The Message in the Bottle

Two years ago, on my 53rd birthday, I took off my wedding band. It was a man’s wedding band: gold with a gold and copper strand (appearing pink) intertwined with a gold and bronze strand (appearing green) down the middle of the ring. Chaz had the same band, three sizes larger.

 I wanted the man’s band. It had more heft than the typical woman’s delicate ring. I was making a weighty commitment and the size of that band seemed symbolic of the stoutness of my devotion.

For the next thirteen years, I only took the ring off when I wanted to scratch an itch underneath it. Then the day arrived when it was no longer appropriate to wear. He was gone and he wasn’t coming back!

So what to do with the ring?

I’d like to say that originally I sought an honorable method of disposing of it. But no, I took the mad woman route at first. I tried to burn it in a cauldron with thirteen years worth of anniversary , birthday, and no-special-occasion cards! (Did I really think I could destroy gold with the heat of a match? Or was I trying to transmute it based on the intensity of my ire?)

Next I tried to pawn it…or at least find a jeweler who would be willing to transform it into another piece of jewelry. No such luck. The braided segments of gold mixed with other metals made the ring unlikely for any other use.

Clearly the time was not right to dispose of the symbol of my marriage because no viable option was coming to mind. So, I decided to sit with the ring, and the betrayal, pain, and loss it represented, until I could find a way to break through to a place where I could let it go with love.

I purchased a gold bird’s nest in which to place the ring, covered it up with gold confetti hearts for another year, and let it rest amidst a stack of books and articles espousing the virtues of a spiritual divorce.

When I turned 54, I revisited the ring question. A year had past, yet I had not received any guidance from my Higher Power about what to do with the ring. I purchased a heart-shaped alabaster  box, with a dove on the lid, and placed the band there for safe keeping. In the meantime, I set about collecting photos from my marriage, cutting them into teeny-weeny pieces, and burning them in the fireplace!

My divorce was finalized on February 14 of this year—Valentine’s Day. (How bizarre is that?) In the ensuing months, I have continued to do the very personal work of letting go: experiencing the grief, accepting the reality, feeling the loss, and trusting that my Higher Power is in control and everything is working out as it should.

The hardest part? Forgiving Chaz…and myself… for …everything. (Honestly, I think I will be recycling through that stage a number of times before I am completely through the process.)

Yet, when my 55th birthday rolled around this year, the perfect answer to the ring dilemma presented it self. I realized I needed to give the pain, the regret, the sadness to My Mother, the Ocean. Yes! Water, the symbol of purification. Stop trying to burn everything, YaYa. Give it to the ocean.

So last Saturday morning, I awakened early, and took the ring, a jar, and a pink index card to the lighthouse. I thanked the Goddess for all that I had learned in my marriage. I asked her to take from me the sting of divorce. And I rejoiced in the new life and new love that is opening up before me like a flower in bloom.

I wrote an invocation on the card, scrolled it into the jar along with the ring, tightened the lid, and flung it into the ocean.

Now, a week later, I wish I could add an addendum to the message in the bottle. It would read: “It is not physical transformation nor transmutation that is necessary for healing. What we need to heal is an experience of spiritual transcendence.”

Advent Star

My birthday is tomorrow. I was born on the second Sunday of Advent, the day on which the afternoon Christmas Pageant service was traditionally scheduled. My mother, Marion, and her best friend, Jane, were on their way to the 4:30 p.m. service when I made my intentions known. Apparently, I was in a hurry to get the holidays underway.

As the story goes, the two young women briefly debated whether to go to church and sing some of their favorite carols before going to the hospital. They wisely by-passed St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and continued on to the other side of town to All Souls Hospital. It wasn’t long before I commenced my joyful noise. My mother still tells with amazement that she was only in labor with me for a half-an- hour.

Just this morning she reminisced, “You were in a real hurry to get here, and when you arrived, you were so at peace…a sweet lovely baby. You only cried  a little bit, and then you seemed captivated by everything going on around you.”

Her friend Jane later became my Godmother, and it was she who, when I turned 30, recounted the day of my birth as if it were a fairytale. It was my turn to be amazed. How often had I been an angel in the Christmas pageant? How many times over my lifetime had I sung myself into tears with my rendition of “Away in the Manger” and “Silent Night.”

But not until the night Jane gifted me with her version of my birth did I understand I was born on what had become one of my most favorite days of the Christian Advent calendar.

Jane said she and my mother sang verses of “O Come All Ye Faithful” between contractions. ("O Come All Ye Faithful!") It tickles me to think that the carol I so love actually invited me out of the womb, and I responded with a big swooshing “Yes!”

The Darkest Days of the Year

The days of December, especially those before December 21st, are the shortest days of the year; the nights leading up to the Winter Solstice, the darkest.

For those of us who are circadian rhythm- and/or serotonin level-sensitive to the absence or presence of natural light, the winter holiday season can be tricky to negotiate. Just when everyone else seems to be cheery and festive, we descend into a funk. Socializing becomes agonizing, and our energy becomes extinct.

This is especially distressing for me because my birthday is in early December. As the date approaches, family and friends will ask optimistically: "What are your plans for your birthday? How are you going to celebrate?"

"Celebrate?" I want to growl. " I just want to slumber! Why do we always have to celebrate?"


Before I learned about SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) I thought I was just a bear hiding out in a human body. Why, I would wonder, do I want to hibernate from Halloween through March?  Why do I become apathetic, fatigued, irritable, lethargic, and just downright anti-social when everyone else is kicking into high-gear?

