entry ~ heritage ~

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December 31, 2009 - 12:10 AM

I haven't written in seven days?  I think that's correct.  Why haven't I written in seven days?  I don't know.

Christmas happened; it was a good day.  We went to my brother's new home for the day.

Hmmm....this isn't what I really want to write about. Remember that I don't have to write to please anyone; nor do I need to write to publish my writing. Yet for some reason I probably will throw this entry up on a blog.  I'll tweak it a bit; I usually do.  I keep the original though; I have learned to keep the original. I had a piece once that I tweaked so much, the original got lost in the midst; the essence of what I wanted to express became almost empty, like a shell housing hollow facts.

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As of 12/30/09, we have new floors on the lower level of our house.  John and Joshua and I packed up all the collection and remnants of life that were stashed in various corners.  John and Joshua moved lots of furniture out of the rooms that were getting the new floors; I felted the bottom of the furniture we didn't move out.

Now the hardwood is laid and I need to dust, vaccuum, wipe down, and rearrange the furniture.  I imagine I will leave most of the packed remnants in boxes for now. Most of it I've not used or touched in a couple years.  I have the boxes labeled.  I won't toss or sale those remnants yet.  I have time to go through them over the next years to discard what will be discarded and to preserve what will be preserved.

I found a TWI banner in the closet.  It's white cloth, about eight inches by twelve inches, with green tasselling at the bottom. The bottom has two edges that come down at an angle to a center point.  I think there may be gold trim at the top of the banner and perhaps at the bottom, right above the green fringe.  A wooden rod with decorative horizontal mosque-shaped ends slips through the top of the banner, like a tiny curtain rod.  A gold entwined cord is tied to each end of the rod; that is how the banner hangs. The banner states The Way International in the circular emblem which I think also has The Way Tree symbol, a tree trunk with an open Bible as the tree crown.  I used to draw those regularly when I'd doodle. I always liked trees, still do. "The Word of God is The Will of God" is written in block letters across the banner, I think in three lines with "is" sitting alone on the middle line.

I didn't toss the banner; I rolled it and placed it in a box with some other stuff, and then labeled and taped the box.  I'm not sure why I kept the banner.  In an odd way, I feel it is part of my heritage.  I can't just throw it away; not yet.  Maybe never.

Nor did I toss the framed print of Craig and Doctor.  I didn't know I still had it.  I thought I had tossed it, but there it was in the back of the closet, sticking up out of a box.  It surprised me and I thought, "Oh..."  I felt a bitter sweetness amble through my heart.

I had once truly believed The Way to be the Household of God and The Way Corps to be the highest calling.  I believed I had been trained with the finest training on earth and that I had turned my back on my Way Corps calling. Yet I still tried to live up to it; Craig had encouraged me after I dropped to continue using my training, that there weren't enough of us for any to sit on the sidelines. The belief system and the structure were the fabric of my life.  I had loved Craig as a brother and Doctor as a father; both as my spiritual teachers, guides, protectors of hearts and pillars of integrity.

Yet I have no doubt that Craig and Doctor and other past and/or present leaders have abused.  I don't think the sexual abuse goes on anymore in The Way; but I do think spiritual and emotional abuses continue.  The doctrine over person and heirarchy system will probably always be standard opertaing procedure within The Way.  Those two aspects seem regular fare in fundamentalist-type groups.

Sometimes I wish I could feel the anger and rage toward Craig and Doctor that others feel.  I feel guilt that I don't feel that 'righteous anger.'  With that guilty feeling, I have an image of Ralph or some of the Greasespot Cafe judge and jury hollering at me, telling me what scum those leaders were. Shouldn't I be angry?

I have felt anger toward Way leaders, but not to the extent that I have felt rage toward certain ex-Way followers who 'self-righteously' judge ex- or current-TWI leaders (or other TWI followers), all the while excusing or being blind to their own abusive past (or even present) words and deeds.

It confuses me at times.  I then breathe deeply and tell myself that my confusion is understandable.  I'm responsible for me, not for them.  And if I sit in self-righteous judgement, I could be guilty of the same.  I don't know; if there is an eternity and so-called judgement day, I imagine we are all in for some big surprises.

Well, I didn't expect to write those last five paragraphs.  I wanted to write about the print of Craig and Doctor and the bittersweetness I felt upon seeing the print.  But now I don't want to; I feel kind of sick to my stomach.

I'll just say it is the print of the painting by the artist Tom Cowan, portrait busts of Craig and Doctor; they appear to be seated. Doctor is wearing a green ball cap with "The Way Corps" in green letters on a white background, a squared-oval patch on the front of the green cap.  Green and white were the Way Corps colors.  With his left hand Doctor is holding an open Bible, probably to Ephesians. His right hand is placed on the Bible pages like he is pointing something out as Craig is looking where Doctor's fingers are pointing. Doctor's eyes are also focused on the page where Craig is focused. Doctor has his mouth open slightly, like he is teaching or showing Craig a scriptural or spiritual truth, "the eyes of his understanding being enlightened."

Doctor's holy spirit ring on his right fourth finger is prominent; it is a ruby color which is similar to the background color of the painting. His wedding band is seen on his left fourth finger.

Craig appears to have the fingers of his right hand on the fourth finger of his left hand, like he is touching or twirling a ring.  Is it a Corps ring or a wedding ring?  I don't remember.  It seems we were told once.  Craig has on a wrist watch.  I recall Craig once stating with a chuckle something like, "If you ask me what time it is, I'll end up telling you how the watch works."  An example of how he was always "apt to teach," as the scripture commands of overseers in the Church.

"The Teacher," a poem apparently written by Doctor as his signature is under the prose, is calligraphied on the right side of the print. Doctor called himself "the teacher."  He instructed new graduates of his Power For Abundant Living Foundational Class that wanted to write him, to address their envelopes to "The Teacher."   That's what I did when I first took 'The Class' in December, 1977.  Doctor wrote me back; I was thrilled and stunned.

