Category Archives: Detroit

Oct29

mind meld thingy

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Ooohh, man. I have been going through it. Some dark nights. So I suspect you have, too…’cause that’s how this mind meld thingy works…the past week has been intense. My cat seemed to be fading fast and I could not get a vet to help. My vet seemed to have fallen off the face of the planet. Other vets I called, half a dozen or so, could not get us in soon. They were referring me to an emergency clinic an hour and a half away. I was afraid the cat wouldn’t survive the trip. He panics in the car and goes into shock.

One receptionist admitted that they have been operating with one third their regular staff since the pandemic. They, like all medical services in the area – and all services, for that matter – are understaffed and overworked. The past three years have seen a tremendous boom in population in this area, as well as tourism. We are now experiencing “overtourism,” to use the new buzz word. So assistance just isn’t available, not quickly or nearby, anyway. Lately I find myself saying, “we are on our own out here.” But I see evidence of this happening all around the country. It feels like I’m standing on the beach of life watching the water rapidly pulling away from shore…and wondering what that means…

And I was triggered – big time. In a recent post I spoke about losing it with my son. But I seem to be all over the place emotionally in a way that very much feels like I’m right back in some adolescent hormonally-induced rage. What is going on?!

And so, in my panic (because that’s what this was) I did the only thing I could do – I started working the 12 step process and meditating. Now, as I’m sure you know, sitting still to meditate is almost impossible when you are so upset. And yet you need to get your breathing and heart rate under control. Stop the panic, interrupt the pattern. And once I was able to begin, just begin, to settle…whoosh. In comes inspiration. Inspire – ation. God as verb.

I will let you in on a little trick I’ve used for about 55 years or so now. It takes some time to get started. It takes EXACTLY as long as it takes for me to remember that I am not in control. AND ASK FOR HELP. That’s the trick – you have to ASK for help. Specifically, I begin reciting The Lord’s Prayer.

I think I was in high school when I first went to a metaphysical bookstore. It was the only store of it’s kind in the Detroit suburbs at the time, and it still exists today. I went looking for information on natural healing for my bleeding ulcers. I found so much more than I could have imagined. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was an actual portal to a new life. Mayflower Book Store in Berkley, Michigan: https://mayflowerbookshop.com/

That was where I discovered what those cards were that my friend bought me at a garage sale, bound in a rubber band with interesting drawings on them. They were tarot cards. And I bought a book called The Gnostic Gospels. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches that we only ever need one prayer, and proceeds to recite The Lord’s Prayer. I remembered it from early days of church when I was little. When I used to hold onto the seat of the pew with both hands as hard as I could because I was afraid I would float out of my seat and get in trouble. Those huge, huge angels up in the rafters were singing to me and I wanted to sit up there with them.

I am not religious. I don’t like religion. I guess I’m not ready to forgive the millennium of atrocities it hasn’t taken responsibility for. I’m not that expanded yet. In fact, like Elizabeth Gilbert says, “I’m such a pagan.” But I am oh so very faithful. And like learning the tarot by observing the imagery come to life every day for many years, I have learned that The Lord’s Prayer encompasses any worldly concern you will ever have and transforms it – or you – into manageable information. Plain and simple language, like the plain and simple imagery of the tarot, that leads us right back to our divine imagination. Thy will be done. Phew…a greater intelligence, a higher consciousness, has got me. Contrary to all my innards screaming at me, I am, in fact, not alone here. And btw, I spent far too many years worrying about what anyone else thought about my complex beliefs and how they did or did not conform into societal expectations. I no longer assign power where it does not belong. No one owns the teachings that serve us, whether of Jesus or Buddha or the tarot or animals or nature. I speak them all. If you find something that works for you, do not let anyone hijack it from you.

I drove over an hour away last Friday to pick up medication for my beloved familiar. Within 24 hours he was a different cat. He is doing well; probably better than he has felt in a very long time. Dear little thing. Another close friendship isn’t faring as well, however. I lashed out at a friend in my anger and desperation last week. Yes, I was mired in grief posing as helplessness. Yes, she said something that felt insensitive. And we’ve established I can be quite verbally abusive when triggered. I wish there was a pill to fix this.

Unable to sleep, I am writing this at 3 a.m. In meditation only minutes ago I was offered healing, a little loosening…I can only hope she felt it also. I hope I will have the best words to say when we speak again.

I do know, just within the last few minutes, that all of this frustration and anger and grief has come to visit at the perfect time. It was waiting for the perfect storm to expose it so that it could be healed. I don’t have to be so brave anymore. On earth as it is in heaven is not religious hyperbole. It is real, here and now. I surrender. And I can rest.

Sep21

the journey to 100

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The PBS series is called Brief But Spectacular, to which I must respond, “yes.” Just yes. I became 70 years old this year. I was already intimately familiar with ageism; it’s been tedious for the past 20 years. Recovery from c-PTSD has taught me nothing if not how harmful it has been to skirt the issue of my invisibility. Like Grace, I refuse to be irrelevant:

But I’ve also dealt with gender inequality all of my life. And being raised to stand against racial prejudice in Detroit, I’ve certainly had first hand experience with racial discrimination. I remember being denied a table in a nice restaurant with Black high school friends – as one example among dozens. I remember how that felt. Firstly, the dissonance of questioning what was happening. How I was horrified by it and my friends didn’t blink an eye.