According to Dr. Richard Friedman, author of an article on SAD in today's New York Times: "As daylight wanes, millions begin to feel depressed, sluggish and socially withdrawn. They also tend to sleep more, eat more and have less sex. By spring or summer the symptoms abate, only to return the next autumn."

Traditionally, SAD has been treated with psychotherapy and/or antidepressants, or a wait-it-out-until- spring "white knuckling." But there are alternative therapies that work as well.

If you struggle with SAD, you do not  have to wait for spring and summer to feel better. “Bright light in the early morning is a powerful, fast and effective treatment for seasonal depression,” said Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal,  a professor of clinical psychiatry at the Georgetown Medical School and author of “Winter Blues” (Guilford, 1998). “Light is a nutrient of sorts for these patients.”

According to Michael Terman, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at the Columbia University Medical School, people are most responsive to light therapy early in the morning, just when melatonin secretion begins to wane, about eight to nine hours after the nighttime surge begins.

If SAD sends you spiraling into the winter doldrums, try some of the following techniques:

Extend each day through the use of artificial sunlight. The standard course is 30 minutes of fluorescent soft-white light at 10,000 lux a day. (Shop for full-spectrum lights.) According to Dr. Friedman, the effects of light therapy are fast, usually four to seven days, compared with antidepressants which can take four to six weeks to work.

Use artificial bedroom lights. These help people who are suffering with insomnia and severe depression. Commercially available, these lights are set to simulate dawn, automatically going from dim lighting to bright, white light every morning.

Sit near a window. Move yourself close to a window and look outside for 15-minutes at a time, 3-times daily. You could sit near the window that gets the brightest  morning light while you eat breakfast, write out your to-do list, or read the morning paper.  If you work in an office, you could ask for your desk to face a window. If you work at home, you have many opportunities to "follow the sun."


(If you want to understand the concept of following the sun, just watch an in-door cat for a full day.
A cat will always find the spot on the rug where there is a circle of sun, and there you will find her until the sun moves. That's her sign to get up, stretch, and move to the next sun splotch.)


Spend at least one hour outdoors each day. Try to get in an half-an-hour in the early morning, and another half-an-hour in the early afternoon. This remedy is worth getting up an hour earlier.

Don't isolate from your family and friends. Pace yourself. Perhaps you won't accept all invitations this holiday season, but you'll be up for some. Try scheduling outdoor activities in the mid-day, and increase physical activities like walking, cross-country skiing, and skating. Invite your loved ones to join you.

Try not to get discouraged. Remember, after the winter solstice, each day gets a bit longer until the summer solstice in mid-June, when we celebrate the longest day of the year.

It's all cyclical.

Counting My Blessings

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. --Melody Beattie

I am not one who takes her inspiration from one-hour television dramas; but two years ago, it was a rerun of ER which lit my dark path through to the next phase of my life.

I was facing my first Thanksgiving without Chaz, who had walked away from our marriage three months earlier. I was still in shock: depressed, despondent, and discombobulated. We had started negotiating around the communal property of the marriage that once had held our dreams but now lay in shambles, and things were not looking good.

We had agreed not to hire lawyers and litigate, but rather we chose to mediate our divorce, a fitting choice for two people who had met and fallen in love while serving as community mediators in San Francisco fifteen years earlier.

At the start of the process, a friend warned me: “Marriage is about love; divorce is about money. Get a lawyer.”  Everyone said: “Get a good lawyer.”

I said no. I didn’t want to participate in a hostile divorce. I wanted a “spiritual divorce” as spelled out by Debbie Ford, author a book of the same name. I wanted to walk resolutely through the fire of anger, grief, acceptance, and onto gratitude and liberation.

“You what?” my friends exclaimed.  “You know YaYa,” chuckled one of my closest confreres, Father Charles. “She’s always got to be so spiritual,” he laughed. (And this, from a priest!)

One meeting into the mediation process and it was clear Chaz was going for the jugular. California divorce law allows for the 50-50 split of communal property. Chaz wanted half of my retirement, half of our savings, half of my TSA (a tax deferred account), alimony, and he even pursued stocks that I had brought into our marriage, but never commingled.


Was I naïve? Was I crazy? Should I fight? Should I fold? Can I trust my own counsel? Should I follow my heart? Damn, trust my heart? Look at where my heart had brought me thus far.

Then, one afternoon, submerged in my funk, I was mindlessly flipping through television channels, only pausing long enough on each station to determine that its contents was of no interest to me, when I chanced upon a scene at the end of this particular ER program.

Two doctors, (I don’t even know the characters names) are sitting on a bench outside of the hospital. The two have been discussing what I can only guess was some type of trauma that one of the doctors had experienced, when the consoling member of the pair asked: “What if this didn’t happen to you, but, it happened for you?”

The experience of hearing those few words was like sitting in the optometrist’s chair as she slips different lens in and out of the heavy frame, trying to decipher exactly what is the proper prescription for your particularly challenged sight.

“No, this one is fuzzier than the last one.”
“Yes, this one is a little clearer.”
“No, this one is not quite as sharp.”
“Wait! Wait a minute! Now I can see clearly!”


A number of years earlier, I had entered therapy during a crisis in my personal life. My loving, kind, maternal therapist told me, after only one session: “You, my dear, are entering a phase of life I like to call ‘re-membering.’ You are about to go in search of, find, and re-member parts of your lost self. When you finish, you may not recognize the person you have become."


With a slight shift of my lens, I saw that this divorce experience was just one piece, albeit one very painful piece, of a much larger picture of my life. I had to trust the invisible hand that was rearranging the pieces. I was called to endure the dismemberment of this aspect of my life in order to create a more whole soul.

