December 31, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
On this last day of 2010, I’m sitting back and admiring and marveling about the milestones I’ve met in the last twelve months. It has been a year in which Tao Te Ching’s saying to “Do your work, then step back--the only path to serenity” applies very meaningfully to my life. Every morning when I awaken, I ask God to paint me a picture, guide me to do his will, offer him my life and my gifts to enrich his world. It’s a good way to live.
A new direction that’s opened up in recent months is the renovating of two additional spaces in my home/office for use as a psychotherapist. I finally have gotten my transcripts from the PhD and PsyD work I did in D.C. the two years after I came back from Egypt straightened out. I have the proof of qualifications now so that I can offer psychological testing here in Lake Charles. It was a happy day when Pearson certified that I could order the IQ tests that I was trained to administer 22 years ago. I still have the Rorschach and TAT tests that I acquired in that program. My Christmas gift to myself was these tests and a laptop to cut out one step in the process of gathering data from clients. I look forward to getting up and running in the new year as a child psychologist. On top of Mount Sinai in 1987, at the time that Craig and I were trying to have a test tube baby, I prayed to God that if I couldn’t have a baby, could I please be a child psychologist. This prayer is being answered with this new direction in sharing my gifts. I enjoyed being a therapist/teacher in my English classroom during my 33 year career, but this new direction is even more like “playing for a living.” I’m excited about this prospect.
For my birthday in September, my present to myself was finally getting the garage and storage space behind my bedroom cleared out of Ray’s residual tools and my old furniture from Galveston that I knew I’d never use. The garage is being converted to a space where I can do play therapy through crafts using the color therapy theories to support healing. I’ve painted the garage a peach color and replaced the mismatched filing cabinets with all black ones. The garage door was replaced with beautiful French doors with squared-off stained glass. The way color therapy works with this combination is this. I will tell the children (or adults) who work with me here that the peach color might bring up old memories that have strong feeling. When this happens, they will be told to then look at the black things in the room. Black lifts the trauma off, according to theory. At the end of the session, they will then be advised to focus on the brick wall or the stained glass. This step is said to set in healing. That’s one of the reasons why this brick-walled office of mine makes everyone feel so good when they come to see me, I believe. I have noticed in myself that healing experiences will happen when I’m out and about during the day, and coming home and sitting in my living room focusing on the brick sets in a feeling of peace. Serenity, tranquility, and creativity follow.
I have purchased some five-drawer cabinets that I plan to fill with various kinds of projects ranging from jigsaw puzzles to building a model airplane, etc. Clients will be told to go through the drawers and pick something they’d like to do. I will learn the same kinds of things that I learned in the English classroom when I gave my students choices in topics for projects. Their choices give me insight into the workings of their minds and the traumas of their lives. Healing came through working through these projects. Smell and sound therapy will also be a part of this picture. Baking cookies or bread can bring on comforting memories. Music in the background can also add to the atmosphere of healing. I have already been working with people with memory loss using music therapy. Singing songs from the past and reconnecting the memory to them is a very healing thing. Hymns, patriotic music, Christmas carols, and other familiar tunes really work well. I have personally found that music is my strong suit in memory. I know the lyrics of songs that I’m not even sure when I could have learned them. It makes me think that maybe my soul goes further back than I can remember, except through this music.
My Mensa group here in Lake Charles decided to alter our usual monthly meetings from going sightseeing somewhere to working on memory recovery, too. On the second Sunday of each month at 2:00, the group gathers in my living room to read and discuss a story from a collection of stories about coming of age. These stories bring up opportunities for us to remember similar examples out of our pasts, and interestingly, each story has also opened up discussions about world issues and things that need attention. I am liking the format of this kind of book group because there’s no preparation. Anyone can arrange to be here if they call ahead. We read each story aloud and then reflect on it personally and analytically. Two paradigms that we often view each plot through are the hero’s journey and the reader as artist. Each story seems to prove Joseph Campbell’s famous theory that all stories told ultimately relate to a quest and all of the pitfalls and milestones a hero or heroine must traverse. Reading as an artist is a theory of Maya Angelou. She teaches us to make each line of a story our own piece of art by relating it to our own personal journey. This method also reminds me of the lectio divina method of praying where you make the words in the Bible come alive with meaning for your current situation and life. That, too, is another avenue I pursue often.
My home/office is bursting with new life. After five years of pretty much leaving Ray’s files and things intact, I finally moved to clear my chakras of that loving relationship in my life, hoping that this will open the doorway for another relationship of an even deeper kind to begin down the long and winding road to my door. I’m praying for my own true love again like I did in 1997 on this same New Year’s Eve evening with the prayer’s answer being Ray’s entry into my life just a few months later. We’ll see what God has in store for my coming year in this area.
