Wednesday, March 13, 2024

CHAPTER TWELVE: "'The Party's Over'" ...or is it?

No sooner had I finished writing that last chapter, "Springtime in the Rockies," when I heard my mother sing another song title into my ear: "The Party's Over."

That song, which first appeared in 1956 in the musical comedy, "Bells are Ringing," with Judy Holliday and Dean Martin, was later popularized by Shirley Bassey.
There is a YouTube video featuring Bassey singing the song on the Ed Sullivan show in November, 1960, when I turned eight years old.

I didn't need to write to my brother to confirm that Mom sang this song. I remember all too clearly how she would launch into the first line, and sing it over and over again. She sang it when Christmas vacation ended. And especially, when summer vacation came to a close around Labor Day. In both cases, we kids were going back to school, and we were finally "getting out of her hair," and so she was happy to see us go. But the summer's end (and the holidays' ending) were sad for us kids! Who wanted to say goodbye to warm temperatures and long lazy afternoons? Who wanted to say goodbye to Christmas?

I've written in great detail in Chapter Six how I felt growing up -- that my family didn't know how to have fun; I wrote too that I believe that my joyless childhood was a core issue in my depression growing up.

In my shamanic healing class,
Dr. Villoldo has been teaching us a core healing practise performed by ancient and modern shamans. It is called "illumination," and in principle, it is very simple. The shaman does not treat a specific disease; rather, the shaman opens the "wiracocha," the luminous energy field that surrounds each and every one of us, and s/he "erases" any toxic energies or negative imprints in that field. When the field is cleared, the body's natural immune functions can kick in and fight whatever disease is present.

I can't read about this idea that negative imprints in the luminous energy field can lead to disease without recalling what happened to me in August of 2003 when doctors were trying to decide if I needed more treatment for cancer. I've written about the miraculous blue tree, and how I believe that the healing ritual beneath the tree helped me to deal with the challenges of chemo, AND the beastly doctor at Sloan Kettering who insisted that I needed a stem cell transplant when I didn't actually need one. (For that, see Chapter Seven.)

But what is perhaps even more amazing is that on the very same day that I found out via a phone call from my wonderful doctor at Dana Farber that I did NOT need the stem cell transplant, I also learned something else, quite remarkably, from a psychic, a healer better known as a medical intuitive.

Her name was Karin N. and she lived in Stowe, Vermont. My sister-in-law Jo Kirsch told me to call Karin and when I asked why, Jo replied simply, "she will blow your mind."

And blow my mind she did. For the longer version of this story, I point you to a post I wrote years ago, called "My Medical Miracle," : which appeared on-line in NPR's "This I Believe."

Basically, the medical intuitive -- who knew absolutely nothing about me except my first name -- and who was 3,000 miles away from me when she did my reading (I was in California visiting my sister) was able to identify the one spot of cancer I had left to cure. No one except my doctors and my husband knew where that spot of cancer was. Nonetheless, Karin the psychic "saw" that the "one spot I had to cure" was located "on the left side of your chest, below your rib cage and above your diaphragm."


To say I was shocked doesn't begin to describe my reaction. But Karin went further. She asked me if my mother had had lung cancer. When I said no, she said, "Well did she have a serious lung disease?" and I said yes, she had asthma. And then Karin said, "Well that's the source of the cancer in your chest. It stems from the resentment you harbor toward your mother. You will need a little chemo and radiation to heal, but you must deal with the resentment you have against your mother."

I was speechless. This reading turned my world upside down. Never again would I look at health and disease in quite the same way.

As I was listening to Dr. Villoldo describe the way shamans can "see" the luminous energy field that surrounds us, and how they heal their clients by replacing dark patches of energy with light, I am finally beginning to understand what Karin was able to see, and what she was trying to say.

Dr. Villoldo says that the luminous energy field is "a matrix that contains information that you inherited from your family of origin regarding how you will live, how you will age, how you will suffer and how you will die." Morever, it contains "imprints" of all the negative experiences that you've ever had. In order to heal those dark imprints, the shaman performs an "illumination," replacing the dark energy with light.


Apparently, Karin the psychic could "read" the dark energy in me, specifically in my chest, and she could "feel" its connection to my mom and her asthma. Quite remarkable! As I contemplate this, I still find it a bit scary. I wonder, have I really cleared the resentment?

Am I bringing back the resentment by recalling the way she sang, "The party's over?"

I force myself to take a big breath in. I concentrate on calming myself. I remind myself that I have worked hard over the years to let go of my bad feelings towards Mom. I have tried to focus on the deep love I have for my mother.

And then I think about a question my poet friend Nancy posed last week after she read Chapter Eleven, "Springtime in the Rockies." Healing, she observed, "is a little like peeling an onion, isn't it?" Just as soon as you heal one "layer" you realize that there are deeper layers underneath that need healing.

As I said, for all intents and purposes, I have largely let go of the resentment I carried toward my mom. But here now, simultaneously, I am writing this post about the fact it still irks me that Mom seemed to enjoy being a "party pooper," as evidenced in her smiling while she sang the first line of Shirley Bassey's depressing song.

Is it possible that I'm kidding myself, that I really haven't entirely let go of my resentment? I wonder.

We kids grew up with an understanding that because of her illness, Mom was restricted from doing certain things. That's one reason why, for example, we didn't go camping. Or have any pets. But the reality was more complex: Mom as a rule did not like outdoor activities. And she didn't like animals.

In many ways, Mom did not know how to enjoy herself.