As I sit here on the eve of this Thanksgiving holiday, counting my blessings, I realize the need to be thankful for the trials and tribulations of life. They, too, can be transformed into blessings. “…for count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing this, that the testing of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." --James 1:2-3

Chaz did receive 50% of the communal property, and he was awarded an alimony allotment, though it was for much less than he originally asked.

I have just finished paying the first year of alimony and I’m grateful I have been able to do so without extreme financial hardship. I am thankful for all of the support of my family and friends during the past two years. I am eternally grateful for the new me I am becoming, and for the gift of a new, precious love.

But most of all, I am thankful for the certain assurance that the Goddess Will Provide!


Gratitude ... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. --Henri J. M. Nouwen

Staying Awake in the Moment

" The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention. Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives.

"Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it. In the complexities of our minds and lives we easily forget the power of attention, yet without attention we live only on the surface of existence.

"It is just simple attention that allows us truly to listen to the song of a bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched. We need to be fully present in order to love a single thing wholeheartedly. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it."

    -   Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart

Hail to the Chief

Have you ever taken one of those endless personality tests that asks:

Q: If you were a cat with nine lives, what would you do with the other eight?
Q: If you won three million dollars in a lottery, what would you do with the last million?
Q: If you had a theme song that played every time you entered and exited a room, what would it be?  (Lately, I’ve been mentally gliding through space on Jill Scott’s “Living My Life Like It's Golden.”)

Well, as of January 20, 2009, when he is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama will have Thee Theme Song, the presidential anthem: “Hail to the Chief.” This song will accompany him at almost every public appearance for the next four years. That’s mind-blowing!

The melody itself is majestic, but the words are rarely sung.
Oh, would I like to hear them sung on that historic day!

    Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation,
    Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all.
    Hail to the Chief, as we pledge cooperation
    In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.

    Yours is the aim to make this grand country grander,
    This you will do, that's our strong, firm belief.
    Hail to the one we selected as commander,
    Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief!

(The lyrics were written by Albert Gamse and set to James Sanderson's music.)

Happy Halloween

I am a Halloween Scrooge.
I do not dress up.
I do not give out candy.
I do not buy candy.
I do not buy apples and nuts.
I do not turn on my porch light.


I am a Halloween Scrooge.
I hate that:
1. Halloween costumes and candies hit the shelves right after Labor Day.
2.  My local Goodwill Store has turned into Halloween Central right at the point of the season that I am looking for wool blend sweaters.
3. People start putting hay in parking lots where there has never been any hay all year, to "stage" pumpkins where there have never been any pumpkins all year.

Presto, overnight…a pumpkin patch.
(Nobody’s buying that.)


I am a Halloween Scrooge.
I do not accept Halloween party invitation,
especially not to masquerade parties.

I went to one once. I was really excited about it because my costume was so original. I went as a chocolate Kiss, or that was the plan. The long strip of paper with the words Kisses, Kisses, Kisses on it was the part that was  to covered my face.

Had I known more about material back then I would have drapped brown fleece over the kissy frame and gone as an unwrapped chocolate Kiss. But no-o-o-o. I had to go as a wrapped Kiss. An aluminum foil-wrapped chocolate Kiss!

On the night of the event, I wore a brown leotard and tights as the base of the costume. I placed the Kiss-shaped frame in the back seat of my car, and drove to the party. My outfit was ingenious. I would just slip the frame over my head when I arrived, then pull the paper mask with the Kisses streamer over my head.

It was a pretty mild evening when I left my home, but by the time I arrived on the other side of town, the temperature had dropped, and the wind had picked up.

I had to park several blocks away from the host’s home. (Uh-oh. This is not looking so good.) I sat in the car, waiting for the wind to calm down. If it didn’t, how would I get to the front door with my costume in tact?

So I waited. And it began to rain.


Always have a Plan B. If not, improvise.

My original plan was falling apart. My Heavy Duty Reynolds Wrap Kiss frame would never maintain its shape and survive the mad dash to the house.

With a few minor adjustments, I reasoned, I could arrived victoriously as a Kiss that was partially melted by the rain. Or, as a Tootsie Roll, a bit confused, in a Kiss wrapper. I could see myself regaling the crowd with a story about how the Tootsie Roll wound up in the wrong sheath. (This could work!)

So, I took the aluminum foil sheets off the Kiss-shaped wires, wrapped them around my skinny brown frame, and darted toward the house.

How was I oblivious to the fact that the foil, once it became wet and cold, would likewise lower my body temperature? I was running like the Tin Woman towards the front door, soggy and shivering, when a strong wind whipped up behind me, and stripped me of half the foil.

Thank goodness I didn’t have to ring the doorbell. I entered the house inconspicuously and dove for the kitchen. I need to dump the remaining foil, and reposition myself. What would I be now?

Then I heard the opening chords to one of those get-the-party-started kind of songs: The Freaks Come Out At Night by Whodini. (If I don’t decide what to do, I am going to spend the night hiding in the kitchen instead of shaking my booty on the dance floor.)

The streamer, meant to serve as a mask, magically became a sash,  place diagonally across my chest, and I instaneously transformed into YaYa, winner of the Ms. Kiss contest. It worked. I danced the night away. I even remember receiving a lot of unsolicited “congratulations” kisses that evening.

Our Halloween Treat for You, Dear Readers

Mookie and FuBu are disappointed that we won’t be sitting outside watching the sky this evening. Sometime tonight, kids will set off firecrackers, and I do not want my black cats harmed. So we are staying close to the hearth.

We have made a list of our 15 Top Favorite Halloween Songs By Which To Dance.
We'll be dancing by the fireplace tonight. Join us. You can find all of these songs on You Tube (www.youtube.com). ENJOY.