All the Way Corps were called to be teachers.

The Teacher

The teacher of God's Word is one of a kind

Who loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength;

And who loves nothing more than to teach His Word.

The teacher of God's Word is an artist

He works alone ~ reading ~ thinking ~ praying ~ studying

Believing to share his product with all the world.

The teacher of God's Word is a giver

One who gives without the gaurantee of being received;

One who rejoices without knowing if anyone else will joy;

One who corrects the irresponsible and careless;

One who gives, gives, gives, and keeps on giving.

The teacher of God's Word lives only to teach

to receive, to weigh, to discard, to develop,

to learn, to treasure, to give, to motivate,

to enlist, to stabilize, to encourage, to direct.

And may I add, and to build equipped believers,

   abassadors strong and wise

Who teach because they love the teacher's task

And find their greatest prize

In eyes that open, and in minds that ask.

                                                                                                Victor Paul Wierwille

I used to think that was such a humble poem.  Now it creeps me out, and makes me feel dirty.

I notice in this above entry that I use the word "Doctor" for V.P. Wierwille. That is how I felt about the print when I saw it; it wasn't VPW, the man, but VPW, the beloved teacher and "doctor" of the scriptures.

Why did it end up such a lie?  It causes my heart to ache, and that's o.k.

Living is a hard thing, sometimes.

I hope I'm making a new tapestry; one that is more real. Surely I am? Surely I am...

It's 1:55 AM now.  Goodnight...

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"I meant to do my work today...."

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I found something today!  What did I find?

It found it online...some tracks from one of may all-time favorite LPs, "Friends."  I used to have this pink-colored album.  But like all my "worldly" albums, I rid myself of them in late summer of 1977 when I decided to give my whole self "to Jesus."  I left the albums at a mental health hospital, Broughton, in Morganton, NC.  I wasn't ever a patient there, but thought maybe the folks there, patients and employees, might enjoy the music.  I felt a certain empathy for patients with mental health challenges, and for some reason I chose Broughton.

Ahh, now I recall why I chose Broughton.  I had heard that the song "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor was about something to do with Taylor's own hospitalization due to mental health challenges.  I was told part of his time was spent at Broughton. I had quite a few James Taylor albums in my stack; thus I thought of Broughton Hospital. Perhaps too, I felt an unconscious connection as my mother had spent time at Broughton when I was a toddler.

I just now googled and found some interesting facts; James great-grandfather was a doctor at Broughton before it was named Broughton. Click here to read a snippet: Sweet Baby James' ties to Burke by Steve Walker from the Morganton (NC) News-Herald.

Click Snopes link, "Fire and Rain", for a history behind that song. It appears James didn't spend time at the Morganton facility; yet sought help elsewhere for certain struggles.

So I left my albums; including Rubber Soul, The White Album, Friends, James Taylor's works, Steam-Powered Aeroplane, and lots more good stuff; that late summer day on a desk at Broughton Hospital.  I asked the front office where I could leave a donation and I was directed to another office.  No one was in at the moment; it may have been lunch time.  My stack of albums was at least a foot high; the stack was heavy.  I left a note on top of the stack, "From Jesus."  Oh well! ;-D

The following songs from "Friends" are some of my favorite songs of all time.  Through the decades I have continued to say those words, "I meant to do my work today...but the brown bird sang in the apple tree....and all the leaves were calling me..."

(Click here for a couple more songs: John Hartford's Going to Work in Tall Buildings and another favorite song from "Friends," Michelle's Song. ~Two Songs: Hartford & John...~)

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Two years ago, my daughter bought me an older Elton John CD because she saw this song, Friends, was on it.  Through the years she'd heard me say how much I loved the song, but we never heard it on the radio nor did I have a copy of it. My daughter saw it listed on that CD, and now I have it. Plus she got to hear it for the first time.  Probably my most favorite song of all time.....so far.  ;-)

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Daughtering ~ Grief ~ Substance

Click here to read about an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction .

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The last few days I've been rather....delicate.

This is the first Christmas without both my parents alive, the first Christmas where the house I was raised in is now in someone else's hands.

So many thoughts run through my mind as I write this.  I want to go off on a tangent about my visit to that house some weeks ago.  I met the new owner.  She is lovely, heart-filled, and absolutely adores that old house. She is young, in her early 20's.  It's her first home-purchase. I shared with her some history about the house and about Mom and Dad.  She works as an occupational therapist and was keenly aware of what that house represented to my father and the work it took for him to be able to stay at home all those years after his wreck.

Yet, to write of that tangent, I avoid writing the thoughts of Mom, the thoughts I went through this morning as I talked with my counselor.  I no longer hire counseling on a regular basis, but I needed some help. He had an opening this morning.

I wasn't a bad daughter, though in my teen years I was a wild one.  There was a period of time in my late teens that I would "bark" at Mom.  I can't remember what about, but I know I did at times.  On the other hand, as far as I recall, my parents never said, "I/we love you," to me; not until after I first said it to them.  That was shortly after I became a Christian when I was eighteen years old. I decided I should tell my parents I love them because the Bible commanded to honor thy mother and father.

Then I recall I told them those words again when I was in the 10th Way Corps at Emporia, Kansas.  It seems Mom had had surgery, a thyroid removal, and I told her over the phone that I loved her.  I was on the pay phone in the top floor of Owens Hall, the dormitory at The Way College named after Ermal Owens, the first Vice-President of The Way. Mom, Dad, and I more regularly exchanged those three words after Dad's accident.

I wasn't a bad daughter.

In 1995, Mom called me before her suicide attempt. She could have called someone else, but she didn't. She must have called me because she felt I wouldn't hold judgement over her or something; the point is, of all people she called me.  And I did go to her rescue; I think that's what most folks would do.  The doctors at the hospital said she would have died had someone not come to her aid; she'd taken enough pills to do the deed.