Is it any wonder why? She grew up having her fun squashed. She had a bicycle -- I think her uncle bought it for her -- until her brothers took it away and sold it so that they could buy themselves a radio. She had one pair of roller skates, too, until she outgrew them; that was it for the fun of roller skating.

I remember Mom telling me the story of an art class she had with the nuns when she was small. She painted a jar in bright yellow and black and the nun took one look at it and told her it was "ugly." Mom was crushed; many decades later she recalled that she had liked the colors because they reminded her of a bumble bee.

Mom learned early on that life wasn't something to enjoy. And that nun taught her in one swift comment that she had no artistic talent (Mom's myriad stained glass creations
later in life put that notion to rest.)

Her "script" was that of women through the ages: get married, have children and be a meticulous homemaker. Which she did, to perfection. When she was just 16, her aunt Gina died, leaving a husband and two children. Mom was called on to help out in her uncle's house a lot.

Whether because of my personality, or the fact that I came of age during the rebellious 1960's, I found myself rejecting my Mom and what she stood for. I wasn't going to have her limited life choices thrust on me. I don't recall how old I was when one morning at breakfast I announced, while Mom was spooning oatmeal from a pan into several bowls: "I'm never going to cook oatmeal for my family!" It's a memory that makes me sad, because I could be such an insulting pain in the butt growing up. It also makes me chuckle, because try as I might, I actually did end up becoming a mother who made oatmeal for her family.

But in those days of my youth, I felt completely compelled to reject the notion that I would not live a life of duty and sacrifice, devoted to serving kids.

When did I soften toward mom and what she represented?

I'm not exactly sure. I tell the following story to illustrate my point: at the age of 25, shortly after I had gotten married, and when I was working for a daily newspaper, and after I had announced that I wasn't having kids, I recall my dad taking me aside and saying, "you know honey, having children is a truly wonderful thing, you really ought to reconsider your decision not to have them."

The next thing I remember, I was 35 years old, and my dad took me aside once again, this time saying, "Honey, you have three kids now, you know, I really think that's enough!"

As I look back, it seems ironic that the medical intuitive reading, in which the psychic linked my cancer to my resentment toward Mom -- came when it did, when I was about 50; I had fully embraced the life of wife and mother.

Which leads me to my main point here: healing is a very complex and inexact process. When exactly are you healed? And how long does healing last? Just because you are healed one day, from one ailment, doesn't mean you're healed the next day or week or month or year, from something else. Like life itself, healing is a fluid process, and one, I believe, that we must work on day by day.

Also, as I write this, I am reminded that "time doesn't exist,"
at least according to some physicists. If time doesn't exist, can I still continue to heal from something that affected me two decades ago? Can I heal an ancestor who lived 150 years ago? All this seems so complicated sometimes!

I'm not sure when I fully let go of my resentment toward my mother. But I think traveling to southern Italy last fall and "falling in love" with myself and my Italian heritage while in the Piazza Plebiscito in Naples (and meandering throughout southern Italy) helped a lot to scour me of all my resentment. As a result of the writing in Italian I started doing four years ago, telling stories about my ancestors, I have come to see that Mom and Dad had their shortcomings and limitations in large part because of the limitations of their own parents.

Mom and Dad did not have the luxury to travel to Italy, or at least, they didn't have the wherewithal to make it happen. They missed out, big-time. But simultaneously, I realize how incredibly fortunate I have been to travel. For that, I am extremely grateful! That gratitude has led me to become far more generous and accepting of my mom and my dad and the choices they made, or had made for them, and how all those choices affected me.

So what about this song Mom has been whispering in my ear of late? She did indeed love to sing "The Party's Over." But from this vantage point, even as I can still hear her singing it, I am nonetheless able to hold mom in loving memory. At least as often as she was a killjoy, mom could also be an incredible tease (like her father, Claude, and like me, too.)

In her vernacular, Mom was a "scootch," someone who really loved poking fun at loved ones and others, but not in a malicious way. She liked to get your goat (as my other grandmother would say.) Italians have a way of teasing each other, often by making up funny nicknames for close family members and others living in their small villages. Humor, I think, helped them cope with life.

*******

I was wondering how to end this post -- the ending came to me quite suddenly when my husband and I went out for a hike this afternoon at one of our favorite spots: Red Rocks, a remarkable formation that sits about 20 minutes from Denver. The mammoth red stone towers overhead; it is threaded with yellows and pinks and tans. It is warm and sinuous and it bends and folds and is endlessly magnificent. It's a bit like the Grand Canyon in that you cannot begin to take it in!

At least 32 Native American tribes in the U.S. consider Red Rocks to be a sacred place. It is certainly sacred for me; no matter how often we go, I never tire of being near the rocks.

"It's a river of stone," my husband said today
as we set off down the dustry red trail with Poco in tow. Soon, the rhythm of the hike was beginning to relax me, as hiking always does. That's when I realized what I wanted to say to end this post. I've gone back and forth trying to answer the question, when do you know that you're healed? How can you be sure you've let go of all of your resentment toward a loved one?

The answers lie in the moment by moment awareness that is mindfulness. When I'm hiking,
all of my energy is moving me forward, step by step. I'm focused on the beauty of the trees and plants, the birds, the sky and the rocks. I'm breathing in clean air. Right then and there, as I am walking along, I feel an abundance of good health and well-being filling me up!

Of course I'm not always hiking. There are days when I don't feel up to par, and times that I start to feel swamped by negative thoughts. That's when I try to remind myself that I have a choice. I can choose to do something to change my point of view. I can go outdoors and take a walk, or I stay indoors, roll out my mat and do some yoga postures, or just stretch.