15.    Monster Mash--Bobby Pickett
14.    The Theme from “The Addams
         Family
13.    Man Eater—Halls and Oats
12.    Ghostbusters--Ray Parker, Jr.
11.    Boogie Man--K. C. and the
         Sunshine Band


10.    Boogie Nights--Heat Wave
09.    Disco Inferno—The Trammps
08.    Moondance—Van Morrison
07.    Black Magic Woman—Santana
06.    The Phantom of the Opera--“The
         Phantom of the Opera"

05.    Freak of the Week--Funkadelics
04.    Doin' the Cosmic Slop
         --Funkadelics
03.    You Must Have Put A Spell on
         on My Mind--Blue Magic
02.    The Freaks Come Out at Night--
         Whodini

01.    Thriller—Michael Jackson

It Is Well with My Soul

“It is in the quiet crucible

of your personal private sufferings 

that your noblest dreams are born 

and God’s greatest gifts 

are given in compensation

for what you have been through.” 

Wintley Phipps

By The Light of The Moon

It’s a warm night, a full moon is having its way with the sky, and Mookie and FuBu won’t come in the house. They have flipped me off with their tails and warned me not to interfere with cat business. So, I am sitting on a picnic table outside, calling myself keeping them company until they’ve had enough of romping and chasing with abandon.

The swell of the ocean is beating against the beach. I can hear it through the trees, less than a mile away. The moon pulls, the ocean engorges; an ancient rhythmic dance   they’ve enjoyed since the beginning of time.

I’ve begun musing about things I’ve done by the light of La Luna.

I’ve sat in a cemetery, leaning up against a cold headstone, counting the stars. In my teens, this was a standard date option with almost every guy I went out with during the warm months.  (Take the fast girls to lovers’ lane; take the undertaker’s daughter to the cemetery.)

I once took a guided moonlit hike into the middle of the woods with a group of women to sing and invoke the Goddess. 

I’ve walked many a beach at night by the light of full moon, bundled up in the arms of a loved one. I have walked many more beaches in the solitude of my own scintillating company.

I’ve walked out of midnight mass into fresh snow with the blue cast of the moon reflecting off it.


(Wait a minute, let me go get a glass of wine and some cheese and crackers.)

There is a slight breeze breathing on the trees behind my home, now. The eucalyptus leaves are swaying; and, Mookie is rolling around on the pavement and then sliding forward on his side, before he flops onto his other side to repeat. He is impervious to FuBu as she swats as his tail each time he glides by her. They are not the least bit interesting in going inside, and now it’s almost midnight.

I’ve now position myself on the hood of my car, door open, a Carlos Santana CD in the player.

I learned to pee--standing up, by the light of a silver sliver on the edge of a lake, many moons ago. This was a skill a new boyfriend felt I needed in order to go on a week-end camping trip with him. Snuggling up tight to fit in one sleeping bag was on his mind. “Where will I go to the bathroom?” was on mine. (I was not born to rough it. My idea of roughing it is staying in a hotel with no in-room robe or room service!) Camper Guy and I did not stay together very long.

Of course, I’ve danced under the light of the moon with many fah-bu-lous, smooth dancers. This is my favorite of all the moonlight memories. I enjoy it as much as Mookie enjoys his autoerotic slithering on the pavement. I am air slithering right now. I’m trying to remember how to salsa as I listen to Santana’s Africa Bamba.

“Will I ever remember how to move my hips again?” I ask Mookie and FuBu. They are now looking up at me the way they had been looking at the moon just moments ago. Mezmerized. I am swaying to the music, trying to sync my feet, my hips, my shoulders, and my head.

I want to turn up the bass of the CD player, but all my neighbors’ lights are out. Mookie, FuBu and I are night creatures; they are early birds. I’m just getting into the swing of the music. I want to twirl. The cats take a look at me as I begin to spin in the moonlight and high tail it to the front door. Somewhere in the dark, their friends must be lurking. I think I have embarrassed them.

So I turn the music off, lock the car door, gather my empty wine glass, and pause to hear the breeze in the trees and the  lapping of the ocean one last time before I turn in. Before stepping back into my home, I ask Mother Moon, “Will I ever move fluidly to those ancient rhythms again? Will I romp and chase with abandon?"

A Piece of YaYa's Writing Story, Part II: The Pen is Mightier

Nora Ephron, acclaimed essayist, novelist, screenwriter, director, and the eldest of the prolific sisterly clan (which includes Delia, Amy, and Hallie)) often says of their mother:

“My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be comic stories the next.”

Thank you, Mama Ephron!

When Nora’s four year marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein (of Watergate fame) ended in 1980 (due to his flagrant affair with a British politician), Ephron was compelled to write the 1983 novel Heartburn, which was later made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.

In the 2003 hit movie, Something’s Got to Give, when Diane Keaton’s character, Erica Barry, has her heart broken by Jack Nicholson’s character, Harry Sanborn, she does what any self-respecting playwright would do. She writes a scathing, Broadway comedy about it.

This is not about viciousness, vengefulness, or vindication, Dear Reader. This is about catching the curve ball and throwing it right back. This is about making lemonade out of lemons. This is about being the agent of your own life, the teller of your own tale.

There is a myriad of research that suggests acts of creativity, but especially writing, can help a person to process debilitative emotions such as anger, despair, fear, hopelessness, and loneliness. Writing through the pain, leads us to the lessons, the laughter, and on to a lighter life. Creativity heals.

Better to pick up a pen rather than a pill.
Better to write than to fight.

Better to share your experiences, strength, and hope.
Better to let go and flow.