I wasn't a bad daughter.

I used to massage Mom's feet when I'd go to visit her in the years after Dad died; he died in 1996.  I'd soak Mom's feet in warm water, massage them with lotion, and then (to the best of my ability) cut those thicker-than-thick toenails.  Mom enjoyed that.  I cut her fingernails too, and would massage her hands with lotion. Mom or Dad had never hugged me that I recall, so we didn't hug.  I did stroke her head some and brush her hair in her elderly years.  I'd sit with her. I didn't clean up about Mom's house often; but sitting with her and massaging her feet probably meant more, huh?

I wasn't a bad daughter.

January will be one year since Mom passed.  I've still not touched the boxes that are strewn about in my dining room filled with remnants of the house where I grew up.  I tell myself that is understandable as I battle feeling guilty for not having organized it yet, or the rest of my house for that matter.  Since before I had major surgery in August, 2008, I've kind of let the upkeep of the house go. Hubby and son have stepped in to care for some of that.  Perhaps I'll call someone to help me after the first of the year; so I'm not alone.  Maybe I'll do that; maybe not.

Death seems more permanent now since I'm no longer sure of my beliefs regarding eternity.  I guess there is a bit of grief in that too, in the no longer knowing. Perhaps there is more grief in that than I consciously realize.

Grief isn't empty; it reminds me of joy and the substance of life.

I wasn't a bad daughter....

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Click here to view the memoir index: Journey through Memoir (an index).

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"Free Gullibility Test"

I got a good chuckle out of this satire by The Chaser's War on Everything regarding the COS, Church of Scientology.

entry ~ remember to remember ~

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Sometimes I think I'd be better off if I'd never left The Way.

Then I recall the vast, empty hole in my soul my last year that I was involved.  I was so, so empty. I was living a lie for I no longer believed The Way to be God's true "household;" yet, I continued to rationalize and feel that my soul-death was fully self-induced. 

As I write this, a fog drifts in.  And then a mountain; a huge mountain covered by thick and thin clouds.  I look at it and I don't have the energy to climb.

I recall when prior to leaving The Way, I researched for at least six(?) months as to where I could turn if I decided to take the step out into the "wilderness," beyond the "protection of the household."  I was afraid.  Of what was I afraid?  By leaving The Way, was I leaving God's absolute truth?  By leaving The Way, would my family survive emotionally and spiritually and relationally?  Who could I trust to turn to when I left?  Would I become bitter and harsh if I left?

I didn't want bitterness; I just wanted the vast, empty hole in my soul to be eased, the death to be risen again.  I felt a deep sense that something had died.

I still struggle; yet I no longer have that sense of death or the empty hole.  I currently get frustrated with myself for not having more discipline; it seems I had more discipline while in The Way.  I would push, push, push through health challenges.  But was it true discipline or simply approval labor?

I still have health challenges, but they are different now.  If I take a moment to recall and reflect -  I no longer contemplate suicide.  I no longer grieve and cry everyday.  I no longer continuously strive to live up to a perfectionistic standard; perhaps I need that a little more....to help me get some discipline.

These days I seem to mostly battle fatigue.  I seem to need 10 to 12 hours of sleep per day.  Some days it takes effort to simply get dressed.  Then again it used to be that way, and worse; I struggled simply to breathe.  For years my sleep patterns were horrid.  I'd have to sleep sitting up, and even cross-legged leaning forward over a 'husband' pillow, one of those pillow chairs that I still use to sit up in bed when I want to read or write.  For years the most sleep I could get at one time was four hours; I'd then awake in the throws of an asthma attack which would last for one-and-one-half to two hours.  Then I'd go back to sleep again for a couple hours.  It reminded me of a seizure.

I no longer live that way.  Maybe my ten to twelve hours is making up for lost sleep time.

I used to become angry and have rages.  I couldn't control my life because I had so much trouble breathing. And I wasn't sure when the next siege would erupt; they were violent and unpredictable, other than once they started they'd last for a couple hours.  Therefore, when I could breath, I pushed to get things accomplished knowing that any moment an attack awaited.  That may sound extreme, but that's how it was; that's how it is for folks who suffer attacks, chronic illness flare-ups, seizures.

I sometimes wonder how I functioned at all.  Along with breathing problems, not only in my lungs but also my sinuses which would fill with polyps, I would break out in severe hives. There was a period of at least a year where I would would awake in the middle of the night and have to throw up.  I had aches all through my body.  My blood would itch, as I called it; my blood felt like it was laced with fiberglass.

So Carol, look at that.  And that is only the tip of the iceberg.  It doesn't include the pregnancy complications, surgeries, bouts of pneumonia, helping care for parents, the struggle with shame and self-hatred, the donning of the fellowship face and still endeavoring to live honestly, and I don't know what else.

This all started during my fourth year of involvement with The Way.  It started when I chose, due to my indoctrinated belief, that it was my duty to pay my vow, to fulfill my Way Corps calling, even though every fiber in me didn't want to start The Way Corps over again.  I suppressed those fibers and they grew tentacles that entrapped me.  To make things worse, I never fulfilled that Way Corps calling, but AWOLed again.  Shame upon shame upon shame, trapped in one's own condemnation and self-destructive belief system. 

No wonder fog comes in over the mountain.

Yet, I want to remember.  I want to honor life.  I want to honor suffering. I want to honor hope.  I want to continue on freedom's course, whatever that may mean.

You are doing o.k., you know.  So chin up there girl.

One of my recent favorite songs:

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Heart Failure

That weekend in February, 1996, I drove the five hours from Hickory to McGuire V.A. Hospital in Richmond. My mom and two children in tow. We were in my burgundy Caravan; the one John and I had bought from a couple that had gone into The Way Corps.