These activities give me health, moment by moment. They make me feel better. In the end, you only get the present moment, and it behooves all of us to to do whatever we can to make ourselves feel as healthy as possible as often as possible.

And so, writing this post was a choice I made, to explore some difficult memories about my mother. I'm glad I wrote it because it's left me feeling positive; I have put aside my resentment. I think about Mom right now,
in this moment, and I feel the glow of my love for her, and that makes me smile.

Monday, March 04, 2024

CHAPTER ELEVEN: "Springtime in the Rockies!"

A day or so ago, my mother -- who passed away in 2015 -- whispered something in my ear.

At first, I wasn’t sure I was hearing correctly.

What I thought I heard her say to me was:

“What do you think this is, 'Springtime in the Rockies?'”

But wait, was I imagining that she said this? Did she really used to pose this question to me when I was a child? I couldn't be sure.

It occurred to me that maybe Mom had heard this phrase somewhere. So I googled Springtime in the Rockies, and lo and behold, I found out that there was a musical released in 1942 by that name!

The movie is still on YouTube. And there was the song from the musical, sung by Gene Autry and others through the years.

Still, I wasn’t certain. Had Mom really said this to me? And why was I having this memory now?

The memory is this: I remember her saying it to me whenever I wanted to wear a T shirt or shorts or some other inappropriate clothing and she thought it was too cold outdoors.

I decided to email my older brother to ask him if he recalled Mom saying this. He confirmed it:

“I definitely recall mom saying that phrase on numerous occasions," Rich wrote back. "Makes sense as she was 16 years old when the movie came out...and most likely she saw the movie at the Cameo theater in Bristol!!!”

OK, but still, why was I thinking about this phrase now?

And this morning, it hit me. Obviously, it has something to do with the fact that I’ve been living in Colorado for the past two months. I love living here.



I told my husband a few days ago that I feel younger than I did a few years back. Living here has helped. Having so much sunshine (Denver has 300 sunny days a year, on average) has been exhilarating. And I have become addicted to hiking, especially in beautiful places. I'm also addicted to being outdoors. Just this past week, we went hiking three times.

Just saying "the Rockies" suggests great power, a place that figures large in our American imagination because of the whole pioneer experience. As the nation pushed West, the pioneers and explorers headed over flat terrain for at least 1500 miles. And then, all of a sudden, this gigantic mountain range rose up on the horizon, mammoth rocks soaring into the sky. It was gorgeous and frightening and awe-inspiring all at once. It is a magical place, too.

So mom was asking me: do you really think you're in the Rockies, a place that borders on being mythic? A place that is huge and faraway? A place where you seem to enjoy yourself so much?

There is another reason my mom's question came to me now: I have been taking a fascinating on-line class on shamanic healing, with medical anthropologist Dr. Alberto Villoldo. In this class, he emphasizes strongly that we need to revise the stories that we heard from our parents as we were growing up.

He talks repeatedly about the Luminous Energy Field,
which is called the "wiracocha" by the Andean shamans; the term means the “sacred source.”

Otherwise known as the soul, this energy field – which we can actually touch, as I described in Chapter Ten – “organizes the body’s health,” Dr. Villoldo says.

“Your Luminous Energy Field is a reservoir of living energy that is in constant flux and motion. It is who you were before you were born and who you will be after you die." It contains all of your stories and experiences, your good and bad genes and your diseases -- imprints which are then passed from one generation to the next. It is only by clearing the negative stories from your energy field that you can begin writing an original story for yourself.”

The shamans were able to see the wiracocha, and they can also use their consciousness to manipulate how the energy field affects the body, Villoldo says. When the energy field is marred by bad experiences, or negative stories, or anger or feelings of loss, hatred, betrayal or resentment, disease can occur. In our class, Villoldo challenges us to step out of time, into our wiracocha, to let go of negative emotions, and to revise the stories we grew up hearing.

OK, so now I am beginning to see the significance of that “story” my mother used to tell me! "What do you think this is, ‘Springtime in the Rockies?’" was a core message from my Mom. Remember how I had pneumonia three times before I was seven years old? Remember, too, how sick mom was with asthma?

Well, naturally, it would follow that Mom didn't want to risk her or me going outdoors without plenty of warm clothing!

But it goes beyond clothing. Implicit in the question she used to ask is whose authority was going to reign? In other words, who was going to be the boss? Was I going to challenge her authority? Moreover, the question raises the issue, who is going to decide when it's "springtime," i.e., when the weather has warmed enough for scanty clothing. Even thinking about wearing the scanty clothing was a challenge to my mom's worldview!
Further, mom asking me the question, "what do you think this is, "Springtime in the Rockies?" suggests that I was in danger of being too big for my britches! In my family, especially in my mother's family, it wasn't "good" or "right" to act in a way that was boastful or showy. By all means, it wasn't right to brag or to be, in her words, a "big shot!"

Like so many people in her situation, Mom was taught to feel ashamed of herself as she grew up, as if she really didn't count. The message that came through was that she wasn't good or deserving enough. And indeed, Mom always tended to be very meek when she was around other people. I recall her saying how friends of hers would often brag about their children. She knew full well that she too had plenty to brag about when it came to her own kids, but it just wasn't in her nature to do it. Nor was it in her mother's, my grandma Mish's, nature, nor my grandfather's, my grandpa Claude's, either.

If you were superstitious, which my ancestors tended to be, you were tempting fate if you were too boastful or too cocksure of yourself. In effect, you were asking for trouble. Like my mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, I was raised in a climate of constant fear and worry that something bad was going to happen.



It's understandable that my ancestors felt fearful.