A Piece of YaYa's Writing Story, Part I: How My Breasts Saved My Life

I have wanted to write ever since my parents and babysitters began reading to me and I understood the power of words and the magic of stories. Once my second grade teacher, Mrs. Cherry, confirmed I had talent, my course was set. At the time, the only black female writers I knew of were the poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Phyllis Wheatley (first published African American poet.)

I literally dreamed of writing. My father would bring home reams of paper from the trash bins of the stationers, who were customers of my grandfather’s rubbish business, just for me. (One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.) I read voraciously, just like my mother, and created books and magazines with my free paper. I even read the “how to become a writer” ads in the back of Richie Rich comic books, and I dreamed.

Every other Friday evening, I read Brenda Starr comic books as I sat in the chair at the beauty parlor, while Mrs. Grantham, the beautician, untangled the knots in my thick hair. She combed (it seemed like for hours) and I fantasized about myself as a black version of Brenda. Remember her?

"Brenda Starr, the tempestuous and flamboyant redhead was always impeccably dressed and coifed as she traveled the globe on one exciting assignment after another for her newspaper, The Flash.  Each adventure was filled with glamour, romance and intrigue as this remarkable heroine was perpetually torn between the demands of her career and the many loves of her personal life.

Brenda showed readers a new type of heroine as she fought, from the very first day on the job at The Flash, for her right to be treated as an equal.  Always on the cutting edge of fashion, Brenda has a sleek and sexy style that conveys the allure and independence of a workingwoman at the top of her career." www.effanbeedoll.com/2004BreandaStarr.htm

(Hey, what’s up with my emulation of redheads? See Hail to Pippi, my July 4 blog post.)


I excelled in English and creative writing in high school; I majored in English Literature and Journalism at Georgetown University. I worked for both Department of Defense’s and NASA’s public information offices while in Washington, D.C. Upon graduation in 1976, I was hired by my hometown daily newspaper. I was a feature writer there for a year when I was invited to apply for a public relations writer and editor position for a pharmaceutical company.

Truthfully, this is where I veered off the path I had navigated for myself. Enticed by the salary and my need to pay off college loans, I began a 10-year career of corporate writing and editing, moving further and further away from my dream to write literature.

I knew two years into my corporate career that being a creative type in companies like Warner-Lambert (now Pfizer) and Exxon (now ExxonMobile) was like being a conductor in a straight jacket. At this rate, I would never explore creative writing.

I loved my work as a public relations person, but the corporate mold was just too tight. I was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I was losing the ability to hear my creative voice. The only voice I could detect was a teeny-weeny one that seemed to be whimpering at the bottom of a well: “P-l-e-e-e-z e don’t do this to me. I’m dying in here. Let me out.”  (Kinda like Tinkerbelle on Quaaludes.)

And then there was the rumblings of my internal bully, Bruiser the Abuser: "Are you crazy! You'll never make this kind of money again. Buck up, shut up, and keep twisting your self into knots. Make money and invest. So what if you get an ulcer? So what if you have migraine headaches? So what if you are depressed?  Save those touchy-feely writing dreams until you are a millionaire and you have the time to write."

Eight years and four surgeries to remove (benign) breast tumors later, I decided to leave the stultifying corporate corridors. But not before a crisis occurred that became a defining moment in my life.


Before the last cancer scare, in 1985, the surgeon recommended that we remove both breasts as a preventive measure. I was 32-years-old with no history of breast cancer in my lineage. The doctor callously told me that since I had not breast-fed any babies at my age, I was at an increased risk for breast cancer. "One day, you are likely to have a tumor that is cancerous. And, since you have no plans to become a mother (yes, that part was true,)... you do not need them (the breasts!) anyway." What?!? So why not lop them off? (Oh, yes he did.)

By this time, a chorus had joined Tinkerbelle at the bottom of the well, and they were singing out to my heart: “This is a time of reckoning. Weigh your choice carefully. Be true to yourself and 1) save your life or 2) bet the breasts in order to stay in the rat race.” When your spirit serves it up that starkly, you'd better have some clarity when you make your decision.

So, I chose to change my lifestyle--its pace, its focus. I got off the merry-go-round. I packed my bags, packed my car, and drove across country to the San Francisco Bay Area. Trained to follow formal routes, I enrolled in graduate school rather than jump right into writing. I earned a MA in Speech and Communication Studies in 1990 with the hopes that I would write non-fiction pieces on communication and relationships while I tried to retrieve my creative writing self. I expected that I would teach during the day to support myself while I worked in the evenings and on the week-end on my own writing projects.

So far, so good, right? I was forging my own path, taking risks, growing in faith.

I met Chaz in 1991 while I was training to become a mediator.  Chaz was one of the workshop leaders. We would later joke that he “trained” me. The irony does not elude me!

To be continued next week.

YaYa's Gone to Washington

My Dear  Readers:

I am in our nation's capitol this week-end! 






I am here to attend a wedding, 

visit my Alma Mater (Georgetown University), 



  















and to make sure the White House staff is prepared to welcome
President Obama and his family in January 2009.

Letter to Myself

                                                                                 

This is a letter I wrote to myself on New Year's Eve, 2007                      


Dear YaYa:

I am sitting here looking at an envelope that holds my divorce papers, signed by Chaz, waiting my perusal and signatures. I received them this past Friday, December 28, but I just don’t want to deal

with the next tsunami of sorrow I expect when I read them, so I am putting it off for a few more days. I’d rather start the new year signing them than end this year reviewing them. One seems to have more of a promise of “possibilities” than the other.

Possibilities. I know they are hard to imagine. I can see you squinting for them in the distance; all you can make out is the mirage of your marriage…in ashes.


I just want to tell you that wherever you are in this process, it is okay.

