Singing My Heart Out… almost?

I Cry For the Children (1992) words and music by Melinda Maxwell-Smith

I cry for the children whose terrors come in the night

Who tremble through ‘til the morning and walk the day without light

I cry for the children who forget what they mustn’t know

Who bravely smile at a stranger to hide what they mustn’t show

I cry for all the ones whose secret’s never been told

I cry for those of us who kept it ‘til we were old

I cry for the young ones whose eyes stare blind into space

Whose smiles seem so disconnected from tears that once stained their face

I cry for the power that was stripped but not really lost

The first time ever they were touched, too young that boundary was crossed

I cry for all the ones who’re struggling hard now like me

To heal the ancient wounds and taste what it means to be free

We’re all little children with nightmares yearning for light

The deeper we dare into darkness, the more we’re given true sight

So we toddle like children, small steps and small victories

Freshly facing the old situations, re-writing our own histories

I cry for all the love we needed when we were small

I cry and with the tears, begin dissolving the wall

Someday, I’ll fly………

I wrote these lyrics in 1992... heartfelt lyrics about child abuse, which too many children endure. This song flowed through me - virtually intact - lyrics and melody co-arising. I couldn’t tell if I'd channeled it or where it came from. It was a spontaneous occurrence in my car as I drove away from the Healing Light Center, where I’d just handed over an article entitled Composting Incest: A Progress Report, which got published in their newsletter. Revealing the secret of my past on paper seemed to lift a veil off my creativity - freeing me to tell the truth also about other things in my life.

Singing out loud still causes me some grumbly-tummy fearful feelings, but it’s gotten better over years and years of therapy and bodywork. I no longer panic… I just shake a little.

In my family of origin, being visible (and audible) led to being found and hurt by my father, who just couldn’t help himself. He was a sick man and alcoholic. I don’t believe it occurred to him that he was hurting my brother and me - separately, never together. It was always one at a time.

My mom couldn’t figure out why I would stand on the front seat of the old Hudson Sedan while she drove us toward home and I would just scream an unending scream staring into middle space. She said she had to pull to the side of the road and quiet me and hold me close to her, there on the front seat. This was in the early 1950's, before cars had seat belts. I was two or three years old. 

Mom couldn’t figure out why her son left home when he was sixteen. She didn’t know that he’d begun to drink when he was ten years old. Mom couldn’t understand why I became promiscuous and involved in the drug culture of the ’60’s. She couldn’t believe it, when I told her, in 1991, when my memories surfaced, that our father had used us for his sexual gratification.

I want the secret to be told around the world that children left alone with addicted, imbalanced adults are not safe. I want the cycle of abuse to stop.

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Recently, when visiting the Galápagos Islands, my husband and I learned that there is a phenomenon, relatively newly observed among the Nasca Booby birds, which the naturalists call “NAV.” Non-parental Adult Visitation. While a parent is out of the nest hunting for food for its babies, a parent from another nest pays a visit and plucks out all the neighbor baby’s neck feathers. Yuck, right?! We saw one forlorn little one with a raw naked pink neck. So sad. 

The thing is, these picked on birds grow up to act out on other young birds. The picked on become the perpetrators. From a single incident, who knows what possessed that first bird to go awol from its own nest and pick on another bird’s offspring, there is now an epidemic of NAV and bald neck Nasca Boobies in the Galápagos! They speculate it has to do with overpopulation. The point is, hurt that doesn't get healed gets acted out.

What ever possessed the first human to act out against her / his own offspring? We don’t know.  We DO know that child abuse is an epidemic - a silent epidemic.

I want to sing my heart out about this deep dark American secret; this UN-American, anti-life, counter-productive, and world wide problem of subjecting our most precious young ones to horrors they ought not be exposed to in the place (home) where they are supposed to be nurtured. 

I’m on a mission to reclaim my voice, damn the thought of being hurt... Dad is dead! Even if I sing off-key, I want hope to be conveyed to young ones everywhere that there is a way out of the nightmare. There are people watching and wanting to protect them (us) from NAV and parental abuse too - which is actually much more common.

With the help of two wonderfully talented and generous friends, I’m in process of recording the song. 

May it be of use.

Things We Lost In the Move

2pm Friday: Heading to Echo Park to begin the clean-out process at the old homestead.

The family who's been renting my mom's home for eighteen years is almost moved out. My brothers and I are putting the lovely Lautner home of our childhood and adjacent lot on the market.

A professional organizer accompanies me… my therapist’s orders, as I’ve gone dizzy and dysfunctional in the past just entering the front door of where I grew up from age ten months to eighteen years. There are many ghosts on the move in that house - for me.

