This morning my bedroom door creaking open was what awakened me.  Maybe it was from the heat going on and expansion in the house or maybe it was from something else. I had trouble going back to sleep.  Lying there with my eyes closed, I got to thinking of the past and all the memories, mostly neutral ones that randomly started to float into my mind.  Like finding nuggets of stones.  Interesting, but not precious. A trail, one leading to the next held together so loosely that they were hard to catch.  
 
I am back in Junior High as it was called back then.  Just starting 7th grade.  Sitting in my next-door neighbors house up in her bedroom.  Her family dysfunctional in ways unfamiliar to me. Foreign enough that it is hard to compare.  Once at her birthday party, her mother made a scene.  She was histrionic and manipulative, I found her repelling.  My father despised her.  When they first moved in she told the moving company that it was ok to drive on our lawn, her first lie.  My father loved his lawn and my mom abhorred liars so hence their dislike of her started that day only to intensify over time with each additional infraction. They would use words like crass, a liar, and cheap to describe her. 
 
I don’t remember what the scene was the night of her 12-year-old birthday party but I sensed that her mom wanted us to leave.  Maybe she wanted the attention on her rather than my friend Kathy.  It is hard to say what motivated her.  I felt sorry for my friend.  She didn’t deserve a mother like that.  Nobody did. Kathy had an elegance that her mom lacked but she was loyal to her, which made the scene even worse.  She couldn’t even vocalize the awkwardness of needing to send us home.  The unfairness of her mom ruining her birthday party.  She didn’t have to say how hard and horrible this was. We all knew.  I don’t remember who else was there just that we all left quickly and quietly. I think an ambulance might have been called.  Her mom did that a lot.  Calling attention to their family in obtuse and unnecessary ways.
 
I stared at the cake as we were leaving that sat on her counter.  She and I had had such fun making it a few days before.  It was dense and heavy with a mish mash of ingredients that we put in.  Something that I never would have been allowed to do.  Make a cake unsupervised with flour flying everywhere.  Our home was pristinely clean.  My father never would have allowed this. When we made the cake, (just she and I) it had been so freeing to do this without parental supervision. The day of her party  though, I didn’t admire her freedom. I didn’t feel safe at her house that night.  I had an edgy feeling.  The boundaries of what was true and real to me were lacking there. Like the boundaries of reality were held so loosely that I questioned their existence in her home.
 
She wrote in my 7th grade yearbook just weeks before, that I would become a psychiatrist someday. And at our 20-year high school reunion many years later, our friendship ending long before, she still had vivid memories from back then as I did too.  Except her memories were different from mine, not shared memories. She hugged me at the reunion and asked did I remember how much I had helped her when she got her period for the first time?  I had been the only one she had told.  I hadn’t remembered and told her this with honesty, but said I was glad that I had been there for her. I hugged her around her expanding pregnant belly before she hesitated and then each of us smiled as we moved away to talk to other people from HS.
 
Our friendship ended not long after her birthday party.  She started to hang out with identical twins, Katie and Colleen, who lived near by.  They wore all the newest clothes that their parents could afford. I convinced my mom that I needed Levis and saddle shoes and a Dorothy Hamel haircut like the twins.  When I got what they had it didn’t look the same on me and I found this disappointing . 
 
The three of them (Kathy and the twins) started to pop pills like aspirin and thought that it was fun to take a bunch at a time.  “Try it”, they coaxed me.  I didn’t have an interest in this and was never much of a follower unless it seemed fitting to me.  I told them no.  That this was too weird.  Why would they want to do that?  It seemed silly, dangerous and strange.
 
They started to exclude me from things after that.  Having sleepovers without me. Once day I confronted my friend Kathy about it and she lied to me.  She was so smooth that I almost believed her. I backed her in a corner and told her I knew that she wasn’t telling the truth. I threw berries at her as she and the twins were leaving her house one day.  The twins laughed but Kathy looked back with a hurt expression on her face. I never found the twins that interesting after that. 

I decided to wait before I talked to Kathy again. She could apologize to me.  I wouldn’t reach out to her unless she reached out to me first.  Months and years went by and she never did.  I am not sure if the ending of our friendship bothered her as much as it bothered me .  I missed her and the closeness of having a best friend, but was too stubborn to give in.  In retrospect it might not have even mattered.  Maybe our lives were meant to diverge in different directions.