                               It’s a zig-fu**ing-zag process:

                  

                                                                                   

It’s a roller coaster ride…
It’s a nightmare…
It’s anxiety-provoking…
It’s depression inducing…
It’s an opportunity to let go…
It’s an opportunity to turn it over…
It’s an electric prod…
It’s tears and nausea…
It’s recriminations…
It’s a dull ache…It’s a pit in the stomach…a knot in the throat…

It’s an opportunity to let yourself off the hook…
It’s a chance to get off life’s merry-go-round…
It’s a chance to rediscover your real rhythm and pace…
It’s a chance to learn to trust on a whole new level…
It’s a time for self-forgiveness…
It’s a time to accept the truth: you don’t know a fu**ing thing and you can’t control a fu**ing thing and we all will die…
It’s an opportunity to heal at a deeper level…
It’s an opportunity to experience Spirit’s grace.

Please do not pressure yourself to move through this at any prescribed pace. It just doesn’t work that way. You know that from other healing work you have done…and now you are learning it again…on a whole new plane.

All year, you slid between the heat of your anger and frozenness, waking up startled from nightmares of amputated limbs. But, somewhere, in an unnamed place, I am sensing a thawing. You will be all right.     

   My biggest hope is that you will reconnect with your creative self and allow her unfettered expression. Right now she is hidden, bound and gagged. But she will rise again.                                                           
Alas, you must give yourself all the time you need to heal. You will know, in a real organic kind of way, what you need and how to take care of yourself. In the meantime, rest on the prayers and well wishes of those who love you.

Happy New Year.
Love, YaYa






                                                                                                                                                      

No Such Things

Whenever I asked my mother the question, she answered patiently and deliberately: “There are… no such things … as ghosts.”

I was helping her hang laundry one Saturday morning in early Autumn and decided to use those few precious moments alone with her to inquire about the fears that had been plaguing me for some time.

“Well, how about the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future?," I asked. Every Christmas season, we watched the movie about Scrooge and the ghosts and the turkey and Tiny Tim. Instead of dreams about Santa, carols, and the-ever-hoped-for white Christmas and white pony, I would have nightmares about the black shrouded apparition garbed in clanking chains, and carrying a scythe. I was even more worried about the approaching holiday season now that we had moved into the tiny apartment over my father’s funeral home. 

“Nope, no such thing. You do know that’s a story…from Dickens’ imagination? Not a true occurrence. It’s fiction.”

I dug further into my bag of ghost memories as I took the wooden clothes pins from my mother’s long fingers and placed them into the striped laundry basket.

“So I guess Casper the Friendly Ghost is fiction?”

“Yes, dahlin’. How about handing me the wet sheets from the other basket,” she asked as her delicate body teetered over the edge of the makeshift roof deck to attach the flapping sheet over the asphalt below.


We had only lived at 13 Evergreen Avenue for six months. (Isn’t that the perfect street number for a funeral home…13?) The adjustment had been difficult from the very first moment. I was heartsick for our former home: my old bedroom, our wonderful backyard with apple trees and rhubarb plants and plenty of places to hide.

It was hardest at night. The prayer that my siblings and I repeated innocently enough every evening, now commenced my nightly horror show. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Is that supposed to be consoling? Is that supposed to reassure a kid?

No matter how tired I may have been earlier in the evening, once I whispered the “if I should die” part of that prayer, my mind would get stuck in the death groove. What happens if I die tonight? Or if not tonight, tomorrow? What will it be like when I die? Will I know I am dead? How will it feel to be dead? Will I be able to come back and visit my family, my friends? No, I guess not because that would make me a ghost…and there are…no such things… as ghosts.

Each night, my mother floated into our room in diaphanous night gown and socks, to cover us up and kiss us good night. If only she could stay. She could keep that dead man downstairs away from my bedroom door; for I could hear that corpse in the room right below me readjusting himself in the casket; or worse yet, preparing to sneak up the stairs to eat a little girl just for kicks.

The chill of my fears rushed through my veins and kept me vigilant at night. By day, I was on guard against the stories my new classmates would tell to scare me, and each other. They often succeeded. My parents expected my siblings and me to know better than to be frightened. “Oh that’s nonsense,” they’d say when I told them what gory stories the playground crew conjured.

 “You know better than to believe that,” they cajoled. No, you know better than to believe that. Me? I am only 11. I’m holding my breath and I don’t know when I’m ever going to exhale.


 I’m trying to cover all the bases as I stand with my mother this morning hanging the very sheets I tussle with as I try to sleep. I want to wrap her certainty around me like a blanket. When I return to school on Monday, my new friends will bombard me with ghost stories and tell me how afraid they would be to live in a funeral home. I tell them that I don’t live in the funeral home, I live over the funeral home, but that is a useless distinction. “Aren’t you afraid to live with those dead bodies?” “Do you see ghosts at night?” “Has a ghost ever tapped you on the shoulder?” “Does your mother fry up dead people’s livers and give them to you for dinner?

When the weekend is over and my alone time with my mother is just a comforting memory, I want to be prepared for the questions. I want to be able to answer them with the same conviction that my mother answers me: “There are… no such things… as ghosts.”

In the meantime, I ask my mother my final gnawing question. The one that should put my ghosts fears to rest. “What about the Holy Ghost? The father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’ What about him?”

 “Girl,” she scolds, “you’d better take those sheets in the house and start folding.”

Wanderings and Ponderings

A friend sent this quote to me today:

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. –Annie Dillard

(I will walk on this tomorrow.)

