Category Archives: mental illness

Elsee Anne

Leave a reply

I have always taken the summer off from blogging, but somehow this summer blurred into fall, and now we’ve had our first snowstorm in Minnesota, with nine inches of the white stuff. 

Normally I would be consoling myself by planning a trip.  Not this year.  My pal Lynn invited me to join her and some other friends in Crete this past May, and that was cancelled thanks to Covid.  She’s rebooked it for next May but I can’t work up the enthusiasm to start thinking about it.  I did search airfares to Scotland for New Year’s—or Hogmanay as they call it.  Fares are about the same as ever but a pop-up informed me that the UK “may impose restrictions on travelers from the US.”  Yeah.  Forget it.    

On the home front, I continue to do contract work for several nongovernmental organizations.  Every morning I scan for potential funding opportunities.  Here are my Top 9 favorite funding opportunities:

  • Development of Solomon Islands National Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus Porosus) Management Plan and Harvest/Monitoring
  • Arkansas Feral Swine Eradication and Control Pilot Program
  • U.S. Mission to Turkmenistan: Developing Potential of the Women Entrepreneurs in Fashion Design
  • Addressing Sorcery Related Violence in Papua New Guinea
  • Magnetic Levitation Technology Deployment Program
  • Consultancy for Construction Supervision of Fecal Sludge in Ethiopia
  • Provision of Civil Works for Fixing a Tarpaulin
  • Department of Defense, Science of Atomic Vapors for New Technologies (SAVaNT)
  • Provision of Services for Collaborative Computational Deep Phenotyping of Irritability

I want to know what the US National Institute on Drug Abuse learns about that last one.  I think we could all use some insights into the origins of irritability.

—

I am also working a couple short shifts a week at the YMCA in the childcare center.  The staffing and shifts have already been cut back since re-opening because, who wants to go to a gym and potentially expose themselves and their children to Covid?  Actually, it’s so dead there that I don’t worry about catching Covid but I do worry about the YMCA going under and hundreds more people losing their jobs.

My “Friday Fundays” with my two step granddaughters has come to an end with the cold weather.  They began calling it Friday Funday without any prompting, so I must be fun!  I sure don’t feel fun most of the time. I’m so glad I got to spend the quality time with them outdoors, before Covid began to spike again.

Because …. The big news is that my son Vince and his wife Amanda had a baby girl a week ago!  Now I will subject my readers to even more cute kid pictures. Vince turned 42 two days later.  Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, or who have read our book, will know how significant this is for him to go from prison to parenthood. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s even more of a big deal for me than for most new grandparents.  I have two biological grandchildren I have never met and will likely never meet.  I have two step grandchildren—I hate that term—and now I have a bio grandchild who is in my life but …  Covid.

 

 

 

 

 

—Imagine, being totally oblivious to all the ills of the world.  No regrets, no bills, no chores.  No Covid, no global warming, no Trump.

—

Maybe because I have had so many losses in my life, my brain generates worst-case-scenarios.  They come unbidden when I least expect them, and now they involve Elsee.  They are deeply distressing, so I am working on multiple fronts to stave them off.  I am writing out my feelings and thoughts using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This 10-day Lovingkindness meditation challenge was very helpful. Jewish Family Service got Covid funding to provide three free mental health counseling sessions and I am taking advantage of that. You don’t have to be Jewish to tap into this resource, if you need a therapy “booster shot.”    

For some reason I think “I should be doing better” but why?  Logically, I know my brain is generating these scenarios in a misguided effort to cope with Covid and all the other distressing news of the day. 

I hope you are doing okay!

Shoguns and Squats

Leave a reply

I’ve already written a bit about Nikko, how I arrived there on my fourth day in Japan and it was there that the anxiety that had trailed me from the US ebbed away.  As I wrote in my last post I am feeling a lot of anxiety of late, but I know it comes … and goes.  I’ve never had a full-blown panic attack and ended up in the ER like some people I know.  I get out and do things despite feeling anxious about them.  Ninety-nine percent of the time everything turns out okay.

And sometimes, like in Nikko, physical exertion, attraction distraction, and serenity of a place help the anxiety disappear.