10 years ago, I was moving out of Philadelphia and right before I moved a friend asked if I would officiate at her fiancé's and her wedding.  She owned a yoga studio that I had been teaching at since it had opened in 2004 and we had gotten to be good friends. I wasn't a minister or an officiator of weddings back then nor did I have any intention of becoming one but told her that I would do a blessing for them.  Their wedding was beautiful. It was at an outdoor venue, picturesque in the Fall outside of Philly and it was everything they wanted.  It was bittersweet then to be there as my time was short; I was leaving on a plane a day later moving to Cleveland.  

It is bittersweet now too as I think back to all those years ago which now seem longer than the decade that they were. Last night I didn't sleep well and my friend popped into my mind.  I haven't talked with her in years.  We had a falling out when I first moved to Asheville and the friendship dwindled to Facebook birthday wishes.  For whatever reason I wondered about her today in the wee hours of morning and how she's doing.  I remembered a psychic's prediction that she would end up alone and how this upset her and how I consoled her that this wasn't true. 

I wonder if she and her husband are still together.  Ironically later this afternoon, I went into my office and was cleaning up files and ran across this blessing the one I wrote and read at their wedding.  In honor of my friend, her marriage, my own marriage and all marriages here it is;

I ask the Universal Witness also known by some as God, to bless this union of my two friends with love. May they strive for patience, understanding, commitment, caring, forgiveness, and companionship in their time together on earth and into the after life.  

May this union enhance them as individuals as they marry each other today and into tomorrow.  May each of them be a better person as two than they could ever be as one.  

May they find completion and contentment in their hearts and in the heart of each other.  May they reach for peace in the day to day mundane as well as heightened joy that comes with living together as one. 

May they take this commitment seriously as a spiritual bond of two souls joining as a myriad of hope and love.
​
If children are a part of this union may they welcome these little people and take care to cultivate their development and protect their happiness and wellbeing as a borrowed gift from God.  I wish them everything that I have gained throughout the last 24 years and more.  

I bless (my friends) with love, with joy and with hopeful wonder in the name of all of us here today as witness and in the name of our creator and those watching over us from the Spirit world--go in peace and love to serve your highest mission in life with help and grace from each other Amen.

As I write this I hope that my friend's marriage has fared better than our friendship has and that she doesn't feel alone today.

​When I was quite young we had a cat for a short time. My parents named him Sir Charles. He was a Siamese cat and quite good looking, but in the cat world just a cat. He did cat things like scratch the furniture and curtains. Towards the end of owning Sir Charles, it was discovered that I had allergies so we ended up giving him away to the neighbors across the street. 

They lived in a little red house and (we) would visit him daily which made us happy and he seemed just as happy being there.  Maybe he didn’t miss five young children running around. The Brooks, the family that adopted him only had two. When they moved to a farm a short time later it's ok my parents reassured us, a farm is what a cat likes room to roam. I remember being very sad when Sir Charles moved. Shortly after, my allergies got even worse and I needed to go for weekly allergy shots. The only thing good about the shots was I got to spend time with my mom, which seemed special as her attention was otherwise divided with my siblings and other things that busied her.

A year or so after Sir Charles departure, I saved up all of my money and we got a dog that after some debate was named O’hara.  She was a white toy poodle the only breed the allergist suggested we get. At first, she had a shaky beginning.  When we had had her only two weeks, my youngest brother, Pat who was two at the time fell on her and broke her leg.  Luckily she recovered quite nicely and ended up living a long life.

My father used to call her the $75 scavenger as she liked to eat the scraps that fell from the table and just about anything else she could get her hands (mouth) on, including the “nappies” of the baby next door.  Bryn, their youngest had ‘failure to thrive’ and the pediatrician told them to save her diapers so that they could be analyzed. They were a proper family and horrified that O’hara had managed to get into their garage and eat the diapers before they could be brought in to the doctor’s office.