Here Is Your First Blog Quiz of the Fall 2008 Semester

I returned to work yesterday. It was the first time I stepped foot on campus in two months. That is just enough time to decompress from the previous school year, restore my energy, motivate myself, and then prepare for the new semester. Yesterday’s return was not a moment too soon; yet, I was relaxed and ready to reconnect with my colleagues. Next week, the students return.

It was about 100 degrees in San Jose, and the staff's spirits were high. We had a day of schmoozing and catching up in a number of different forums. In our afternoon division meeting, we heard about people’s vacations, weddings, births of grandchildren, adoptions of puppies, attendance at conferences and presentations of academics papers.

The Dean zig-zagged his way from the front of the room to the back, making sure people received kudos for the things they deemed important (better known as morale boosting).When he got to the back of the room where I sat, I took a chance, raised my hand, and hesitantly announced that I had started a blog over the summer called My Seat on the Beach: Learning to Let Go and Flow.

I heard murmurs of interest and received a rather rousing round of applause. I was pleased. Delighted, really. I think my blog title is a catchy one, and hope that it will net a devoted readership soon.

So you can imagine how excited I was at the end of the day, when a gaggle of teachers surrounded me. Fans already?! Why didn’t I start this blog sooner in my career?

Colleague #1: When I heard that title, YaYa, I thought: That’s a one-woman Broadway show in the making.

Moi: Oh, I’m flattered. That's a great idea. I've never thought of that.

Colleague #2: That’s a show I would see any day. What did you say the name of it was? Sex on the Beach?

Is that what she heard? Is that what everyone thought they heard? YaYa started a blog this summer and its called: Sex on the Beach: Learning to Let Go and Flow!!!

And, look: The title works. Plus, the new one is so much...well...sexier than my original. Talk about buidling a reading audience. This is worth consideration.

So, folk, what shall I do? (Here is your first blog quiz of the fall semester.)

Should YaYa:

A. Race to enroll in a Speech and Articulation class
B. Give her colleagues coupons to a hearing specialist
C. Rename her blog
D. Change the content of her blog
E. None of the above. I believe YaYa should ________________________________________________
(Click on Comments at the end of this piece and write you answers there.)

And, oh yeah..sex on the beach? Don't recommend it. SAND!!!


                                                                                          

This Week on the Beach: Life's Gifts

While I mourn the ending of my marriage, I marvel at the buoyancy of friendships. And, oh, how I have appreciated the insightfulness, vision, and humor of my good friends and family. I  am especially grateful to those, who through their memories and storytelling, have helped me to remember who I once was and what once brought me joy!

These people have been on the other end of the rope, dragging me back to shore over the past two years. They have not let me drown. Every memory, every insight, every laugh we have shared has been a twine in the lifeline thrown to me.

My friend Dee and I have been talking at least twice a week since Chaz left our marriage. Much of the time, we have to leave messages.  Somehow, spontaneously, we each have created a theme song for the other. So, now, when we have to leave a message, we sing the song, in the rousing tone of  kindergarteners who thrill at the tune and the rhyme of a new song.

Hearing that message cracks me up. As does my sister’s message, when she starts laughing and telling me how much my voice message sounds exactly like my mother’s. My sister is the only person who can make me laugh until I cry. What a purging those moments provide.

Soon, I will be visiting a city where I will see at least six friends from various parts of my life. All  have listened to me moan and groan over and over and over again, and still are willing to spend time with me! Friendship is very forgiving. I am so psyched!

In anticipation, I have been singing friendship songs--of a certain era. In no particular order, here are my top ten, plus two:

1. With a Little Help from My Friends—The Beatles
2. You’ve Got a Friend—written by Carole King (sung by both King and James Taylor)
3. Old Friends—Simon and Garfunkel
4. Reach Out, I’ll Be There—The Four Tops
5. Lean on Me—Bill Withers
6. Stand by Me—Ben E. King
7. That’s What Friends are For—Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John
8. Ya Gotta Have Friends—Bette Midler in her divine Miss M days
9. A Bridge Over Troubled Water—Simon and Garfunkel
10. In My Life—the Beatles

Plus Two:
11. Make New Friends but Keep the Old—a Girl Scout song, sung in a round.
12. The More We Get Together (the Happier We’ll Be) (A kindergarten song--to be sung loudly and enthusiastically.)

 (Am I the only one who thinks the best songs came from my youth? Do you have any songs you want to add the list?)

What I Heard

It was a warm morning two years ago, the sun was shining, the treetops were dancing, and I had just finished teaching three back-to-back classes during a six week summer session. Trilling the hallelujahs of Handel’s Messiah loudly in the car, I was driving over the Santa Cruz mountain to turn in my students' grades. It had been an arduous year and I was anticipating the sprawling days of August to recuperate before the regular semester began.

I was completing a round of deep inhalations/slow exhalations when two scriptures slid into the rhythm of my breathing. “Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning.” And then, “In this world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” The first from the old testament; the second, a new testament rendition of the former. I had not picked up a Bible in over a year, but I was steeped in its teachings. Why these verses? Why this day?

I was raised an Episcopalian (my mother’s practice) and in my late 20’s I became a Baptist (my father’s practice). Since my escape to California over twenty years ago, I had developed a Buddhist leaning. When, inquiring minds push me to declare my faith, I have taken to telling them, “I’m a Baptabuddhapalien.” Elements of each speak to me. But I must admit, when my spirit can’t find a peaceful resting place, it often alights on a Biblical passage, buried deep in my heart, to lead the way.

On this sunny August morn, two months after my husband Chaz had undergone back surgery to relieve the pain of bulging discs and damaged nerves, I was finally exhaling. The emergence of the scripture felt like a celestial pat on the back. I was certain that I was receiving assurance that Chaz and I had survived a major stress to our marriage, and now we would be entering a stage of rejuvenation. Joy was finally going to come to our morning.