The world that my immigrant ancestors lived in was in fact rather dangerous. Money was very scarce, and you had to toe the line, working hard and keeping your nose to the grindstone, to ensure that you would have security now and in the future.

From Villoldo's point of view, this fear is really just a leftover of our ancient mammalian (or limbic) brains. The limbic brain is the seat of the emotions, “developed in the time of the Neanderthals,” he says.

Trained as a brain scientist, Villoldo explains that the limbic brain is the brain of the four F’s: fear, feeding, fighting and fornication. It is also that section of the brain that leads us into the fight or flight emotions. It makes us feel anger and scarcity, and a host of other negative and “non-forgiving” feelings. From the point of view of Villoldo, who counts himself among the shamans,
these emotions are “outdated,” and we need to be rid of them in order to live happy and healthy lives, lives devoted to raising our consciousness.

I have been frequently a fearful person in the past. Like my mother, I grew up worrying, a lot! Unfortunately, I know I passed some of that fear along to my children.

Living here in the Rockies feels like it is challenging me to let go of some of the fears that I grew up with!

Have I gotten over worrying? In certain respects, yes. But it is definitely a work in progress.

This morning, March 3, 2024, we are days away from the spring equinox. It is 44 degrees and sunny out. What shall I wear????

Shall I put on my long grey winter coat? (I left my green parka back in Massachusetts!) Or shall I step outside in simply my thin yoga clothes and a vest?

I grab my husband's navy blue Patagonia fleece. And my running shoes. And the cap I bought at Red Rocks,
the breathtaking rock formation that sits only about 20 minutes from Denver where Rich and I live. We walk there as often as we can.

Maybe later, when I get back from my walk, I will write more about how living here – far away from the family hub back east – is helping me see how family fears have shaped and controlled me through the years.

Meanwhile, the nice thing about "Springtime in the Rockies" is that it has unlocked Mom in my heart. She is really here with me today, and because she is no longer an earthbound creature controlled by primitive fears and worries, she is saying exactly what I want to hear: "OK, Claudia, you wear whatever you want to wear -- you'll be fine!"

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

CHAPTER TEN: Time, Time, Time, No Time!

More than likely, you have put that crazy CHAPTER ONE out of your mind. I fully understand as I went a bit wild trying to stuff three different stories (Mine, Leah's and Gina's) into that one chapter, along with lessons in physics and calculus.

Hopefully, though, you will recall the lesson that Einstein taught us: there is no such thing as time. That great physicist thought that “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Everything, it seems, happens all at once in the eternal NOW!

I'm not going to take up Einstein's claim, or his scientific reasoning, at least not NOW. But I am going to tell you that for the past year and a half or so, just before I turned 70, I've started to believe what my very spiritual therapist Mary M kept telling me, all those years we spoke. Time, from Mary's perspective, collapses in on itself, folding in and around like a giant spiral.

Remember in the last chapter, how I asked you to keep an open mind? Well, so, please do, as I tell you this: I have myself experienced the malleability of time; I'm referring in part to my ability to be in my bis bis nonna Filomena's life way back in the mid-1800s. Some would say that it's just my imagination at work. Perhaps. But when I get very quiet and close my eyes, I feel her arise.
Or I sink into her life! I am so close to her that I see the pores in her face. I see exactly how her eyebrows are growing, a bit wildly at the center of her forehead. There is some very faint, but slightly darkened hair growing above her mouth.

I am staring now into a bowl of steaming cereal; I pick up a carved wooden spoon and lift a spoonful of the mush to my mouth. I feel it sliding down my throat. I reach for another bowl; the finish on the yellowed ceramic is lined with the thinnest cracks. I drink the thick dark coffee that has been boiled on the wood stove.

That of course is my imagination at work. But then, what exactly is the imagination? When we write fiction, we use our minds to bring a whole world alive, both for the writer and the reader. The mind is conjuring up something that feels real! I think about the fact that neuroscientists have shown in experiments that when a person plays the piano, certain brain circuits are activated in her mind. But when that same person simply imagines playing the piano, the very same brain circuits light
up!

In other words, we can actually create a physical reality by thinking what we think! The implications for this are enormous for our health.

Which is one reason why it's so important to me to try to focus on positive thoughts and feelings, whenever possible.

So now I will tell you about some ancient shamanic practices and what they tell us about stepping out of time into infinity!

*******

Recently, I started an on-line class with a well-known American medical anthropologist, Dr. Alberto Villoldo.
Several decades ago, Dr. Villoldo left a faculty research position at San Francisco State University, where he supervised a lab that was investigating how energy medicine could change brain chemistry. In his words, he "traded his laboratory for a pair of hiking boots and a ticket to the Amazon," where he began to learn shamanic healing. He has spent the last four decades learning to become a shaman himself.

Dr. Villoldo says that shamans are adept at "stepping out of time" by getting in touch with the Wiracocha, the luminous energy field that surrounds the body and connects us to the one great source of light.

Recall the fact, he says, that saints are often depicted with halos. Those rings of light are, in fact, part of the energy system that surrounds all of us humans (the saints are special in that they are more enlightened!) In this week's class, Dr. Villoldo invited us to experience the Wiracocha, which is the Incan people's word for that source of all that is sacred.

Saturday, February 24, 2024 Journaling, I write: This practice is coming at just the right moment today because I am feeling
homesick for the first time since we left Massachusetts on January 10th. I was feeling at loose ends today, not sure what to do with myself. So I decided to switch on Class 2 of the Shamanic Healing program. In the video, Dr. Villoldo is sitting cross-legged on a mat with what looks to be a jungle outside the window behind him. I begin to follow his directions, bringing my arms over my head to feel the source of light that connects me to the Universe.