Lois Miller, of “Let’s Get You Organized”, is one of those creative beings who sees spatial relationships with clarity, and moves swiftly to right organizational wrongs. Lois is all about easy access. She’s helped me in the past in my own home/office when there was just too much clutter and no system to stem the tide. She’s a bonafide miracle worker.

We arrive, we work, I don’t get dizzy. We complete two closets worth of clean-out. YAY!

4:45pm Friday: Lois and I head back to my home -  which is normally “freeway-close” - except in this L.A. traffic. It takes us an hour twenty minutes to navigate the (usually) twenty minute trip.

Un-packing my car and moving the heavy boxes of 78rpm records, files, linens, and gazillions of pieces of framed artwork - some pieces done by my mom, some vintage reprints of the likes of Picasso, Chagall, and Rousseau - Lois and I work together. She is meticulous about wiping with damp cloth the years of accumulated dust.

While we’re stacking the STUFF in my (used to be organized) garage, I’m bemoaning the fact that I never did find what I set out to encounter today, which is a cardboard box full of my dad’s photos - many of which were from his stint at the L.A. Times as staff photographer from 1947 to 1964. Brother Mel and I surmise that some of what he was called on to document would drive anyone to drink. We cannot pretend there were not underlying causes for his alcoholism, but certainly at the end of some of those long days in a large city, there were good reasons to tip the bottle in an attempt to drown, or erase the images emblazoned on his retina. Perhaps it's best if those photos have gone missing, but someone is interested in dad's work, so I promised I would look.

6:00 to 6:40pm Friday: Upstairs in my healing space, I teach Lois the “Magic Four” yoga poses to undo any undue stress and tension our backs may have accrued with the heavy-lifting.

6:50pm Friday: I show Lois the size photos we’re talking about finding... 11 1/4 inch by 14 1/4 inch black/white glossies. HUGE compared to itty bitty iPhone images, right? She nods and notices her jacket is on inside out and corrects it.

Walking Lois to her car, I stop to give her a huge hug of great gratitude. She drives away.

7:00 pm Friday: I’m on the phone with a friend, when Lois beeps through to say she’s lost a gold hoop earring, and could it be at my house. She's just looked in the rear-view mirror and discovered one is missing. I tell her, I'll call back if I find it. I click back to my friend Lynn on the phone and tell her about the earring. She makes the brilliant suggestion to look side-ways, rather than directly down into the grass. I sit on my heels, moving like a duck or Moiseev dancer - retracing the steps Lois took, all the while talking to my friend, and noticing that the ten year old young man across the street has stopped playing basket ball with his friend to watch my strange moves. 

7:10 pm Friday: I hang up and enlist the help of my neighbor, his nanny, and basketball playing buddy, I bring out a few flashlights, hoping one of us will catch a glint in the grass or on the street from the gold hoop - even as daylight has turned to twilight. 

Nothin’. We don’t see anything glinting in the light. I look especially closely by the parked cars, where I hugged Lois g’bye, and in the living room where she switched up her jacket to right-side out, the yoga space upstairs, and both bathrooms.

In fact, I spend much of Friday night looking through the STUFF we’ve moved and re-re-retracing Lois’ steps in hopes of finding the gold.

10:00 a.m. Saturday: I hear from Sophia, of the family who is moving out of my family's home in Echo Park. She says that she’ll keep an eye open for the gold hoop earring. In turn, she asks if we encountered a heavy gold bracelet yesterday, that was her mom’s and has sentimental value to Sophia. My email back concludes that there are so many “moving pieces” in a move that things can become displaced - not just people… and that too much of life is about moving STUFF from one place to another.

Photos, a bracelet, an earring... all gone missing in the moving experience of STUFF going from here to there. The turn of a head, the gesture of an arm can send things flying. Where to look?? Open trash cans? Under cars? The slim space between bathroom carpet and the wall? Really?? Yep, I looked there… and in the record album boxes, file boxes and between frames, and in the linens used to separate the framed art work for the car ride. 

What I’ve gained in the move includes cleaner floor mats in my car, the awareness of how sneaky STUFF is, that it reproduces under car seats, and an inventory of dandelions, weeds, and violets invading the front lawn. 

I've also gained an appreciation for having company while doing the hard jobs. Thank you, Lois. Thank you, neighbors. Thank you, friend Lynn.

As my yoga teacher Rama used to say, "The easy way is hard enough… do it the easy way!" 

Crone's Ease

Perhaps, you’ve heard of Crohn’s Disease?

Named for one of three MDs, who, in the early 1930’s at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, observed patients with symptoms of inflammation in the gut. 

Doctor Burrill Bernard Crohn is credited with bringing attention to this collection of symptoms, which is recognized as a syndrome - just as migraine or recurring headaches, asthma and fibromyalgia are. 