I was 16 in 1970 when the movie Five Easy Pieces came out. My best friend’s family was moving to South Carolina that summer and they took me with them. We were staying in a hotel until the moving van arrived a day behind us, and to entertain ourselves we walked – as a family with her parents – across the street to see the new movie. When lawyer Dupea (Jack Nicholson) says not to worry, “they haven’t hung anyone around here lately – at least not anyone white…” the mostly Black audience let out a collective moan. Afterwards we went next door into a drug store to use the pay phone so that I could call home and check in with my parents. An elegantly dressed Black woman was on that phone and so I waited around. When she hung up and I walked up to grab the receiver the cashier let out a yell. She came out from behind the counter with disinfectant spray and a cloth and wiped down the entire phone before allowing me to touch it. What foreign country was this?! You think that cashier did that for everyone regardless of race? Don’t be naive.

In 1972 I became 18, legal voting age. As the descendent of a founding father and presidents who owned slaves, I was being courted by Daughters of the American Revolution and The John Birch Society. I didn’t contact them, they contacted me. (It would be decades before technology would show that I have African DNA.) But I had never heard of these organizations, and so sought to educate myself. Back then you did that by physically going to the library and The Detroit News archives. You had to be able to read, you had to own a car, know how to follow a map, and most importantly, be able think for yourself. I would take all of that for granted.

Many evenings I engaged in conversation with my parents about what this new responsibility meant and how to decide who to vote for. Bless their drug and alcohol raddled hearts, they both told me the same thing: always vote for the person you believe to be best qualified for the job. And so I did the logical thing – I volunteered to work for the campaign of Shirley Chisholm, certainly one of the most qualified people for the position of President the country has ever seen.

And then. Then she made that statement. I didn’t think much about it at the time, which proves how much I underestimated her brilliance. She said, “Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being Black.” Jesus. Let that sink in.

Fast forward a little over five decades, and I am still female and now I am also aged. Don’t be fooled, ageism is as real as any form of bigotry. It is just as invisible as my African blood. And my blood is boiling.

Sep18

I hear the band playin’…

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Please remember, always click on the blog heading for the updated version as I often edit after hitting publish…

The cat woke me around six a.m. His bowl was empty. This is my favorite time of day, just as the sun is coming up. But I hadn’t slept well and I really didn’t want to get up. My son was already in the kitchen getting ready for his work day. He’s been staying here since his relationship broke up. Feeling he had no other choice, he left her with the house they bought together, her teenagers, the dogs they adopted, his dreams, and oh yeah, much of his self worth stayed behind, too. He has continued to be as supportive of them as he possibly can be, physically, emotionally, and financially. This has required considerable patience on my part (let alone my friends and therapist) – but then, I don’t want to be the mother-in-law who thinks her son can do no wrong. I’ve had one of those.

The day he called and asked if he could come here I felt a huge sense of relief. Finally. Watching the abuse he seemed determined to cope with was nothing short of painful. He was mimicking the scapegoat role I had so effectively demonstrated for him my entire life. Everything about us must be wrong because God knows we never did anything right. But perhaps some healing could finally happen. We are a multi-generational family of survivors – survivors of alcoholism, physical and verbal abuse, and blatant narcissism. Our awareness continues to grow as our healing unfolds.

He’s been here longer than either of us expected; the better part of two years now. It has not been easy. But most days I am grateful for this time to get to know him as an adult, to spend time together investigating family history, to address our mental and emotional dysfunction, to have the opportunity to do the healing work we both need and deserve. I’m in my seventies, he’s in his forties, and for the first time in our lives we are safe. We have a safe place. I wonder where that will lead us.

Most mornings I am up hours before him or any hint of daylight. I feed the cat first (the boss of me), make coffee and head back to my cosy room with a book. If I haven’t fallen back to sleep, I hear him in the kitchen but leave him in peace. Well, I leave me in peace, because let’s be honest – I am far too easily irritated when my thoughts are disrupted before I’m ready to talk. But this morning I wandered out and made us both coffee. Here’s why he is one of the few people (okay, maybe the only person so far in this life) I’ve ever been able to live with: he is funny. He is blessed with my mother’s sense of humor. My brother had it, too. I was not so blessed. He is funny right from the get go when his feet hit the floor. Wow that is impressive!

My auDHD does not allow me to think that fast. So when I caught myself scowling this morning, I circumvented my crabbiness by saying, “Help me out here, please. My face is stuck,” revealing my frown. I had just sat down at my laptop. He simply replied with a directive: “Hello, Dolly by Louis Armstrong.”

Little did he know it would bring tears. I was ten years old the year my mother took me to see the musical at the Fisher Theatre. It starred Angela Lansbury. God, growing up in Detroit in the 1960’s was magical. As a privileged white child, of course. But back then what did I know…