By the time the exercise ends, I feel energized. Not only that, as I hold my hands about eight inches away from each other, I feel a warm pulsing glow between them. I bring my hands back and forth, closer and farther away and it is almost as if there is an accordion of light and energy expanding and contracting between my palms. And then I open arms and bring them overhead and surround myself in light. The exercise is surprisingly intense. And so very very calming!

Sunday, February 25, 2024k

8:45 a.m.

Sitting side by side with Rich, I switch on Dr. Villoldo's exercise again, the one that enables us for brief moments, to step out of ordinary time and into the infinity of the universe. In Dr. Villoldo's terminology, we are opening the Wiracocha, just as the shamans of the Andes do. "This practice envelops our physical body and allows us, for a few brief moments, to step outside of ordinary time," he says.

We begin. He instructs us to take a couple of deep breaths, and we do, and on the third breath, we slowly raise our arms over our head, to touch the light of our luminous energy field -- it exists in everyone. He calls it the eighth chakra.

Very slowly, we lower our arms to the sides. He tells us to feel the energy field around us. We raise our arms again, and then, twisting slightly, we slowly bring our arms down in front and in back of us.

Do you feel the energy? he asks. It is a giant bubble that surrounds you.

And honestly, I do feel a kind of warm sac. I see it in my mind as rays of sunshine enveloping me.

He asks us to feel the inside of the light bubble. "Are there places that are slightly weaker?" Can you feel those places that need attending to? Can you run your hands over those spaces, covering those weaknesses?

I have my eyes closed, but I have a real sense that I can feel my life force; it is so comforting. And so simple. Once I start running my hands over the inside of the bubble, I don't really want to stop.

Dr. Villoldo then leads us in an experience of our other seven chakras. First, he says, place your left hand on your heart and feel the giant drum. Then move your right hand to your pubic bone: feel the first chakra. After a few moments, move your right hand up to your abdomen, just below your navel. Here is your second chakra. Take your hand and make a circle around the chakra. Breathe into it very slowly.

Up now to the third chakra, the solar plexus. Once again, he says, make slow circles. "Feel the inside of your chakra with your finger, like the inside of a bowl."

Then we are back to the heart chakra, now with both hands covering our chest. We rest our arms there, feeling the great drum that keeps us going for decades and decades! How many times it pumps, in even one day! One hour!

Now we move to the throat chakra, covering it with both hands.

Then to the mythical third eye in the center of the forehead. And then to the seventh chakra, "your connection to the heavens," he says, at the top of the head.

Before we complete the exercise, he has us run our hands up and down the front of our bodies, where the life force meridians lie. And then, we run a hand up the center of the body.

As he finishes, we bring our arms back over our heads, closing the Wiracocha, the sacred space.

I understand now. How I might every day, at any given time, take myself out of ordinary time to experience moments of infinity, moments outside of the "arrow" of time. Dr. Villoldo says this is a key step in improving our health.

One thing is absolutely clear to me: I can really feel the luminous energy field he spends so much time describing. A few minutes after Rich and I finish listening to the video, I get up from the floor to do my regular morning exercises. I always begin my routine by raising one arm overhead, and reaching across to the opposite side. Then I do change sides and do the same thing with the other arm.

What I am not expecting on Sunday morning is that as I start to do my routine, I feel the energy field overhead. I pause the exercise and just stand there, holding my arms above my head, moving my hands slowly in every direction, enjoying the feeling of the warm energy against the palms of my hands.

It's so relaxing that I don't want to stop! It feels wonderful just to stand there being aware of this giant ball of light, feeling it above and all around me!

Rich says the shamanic ritual reminds him of a Navaho prayer that he has always loved:

"In beauty I walk

"With beauty before me I walk

"With beauty behind me I walk

"With beauty above me I walk

"With beauty all around me I walk"

Thursday, February 15, 2024

CHAPTER NINE: "Mom and Dad Appear After I Open the Book of Sayings!"

Just so you know, this business with my parents contacting me via my iphone isn't the first time they have made themselves known to me!

It actually started four years ago, when I began writing in Italian in earnest.

In 1999, for my parents’ 50th Golden wedding anniversary, I decided I would create a scrapbook with as many of my mother’s and my grandparents’ Italian sayings as I could recall. I printed them out on gold paper, and set them all on delicate green tissue paper.
And then I assembled the scrapbook.

After my Mom died very suddenly in October of 2015, and my Dad moved into assisted living, I inherited the book. I had packed it away but as I began "writing" in Italian in 2020, I decided one morning to go into the basement to find the scrapbook.

I carried it upstairs and sat down on the sofa with Poco resting beside me. I opened the book and smiled as I read and recalled my mother speaking these sayings. My mother was an angel, beloved by everyone who met her. She could be hysterically funny, too, especially when she was speaking Italian. And especially when she was imparting wisdom via these homegrown sayings. Some of them are really funny, and others simply offer great wisdom.

“Chi te polvere spara, chi no, sente la botta.”

“The person with gunpowder shoots, the person without it, listens to the explosion.”

“La belleza fin alla porta. La bonda fin alla morte.”

“Good looks as far as the door. Goodness as far as the grave.”

As I read, I started to feel an overwhelming affection for my mother
and father and a deep connection to them and all of my ancestors. I also felt gratitude that I had made this book for them. Reading it made me feel infinitely closer to my parents – even though mom had been gone for five years, and my dad had passed in August of 2019.