My rental business has been like participating in a television series with the wide variation of how rents come in each month and the configuration of repairs that come up. I received enough money from Mesothelioma settlements about ten months ago to pay off all of my rent houses and to buy a new Honda CRV. It was a feeling of joy that the list of debt that Ray and I drew up before he died was finally paid off. It has given me financial freedom to start down the pathway of renovating all of the houses, one by one. In the last year I’ve accomplished four of them. I have two more currently being done. I have a very valued friend in Sandra Chisholm who is my contractor. Once we’ve made up a list of things to be done on a house, I turn it over to her. She consults with me almost daily and keeps the process going until a piece of art is created in each of these old houses. She is understanding the value of this kind of therapy. The tenants perk up and become happier and livelier every time we finish another house. Houses represent the souls who live in them, and working on the house and making it more beautiful does something very valuable for the residents inside. It’s another way that I feel I work for God in his good therapy for all of us. In this new year, I intend to alter my criteria for acceptable tenant/therapy clients. I will no longer accept unmarried couples. I have a theory that because they are not fully committed to each other, they often aren’t committed to me and my contract with them either. Mini disasters from this lack of responsibility have cost me too much time and trouble. I’m looking for healthier clients and will screen well in the future. I feel it’s better to let a house sit empty than risk its being torn up. The last two houses that have turned over have been left in perfect shape with the tenants getting their deposits back. I see this as a new fork in that road of rental therapy.
I have recently started cooking regularly again. I haven’t done this kind of cooking since the years I lived in Cairo. I’m finding benefits from this new occupation in many areas. My bowels seem to be enjoying better health since I started eating exclusively at home. I have suffered from diarrhea over and over again since living Lake Charles, and now it’s stopped. I’m also noticing that eating according to the food pyramid instead according to all of the diet regimes that have held me in bondage for the last 40 years is seemingly clearing poisons out of my system. The blackheads on my face that mushroomed here in Lake Charles, probably due to the same reason I was having diarrhea, are now healing and going away. I feel that the interesting menus that I’m preparing are a healthy answer. I especially love to trying international cuisines. The last two Thanksgivings I have cooked a menu from the Fine Cooking magazine, and it has been rewarding. Last year it was Gerwertztrameiner chicken thighs with grapes, and this year it was a turkey leg mole. Coming back to life in this area is a blast!
I would love to sponsor a 4-H club for young girls here in my home/office and teach cooking and sewing the way I was taught when I was young in Elkhorn, Nebraska. Alice Magee named our club the Diligent Girls, and her teachings still guide me today. I got ribbons for snicker doodle cookies and angel food cake at county and state fairs. I made an apron, skirts and blouses and modeled them there, too. One year our club participated in the music contest at state and sang “Over the Rainbow.“ I feel like that’s where I’m living now with the shadows that are arising to make my life so much fun.
I’ve gotten my kitchen newly outfitted with black and pewter small appliances and had electrical added so that they are all plugged in a easily used. It’s a joy to make a list of groceries for each menu and go out adventuring in the many ethnic markets in Lake Charles for unusual ingredients that I often have never heard of. I’ve discovered a shop that feels like you’re walking into China and another one that is filled with Indian food ingredients. There are others, too, like Middle Eastern and South American. It’s a more fun way to market. Instead of stockpiling lots of food in my cupboard, now I just keep breakfast and lunch foods and market for each menu and that’s it. I’m loving it. I’ve had amazing adventures through looking for an ingredient like aragula or Champagne vinegar. I meet the nicest people and learn new ways of eating and being.
My décor in my home/office has shifted. I am currently enjoying the pleasure of visiting all kinds of churches around Lake Charles. When I lived in Hawaii my junior year of high school, the Sunday School lesson book was called Your Neighbor’s Faith. That year, our class visited other churches comparing them to the Lutheran faith I am confirmed in. I’ve come back to this exciting way of knowing the many faces of God and his people. It’s a good way to get out and know more people in the community. In conjunction with this practice, I am deliberately collecting symbols of all of the religions of the world and finding places for them to be here in my soul’s space. They reflect a deepening of my relationship to God and an awareness that all of the religions connect us to each other and Him.
Singing and dancing continue to grow in my life. I have invested in old albums to sing and dance to in my living room. The acoustics with the vaulted ceiling make it feel like I’m singing in a recording studio. It’s a lot of fun. I haven’t been to Curves in a long time, but I intend to get back there starting next week to get my body toned up again. I’m finding that the singing and dancing aren’t enough of a workout, although they‘re my favorite thing to do. When I’ve worked especially hard on a certain day, I give myself an uplift with my music. Singing lifts my spirits high.
I found the perfect plate for the front of my CRV. It says “Carpe Diem” or Seize the Day, an old way of looking at living your life. Each morning I awaken with the anticipation of a great adventure stirring. God guides me down a pathway of seeking and finding ways to contribute to the healing of our world. I’m wearing purple a lot, solidifying my promise to myself that sovereignty and independence in living will carry me successfully into these years ahead when women are known to be in their stride. When I turn 60 in the coming year, I will make a pact with myself to live my life to its fullest to the glory of God. I pray that for all of you in this new year. God bless you in your own pursuits of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I decided to post my annual letter on my blog each year instead of going through the many steps of mailing out a letter and card, and already I’m seeing many advantages and benefits. This letter is much more detailed and interesting, I think, because it can be as long as I want. I don’t have to worry about printing and mailing. It’s also a major money and time saver. I spent eight hours last year stuffing my envelopes for mailing. I hope all who receive this news will give me feedback about this new format.
Again, I ask God’s blessings on your coming year…. It is midnight and 2011 is here with sounds and sights of celebration in my neighborhood. The sky is lit up with fireworks. May we all find many celebrations in the coming twelve months!
Love, Linda