We stayed at a woman's home in Richmond, I think where Mom had stayed before.  Perhaps I also had stayed there previously.  The woman rented out rooms in her home to friends and family members of patients at McGuire.  Mom had always been good at finding places like that.

I was having asthma trouble at the time and was also looking at my fourth polypectomy sinus surgery later in February; I had no air passage through my sinuses - none, zip, zero - so I mouth-breathed.  I may have been on some sort of steroids at that time.  I also puffed inhalers regularly and took Theo-Dur, another drug to help open the lungs.  Theo-Dur, one of caffeine's cousins.  Theo-Dur, the drug they had to keep an eye on as I needed unusually high doses; too high could have fatal effects.  Theo-Dur, the drug that helped induce anxiety and anger.

Mom was anxious and irritable on the trip; I probably was too.  She acted bewildered at times.  She would wear the pleasant face when around Daddy.  When we would leave the hospital, she'd don a different mask.  I think she was torn between guilt and bitterness. Guilt that she knew Dad couldn't come home; she couldn't continue to care for him and there were problems with the home health agency; Daddy didn't qualify for certain care or something.  Bitterness because the children, me or my brother or sister, were unwilling or unable to bring Dad home and care for him.  I felt guilty and torn.  But I couldn't care for Dad and my children and my husband and my health and oversee Way fellowships; my husband and I had continued in local leadership positions with The Way.

It was a turbulent time spiritually with the new Way of Abundance and Power Class hitting the field for non-Corps believers; the first session for our area started the following Friday night, February 16th.  Our local Corps clergy, Mike and his wife Jane, had been designated 'mark and avoid' back around September, 1995. Prior to their 'mark and avoid' sentence, Mike and Jane had been put on probation.  At the time of Mike and Jane's probation, John and I stepped up to help oversee the area.  We now had new Way Corps leadership that had arrived in August, 1995, and John and I were working with them helping to run fellowships.  

Mom had tried to commit suicide in 1995. I found her on the kitchen floor at the time.  I called 911.  She was hospitalized and given shock treatments.  I don't know where Dad was at the time.  That must have been around the time he was doing his rendezvous between hospital and nursing home. Mom ended up in the psyche ward at the hospital and going for rounds of shock treatments.  She was on a lot of medications.  How many, I'm not sure.  I know at one point she was on about 14 different meds, a cocktail for disaster.

Mom was now in denial about Dad not being able to come home and I didn't feel it was my place to tell Dad he couldn't come home once he was well enough.  Plus I felt inept and guilt ridden too.  I mean  what was my excuse for not dropping my life to care for Dad?  But I couldn't do it.  What was my spiritual duty?  Should I try to push through and care for him?  But what about my husband?  What about my kids?  What about my health?  What about fellowships?  Daddy wasn't part of The Way Household, and neither was Mom.

During the visit I went with Dad to the exercise room. There were mirrors around the room, just like a regular gym.  Injured vets were at various stations pumping the muscles that still worked. I watched the physical therapist work with Dad; his strength was improving.  Dad had some sort of weight machine velcroed to his arms so that he could pull weights up and down. 

Dad smiled and thanked the PT for his help.  Dad said, "I'm getting strong enough that I can maybe go home in a few weeks, huh?"  The PT smiled and nodded, "You are doing better and better."  My heart sank; I knew he couldn't come home.

Mom and the kids and I left Richmond for North Carolina Sunday evening; we had arrived Friday evening.  Mom never did tell Dad he wouldn't be able to come home; nor did I.  I was upset that Mom hadn't told him; I was upset at myself for not knowing how to handle the situation.

The 5-hour drive back to North Carolina,  Mom was angry and critical.  She blamed me and my siblings for the predicament in which she found herself; unable to care any longer for her quadriplegic husband.  They had been married for over 52 years.  According to her my siblings and I were ungrateful for all her sacrifices; especially me, the one who had overdosed as a teenager and was into all sorts of messes as a teen, the one who had called her to pay for an abortion while on a Christian outreach program, the one who never went to college, the one who was sick all the time with asthma and immune problems, the one who had two young children that she and Dad would sometimes babysit for.  On our trip back, we stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken and she verbally assaulted the servers letting them know just how inept they were; nothing and no one was good enough.

I was glad the weekend was over.

I found out at Dad's funeral two weeks later, that he had talked to home health on Monday, the 12th,  the day after Mom, the kids, and I had come back from visiting him at McGuire.  That Monday home health told Dad that he wouldn't be able to come back home.

He died Friday, February 16th; the night the Way of Abundance and Power Class was supposed to start.  He had fallen asleep Wednesday and never woke up; but the hospital didn't let the family know until shortly before he died on Friday.  None of us could get to Richmond; roads and interstates on the east coast were closed down due to a snow storm.

I guess he had nothing to fight for, to live for; no earthly hope.  He couldn't come home.  I feel sure he cried.  I feel sure he felt so very, very, very alone. So alone in that hospital.  Alone and helpless and hopeless.

He died from congestive heart failure. A broken heart.  I'm glad he was asleep.

Mike and Jane came to Dad's funeral.  I thanked them; even though they were "mark and avoid."

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This is second in a three-part series:
Part 1: War Maims
Part 2: Heart Failure
Part 3: Ashes
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War Maims

The trip to see Dad.  His last weekend of life.  That weekend of February 10-11, 1996.  My daughter, Sarah, was eight years old. Joshua, my son, was five years old.  Dad was seventy-four years old.  Mom was seventy years old.  I was thirty-six.

Dad was in Richmond, Virginia, at the McGuire Veterans Administration Hospital.  At that time McGuire had one of the largest Spinal Cord Injury Units in the country.  I used to call it "quad city" with its large halls and shopping places, banking areas, a recreation room, and a bowling alley - all designed for injured vets.  It seemed everywhere I looked there were men on their bellies, on gurneys, their bodies draped with white sheets as they rolled themselves through the hallways, turning the wheels round and round with their two limbs that functioned.  Maybe they were on gurneys to give their backsides a rest to keep from getting sores.