What's interesting is that I was feeling more loving towards them, even though I was, at the same time, getting in touch with all the anger and resentment I felt because growing up, I had no fun,


I know, it sounds a bit contradictory, what I was feeling. But that's exactly how emotions are: complex. A bit like the weather. Sometimes it's sunny, with grey blue clouds hovering in the distance. Sometimes it's overcast, but with the sun emerging on the horizon for a magnificent sunset. Sometimes it rains or snows with the sun shining!

Mary was forever encouraging me to let myself "feel all of my feelings," and also, to accept all of them without judgement.

A key to happiness, she assured me, was getting in touch with feelings. Also, she stressed the importance of focusing on gratitude for all of my blessings. And, perhaps the most important of her lessons:

Love yourself unconditionally! Love yourself simply because you are YOU! In other words, she said, you don't have to achieve a single thing in order to love yourself. You don't have to be famous or rich or beautiful (by society's standards) or successful. All you need to do is to let the warm glow of love fill you up.

And when it does, it inevitably spills over, so that you find yourself loving others!

******

One morning in March of 2020, I carried the scrapbook into my study and started journaling.

“Mom and Dad, I know you are listening to me as I learn to speak new words every day.”

“Mamma e Papá so che mi stavi ascoltando mentre imparo a pronunciare nuove parole ogni giorno.”

All of a sudden, as I was writing this sentence in the journal, a wild rain started to fall. It came out of nowhere! My husband walked into my study and said, “My God, it’s like we’ve been caught in a carwash.”

“I know,” I said gazing out the window. "So strange!"

Suddenly it occurred to me: could this be a sign? Were Mom and Dad reaching out to me?

“Mom and Dad, I love you so much and I think you are here with me!”

“Mamma e Papá, ti amo cosí tanto e penso che tu fossi qui con me!”

I decided to write a blogpost about what had happened that morning.
I titled it "Italian is Alive Inside Me."

After I finished writing, I inserted a photo of me and my folks into the post,
a photo that I have always loved, one where I am standing between my parents. Everyone looks so happy in the photo.

When I went to print out the post, I was surprised! Nothing at all printed out, nothing at all except the photo of me and my parents!

It may sound crazy. My husband certainly thought it was crazy. But that too made me wonder: could this be another sign that my parents were trying to reach out to me?

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

CHAPTER EIGHT: "Mom and Dad Are Looking Out for Me!"

I wasn't going to write this chapter next. I was going to write a chapter about TIME, about how Einstein says/said there is no such thing as time. Past, present and future, he says/said, are all an "illusion."

OK, but now I have to put that chapter aside, for another time, because Mom and Dad keep calling me! Not on the phone, well not exactly.

It started quite a while ago. I would say it's been happening for at least six months or a year.

But lately, they've been stepping up their contacts. The other day, I got one from mom, AND one from dad, on the very same day, February 7, 2024.

What happens is this: I am on my phone, texting, and then I put my phone down for a moment. And when I go to pick it up again, I have, in the texting line, either:

mom

OR

pop.

Here below, I will show you the latest two contacts, from last week.

The first is from Mom, while I was texting with a friend in the morning:

And the second, three hours later, from my dad (calling himself pop) while I was texting with my daughter Lindsay:

Something similar happened about two weeks before, on January 23, 2024; again, mom and dad got in touch on the same day. First, when I was texting with my friend Leslie in the morning:

And then, when I was texting with another friend in the afternoon, my dad popped up again.

This has happened many many times. I've only been recording them (via iphotos) for a few months.

The first time I recorded a contact, Rich and I were travelling in southern Italy (in part to research my great great grandmother Filomena's life). It was the 27th of October, 2023, and we were in Lecce, a beautiful old city in the region of Puglia (the heel of the Italian boot.) Rich had just been diagnosed with COVID. He was pretty sick with a fever, chills, aches, congestion, and a sore throat

I had gone out in search of a "farmacia" for medication; I was completely distracted because my husband was busy texting me. He was trying to explain what medication the physician, who spoke only Italian, had told him to buy. The woman at the farmacia didn't speak English either. Ayayayay.

The last thing I expected at that moment was to see my "pop" suddenly pop up on my phone!

Perhaps because I was so so surprised, I decided to record dad's appearance. When I told my sister Holly about it (because we often talk about missing our dad!) she was skeptical. "Claud, dad never called himself pop!" she observed. And while she is right, most of the time he did not call himself pop. I do recall times when he was in a good mood, he did refer to himself that way.

Anyway, it kept happening.

Once, Dad appeared while Rich and I were texting about politics.

That's not surprising, considering the fact that my dad and I had countless arguments about politics. Dad supported Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and on and on while I supported Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden. (I never asked my dad if he voted for Trump, because, by 2016, when Dad was 90 years old, I had told him that I refused to argue about politics with him anymore; he was too old, and I cared about him too much.)

So lately I have started to keep track of the "sightings." There have been perhaps one or two a week. And then something even weirder happened.

At the end of December, my mother appeared not as MOM but as

DEE, which was everybody's favorite nickname for her (my mother's first name was Dena.)

The weirdest thing about this DEE sighting was that it came in conversation with my son Noah, who lives in Colorado. Noah was texting with me and my husband, telling us that he and a good friend had just been meditating for FOUR (yes, four!) hours. He texted:

"Lots of images of grandparents came up in the last hour"

"Lots of crying"

"They loved me so much!"

And that's EXACTLY when his grandmother DEE appeared as

/e

e dee

When I pointed this sighting out to my son, he responded:

"That is VERY weird"

and after I sent him more examples, he wrote

"Hmmmm!"

"Maybe there is a ghost afoot!"