—

Nikko’s claim to fame is that it hosts tombs of the early shoguns.  The shoguns were hereditary military commanders who ruled Japan for nearly 700 years, until Emperor Meiji was given real powers during the Meiji Restoration in 1868.  “Shogun” is Japanese shorthand for “Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force against the Barbarians.”

Now here I came, a barbarian wandering among their tombs.

The structures are unique because they are Japanese interpretations of Chinese shrines.  This means that, unlike the simple, spare style seen elsewhere in Japan, the shrines in Nikko are over-the-top ornate.

Guidebooks and online advisories will say you can “do” Nikko in a day. Maybe that’s technically true—if you arrived by tour bus and had a guide barking, “hurry, hurry, on to the next shrine!”

But why would you want to hurry?  Nikko is so much more than the shrines, as I discovered.  I spent three nights there and could have easily spent a fourth.  Or the rest of my life.  Nikko is in the mountains and the soothing sound of water coursing along little streams and springs is ever present.

I found the pedestrian entrance to the shrine complex, which encompasses half a dozen shrines, each of which encompasses a dozen structures. Every shrine charges an admission fee of $2 to $12.

I climbed and climbed the irregular stone steps, in the rain, to the main square, then wandered around trying to decide which shrine to visit first.  I could just catch glimpses of golden rooftops.

I decided on the mausoleum of Iemitsu, grandson of the first shogun, Ieyasu. The shoguns often have a birth name, a warrior name, and military titles that makes keeping them straight challenging.  So I didn’t try.

I figured I should use the toilet before entering, where I encountered my first Japanese-style toilet.  No, not the ones with lots of electronic features, but a squat.

Pivot: Iemitsu designed his own mausoleum to be “subtle” so as not to outshine his grandpa’s.  This is just the hand washing station at the entrance.

Ladle up some water, wash your left hand, then your right, then have a drink out of your cupped palm.

I remember this as “the quiet shrine.”  It is set in ancient woods and the only sound was birds calling back and forth.  I was one of only three people there that day.

Near the handwashing station there was a jumble of mountain scenery, with two stone statues that I only noticed because I stopped to contemplate the forest.

More steps, and through an ornate gate with fabulous protectors on either side, borrowed from Hinduism.

This structure was basically a storage unit for giant bells and drums used during special events.

There were a thousand stone lanterns, all “donated” by feudal lords to the shogun. I liked the moss and fern hat on this one.

I stopped at each landing to look out over the tree tops and listen to the birds.  At last I arrived at the top and the inner shrine, where photos were not allowed.  There wasn’t really anything to do there, so I slowly walked back down.

I guess most of the lanterns can be lighted, and I would see this later in my trip.

From somewhere, I heard the music from the Waltz of the Sugar Plum Fairies wafting through the forest.  What it signified, I had no idea, but I chose to take it as my dinner bell.

There—just writing this remembrance has brought me a sense of calm.

My Name is Anne, and I’m Anxious

Leave a reply

I need to write an honest post about anxiety.

I could tell myself it’s not logical to be anxious.  I should be grateful, even.

I don’t have to commute or work full time. I haven’t touched my savings since quitting my full-time job in December.  I’m healthy enough that I feel safe forgoing health insurance—which would cost me over $800 a month for a lousy plan—and instead use a healthcare sharing program, which costs $220 a month.  I enjoy my contract work with my former employer, working on million dollar proposals to the UN and US government.  I enjoy my very-part-time job at the YMCA minding little kids.  It’s summer, and I’ve got free time to go berry foraging or biking the wild paths along the Mississippi.  I live in a charming and affordable duplex.

Vince, who less than three years ago emerged from prison with nothing, owns a home, is a dad, and is getting married in 10 days.

Yeah, I know I have it good.

Then why do I get ice-cold stabbing pangs of fear in my solar plexus?  It’s not every day, or all day, but it can last for hours and it’s extremely unpleasant.

I think it is thanks to my nemeses, the what ifs.

My financial future is uncertain.  What if my contract isn’t renewed next year?  Should I get another full-time job?  What if no one wants to hire a 59 year old?  I recently read that the average job hunt for someone my age is 12 months. Maybe I should have started looking months ago!

