branches up, roots down

This is a particularly challenging solstice to be a therapist. Usually during this time I can rely on my fierce optimism to not only get me through, but to be a beacon and ballast for my clients who are in the depths of despair. This season, I've had the experience of several of my clients being my messengers of hope, shining their light to guide me through the dark. When I got to work yesterday there were several cards from past clients, all wishing me well and extolling praise and gratitude for my past sturdiness. One of them, from someone who moved to the Rockies over twelve years ago, asked; "Have you dumped that husband and gotten with a woman yet?" I laughed and laughed. I could hear her voice in the words. She was a complete handful as a client, a challenge and a joy. What a mystery, this thing that prompted her to write this card, when I hadn't heard from her in a decade! As the hours went by, and I sat with clients who are currently struggling with depression...

I cancelled my clients this morning. Nobody needs a therapist who’s breaking into tears unexpectedly. What’s up with me? What has this trip to the coast broken loose in me? This week is the anniversary of my father’s suicide, a time I tend to be battling the blues, so that’s definitely a factor. Reya says I don’t sound depressed, just sad. There’s some mighty grief running thru me, and I’m giving it free rein, not trying to busy myself out of it, or numb it with glasses of wine. Curiously, I find I’m envying LeeAnn her one love, her long years of battling and making up with Max. Maybe, finally, I’m grieving my marriage. I know I’ve grieved the loss of my husband, but the loss of my marriage, that’s another kettle of fish. That marriage had it’s beginnings on the Oregon Coast . Cannon Beach is such a crucible of love for me. All the great loves of my life, except my last one, hold some history in this place. I went there to heal, drawn by the power of the elemental forces; ...

I’m back at the airport, waiting for my flight to San Francisco . I just left LeeAnn at her gate, and she’s heading back to Idaho to an empty house. The phone rang somewhere before eight this morning, and it was her. She was outside my motel in a pick-up truck, and she couldn’t climb the stairs to my room as she’d sprained her ankle. Clearly, the wake for Max had happened. I threw together my clothes and went down to join her. She’d decided we needed to drive down to Cannon Beach , the place I’d fled to after my father’s suicide. At the time, it was a funky little artist colony on the coast, dead in the winter, and catering to the tourists in the summer. It was a place where half the waitresses and bartenders were either working on a novel or painting in their spare time. When they weren’t drinking, that is. We cruised down the coast in the large truck, and I noticed all the changes. There’s a huge outlet mall in Seaside , and the patches of wild are smaller all around. When we...

I’m in my motel room in Astoria , overlooking the water. Below me, the Columbia river widens to meet the Pacific. LeeAnn booked the room for me, and when I got here I found out she’d paid for it as well. It’s perfect, not a chain motel, but one with distinct character and a sense of place. I’m deeply touched. Touched. How right that word is! Moved and touched by the power of human connection, by this incredible day. Picking up my rental car in Portland , I headed off after consulting with the rental guy about the best route. I promptly got lost in the wastelands of industrial Portland , driving this way and that until I finally found my way back to the place I’d gone wrong. I’d taken a wrong turn just blocks from the bridge I needed to cross. I noted the crossing of it, hoping that it was a portent, that all the turns and wanderings of this life time lead me exactly back to where I need to go. This is a bridge I’d never seen or crossed before, this Saint John’s bridge. An...

I’m at the airport, waiting for my plane to Portland . I’ve made it thru the congested clutch of the security checkpoint and am at my gate. The plane leaves in about 50 minutes, so we should be boarding soon. It’s so darn early, not quite six in the morning, and I’m barely awake. I’m not on the plane, but the trip has begun. The cab came within five minutes of my call. I stumbled down the stairs with my stuffed overnight bag, and slid into the backseat. I’d imagined a quiet ride thru the darkness, but my driver was talkative. I’m a highly relational person, whose favorite animal is hands down the human being. Despite this, or maybe because of this, I like the indulgence of silence when in a cab, a salon chair, or dealing with dental hygienists. That indulgence was not to be. The cabbie didn’t pick up on my cues of giving short answers to questions, with no questioning reciprocation on my part. By the time the cab was coming close to Candlestick, mindful of how grouchy I was bec...