Even my sister Holly lost some of her skepticism. When I described to her what had transpired with Noah, sending her that chain of texts after he meditated for four hours, she replied

"Holy crap!"

So now, of course, the question arises: can I explain what's going on here?

Of course not, not if you're asking me to present the underlying physics of how this happens.

But I do have an answer to the question: What does this mean?

What I think it means is that my parents are very close to me, spiritually. I do feel their presence, quite often. Even though I don't see my therapist Mary anymore, I remember how clearly and emphatically she believed that

there is no death, for the soul, the loved ones we lose are always with us, and

our ancestors are looking out for us, and they love us beyond measure.

She explained it to me this way: "Think about how much you love your children. Then think about how even more precious your grandchildren are to you. Now imagine your grandchildren having children. And those children, and on and on..."

With each generation, your love intensifies.

So I am going to stop here. Because clearly I have gone out on a shaky limb here. I am quite sure that there are readers who are highly skeptical that my parents are trying to contact me. I fully realize that I am asking you the reader to believe in...well, in ghosts, as Noah suggested.

But that isn't going to stop me from pursuing contact with my dear parents. I decided not long ago to text them directly. And to write the invitation in Italian!

In English, what I wrote was:

"Dear Dee and Ric, if you want to speak to or through me,

I am listening, especially when I meditate!"

So far, they haven't answered.

Sunday, February 04, 2024

CHAPTER SIX: "Fun? It Has Taken Me a Lifetime to Learn How to Have Fun!"

I don’t think it was any coincidence that at the same time I began expressing myself in Italian back in 2020, I was also beginning to deal in earnest with some difficult issues related to my upbringing.

There were two themes running through the many conversations I was having with my therapist, Mary M.

One was my dad’s tendency to flare up in anger. His outbursts could be terrible; they were very scary to me as I grew up. Indeed, his blowups were a reality up until the very end of his life.

Just months before he passed in August of 2019, I remember a particular outburst one day when my sister and I were meeting with several staff members from the independent living apartment where he was. I don’t remember why he screamed at me. Honestly, I think I’ve put it out of my mind because it was so upsetting and puzzling.

All I recall is him turning to me in the presence of several non-family members and pointing at me and screaming that he didn’t want me involved in whatever decision it was regarding his care.

I was astonished. And hurt. And uncertain. Why he was screaming at me? What exactly had I done to deserve this humiliating tirade? I tried to think back, but to no avail.

But this is how Dad was. He was a genuinely loving man and he could be very pleasant. And things could be sailing along just fine. But if something set him off – be it a discussion about politics or some other situation that irked him, or which he believed he had been wronged, well, then, it was as if a lighted match descended on an open container of gasoline.

The other theme in my therapy had to do with my mom, and her illness and her tendency toward fear and depression.

As a very young child I had watched her struggle for breath. I was terrified that she was going to die and so was she! Mom couldn't help being sick, of course, and it certainly wasn't her fault that she had no one to help her out. But the consequences of her having asthma, at a time when the disease was not treated like it is today, were very serious: along with my brother and sister, I carried a deep-seated fear through most of my adulthood.

But it would be wrong to suggest that my parents weren't good parents. I could feel my parents' deep love and concern for me growing up. Ironically, I was rather sickly as a young child. I had serious bouts of pneumonia at ages three, five and seven. During one of those bouts, I also had German measles and an ear infection.

Despite her own illness, my mother was always there to care for me! I remember her rubbing alcohol on my bare arms and legs when I had really bad fevers. I remember her sitting by my bed and then, coming to the hospital to see me, as I lay in a crib.

What I don't remember, at all, growing up was this: I have no memories of having any fun!

We were very short on money, so naturally vacations were out of the question. But we didn't do other, less expensive things. In part because of her illness, but also because Mom wasn't oriented toward the outdoors, my family never went camping, or hiking, or canoeing. We never went ice skating, or snowshoeing, or bowling, or playing tennis. I remember sledding in the winter, and I remember very occasionally going swimming at the ocean in southern Connecticut -- but it was rare! And I don't remember ever seeing my mother step into the water!

In both houses we lived in, we were in rural areas, but we never took even short walks through the woods!

I remember going to the drive-in when it was just my parents, me and my older brother, Rich. But by the time my sisters arrived, the car was too small to go to the drive-in anymore!

As a family of six, I remember going to the movies...once! It was Memorial Day, and we went to see "The Swiss Family Robinson." I was giddy with joy that day. But it was not something that we repeated.

We spent most of our weekends traveling from our house in Pleasant Valley back to see the "family" -- my mother's parents in Canton, CT and my dad's family, about another half hour away, in Bristol. What did we do? Mostly, we would sit around and eat. The adults enjoyed wine, and conversation. We kids played with our cousins outdoors in the backyards.

On the way to Connecticut (a drive of about an hour and a half), we passed through Amenia, New York on Route 44. There was a diner in Amenia, and every time we drove through the town, my brother and I would send up a cheer: "Brookside Diner just ahead, Brookside Diner just ahead." My parents never stopped -- not even for a coke or a cup of cocoa!

As we left the town, we would send up a different, much sadder, cheer: "Brookside Diner just behind. Brookside Diner, just behind!"

I have mixed feelings bringing these stories up. I can fault my parents, but when I think about it, I have to ask: was it THEIR fault?

Not really! They were the children of very hard-working Italian American parents, my grandparents, who scrimped and saved through the Great Depression and the Second World War. They spent all of their time and money paying for housing, and putting food on the table! They didn't think about having FUN! To them, fun or enjoyment was what they got when they enjoyed their children and siblings, sharing plenty of good food!