Could I try to live off my savings?  It’s not my regular monthly expenses that are a problem; they’re very modest.  There are always things like new tires ($$), a new phone ($$), and a crown on my molar ($$$$). What if my engine gasket blows, or I need two crowns next month?

I have a plane ticket to Panama for December but haven’t booked accommodations.  What if Panama turns out to be super expensive?

Those are the semi-rational what ifs.

If I allow it free reign, my mind conjures up additional scary possibilities that are unlikely to ever happen.

I saw a sign warning of coyotes at the river today.  What if I was attacked by one on my walk and couldn’t work?  I would lose everything and end up one of those homeless people on the freeway exit holding a sign that says, “Sick.  Can’t work.  Anything helps.  God Bless.”

I swore at another driver on my way home from the river as we both fought our way through a traffic jam. What if I lost it, rammed someone with my car, and ended up in prison?  How humiliating would that be?

Images of these things happening actually flash through my mind.  Usually I am barely aware of them, and I can laugh them off.  But they probably contribute to the anxiety

And those are just the neurotic thoughts about me and mine.  I despair that my country can put a man on the moon, find a cure for Hepatitis C, and produce all sorts of genius inventors and entertainers and artists but we cannot come up with a single solution to gun violence.  One of my neighbors was killed in a mass shooting in 2012.  Will I, or someone I care about, be next?

Then there’s climate change.  Contrary to what millennials seem to believe, not all of us baby boomers have been callously disregarding the environment all our lives.  My first environmental protest was in 1974.  We were calling on the government to clean up the Mississippi River.  And it got done.  But as I sit in my car writing this—at the river, on the latest of a series of unusually hot days—I fear we are all doomed.

When I travel I do feel nervous about finding train stations and such. But mostly I am in the moment every moment and my anxiety is fleeting and mild.

I’m went to the Mississippi today to hike uneven terrain, to throw myself off kilter so I would have to focus on each step or I’d pitch headlong into the dark, swift current.

There I go again!

Grateful

2 Replies

Today, February 4, is the 59th anniversary of my birth.  59?!  How did that happen?

Ten years ago, when I was in the grip of a decades-long depression, I heard about some research that found older people are happier.  I remember scoffing: “No way!  How could you be happier, when you’re decrepit and inching closer to death, and can’t do anything you used to do?”

But in my case, at least, it’s proving to be true—the “happier” part, not the “can’t do anything” part.

Since leaving my job in mid-December, I’ve caught myself thinking on a regular basis, “Today was a good day,” and “Life is good,” and even, “I’m happy.”  These weren’t “if you believe it, it will be” exercises.  These thoughts come unbidden.  And it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever thought them.

And why shouldn’t I be content?

I am working on contract for my former employer.  This month I will submit something like $2.7 million worth of funding applications for Ethiopia and Jordan to the UN and US Government. It’s interesting, challenging, and meaningful work.

Somehow, doing the same work but from home is far less stressful and I am more productive.  I don’t get into office chit chat—which I enjoyed but which ate up time.  I don’t attend meetings except via Zoom and I’m not reading all the corporate communiques.

I no longer commute.  My drive was about 25 minutes each way, and by the time I got through rush hour I had usually yelled “you moron!,” at another driver.  I would arrive at work shaking from being cutting off or just listening to the news of the world on NPR.  I feel agitated writing those sentences.  Now I only drive before and after rush hours.

I am working two short shifts a week at the YMCA.  I love it.  I make 1/10th at the Y as I do writing proposals, but it is something different and it gets me out of the house, very important during the recent polar vortex.  I work in the childcare center.  I can see some of you grimacing at that—your worst nightmare.  But I love little kids, and being around them puts me in a zone—I don’t have to teach them anything; I am just there to play with them and keep them from biting each other.  I am now certified to provide CPR and if you knock out a tooth I’ll know what to do.   I get a free Y membership, so I am enjoying trying out all the different locations and classes.  The sauna was a godsend last month when I had a cold.