Dad wasn't on a gurney; he wouldn't have been able to push the wheels anyway.

Dad controlled his wheelchair with a knob.  He could move his arms and his elbows and wrists, but not his fingers. One of his doctors had called him an "odd quad."  It brought Dad a chuckle.  Most survivors of a spinal cord injury severed at C-4 couldn't move their shoulders or elbows. Dad's had been snapped in July, 1983 - a car accident, a head-on collision with a truck.  Dad was driving; he was alone.

Dad visited McGuire a few weeks every year on respite care.  But this time he was at McGuire because of some post-surgery trouble, after having part of his intestines removed. It seems like all this started sometime in the spring of 1995.  Prior to going to McGuire this time, he had spent some time in a nursing home. That only lasted, at the most, a couple months.  He hated being at the nursing home.

I get the time-table of events confused. It seems he had the surgery at a hospital in Hickory in North Carolina, then went to a nursing home in Hickory, then back to the hospital, then back to the nursing home, then to McGuire V.A. Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, since McGuire was equipped to handle spinal cord injury patients; plus Dad was a WWII veteran and the V.A. benefits were part of his package.  It seems the post-surgery complications had something to do with Dad being unable to swallow properly and maybe he even had some lung difficulty.  I recall his voice sounding like a raspy whisper, at times his regular bass sneaking through.

Up until all that started happening in the spring of 1995, he had been able to stay at home with Mom as his main caretaker.  Help came in from a home health agency.  Dawn was privately hired to help.  My husband and I helped out regularly, along with my brother.  My sister lived in Florida or California or near D.C., so she would visit once or twice a year.  Her then-husband, Jansen, was a Captain in the Navy and they were stationed at various bases around the country.

Jansen was a pilot.  He had flown Hueys in the Vietnam war.  He only talked about it once with me which was shortly after I had found The Way.  I thought I could empathize with his Nam tour because I knew of the spiritual battle; how naive of me. Jansen later flew some sort of jet off of aircraft carriers, some sort of sub-tracker.

I liked Jansen.  After I had left The Way Corps, back in 1980, I had considered going into one of the US armed services.  Jansen, who I think was a recruiter at the time, told me to not go into the service to "find myself."  He told me, "When you sign up for the service, you sign up for war."

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This is the first of a three-part series:
Part 1: War Maims
Part 2: Heart Failure
Part 3: Ashes
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~the past, the present, and Monday nights~

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On Monday nights I set aside 1-1/2 hours for a conference call.

Last week my 19-year old son asked, "So what exactly is this phone call you do on Monday nights?"  I answered, "It's a cult-recovery support group."  He looked at me somewhat quizzically with a "huh?' look.  We then ended up in a conversation about cognitive behavioral therapy.

He got me thinking about what it is we do on the call.  Is it something I want to continue?  What do I get out of it?  Is it helping me?  At what point will I let it go?

Someone might think it is a group of folks who sit around brooding their past and problems.  Our past experiences are one of our subjects; yet I wouldn't say we brood over it. A person's past does affect their present; yet one's past doesn't have to control their present. Personally I do not want to forget my past; I want to remember it.  I want to embrace it.  Like the death of a friend or an enemy, the past is forever gone yet continues to trickle through the present and future.

For me the focus of the Monday night calls is on where I am now and where I want to be in the future, or figuring that out. Sometimes a person coming out of a totalistic group doesn't know where they are right now and where they want to go. A persistent fog might descend regarding certain parts of life, parts of life that others seem to have figured out for themselves, though that (people seeming to have figured 'it' out) may be more of a supposition than a reality. It may take some time and (that overused word these days) processing to help clear the fog, or at least help it become less dense.  For me, that involves looking at my past.  That may not be true for everyone, but for me it is and that's o.k.

The support group is a place where I share challenges that may have come up through the week, as well as accomplishments and how I worked through the challenge.  If I have an issue (another overused word) that I'm dealing with, others usually ask pertinent questions in a non-threatening way to help me think, to help me perhaps identify ways to approach or to perceive what I am mulling over.

The support group is healthy and helps me build healthy relationships in other areas of my life.  Participants come from various groups and backgrounds, so we share from our unique perspectives.  Of course all that is shared is confidential;  I have shared parts of my life that I have shared with very few people. When a person decides they are ready to move on from the weekly group sessions, they move on and I miss them; but there is always Facebook.

I guess I'll know when it's time for me to move on.

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More than Skin-deep

Click here to read about an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction .

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"What to write next" is something I seem to ponder regularly.  Sometimes I lie in bed at night with scene after scene, time-period after time-period, going through my mind.

A few days ago I thought to write the story of when I got my tattoo in the summer of 1977, the seagull on my right shoulder which I named Harmony.  I had in mind to write of the event, of how I went to Florida with my folks.  It seems my new friend at that time, Tammy, went with us.  I'm sure she did.  Yet in my memory she wasn't present when I serendipitously met up with Arlene on the crowded Daytona beach or when Bud, Arlene's husband, engraved the tattoo on my back. Bud and Arlene were friends with my ex-fiance, Frank, and had moved to Florida in the previous months. Nor could I recall Tammy being with me when I sat meditating on the beach.  Yet she was present in my memory when she and I made the short trek from Daytona to Winter Park to a Charismatic church where some of her Floridian friends attended.  I was actively on my God-quest at the time.

I thought of writing about the responses my mother and father had to my tattoo, my father turning red and my mother turning white. And how I scooted around the room with my back to the wall so that they couldn't see the bandage on my shoulder.  They were already upset with me for not having their car back to the beach cottage in time for them to have gone out to supper. Without permission I had driven their car to New Smyrna, where Bud and Arlene lived, for my tat and didn't get back until around 8:30 pm. Upon their questioning I told them I had gotten the tattoo. They then turned their respective colors, my father at the brink of rage as I had seen before; and they promptly left the cottage in silence, returning a few hours later.