But it's also important that I talk about this situation for this reason: one of the root causes of my lifelong depression growing up was the fact that I didn't emerge from a family that knew what it meant to have fun, or to enjoy the moment. It's ironic, because today we think of Italy, and Italians, as the people who know so well how to enjoy life. Besides first-class food, they supply the world with extraordinary art and music.

By and large though my ancestors came to the United States because they were so poor; they weren't the lucky Italians who had the leisure and disposable income to appreciate the arts. (I say that but then I recall that my mother's mom, Grandma Mish, went to the opera in Hartford for years.)

What my ancestors knew how to do was work! My dad, who was not fortunate enough to go to college, worked hard at IBM and enjoyed a good career there. On weekends, he spent much of his time in the basement, on woodworking projects (which he truly enjoyed), or taking care of the house. In the summer he had a large vegetable garden. Mom was a devoted mother and an extraordinary cook and housewife. She did embroidery and excelled as a baker. Once we kids were grown, she took up stained glassmaking and produced dozens of wonderful pieces of art, many of which I own and treasure.

But still, growing up, we did not manage to learn from Mom or Dad how to enjoy ourselves.

When I think back to what we did as a family of six, I am faced with one memory: blueberry picking. Unfortunately I don't remember it being any fun at all.

My dad fashioned berry-picking containers from old coffee cans. He punched holes on both sides of the cans and laced them up with strings, which went around our necks. Then we drove to the blueberry fields in Wingdale, New York. And we stood for what felt like hours, picking blueberries.

I remember one year when my older brother rebelled. I remember him saying he just didn't feel like picking blueberries that day. My father was furious; he warned Rich that if he didn't pick berries, he would get none of my mom's extraordinary blueberry pie. And in fact, Rich didn't get any pie.

When I hit puberty at about age 13, my father tried every which way to restrict me. He told me repeatedly he feared that I would "get embroiled." Eventually I came to realize that what he meant was, he feared I would get pregnant.

One summer about that time, my first cousins (who had a beach house on the Connecticut shore) invited me to stay for a couple of weeks. I was dying to do it. My dad, however, said that his sister was much too lenient with her daughters (the oldest of which was quite boy-crazy). Dad refused to let me stay with my cousins at the beach. I came home to our house in Pleasant Valley and I barricaded myself in my bedroom and read books.

I did enjoy riding my bike, however. I loved the feeling of gliding along on the country roads, cool air streaming my face and body. I could ride "no hands" and I loved doing it.

During the summers, my brother and I would ride our bikes several miles in order to get to a state park that had a large swimming pool. It was huge and very overcrowded and by the time we rode home, we were sunburned and sweaty, and hotter than when we started.

What did I do in the summers? I always envied my friend Leslie who went to YWCA camp, but we could not afford it. Instead, I spent hot summer days as a youngster, sitting on blankets in the garage, where it was cooler than inside the house; there on the garage floor, my sister and our girlfriends played with our Barbie dolls. As I got older, I learned how to sew and that hobby occupied more and more of my time.

In high school, I joined an interdenominational youth group, a large singing group with many talented guitarists and other musicians. My social life came to revolve more and more around performances, some of which involved travel. I absolutely loved the rehearsals, the performances, and all the socializing in between. My dad, meanwhile, objected, complaining that the youth group took up too much of my time. It wasn't as though the singing was affecting my grades, though: I was an A student all the way through high school.

A memory stands out: I hadn't been in the group very long when an older performer came up to me and said something along these lines: "You know, you are pretty when you smile. You ought to do it more often."

I didn't learn to smile more, though. What I did learn to do, from my parents' and teachers' examples, was how to work hard. Along with that, I learned that it felt rewarding to achieve goals and earn other people's respect. Is it any wonder that I stepped onto the achievement treadmill in a great big way? Thus began my incessant desire to rack up one achievement after another; not only did I earn the highest grades possible, I also made it a point to join as many clubs and activities as I possibly could in high school, no matter whether I really cared about what they were doing.

Interestingly, my brother emerged from the same household as a first-class athelete. His chosen sport was rowing; he adored the sport and he excelled. He rowed for the first time in high school on the Hudson River. Later, he rowed at college and was in a two-man shell rowing in the Olympic finals in 1972. Ultimately, Rich became a very successful college crew coach; he enjoyed a 50-year career in the sport.

I never played sports; at age nine, I started ballet lessons and kept them up through high school (I am very grateful to my parents for buying me those lessons.) Sadly, though, the teacher -- Mildred Ruenes -- was strict, demanding and a bit snooty. I remember the French names of the dance positions were carefully written in cursive on all the walls of the dance studio. We were supposed to commit the French names -- like pas de bourree -- to memory; I never did. And I never felt much satisfaction trying to dance ballet.

When I left for college, I immediately started meeting all kinds of people, some of whom were wealthy and had spent their lives skiing and boating and travelling and playing tennis. Even among students who were, like me, on scholarship, so many of them seemed to know how to enjoy themselves, doing whatever it was they were doing!

I didn't realize it then, but it would take me decades to understand what it means to have fun. And it would take me almost as long to see that my lifelong depression was intimately linked with my inability to have fun.

As I finish writing this chapter, I realize how depressing it is.
And so, readers, my deepest apologies. All I can say is that I needed to write it, to lay out in a line of words how I felt growing up.

But now that this chapter is behind me, I can look forward to the far more hopeful chapters that follow! Because all of this writing is leading up to an answer to one question:

How does a person who has been thoroughly rehearsed in fear, shame and negative thinking growing up become a person who can live joyfully in the NOW?