Maybe part of my contentedness is my keen awareness of how fortunate I am.  When I had that cold, I was propped up in bed one night feeling sorry for myself and I thought, “Somewhere there is a woman my age in a refugee camp who has a cold.  She can’t prop herself up to breath because she’s in a fucking tent and doesn’t have four pillows.  It’s dusty.  She doesn’t have Breathe Right Nasal Strips or eucalyptus essential oil in her humidifier.   She probably doesn’t even have Kleenex to blow her nose.

I shouldn’t have to make myself feel better at the expense of a refugee, but there you go.

My son and I received our first royalty check last week for the book we published in November.  We’re not going to be able to quit working or make big donations to refugee charities with our proceeds, but hey, we did it—we wrote and published a book!

Finally, yesterday my sister-in-law and I bought four tickets to Japan for June in a big sale through a Chicago travel agency.  It still wasn’t cheap, but it was $600 less than anything posted publicly.  So use a travel agent for big trips—they really can see things you can’t.

It’s my brother’s busiest season as a wedding videographer, so I will go with Akiko and my two nephews and chaperone the second one back home after a month.  I have no idea where I’ll stay or what I’ll do yet, but that will be the fun part.  Suggestions welcome!

Pigeons

Leave a reply

Sometimes I get a notification from WordPress: “Your stats are booming!”  I used to get excited, thinking it must be a publisher in New York reading every post I’d ever written and reaching for the phone to call me with a book deal which would come with a huge advance.

I went to the stats page to investigate and for some reason my last post had attracted the attention of three dozen Canadians.  Why?  I looked at the tags and categories. Were they drawn by the word “England?”  I’ve written loads of posts about England.  The only words that were different were “shopping” and “charity shops.”  Who knows?

Maybe I have a Canadian stalker.  Or three dozen.

Everyone I know is talking about the powerful men in media and politics who are being outed for sexually harassing or assaulting women.  All I can say is: it’s about time.  And I’m not surprised.  It’s happened to me at least a dozen times.  No one famous, but plenty of regular men who had some kind of power over me by virtue of age, title, or size.  It stopped when I hit my 40s—one advantage of getting older.

I never reported any of the incidents because first, I was very naïve and often unsure what was even happening.  Maybe I was misinterpreting things?  I mean, the social worker who was helping me get my act together after I spent two months in a psych unit after trying to off myself when I was 16—when he said he’d like to see me in a lace nightie, he was just trying to help me feel like a woman again.  That’s what he told me.  And that 30-something guy who stopped his car at the bus stop and asked if I wanted to go party—I was 18 and eight months pregnant—he didn’t really want to …?  No!  That’s gross!  I must have misunderstood.

And surely that Greek Orthodox minister hadn’t meant to press his hard-on against my derriere in that crowd of people at the Justice for All rally, right?  Wrong.  When I turned around in shock, he smiled as if to dare me, “What are you going to do about it?”  It must have been my fault.  I had thought how handsome he was and maybe he had sensed that and thought I would like what he did.

Surely my boss’s boss had been fiddling with the coins in his pants pockets when he stood next to my desk talking about nothing and staring at my boobs, right?  I had just started that job and really needed it.  It was 1986 and I had never heard the term “sexual harassment.” It never occurred to me to report him.

A friend described how she tried to get her husband to understand what it’s like.

“Imagine there’s a third kind of human out there.  They’re a foot taller than you and 50 pounds heavier.  They own everything and run everything.  And they want to fuck you in the ass.  Every time you go for a job interview, you know they’re imagining you naked.  They walk past your cube and look at you sideways, and you know they would like to bend you over, pull down your pants, and fuck you in the ass.  They brush up against you and act like it was an accident, but you know they just wanted to cop a feel.  If you say anything, you’ll probably be out of a job and nothing will be done anyway because HR works for them.”           

—

Back to England, and a more uplifting note.  There are things about the UK with which I have a visceral association.  One is the little teaspoons.  Below are my American teaspoon and a British one, which is larger than many.  Every British home has loads of these.  Something to do with tea, I think. I bought a couple at the £ Store to remind me of the UK.

Then there are the wood pigeons.  When I asked Lynn’s husband, Richard, What’s that bird?” he replied, “What bird?”  He didn’t hear them anymore; their call is so ubiquitous.