Daddy was such a passionate man.  He had rages when I was little.  I recall his face becoming red with fury and his veins popping out on his neck and his cussing loudly.  I too had temper tantrums as a young child, tearing up some of my toys. On another octave of the emotional scale, I used to sit with Dad and watch the T.V. show "Little House on the Prairie;" a tear or three would often trickle down his cheeks. I too would have tears in response to the family prairie scenes.

Daddy used to take me downhill snow skiing; I liked that. He enjoyed nature and the mountains; I liked that.  He took me sailing, I liked that.  He could draw cartoon pictures; I liked that.  He would even pen a poem or two; I liked that. Daddy would dance in the living room as he listened to music; I liked that.  He enjoyed singing; I liked that.  He would hit plastic golf balls in the house; my mother didn't like that at all.

I never saw my mother cry, at least that I recall.  Never did she cry. I saw her laugh.

Mom used to let me drive before I ever had my driver's permit or license. We would go to Oakwood Cemetery and I'd get behind the driver's wheel on the narrow cemetery roads, the same cemetery where I would play Werewolf with friends. Werewolf was a nighttime tag game.

Mom was a good cook, especially her green beans and creamed corn. She used to make tasty homemade donuts and pancakes with faces designed out of raisins. Not that any of that was healthy, but it was happy. I felt little emotional connection with Mom.  She laughed, but I never saw her cry and don't recall her expressing anger until after Dad had his wreck becoming stricken with quadriplegia and Mom becoming his main caretaker.

A few days ago as I was trying to write of that time in Florida when I got my seagull tattoo, as I was trying to write out events, I wasn't writing from depth; I was writing from surface.  I did much better with my third attempt to write about that tattoo; I feel I wrote from depth as I tossed aside what I thought I should write.  Yet the "tattoo" memoir piece, my third attempt in which I felt I had grasped more true writing, ended up not containing the event of getting the tattoo.

By "depth" I mean the stuff, the life, the emotions, the reality, the perceptions under the surface as well as from and above the surface. I find that if I write meandering in and out, higher and lower, bobbing up for air and diving again, back and forth - the writing is more real for me.

Life isn't two dimensional. Maybe tattoos are, but I tend to think they aren't......

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Parakeets, Moonwalks, and Reindeer

Click here to read about an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction .

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I don't know how young I was when Mom and Dad decided to have the back porch torn down. I know it was before I was ten years old. I turned ten in 1969, the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.  I watched him take those first moon steps on the big console TV which sat in the new family room, the one built where the back porch had been before it was demolished.  It seems Armstrong was upside down, and I bent over and looked between my legs to see him right side up. Of course we only had black and white on the T.V.

Our house was built on a hill that sloped down toward the back of the house. The back porch had been screened in and built on stilts or columns; I'm pretty sure it was stilts.  It seems that Mom used to raise parakeets on the back porch.  I faintly recall lots of newspaper that would catch the bird droppings.  Or maybe I was told that story often enough, that I painted a mental picture of it.  A door went from the kitchen onto the porch. When the demolition took place, one could open the kitchen door into mid-air.

The back porch disappeared and the new family room appeared. Prior to that, the family room had been a small room toward the front of the house. That old family room became my sister's new bedroom; she moved from upstairs to downstairs.  After my sister, who was the oldest of the three children, moved downstairs, I moved out of the big upstairs bedroom my older brother and I shared and into what had been my sister's small upstairs bedroom. I think I moved into that small bedroom when I was six or seven?

Ahh, the back porch must have been torn down around that same time, perhaps 1965 or 1966? The big bedroom my brother and I had shared was where the big walk-in cedar closet is located. I wonder if he used to tease me and tell me monster stories about that closet?   I must ask my siblings at Christmastime this year about these detail snippets.

It was in my new bedroom, my sister's old bedroom, that I used to surround myself with stuffed animals when I'd jump in bed at night.  The animals could protect me in case someone climbed up the giant tree in the back, hopped onto the flat roof that covered the newly constructed family room, and climbed through my bedroom window to shoot me. I slept with a bottle too.  I don't know how old I was when I gave up my baby bottle, but it was sometime in my elementary years.  I didn't have liquid in it, nor did I suck the nipple; I just held it when I went to sleep.  I liked how the bottle felt cold; I used to flip my pillow for the same reason, to feel the cold side.

That upstairs bedroom was also where I used to climb or hop over my stuffed animals to get into bed.  Then I'd lie real still because I was afraid if I moved a trap latch would release the swords that would come up through the mattress and stab me in the back.

One morning, in third or fourth grade, I awoke in that small upstairs bedroom and my body ached inside and out. The pain was such that I could barely move; it scared me.  I landed in the hospital for about a week. I was told I had chicken pox under my skin.

When the new family room was built, Mom and Dad also had another bathroom built giving us two bathrooms in the house.  The new bathroom even had a shower. Still, I didn't like taking showers until my late teens.  To this day, at fifty years old, I still like to take baths.  I sometimes night dream about exotic bath tubs and giant whirlpools and indoor pools with skylights.

Their were no heating ducts upstairs.  Instead a separate gas space heater was in the small hallway. I used to like to hear the click it made when it would come on, after which I could hear what sounded like a flame burning as it radiated warmth. There was also a vent, in the big bedroom floor, that looked downstairs into the foyer.  It wasn't a large vent, only about eight inches square.  When I used to share that room with my brother, before I moved into the small bedroom, the head of mine and my brother's beds were on either side of the vent; I in one bed and my brother in the other.