That same year she also ate Pat's Easter basket.  My youngest brother (Pat) convinced the ‘Easter Bunny to hide our baskets as this ‘is how it was supposed to be done’ he told my mom, not left on the kitchen table.  So that year The Bunny hid the baskets in various parts of the house. After the baskets were hidden and we were asleep for the night, Ohara made herself busy managing to eat all of one basket, unfortunately Pat’s. Pat, a sugar fiend and a lover of holidays was nearly inconsolable that Easter morning even though the rest of us had divided up our own for him.  "Why did O’hara choose my basket?"  (In retrospect one has to wonder if it was karmic payback for him breaking her leg.) . We closely watched O'hara as it's been told that dogs aren't to eat chocolate.  Just like with the nappies she was fine though.  (Faring even better than Pat.) 

O’hara liked my mom the best.  Not only because she was the one who fed her but they were kindred souls.  Both intelligent with a vengeful side to them.  (My mom tells the story of how when she was five she chased Jerry Hickey around the neighborhood with a hammer after he knocked a stone out of her ring. She remarks that he was a heavy boy but luckily that day was able to outrun her.)  My Dad it seemed was often yelling at O’hara for this or that screaming “damn dog!” Ohara one day got her own revenge on him placing one of her treasures on his pillow. She also insisted on perching herself on the top of the couch in the living room which used to irk him.  It was a room we weren't to use unless we had company but O’hara would sit there each day perched on the top of the couch with her small head peaking through the curtains awaiting our return.  She would quickly pull away when we would drive up but not before my Dad saw her screaming that damn dog! Both were leery of the other having met their match. 
​
It wasn’t until years later as an adult that I got another dog.  Not until Oscar showed up one cold blustery morning at our home in Cleveland.  Landing in our garage after Liam (my son) forgot to close the garage door the night before after taking out the garbage.  Shivering and starved I brought the dog in and then Liam named him Oscar based on a character from Curb Your Enthusiasm TV show.

​As I write this today, I have to wonder if  Oscar is O’hara reincarnated.  Liam, who isn't unlike his grandfather seems to have the same type of love/hate relationship with Oscar that my Dad had with Ohara.  Oscar has managed to poop (and pee) a few times in Liam's room and Liam has been known to scream, damn dog! when this happens...

 ​1/10/17 It is supposed to be a hard full moon for me this week when my Capricorn meets my Cancer.  It should especially be interesting as this is where my nodal signs are…but for now things are smooth and as I make my healthy breakfast I notice that forming habits and routines (something I was opposed to in the past) actually brings me comfort today and I think I could do this for an extended period of time couldn’t I? I could find peace and pleasure in being relaxed with things flowing day after day without the excitement and trepidation of change and movement. 
 
I remember decades ago when I worked at BC/BS in upstate NY, each day parking my car in a different spot and the effort it took to find it.

In retrospect it didn’t seem worth it, but I did it anyway without giving it much thought. Bev my office mate was a creature of routine and she had protection; protection that I was missing as I sat beside her mixing it up day after day. She is probably retired now.  When we worked together she had already been there over 15 years.  
 
During my short time there in some ways I stood out but in other ways I blended in as the bean counter/worker bee that we all were. A cog in the wheel at the beginnings of ‘managed care’ within our industry.  The start of something new that even year’s later still reverberates in complex ways.  Bev wrote in my goodbye card that she admired my imperfect yet successful nature.  An imperfect person that allowed for repose, space to her perfectionistic tendencies. A comfort that was now missing for her in the empty chair that sat beside her.
 
One time at our holiday party I had everyone take the Myers Briggs personality test and they all came out STJs to my NFP.  Ill fit there but still I stayed until I sighed relief when we moved.  I was so afraid of leaving there that it took a move to get me out. The money was good and where would I go? My tunnel vision was unable to see the possibilities. I couldn’t see that the choices were innumerable.  Maybe because I had already bought into the way life was supposed to be.
 
So I trotted off each day with trepidation and anxiety.  I remember once sitting at lunch with a bunch of coworkers and I had trouble swallowing my food, my anxiety was so high.  After that I stopped going to lunch with them.  Years after at other places I worked in the healthcare industry, I would still eat alone.  Outside where I could sit in the sun and close my eyes and breathe and be away from the stifling air. I guess you could say I wasn’t a team player, I avoided anything other than small talk and business.  I just hadn’t found my tribe yet.  Even now in groups, I still have anxiety.  Those feelings of inadequacy still lurk but markedly less so than they did back then. Now I spend time with people who feel right and whose presence gives to me a feeling of belongingness.  Something I didn’t feel back then when I was especially resistant to routines for fear of the gripping hold that they could have on me.
 