It’s this call and these spoons that made me smile every morning.

The Eyes Have It

Leave a reply

This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

I was feeling kind of guilty about the nun bashing in my last post until I started writing this one about the El Greco Museum.

Lynn and I had seen paintings by El Greco in the Prado Museum, but in Toledo there was an entire museum devoted to The Greek.

The collection was in an old house composed of additions from different centuries cobbled together and connected by ramps or hallways; in some instances you had to go outside to get from Point A to Point B.  Our first stop was a video about El Greco.  It went on at great length about how he was distinguished from his contemporaries by his elongated figures made of long brush strokes.  He was nearsighted, the video said by way of explanation.

In addition, many of his subjects were painted looking heavenward with crazy eyes, and this was thought to be because he used patients from an insane asylum as models.

The nun would have made a great model for El Greco—I’m not saying she was insane, just that her eyes had this same look.

So those are the things that make El Greco a star.  He was so in demand that he had apprentices help him churn out paintings and it’s now difficult to tell who painted what.  I am at a loss as to why El Greco is considered a master while Margaret Keane is not (images removed due to copyright).

But as I’ve fully disclosed before, I’m not a New York Times art critic.

After shuffling along in the museum for a couple hours, we thought a brisk walk would do us good.  On the trolley tour we had spied what looked like giant escalators cut into the hillside, and the narration had said there was a nature walk.  The sun had come out, so now was the moment.

We attempted to find our way out of the city—ha!  Here is a map of Toledo set in the pavement, lest we needed reminding of what a labyrinth it was:

Eventually we found ourselves, quite by accident, outside one of the city gates where we could see the River Tajo.  I grew up near the Mississippi, so my inner Tom Sawyer kicked in and I joyfully crashed through the undergrowth toward the water.

“Where are you taking us!?” Lynn cried.

I ignored her until I stopped short at an orange plastic tape printed with “¡Cuidado!” every few inches.

“This must have been used to section off a path for a marathon,” I guessed.

“A murder, more likely,” Lynn responded.

When most people see things like this, they turn back.  I hopped over the tape and kept heading for the river bank.

“Where the hell are we going!?” Lynn asked, picking her way through the bushes behind me.

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “I just want to see the river.”  We reached the bank and stood looking at the muddy water.

“Well, just as you suspected—it’s a river,” Lynn said.

“Yep,” I replied, and we turned back toward the city.

—

There was time for one more museum, the intriguing-sounding Museum of the Visigoth Councils and Culture.  It was housed in the Church of San Romain, which had a small entry door set inside the giant-sized door that many churches have.

I’ve stopped mentioning how much entry tickets cost unless they vary substantially from the typical 4-5 euros.

There was a tiny glass booth just inside the door where an old man collected our €1 entry fee.  He gave us a piece of paper and we made for the exhibit but were commanded by him to stop at another booth three feet from the first one, where another old personage collected the piece of paper, stamped it, and gave us another piece of paper. Whew!  We were legal now.

The museum was worth the entry fee. There was this one display of something beautiful.

The rest was mainly Spanish signage. I have a hard time following historical narratives in English, much less in Spanish, so I am none the wiser about the Visigoths.

Synagogue of the Virgin Mary

Leave a reply

This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

Have you ever been in the London Eye? If not, it’s a super sized ferris wheel on the south bank of the Thames with a bird’s eye view of Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament and much more.

Imagine, being in the Eye, watching yesterday’s terrorist attack unfold. The confusion, the fear, maybe some twisted excitement, the plain-old inconvenience of being stuck up there until thd police gave the all clear.

Will this attack hurt London’s tourist economy? I doubt it. No matter how many of these incidents happen, most of us have the capacity to believe it won’t happen to us.  And statistically, it won’t, so keep on traveling.

—

Day Two in Toledo. Today we would visit the Synagogue of the Virgin Mary and the Mosque of Christ the Light.

“I can just hear the Christians saying, ‘There, we showed ‘em!’ as they nailed up the new signs,” I said.

