama; one of the Grandmas is coming from across the continent. Will she make it in time?

What about this day and place is distinct and different from all others? The desert is exceedingly hot, as expected in August. The Zodiac sign is Virgo, the only one represented by a girl or woman. Qualities are creativity and a communicator. The day is Tuesday, and “Tuesday’s child is full of grace,” as the saying goes. This particular year, 2012, is the ending of a 26,000-year cycle according to the Mayan calendar. It’s a Water Dragon year to the Chinese, one that comes around only every 60 years. This auspicious year is one in which many Chinese couples hope and plan to have a child.

The doctors said this child couldn’t happen, family members though it highly unlikely. But love and longing win out and this child is born. Our family receives with gratitude, this gift, and later we realize that on this particular date, 29 years ago, our mother, (the baby’s great-grandmother) died. The day this child will come home from the hospital is the 13th anniversary of our father’s, (her great-grandfather’s) death.

So every year on this day we family members will celebrate this child, this miracle. Later, friends at school or camp may be served cupcakes on her behalf. Still later, Facebook friends will take the opportunity, on this day, to post good wishes, reminding this toddler, this child, this girl, this woman, “You were so deeply and widely loved, and you still are. Happy Birth Day!”

Published on Sunday September 9, 2012 in Personal Stories, Rituals and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

A Rose by any other Name

Driving back from our InterPlay session at the women’s shelter, two friends told me something about myself that I hadn’t noticed. Apparently, I have a tendency to refer to women in a group as “gals.” So much for my belief that living in Texas for 20 years hasn’t affected my speech patterns. My African American friends warned me that, for some African American women the name “gal” could be an insult, like the term “boy” is for African American men. It has a remnant of slavery and the disrespect of not being recognized as a full-fledged adult.

Amazing. This would never have occurred to me if my friends hadn’t pointed it out. And it got me to thinking about other names or expressions, many of them regional. Just coming back from North Carolina, I remembered the Cartoon on pronounswaitresses referring to everyone, male or female of whatever age, as “ honey.” And since I’ve been sensitized to such expressions I noticed my dentist, who is nearly a generation younger than me referring to me as “young lady.” The first time I heard it I didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or playful.  Now that I know him better, I’ve decided he’s talking to the younger spirit inside me, reassuring her that no harm or pain will come from his hand.

My dancing teacher always referred to her students as “ladies” and when I started teaching I adopted that same practice.  I think we were both hoping this salutation might inspire civilized and respectful behavior. These days people juggle terms like “girl friend” or “boy friend” for people who have not been girls or boys for decades. Besides being careful not to culturally offend, perhaps we need to create some titles to fit our times.

Published on Thursday August 9, 2012 in Personal Stories. 4 Comments Tags: , .