The past four years had been challenging, difficult even, but the past five months had been close to impossible. My dear husband had been born with congenital nerve apathy in his eyes and declared legally blind by age three. In spite of his severe visual impairment, he had traversed this planet fiercely independent for 48 years. Chaz was proud of the fact that he had surmounted the challenges of living and working in major cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. However, with the onslaught of a mobility disability, his world was shrinking, and every fiber of his freedom-loving soul fought the imposed constraint. Chaz had been exiled from the active life he had known, and this new phase of his life…our life …was not a part of his plans. "Unacceptable!," he would mumble.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow once said: “If all you have is a hammer, then everything appears as a nail.” Likewise, YaYa Bowmann says: “If all you feel like is a prisoner in your own life, then anyone who lives with you appears to be an overlord."  I had unwittingly become the enemy.

Chaz had lost more than his physical equilibrium from the back injury. Unable to work or get around without great effort and discomfort, he had become disgruntled and cranky, then angry and withdrawn. He spoke of feeling anxious and depressed. The computer became his constant companion and solace while I became the target of his frustration. One day, short on patience myself, I told Chaz, “I think there must be a UFO hovering in the eucalyptus grove behind our home, the crew of which has kidnapped my real husband, and replaced him with this curmudgeon impostor.”

I prayed daily that the upcoming surgery would not only relieve the pressure from his sciatic nerve, but would also dissipate the strain in our relationship.

Chaz’s surgery was performed on June 5; he was home by the 9th. I had one week to get him settled in before I would be out of the house, 45 miles away at work, from 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

We clashed over his recovery. I promoted a slow, cautious healing process; while he pushed himself everyday to return to his former able-bodied state. He ignored every precaution his doctor advised. “Wait two weeks before you start climbing stairs," the doctor admonished. Chaz waited two days. “Keep the walker with you, even when you don’t think you will need it. You never know when you will tire.” Chaz disposed of the walker like Forrest Gump threw off his crutches, just a week after returning home from the hospital.

I realized, not soon enough, that I needed to employ a rusted old skill—detachment. I had to let go and try to flow. This was Chaz’s recuperation, not mine. I could not control his process. In the meantime, Chaz was a man on a mission. He was inching around our home daily repeating: “I am moving forward. I am moving forward.” His declaration of independence. I thought I understood it.

The day after I submitted the summer grades, Chaz and I were having breakfast at our favorite café. I was chirping and warbling about the mid-week dates we would be able to resume now that he was feeling better and able to move more freely. Once again, we would be able to enjoy the things we used to do together before my partner became my patient: weekend bike rides, concerts, plays, vacations, sex. Ah, sex. When was the last time? When was the last time?

As I chattered, Chaz concentrated on swirling pieces of home-fried potatoes through the yellow lake on his plate. As he bent over, one of his long dread locks skimmed the yoke. When I reached  to wipe the yellow stain from his hair, he looked up abruptly, caught my hand in mid-air and spoke: “To tell you the truth, I am leaving. I have rented a room. I will start packing today. I should be completely moved by Friday.”

Lightning did not strike, thunder did not roll, the earth did not quake. It was eerily quiet, but everything had changed in an instant. This is not an alien impostor. This is my husband Chaz. I had been listening to his daily mantra: “I am ready to move forward. I am ready to move forward.” I just did not understand: He meant without me.

The moment those unstoppable words spilled out of his mouth, I felt like a hummingbird, shot down and stuck in the maple syrup on my plate. I was struggling to breath, trying to focus my eyes, listening for his voice to pull me out of this drowning.

Nothing.

And then my heart heard it again: “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Sit In

Seymour Seagull is occupying my seat on the beach while I visit my sister and her family in Los Angeles this week-end.


He gives a new twist to the familiar vacation sign, "gone fishing," doesn't he?

Missing in Action

The mystery of the season in Santa Cruz? Where is the Pink Umbrella Man? You know the guy. Can't miss him, garbed in pink from head to toe. Pink spandex tights, pink floral dress, pink coat, and pink accessories: boa, pocketbook, beads, wool cap, and umbrella. Oh, and let me not forget the pink eye make-up, pink lips and large pink orbs for cheeks, all lightly glazed with sparkles and glitter.

Apparently, he has not been seen downtown, inching his way up Pacific Avenue at his normal tortoise pace, for several months. His disappearance prompted an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel and an avalanche of online speculation.

Moreover, Santa Cruzans have begun to share their true feelings about Pink Umbrella Man. Sentiments are  remarkably diverse.

Some think he is entertaining and harmless, while others perceive him to be creepy and threatening. Some say their children look forward to visiting downtown, getting an ice cream cone, and hunting for the slow moving clown. Others say they can't bring their kids near Pacific because they tremble at the thought of seeing the pink guy.

Some say he is a retired techie millionaire from San Jose, while others speculate he is a child molester. Some think he is an eyesore, while others believe he is a walking zen koan. A few residents think he is mocking the mentally ill, while others think he is mentally ill.
. 

Quite a few wish he would remain missing in action while others defend his right to occupy space in our unique downtown. His admirers say he is the very type of street performer for whom the popular slogan, Keep Santa Cruz Weird, was designed to support; while his detractors argue he is not an artist/performer, he is just weird!

I am amused by the preoccupation with Pink Umbrella Man. Whatever the real deal is, he has become a litmus test for our tolerance of difference in Santa Cruz. But in my estimation, he's a minor story.

Here is what my inquiring mind wants to know. Where are all the black men in Santa Cruz? Now that's the real missing in action story.