The so-called synagogue which hadn’t been a synagogue in hundreds of years was just steps from our hotel.  The website, which I won’t link to here, makes it look like you could spend days there.  It was lovely, but there wasn’t much to it:

There was a nun in the back of the now-church, and she sort of floated through the place and out a side door.  We followed her, since there was nothing else to see in the main building, and she went into a small out building which we entered to our regret.

You know how you walk into a place and immediately wish you hadn’t? The nun was there, seated behind a table piled with books and pamphlets and art prints.  The walls were hung with drawings.  The nun was ecstatic, in the original sense of the word, “involving an experience of mystic self-transcendence.”

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I was raised in a Catholic family but never felt Catholic. I explored various religions and somehow knew I was Jewish immediately upon beginning to study Judaism.  So I’ve been Jewish since I was 18, which is a long time ago.  I’m also an atheist, which, conveniently, isn’t incompatible with being Jewish.

All this is background to saying that—having been schooled by nuns for 14 years— when I saw this nun I knew her type.  In fact, she was a dead ringer for Sister Mara, my 8th grade teacher.  I recognized the glassy-eyes, the never failing smile, and most of all, the enthusiasm to share what she had discovered with others, whether they were interested or not.

Fervently religious, or mentally ill? They are often intertwined, regardless of the faith.  None of this was triggering Lynn, who has neither Catholic or Jewish baggage.

The art, pamphlets, and books were all by and about some guy—possibly still alive and living in a monastery or cave in the mountains—who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism after having a vision.  He was an artist, a poet, and (naturally) a visionary, the nun told me breathlessly in Español muy rapido.

The art reminded me of Peter Max (image removed due to copyright), which made me wonder if her visionary also took drugs, but it was executed like my three-year-old nephew’s drawings, which feature people with pumpkin heads and tooth-pick legs.

It was better than I am making it sound.  I wish I had taken a photo to show you but I didn’t want to demonstrate too much enthusiasm.  The nun had moved on to how Israel was wrapped up in the vision, so it was time to break in and say, “Thank you very much, it’s been fascinating.”

Even the tiniest tourist attraction in Spain has a gift shop, and the ex-synagogue one had this on display:

As usual, the non-Jewish author had used a photo of an Orthodox Jew at the Western Wall, instead of a picture of me, a much more typical Jew.

Calling All Cons

Leave a reply

Before I return to writing about my upcoming travel in Italy, Malta, and Spain, I’ll write a couple more posts about my other favorite topic: prison.

I was involved in two criminal justice reform evening events this week.  Normally I hate having commitments like these at night but these were commitments I chose to make.

The first was a phone bank event organized by the Restore the Vote Coalition.  It’s run by Take Action Minnesota and includes Jewish Community Action, a group I’ve written about being involved with.

Here’s why we were there: 47,000 ex prisoners in Minnesota cannot vote.  They’ve done their time but they’re still “on paper”—slang for probation or parole—and they can’t vote until they’re off paper.  Even though Vince has served his time, has been out for a year, has been sober for over two years, is working and paying taxes and rent, and taking his grandma to the grocery and doing all manner of other positive things, he’s not allowed to vote until 2018.

Our job was to call around 7,000 ex offenders who were probably off paper.  Since no sane person enjoys calling strangers—much less ex cons—the coalition tried to make it a fun by calling it a Restore the Vote Block Party.  They had blocked off their parking lot and had booths with a DJ and food, but it rained so we all huddled inside in their basement offices.

There were five or six speakers, including a rabbi and a young woman from Chicago whose father and uncles had been in prison as long as she’s been alive.  It was a very racially diverse group.  A couple guys lead a call and response to get us fired up, then we all dispersed to make calls or knock on doors.

All three of the African-American speakers said something along the lines of, “This is a problem that mostly affects black people.”  While it’s true that African Americans are disproportionately represented in prison compared to their percentage of the overall population, 56% of adult prisoners in Minnesota are white.  As of September 30, that’s 5,228 men and women, not counting juveniles or people in county jails.  I don’t think we do the cause any favors by making it all about race.  Race is a factor for sure, but so are class, poverty, abuse, education level, disabilities, chemical dependency, and many other issues.