Syndromes can have triggers and are sometimes associated with previous traumatic impacts which have caused the nervous system to go into Fight and/or Flight, while simultaneously going into complete Shutdown. It’s like asking the bowel to evacuate, so we can run as fast as we possibly can, (befuddling and be-fowling the would-be predator), and, at the same time, telling the nervous system to dive, dive, dive and stop all but life-saving processes:  Full speed ahead, and play dead at the same time. Confusing, to say the least. The gut responds with spasms - open, close, open, close, open, close. Thanks for naming it, Dr. Crohn!

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I would like to name a new syndrome, or collection of symptoms, which I’ve observed presenting in women who have PMZ - Post Menopausal Zest.  I call it Crone’s Ease.  An alternate acronym is: UPNUT.

You may be wondering what symptoms this syndrome comprises?

-Unbridled out-breaks of joy

-Pervasive attitude of optimism

        -Not giving a *@#^!! about what anyone else thinks of what she does

-Unpredictable bouts of blowing bubbles when children (of all ages) are present

-Tending toward self-care, making sure her own oxygen mask is in place before diving-in to help others

There are other symptoms, but they vary from woman to individual uppity woman. Some of our sisters may not experience PMZ or UPNUT. All we can do is love 'em up and keep the light on for them. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't.

Sometimes, again, not always, but often, there is a sweet time during pregnancy - usually at the end of the second trimester or beginning of the third, when a mother-to-be is past morning sickness, but not yet feeling like a beached whale. The handy pouch of the expando-belly keeps baby safe while mom goes about her business - pretty-much as-usual... no diapers to change yet, no fussy tummy to soothe, or ravenous hunger to nurse, but with that anticipatory joy that something good is a-comin'.

Similarly, there is a sweet spot as we women age, when our adult children need us less, as they busy themselves with their own life’s endeavors, and before decrepitude creeps up on us - somewhere between gratitude (that they've made it through most of the maze of life's vicissitudes) and our own (potential, but not guaranteed) infirmitude. 

That SWEET SPOT (not to be confused with the G-Spot, although it could be that yummy), is the time I dub... “CRONE’S EASE.”

Are you with me?

Crone's Ease supports the culture, when we walk away from the all-consuming mall and towards children. Whether we have actual grandchildren or not, hanging out with young ones can remind us to enjoy our second childhood by being delighted - not despondent, curious - not calamitous, innovative not enervated, and above all: engaged - not dis.

Bonuses are given us for every action which helps a child feel empowered and more in alignment with her or his essence.

A friend recently divulged a story of her involvement in helping a great nephew simply by paying attention to his symptoms and helping his mama google solutions for a tricky syndrome. Trite but true: It takes a village.

Once we've tried our hand at parenting, we can use those same skills to GRAND parent - or to become an "extend-a-helping-hand-parent."

Whether we become story-tellers in classrooms, bubble-blowers in parks, extra-caring aunties or, more formally, volunteer our time at venues where kids need mentors, our silver years can be filled to overflowing with our Ease of Being as Wise Women for our tribe.

A couple of years ago, when cleaning out my mother's closets - over-stuffed with the accumulation of her life experience,  I came across her blue volunteer apron from her stint at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. I smiled with pride right into the eyes in her photo on the name badge - thinking of the hours she spent quietly (or animatedly) reading to young ones in the play room. Thanks, Mom.

Joseph Campbell reminds us to follow our bliss. Whatever makes our eyes light up, brings us into closer alignment with our soul’s unique journey. In the case of my friend, the lightness in her heart, and in the great nephew’s heart  & the heart of his grateful mama was yummy. In the case of my mom, she always claimed she got far more than she could ever give back to the children at CHLA.

Come here for a purpose? Come here often?

We don’t have to fillet our heart to read the map. Follow the blinkers of eyes lighting up. What better time to tune-in and bliss-up than in the sweet-spot time of PMZ?

Enjoy your own version of Crone’s Ease, won’t you? 

Losing Time

Lost: One hour. If found, please return to me. I’m pretty sure my dream is in it.

A book on lucid dreaming landed in my lap. Between it and a book my baby brother recently published called (W)hole ~ From Absence To Abundance: Poems of Recovery and Faith from Stevie G, my entire ten minute attention span between working all day with students who are learning Somatic Experiencing, and falling into an exhausted sleep at Mercy Center, I read. Steven’s poetry enlightens me as to his process; alternately warming and shredding my heart with the poignancy of growing up with our mother, who just didn’t understand babies. Bless his heart, brother Steve has opened a vein and mined it. Those similarly afflicted - being raised by narcissistic mothers, may relate, and develop empathy and compassion for self and others. I wish him great success. (Available on Amazon.com)

I’ve gotten through about one third of A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics by Dylan Tuccillo, Jared Zeizel, and Thomas Peisel. The cover text promises it will help me to:

> Open doors to creativity and insight 

> Remember dreams and defuse nightmares

> Fly, shape-shift and reconnect with loved ones. 