One Christmas I heard Santa's bells downstairs. I looked through the vent but didn't see anyone. I woke my brother to let him know.  He didn't seem too excited about it. My doubt nudged at me again, that Santa wasn't real.  I wanted to believe, but part of me said it just couldn't be.  How could a big fat person come down a chimney?  I figured the bells were my father pretending. I could play along with that.

But the reindeer, the reindeer.  I believed in them more than I believed in Santa.  I really wanted reindeer to be able to fly.

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God Seekers

Click here to read about an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction .

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Three times this evening I've tried to write of a time in 1977, the summer in June or early July, when I visited Daytona Beach and got my tattoo. I still have that tattoo, a seagull on my right shoulder that, at the time, I named Harmony.  I had initially wanted a dove, but my friend Bud couldn't draw a dove.  So I opted for a seagull.  The tat was free, so I couldn't complain. Shortly before that trip to Daytona, I had been introduced to "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ."

Toward mid May, I had broken up with my fiance, Frank, mainly because I had to get honest with myself; I didn't believe in the depth of my soul that a God of love would send people to an everlasting place of torment.  I was and had been trying to believe it; I was trying to believe it for Frank.

Frank and I had lived together for about a year in a cabin near Taylorsville, North Carolina. After the break up I moved in with Tula, who was in her 80's I think. I lived at Tula's for a month or so and then moved onto the Randall's farm, near Stony Point, into a mobile home in their pasture.

I ventured back into Transcendental Meditation after leaving Frank.  I was practicing TM when I had met Frank in the late spring of 1976.  I gave up TM to please Frank and to try to believe what Frank believed.  Frank went to a small country Baptist church, so I did too. Almost every Sunday, I'd find myself at the altar in tears of shame wondering if I was "saved."  I sang in the choir. God we sounded awful, twangy like some backwoods hillbillies.

I had resigned myself to becoming the wife of Frank and living out some sort of fantasy with Frank as the head of our home and I as the woman to please him; I wanted to please him. I loved Frank and he was good to me, though he could be quite critical of people.  It was a somewhat odd combination.  Frank, a handsome 22-year old acoustic-guitar-playing hippie who liked to get high,  and me, a now-straight 17-year old teenager who had been into TM, sinfully cohabiting and faithfully reading our Bibles and attending a small, country Baptist church.  We engaged in some experimental sex, the closest I ever got to a threesome.

As part of the role of becoming Frank's wife, I thought I'd take a job down the road from where we lived.  So for nine days I worked in a furniture factory sanding wooden chair arms and parts of furniture, the same repetitive motion over and over and over.  It was nine days of torture boredom.  I had never watched the clock so much in my almost-18 years of life.  Those nine 8-hour days felt like 20-hour days. My respect for factory workers went up; I don't know how they do it.

I wanted to know God, or so I thought, but not the God I had learned about at the small Baptist church, the God that Frank apparently believed in.  A God who would send a person to burn in hell, whatever that meant, for eternity unless the person believed on Jesus Christ.

I left Frank, though I loved him, and went back to TM.  I guess I got back in touch with my TM instructor in Hickory; her name was Dee.  I attended a three-day advance; at least I thought of it as an advance. Attendees practiced meditation rounding which is meditating a lot, in rounds, over a few days all with the purpose of accelerating the process to God-consciousness. The advance was held in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Some meditatiors were supposedly levitating in a room I wasn't allowed to enter, at least until I was more deeply enlightened or something.

But alas, I didn't stick with TM. I don't know why exactly that I gave it up;  I had been a faithful meditator for over a year prior to meeting Frank.  I had volunteered at the TM Center with initiations and took the course, Science of Creative Intelligence.  At high school I had hung up posters of Marhareshi advertising times and places of local lectures on TM, where I also volunteered setting up the rooms and being there for support and to help answer questions.

After I broke up with Frank and dabbled again with TM, I also began to listen to Ram Dass.  I had a vinyl lp of Ram Dass to which I'd lie on the floor in the front bedroom at Tula's house and listen.  I read the book "Be Here Now." Janet, Tula's granddaughter who was around my age, joined me in my quest.  She too was an enlightenment seeker.

At some point on the journey I met Gretta.  It seems I had met her while I was still with Frank. Gretta worked at the health food store in Hickory.  The Triplett's had owned it; Mrs. Triplett was a yoga instructor.  She had a son who was a year or two older than me.  Gretta was a truth seeker too, but she was a Christian, different from the TMers and yoga folks.

Gretta and I ended up getting our aura's balanced sometime that spring or summer of 1977.  Some guy up in the mountains in Valle Crucis, near Boone, had a following. His teachings stemmed from "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ." I bought the book, but I don't think I ever finished reading it. I would practice a meditative prayer I learned from the leader, the guy who had balanced my aura and had told me all sorts of sins I'd committed and how I needed to forgive myself.  For the prayer, I would sit cross-legged and picture light coming down from heaven, entering my body through my head, and then flowing out of my body to all mankind.  I'd recite the prayer that went something like, "Mother Father God, may the pure white Christ light fill me and flow through me filling my body with light that is radiated to all mankind."

While at Daytona I recited that prayer to the sunrise, as I sat cross-legged on the beach, pretending to be spiritual.  I passionately wanted to be enlightened, to reach God-consciousness.  I wanted to be an instrument for God, for His love and peace.

It wasn't long after, sometime toward the end of July, when I first spoke in tongues at a Lutheran Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.  I must have shared about that experience with Gretta and Janet.  We were all searching to know God.

I have a difficult time recalling the exact time table all this took place, but it must have all happened between May and September of 1977 as I had broken my relationship with Frank in May, a few weeks before our wedding date and around the time I graduated from high school.

Later, in November and December of 1977, Janet and Gretta and I together took the Power For Abundant Living Class which, at that time, included both the foundational and intermediate indoctrination classes of The Way.  We then lived together in a Way Home in Hickory, running classes and "moving the Word."  In less than a year I was commissioned as a WOW (Word Over the World) Ambassador, at that time the outreach program for The Way where a person would "grow ten years in one."  I think Gretta and Janet went WOW too at some point.  Our search for truth and God was over, at least mine was.