There was an elaborate script probably written by a graduate student who’d never been near a prison, which went out the window the moment we started dialing.  We used a really cool online system.  I logged in and immediately a guy’s name came up with his age and phone number and the names of other people in his household.  I said to the leader, “I’d be really creeped out if stranger called me who knew I’d been in prison.”  I was assured that this was public information and that ex cons knew it.

I dialed 72 numbers in an hour and a half and spoke to exactly two ex cons.  About 80% of the numbers were disconnected, busy, wrong numbers, or no one answered.  The two guys I spoke with were opposites.  The first one, who was 28, had researched whether he was eligible to vote, was registered, and was committed to showing up at the polls.  The other guy, who was 56, said, “I ain’t never voted in my life and I ain’t gonna start now.”

I noted their names as I scrolled through the data base—Frank, Damarius, Jason, Katherine, Moua, John, Orville, Krystal, Matt, Jose, Abdi—all typical Minnesota names, all over the state, all ages, all races.  I reached quite a few mothers, which tugged at my heart strings.  They sounded care worn.  A couple said, “I don’t know where he is.”  Ugh.  I’ve been there.  One father told me, “He’s not here,” then, sadly, “He’s in the ground.”  What do you say to that?

“I’m so sorry,” I muttered.  “I’m sorry to have bothered you.  Have a nice night.”

I only reached two guys, but as our group of 80 volunteer callers got pledges to vote from 122 ex offenders.

It may not sound like much, but we did something.

Creole, Cajun, Casserole

Leave a reply

This continues a series of posts about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

We had the same conversation every morning:

“What do you want to do today?”

“I dunno.  What do you want to do?”

“I don’t care.  I’m up for anything.”

“Okay then, let’s go!”

I had been to the city before.  One of the most memorable things I had done was a tour of a Creole plantation called Laura.  It was about what you’d expect: a wide lawn, big house, antiques, and vignettes of how people lived 150 years ago.  The house was a different style from Tara, the plantation you might recall from Gone with the Wind:

Oak Alley

This is actually a photo of Oak Alley, another plantation near New Orleans on which Tara was based. I think. Don’t quote me on that.  Anyway, it’s built in the English style, symmetrical and staid.  Built to impress.

By contrast, here is Laura:

Laura

Very French, don’t you think?  Because that’s partly what Creoles are—a people of French or Spanish descent, sometimes with Afro-Caribbean or Native American mixed in.  They speak Creole, cook Creole, and make Creole music.

I was enjoying the tour of the plantation.  Then we stepped out back to the slave quarters and it was like everything turned from brilliant color to grey.  We “toured” a restored slave cabin, but only two or three of us could fit inside at a time.  Meant for a family, it was about half the size of a boxcar, made of rough-hewn wood and sparsely furnished.  Next we gathered outside so the guide could talk to us all at once, and that’s when I happened to turn and notice this behind me:

slave_list

You don’t need to read French to know this is a bill of sale for people.  My eyes welled with tears.  I’m teary right now.  The poor woman at the end of the list is a “lunatique.”  What did that mean?  Was she schizophrenic?  Autistic?  Rebelious maybe? Would someone have bought her because she was cheap?  For what purpose?  Ugh.  Double ugh.

—

I passed around the brochure about the tour and told Lynn, Molly, and Christine about it.  No one wanted to go.  Maybe I should have left out the part about the lunatique.

When I was younger I would have pressed and wheedled until I guilted everyone into going, because I thought it was an important, historically significant tour.

But I got it.  Lynn and I had spent half a day in the civil rights museum learning about slavery and lynchings and Jim Crow.  Molly is a head start teacher whose kids live in trailer parks and whose parents are in jail or on drugs.  Christine works for Oxfam, which aids people in disasters and wars.  I got it.  We didn’t need to be “sensitized.”  And we were on vacation!

—

You may be wondering, “What’s a Cajun?” since I wrote about Creoles above.  Cajuns are descendants of Acadians, who lived in eastern Canada and the Northeast U.S.  When the British took over this region, the Acadians, who are French and Roman Catholic, refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the crown.  They wound up in Louisiana, either voluntarily or forcefully exiled, and that was a much better fit for them.  As with the Creoles, the Cajuns have their own food, music, and language.