A few weeks ago I noted a change in language, a new term easily rolling off people’s tongues. It entered my therapy room twice today. In San Francisco people are no longer saying “biological mother/father”. It is simply bio-dad or bio-mom. So short, so friendly, so easy to use! This is going to make the term “real” mom/dad obsolete in no time. Having been surrounded by parents with adopted children, and being the mother of a child who has both a dad and a bio-dad, I know the sting the “real” can cause. Does this make the other parent “unreal”? Up until now, there hasn’t been anything to substitute the “real” with that hasn’t sounded clumsy or veering on too much information. “Biological” is just too damn long, too clinical, and somehow makes one think of science class and dissecting frogs. I’ve always stumbled over it in introducing/explaining Jay’s place in my son’s life. Once, I introduced him as “Casey’s birth father”. He kidded me about this later, making the good...

As I was rushing around the house this morning, getting ready to take my son to school, the phone rang. It was LeeAnn. The memorial service for Max will be this weekend in Astoria . It’s a rush job, due to the fact that their son is on a short leave from the military, flying in soon from Kuwait . When she asked me to come, part of me balked. This was the weekend I planned to devote myself to the making of solstice presents. I’m sure she could hear the hesitation in my voice as I said “I’d try”. There was short silence and then she said “It would mean a lot to me”. I took a deep breath and felt the hesitation leave on the exhale. What better solstice magic, what better gift to give, than to show up for an old and beloved friend in their darkest of hours? I bought my tickets as soon as I got off the phone.

I drove down Third Street today and into Hunter’s Point. The violence of poverty reverberates here, it’s a district my son is afraid to come to, one which the hungry homebuyers give wide berth. It’s predominately black. It’s also houses the largest colony of artists in the Bay Area, oddly located in an old navy shipyard. Studios are cheap here, out beyond cell phone range, safe at the moment from gentrification. There was a time that North Beach and the Haight teemed with artists studios. Now even Ferlinghetti, the poet king of Columbus Street , has his painting studio out here. The barrack buildings are rough and rickety, and even full of artists, there’s a feeling of dislocation in the air. As I drove down Third, I noticed that the new street car tracks are almost done. This street car will run from downtown thru Hunters Point. Once that train is up and running, the division between Hunters Point and the rest of the city will begin to erode. I give it a year until you ca...

This weekend I had planned to be up at my land in the Sonoma hills, land I share with old coven sisters and their partners. As I prepared to go, I found out that there was going to be quite a crowd up there. Robin and Rocky were going up with their troupe of Morris Dancers. At another time, this might have been a hoot, but not this weekend. The unsureness I’ve been feeling has led to a general feeling of vulnerability and unsteadiness. Things are in flux, and my roots are searching steady ground. Best to stay home. As night increases its reign, I marvel at how much has changed since last solstice, when the sun ruled the sky. My household is configured in an entirely different way, my office as well. Relationships which once were integral to daily life have diminished to an occasional phone call. Doors have closed, some windows have been cracked open. My son has morphed in front of my eyes from child to teenager. Puberty has hit, and hit hard. His voice has changed, he’s sh...

As I sat with a client today, my mind kept drifting to my friend Lee Ann. I knew it wasn’t anything my client was saying, and it wasn’t that I was bored. There was a tug on the line that connects us. I felt the tug, and I worked to re-focus on the man in front of me, who was in the throes of a career crisis. He needed my full attention, and during that hour, I struggled diligently to stay with him, but my mind kept wandering back to Lee Ann. She was on my mind. After the session was done, I dialed her number in Idaho . She answered, and her voice was shaky. Max, her husband for some thirty years, had died within the past hour. He died at home, where he had been battling cancer for the past few months. She kept exclaiming “Why did you call? How did you know?” Both in tears, we marveled at the miracle of our connection, at the mystery of love. We don’t talk often, sometimes not for years, but when we do connect it is uncannily at the ...