I remember Bev being steady and staid. We complemented each other well and I didn’t find her judgmental as I suspected many of the others to be. If anything it was a soft judging eye that she affixed on me.  Wondering what I would do next.  We were compatible as we worked side by side. Trying to do good things as best as we could in the environment where we were housed.  We provided a lot of education for providers on how things would now be in the world of reimbursement.  I had grand ideas and we offered seminars and speaking venues that we pulled off with remarkable aplomb.  My ideas were grounded by her efforts to implement them.  Neither one of us could have done it without the other. As I think back, I can still see Bev and her routinized nature, and how the days just flowed into the next for her without any markings of change. Especially before I got there.  I wonder what it would be like to have that protection today of being a person of routine..slow and steady.
 
When did I get like this? Wishing for something so foreign and safe. Maybe just searching for the right comfort to cocoon myself in. The comfort of being in Asheville.  Of trusting in staying here without searching for change.  I could fall into a healthy habit with one day flowing into the next, couldn't I? This is what I am thinking this morning, as I look out into the cold, cloudy, snowy morning with the obscurity of the unknown less appealing to me today. I am not antsy to go. Maybe I am still as stuck as I was back then but now with more presence, awareness and ease.

​

 We did have a lot of excitement growing up and if you asked anyone who knew my parents they would say they were fun. They grew up in the same city that we lived in so their college friends were around and they all went out together every Friday and Saturday night. My mother was a stay at home mom when we were very little. (She didn’t go back to work full time until I was 12) so by Friday night she was more than ready to party with my Dad and we were ready for them to go! 
 
It was exciting to see them head out the door. But first there was the challenge of finding a babysitting which wasn’t easy especially since there was five of us all under 10 (by the time I was 11 year old, my sister and I were doing the babysitting).  One time my mom said she had to call 50 teenagers before she could find someone willing to watch us.  In retrospect I can see why.
 
We used to play with the babysitter’s hair and we’d tangle it up in the brush while asking them a bunch of uncomfortable and private questions. One babysitter we locked in the basement.  We barracked the door so she couldn’t come up until she said the pre-defined ‘magic word.’  Another time we drew with crayons all over our beds and then told her not to worry we would clean it up like our dad did, with cleanser.  We poured a hefty dosage of comet and water all over the bed before wiping it around with paper towels, which made a huge mess, and then we rushed down the stairs the minute our parents got home to make sure that the sitter didn’t say that we’d misbehaved. “Did she tell you we were good?” We’d shout as we hurried down the stairs and as she hurried out the door. Once my sister and I started to watch my brothers it wasn’t quite as fun anymore even though my parents did pay us. 
 
My mom tutored for extra money and often it was for kids who were kicked out of their home or had some other type of trauma. Once she tutored two teenagers who essentially were homeless and lived on the street prostituting to survive before being placed in foster care.  I am not sure how or why my mom came to tutor them but do remember that she felt sorry for them and invited them over once to swim in our pool.  They had the same first names as my sister and I and were only a few years older than we were.  I couldn’t help but gawk at them like they were celebrities of some sort while we sat on the side of the pool dipping our legs in the water chatting about our similar yet very dissimilar lives.  I remember trying to be polite but being inquisitive too.
 
Most of the summers you could find us there at the pool.  One day my brothers and I were swimming while my sister was at the mall with her new friend. My sister’s friend’s mom had dropped them off and my mom was to pick the girls up.  When it was time to head to the mall, my mom rushed to get us into the car all still with our bathing suits on (including my mom).  We, kids were barefooted but my mom grabbed the nearest pair of shoes to drive in, (her high heels) figuring they would be fine given she shouldn’t have to get out of the car as she had instructed my sister to meet her outside of Sears. 
 
Big mistake. My sister got the directions confused, as did her friend on where to meet her which necessitated my mom needing to prance through the mall in her bathing suit looking for them. Eventually she did found them at the other end but not before running into a neighbor.  Neither my mom nor the neighbor let on that they knew each other, both looking away as they passed one another.  It is no wonder my mom liked to escape with an Agatha Christie book and a few glasses of wine at the end of her day.