So there’s this theme in Louisiana of cultures coming together—French, English, and Spanish; African, Caribbean, and American Indian.  It seems like they mostly got along, although that may be because they stuck to their own territories.  In New Orleans, for instance, Canal Street marks the boundary between the old English and French parts of town.

—

Back at the B&B, we had our own little cultural casserole.  The English couple avoided the Germans, who were sour faced but friendly in their serious German way to the Dutch pair. The French couple seemed anxious about everything while the Scotts and Canadians were outgoing.  I had two free bus tour tickets and offered them to the group.  The Germans recoiled as if I were trying to hand them a rotting fish, while the Dutch couple eagerly grabbed them.

The Grey Lady Stumbles

1 Reply

This is the seventh post in a series that started here.

—

I left Cuernavaca having learned a lot of Spanish and with a new vocation.  Off and on since then, I have worked in international development.  That doesn’t mean I don’t care about causes here at home.  I just think that, as a mission driven person, I do better work if I’m passionate about a cause.  And for many reasons, I am passionate about trying to end poverty and suffering in the developing world.

Before I left Cuernavaca, I booked six more weeks of Spanish immersion through Amerispan.  This time I would go to Morelia, a beautiful colonial city that is no longer an Amerispan choice.  I’m guessing this is due to Morelia’s unfortunate #1 ranking as the city most caught in the drug war that has erupted in Mexico since I was there.

And that’s my transition back to one of my favorite subjects, addiction.

The New York Times published an article a few weeks ago about an alternative treatment approach to addiction.   I read it, cut it out, and was saving it to write a post about.  My initial reaction to it was, “Why not?  Why wouldn’t you try both traditional treatment and AA and this thing, if you could afford the time and money.”  But now I’m having second thoughts.

In a nutshell, the article profiles a psychiatrist who has opened a new addiction clinic that approaches addiction as a chronic disease and treats it with drugs, in place of the Twelve Steps and AA.

At least three people have brought the article up to me in conversation, so it’s causing a stir.

When I revisited it for this post, I noticed it was in the Science section, which implies that the content is scientifically valid.  Plus it’s the New York Times, right?  It’s got to be true.

When I searched the NYT website for “addiction,” I found that all the other articles about addiction are either in the Opinion or the News sections.  So you’ve got news about a big drug bust in upstate New York, for example, and then people ringing in with their opinions on what should be done about the drug crisis and the related problem of mass incarceration.

I scrolled to the bottom to read the comments.  There must be hundreds, I thought, and I wondered how many commenters would hail this as a godsend or criticize it as irresponsible.  But there was no comments, and no way to make comments.  That’s strange, I think.

—

Among other things, Dr. Mark Willenbring states that 60 percent of addiction is attributable to a person’s genetic makeup.  The NYT adds that this is “scientifically unassailable” but offers no evidence.

Dr. Willinbring, a psychiatrist, is no slacker.  For five years he headed the federal agency that studies addiction.  Coincidentally, he’s a Minnesotan and he opened a private clinic called Alltyr in 2012.  It’s within walking distance from my house.

Alltyr treats addiction as a chronic medical condition.  Its treatment plans include drugs used to treat depression, anxiety, ADHD, or chronic pain; family “training,” and cognitive behavioral therapy—which, as I’ve written, was a worked miracles for me.  Alltyr also uses anti-relapse drugs, and I wondered what that meant.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

—

A friend and her husband have been struggling with his drinking.  He was on a wait list for Hazelden Betty Ford, one of the world’s premier rehab centers, also within walking distance of my house.  Then he read the New York Times article.  Alltyr got him in the next day, and after pooh-poohing Hazelden, he cancelled his reservation there.   (Despite Alltyr dismissing traditional treatment, I can’t find any evidence in the article that its method works.)

Alltyr put him on two anti-relapse drugs.  I spoke with my friend the next day.  “He must have still had alcohol in his system,” she said, “because he was so sick he couldn’t get out of bed—much less go to work—for two days.  He said it was like all the worst anxiety he’s ever had in his life rolled into one giant ball and stuffed into his chest.”