Wow. Sign me up!

Alas, lucid dreaming remains elusive. The first step is to REMEMBER a dream. My sleep cycles appear to be so dys-regulated by night sweats and whiplash pain as to be unserviceable containers for dream fragments to zap memory receptors in my brain. I imagine the fragments would sound a bit like mosquitos and moths getting zapped in a bug zapper apparatus.

After a touching Moth-Story-Telling session Saturday night, (no moths were harmed) with our daughter in Oakland and nine of her friends, my husband and I straightened up, put food away and went to bed by 1 a.m. Pacific Daylight Savings Time, while said daughter and several of those same friends went to the tail end of an “eighties” themed thirty-ninth birthday party for a Jr. High School friend who usually attends the story telling, but couldn’t this time because of his birthday conflict. 

The theme for the story-telling was “Losing It.” It could have been about the time-futz, loss in general, getting angry or sad or terrified - anything that the title suggested to us. I sang a song meant to be a buffer against loss. Malvena Reynolds wrote: “If you love me, if you love, love, love me... plant a rose for me. And if you think you’ll love me for a long, long time... plant an apple tree. The sun will shine, the wind will blow, the rain will fall and the tree will grow, and whether you comes or whether you goes, I’ll have an apple and I’ll have a rose. Delicious to bite and nice to my nose, and every juicy nibble will be a sweet reminder of the time you loved me and planted a rose for me... and an apple tree.”

Mark told the story that made me fall in love with him the day we met in 1972 - the one about “losing it” and accidentally breaking the glass door of Bank of America at the corner of Hollywood and Highland. It’s still a great story. This time I didn’t laugh ‘til I nearly peed my pants, but all of us laughed a lot at his wondrous pantomime and voice mimicry of characters involved. 

One gal, new to the venue, mistook the intimacy created by deep listening for a group-therapy session. While all of us were deeply moved by her disclosure of terrible knowledge and surviving difficult passages in life, we were also a bit befuddled and bemused by the direction her “story” took us. Her boyfriend and my honey each told “lighter” stories afterwards, as a way to wash away the imprint of her dump. It was all a bit exhausting.

Sleeping in Sunday morning until “new time” 9:30 was a good plan. No alarms were set that would scare dreams away, but without a long enough stretch to catch the REM wave, I seem to be a hopeless case for nailing down any dream, let alone a lucid one!

The idea of lucid dreaming is that you set an intention to wake up in the dream, so you know that you ARE dreaming, and so that you can begin to guide your dreams to solve problems, reveal your innermost heart’s desires, and generally come into greater congruence with your true essence. Sigh... I DO want to join the club, but feel like a total failure.

I may have to seek help for deeper sleep, more contiguous hours of the lovely stuff, or wait until I catch my lost hour when we all regain one next fall.

Happy Daylight Savings Time.... ZZZzzzzzz

Play Time

I've been thinking about play.

This week I'm in Burlingame assisting a training for people learning very wonderful skills for helping folks heal from traumatic events. There are over one hundred students, assistants and faculty here and a slew of nuns praying for us all.

The retreat center is on a hill surrounded by ancient oaks and sturdy pines. The buildings are stoutly 1920's vintage monastic light.  I'm in a cell-like room on the fourth floor. Our meeting room is on the first floor, so there are many opportunities each of these six days I'm here to run up and down the stairs. 

Landings between floors are outside, so you have to swing open two heavy metal fire-doors - one to get out to the landing of the floor you want, and one to get back into the building at that floor. 

I did take the elevator when I was bringing in my luggage, massage table, food bags and huge stuffed tiger which acts as mascot during all the Somatic Experiencing trainings I assist. Other than that first day, I've mostly taken the stairs…. mostly two at a time going up. Depending on shoes, I take them two at a time going down - unless I'm wearing my flip-flops, which tend to fly off when going down two at a time.

Morning before last, I entered the room where the 25 assistants meet for our instructions before class begins. I was just in time to see one of my colleagues do a cartwheel in the middle of the circle of chairs. This fellow is my age. We were all pretty impressed with Marc's perfect round off.

I have DREAMS about entering a room doing cartwheels, but shyness (or terror) prevent me from acting on the impulse.

Well, here's a guy who is not shy, not terrified - he's just so enthusiastic about life that I think it's catchy.

Give a look and see if you are as delighted as I am by Stephen Jepson's take on PLAY. And don't be surprised if you hear about some sixty-five year old woman doing her own version of a perfect round-off and cartwheel. (I'll be sure to take off my flip flops!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUf72dLf22c