Or so I thought.

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First Kiss

Click here to read about an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction .

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Here I am again, wanting but not wanting to write - again.  Again.  Life is lots of agains.

Is it normal, was it normal, for a 13-year old to be having sex in 1972?  I try so hard sometimes to remember.  And then I run; in my mind, I run.  I say, "No," very firmly.  I don't say it, so much as I feel it, like a blockade.  I tell myself that my childhood was happy.

And it was, wasn't it?

This past year someone stated that they feel comfort when they recall their childhood and their home and their mother; they feel secure and safe.  When I heard the statement I wondered what that is like, to feel safe when thinking of one's mother?  At the time I asked myself, "Where do you find comfort Carol, when you think of your childhood?"

My answer, "Horses!  I feel comfort with the ponies and the horses."

I remember when I got my first pony, Dynamite.  Dynamite was a Shetland pony with a cream-colored coat which would be thick in the winter.  Dynamite was stubborn.  I often just sat on him while he grazed.  But I was fine with that.  I loved to groom him.  I think I was 6 years old when I got Dynamite?  Maybe I was 7.  I had gotten to know Dynamite before he officially became "mine."

It was Christmas.  I didn't much believe in Santa as a child; I mean how could a big fat guy come down a chimney?  But I liked to play along.  When I was 6 or 7 I received a note in my Christmas stocking that told me to look out the window.  There, tied to the giant oak tree, was Dynamite!  Dynamite, the pony I had spent so many hours sitting on as he grazed.  I walked out to the tree with my mom; Dynamite tried to kick her.

After Dynamite I got Princess; I was around 8 years old then.  I don't know what happened to Dynamite; perhaps my parents worked a trade with Mr. Abernethy.  Mr. Abernethy lived next door to us with his wife.  He was a horse trader.  I always thought the big pastures belonged to him, but I found out decades later that he rented the land.  His house is gone now and so are the riding areas and the stables.  The pastures are now vacant, overgrown property between the backsides of newer and older houses.

Mrs. Abernethy used to make homemade popsicles in small Dixie cups.  They, Mr. and Mrs. Abernethy, just the two of them, lived in a small house; seems it had green siding with a gray or off-white roof.  They had a gravel driveway where I learned to ride a bicycle. Between our house and their house was a horse riding area; muscadines grew on the side where the public road was.  The road is still there, the muscadines and the Abernethy's house are now gone. The Abernethys were old, like in their 60's.  Mrs. Abernethy used to play the piano.  She would play the piano at our house sometimes at Christmas.  I remember we sang songs.  That's a good memory too.

I never knew any of my grandparents; they died before I was born or when I was a baby.  The Abernethys were like grandparents I guess.  So were Uncle Russell and Aunt Flossie, like grandparents.  But Uncle Russell and Aunt Flossie didn't have horses and ponies.  Uncle Russell died when I was little; when I was 5 or 6 or 7, maybe 8 years old?  He and Flossie never had children.  I wonder why they never had children?  I wonder if it was because Aunt Flossie was the oldest of 12 siblings and felt she had already raised a family.  My mother, one of Flossie's sisters, was next to the youngest of the siblings.  Mom was the last to die; she died January 31, 2009.  She lived until she was 83.

I found comfort in ponies.  Almost every day I'd be with the ponies and horses.  Sometimes I'd even ride before school.  I never recall having any riding lessons; it's like I just knew how to ride.  I rode Western and bareback.  I was never in any horse shows, except that I'd be the ribbon girl who would walk out and present ribbons.  I never felt good enough to show the horses.  But I loved to groom them and pretend I was an Indian and ride bareback through the different pastures and over to Geitner Road.  In the Pines also, before there were so many houses, there were trails.  All the trails are gone, along with the pasture that went way over to Geitner Road.  Big 1/2-million and up dollar houses are there now.  The developments are called Pines I and Pines II, with Roman numerals.

My friend, Marie, and I would sometimes pretend we were in the Old West.  We'd saddle our ponies, put beef jerky in saddle bags, and hit the dusty trail.  We felt important in our petite, elementary-age physiques astride our saddles with their leather smell and saddle squeaks.  When the ponies learned neck-reining we really felt like young Annie Oakleys.

After Dynamite and Princess, I got Black Eagle.  Black Eagle was more of a Welsh-type pony, taller than Dynamite or Princess.  I think I was around 10 when I got Black Eagle.  I also broke my arm when I was 10; I was breaking in one of Mr. Abernethy's horses, Mary Jane.  She took off running; I think a mini-bike scared her.  Instead of staying calm, I freaked which scared her more.  I woke up by a tree after momentarily being unconscious.  I started screaming, "My arm's dead!  My arm's dead!"  I thought it was dead because it was numb; I'd broken the humerus bone and some ribs.  Mary Jane was nowhere in sight.  She was later found some miles away in downtown Hickory.

I found comfort with the ponies.  Maybe it was the ponies, or maybe it was the freedom I felt.  I loved to play in the woods and at the creek, and it seems a pony was almost always by my side. I didn't like the stable area though; there was lots of manure.  When it would rain it would be manure slop and would stink horribly.  I don't know why it was like that, but it was.  I wonder why we didn't keep it cleaner?

I remember my first real kiss; I was in 6th grade, or was going to be in 6th grade.  Mark was one year older than I.  We secretly met in the woods, on the other side of the creek in the pasture; the creek where I'd wash the ponies and pretend to be an Indian making clay bowels, painting them with the purple juice of polk berries.  It must have been late spring or summer; the woods were thick with foliage. I knew the kiss was real because Mark opened his mouth and I opened mine, like I'd seen in the Monkees movie "Head."

I liked it.

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Click here to view the memoir index: Journey through Memoir (an index).

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