I know that it has been several months since I have posted...I needed this time to decompress, so I could step back and process all that I experienced throughout the entire journey. When I came home I felt useless, I felt that I needed to still be out there speaking and finding my way into more Juvenile Halls and Domestic Violence Shelters. And then I realized if I can't be out there all the time I need to do what I need to do right here at home, so I am in the licencing process of becoming a foster parent. In the meantime I am helping a young woman in the Transitional program, during the holidays. There is so much that needs to be done, and I have to remember it's one step at a time, and if I can keep that prospective I will be able to make a difference!

Wednesday October 21st 2009

Even after being home over two weeks, it is still so difficult to write about some of the things that I witnessed on this journey. I have been sick the last few days, and I wonder if it is just 22 days on the road eating me up inside. Every day during this journey held incredible significance for me. But the last day may have been the most profound.







After re-arranging my mode of transportation, I flew out of Salt Lake City to Oakland. My son picked me up at the airport and we headed over to my brother's home in Orinda. I sat out by the pool on this glorious day, trying to relax and just let go for a few hours. But as different people arrived, the questions began and I was elevated "back on the road again." I had dinner with my dear friend Lisa, and went back to Trevor's to hit the sack. The bed that I had complained about during an early stay, suddenly was such a comfort. I slept soundly and awoke the next morning ready for the day.







I headed over to Contra Costa Juvenile Hall with anticipation and hope. I had once put myself in this establishment about 33 years ago, because of a knock down drag out fight with my mother. I admit there was a twinge of angst as I maneuvered my rental car into a parking space. I headed in with case in tow. I stopped at the front of the hall to let them know that I had arrived and that I was meeting Petrenya Boykins. They were surprisingly joyous and upbeat, with rather wicked senses of humor.







I need to preface all this by letting you know that I was supposed to speak to the girls in CCJH on September 15th after I had been at Tehama Juvenile Hall earlier that day, but due to unforeseen circumstances, ie, a lack of mental health therapists, they would not allow me to come and speak for fear that after I "dumped my baggage on them" they would need psychiatric care. Well Petrenya diligently worked at making this visit happen and really the timing could not have been more perfect. We entered a maze of hallways and locked doors, and went up to Shasta, (pretty ironic huh?) We walked into the unit and Petrenya tried to introduce me to the three female jailers sitting, chatting and ignoring us behind the desk. We then went into the classroom where I was introduced to the teacher. A wonderful man with a kind demeanor, who was completely receptive to my being there and speaking to the young women in his classroom.







It was around 10:30am when roughly 25 young women in juvenile hall regulation attire filed in the room with their hands clasped behind their backs and took their seats. I had placed the oval dry erase boards on all their desks, and started with my usual questions. I wanted to stay as focused on all these young women as I possibly could. They were at first far more reserved then any group I had spoken to. After about a half hour the white boards began to fill with their thoughts, questions to answers I had asked, and they were fulling engaged. A large percentage of these girls had been arrested for illegal underage prostitution, with the intent to have a hotel room for their families to live. Most of these young women have never known the comforts that you and I take for granted on a daily basis. "Well they could to better, they know the difference between right and wrong" you say, but the reality of their existence rarely holds a shred of right, from the moment they were brought into this world, wrong was always there staring them in the face.



Their lives have been comprised of single "drug addicted" moms, absent fathers, abusive fathers, exploited relatives, homelessness, child abuse, rape, incest and a myriad of other components that make up their "wrong world". So here they sit, in a lock down class room in Juvenile Hall, for maybe the 5th or 7th time. And ironically like the young men in Tehama County Juvenile Hall there was an element of comfort and safety for these young women. Some openly admitted that. In Tehama County, many of the young men told me that they did not want to leave there. After two and half hours I understood why.



It was now 12 noon, after spending the morning with these young women, I really didn't want to leave them, there was so much more to talk about, so many more of their stories that needed to be heard, I asked for hugs, it was if the gates of heaven had opened, one girl after another came up to me, with the biggest squeezes on the planet, then one of the female jailers came in and ordered the girls to file out by rows for lunch. All but one of the girls had gotten a hug, Petrenya turned to the young woman in line and "asked her for a hug" she broke away from the line, hugged Petrenya then headed over to me arms open wide. We then stayed behind in the classroom putting away all the boards and pictures, talking to the teacher. Petrenya and I left the room stepping out into the quad where the girls were eating lunch. I stopped and thanked all the girls and wanted to say goodbye to all of them, when the jailer yelled at me that the girls where on silent lunch, they were not allowed to talk at all and that I should not say a word to them. Instantly, deep inside, my inner bitch began to raise her ugly, "don't call me out" head, it took everything in my power not to get up in this controlling, unhappy woman's face, Petrenya and I made it to the door and we both turned and in unison said our goodbyes to the girls.



When we had gotten outside the door, we were both so enraged we were in tears. We had just spent 2 amazing hours with 25 young women who just needed to be heard, and who I wanted to give the opportunity to hear my story and know that change is possible, that taking control of the course of their histories was paramount. And then to have someone squash them into place, order them into complacency and crush them under her thumb for the obvious need for control was shattering for the two of us. But by the time we had gotten out of the building and were sitting on the bench outside the front doors, all I could think of was "who got to her when she was little, who left her so powerless that she had to be so completely controlling in her professional life. My anger turned to empathy, because once again how easy it is for me to judge without even knowing her history. Another lesson learned.

October 11th 2009 A beautiful Sunday

I have been home now 4 days. The dust is settling and reality is sinking in. There are many of you who probably have wondered why, why would I take 22 days out of my life to go out across the United States and tell our story? On this journey I ended up teaching an incredibly important history lesson; one that revolved around two totally different individuals, from completely opposite backgrounds, who came together in their youth only to realize years later that violence and abuse had been the noose which almost destroyed their lives.

When I walk into a room, whether it be filled with women at a DV Shelter or young men in a Juvenile Hall, I set before them an oval erase board with a black handle, a black dry erase pen and an eraser. First I want to know how much we all have in common, so I ask everyone to raise their hand if the question I ask pertains to them. Here are a few of the questions that I ask;

Who here comes from a broken family?
(I raise my hand)
Who here has been the victim of child abuse?
(I raise my hand)
Who has witnessed domestic violence as a child or an adult?
(I raise my hand)
Who here has or has had problems with alcoholism or drug addiction?
(I raise my hand)
Who here has been raped?
(I raise my hand)
Who here has been incarcerated?
(I raise my hand)
Who here has lost a loved one to domestic violence?
(I raise my hand)

The questions go on until a point where it becomes obvious we all have lot in common. I tell people that I am traveling across the country creating awareness surrounding the skyrocketing plight of the domestic violence epidemic. My goal is to help them realize that they have the ability to change the course of their history, but in order to do that they must first understand it. They must dig deeper and deeper to witness their parents history, and their grandparents history, because with this knowledge an objectivity can be established and change can begin to blossom.

I explain that because I want to protect their anonymity I would like everyone, as I am talking and feelings build inside them, to write or draw what they are experiencing on the white boards, and then hold them up to their faces so that I can photograph their image.
I was amazed to watch people suddenly drop their guard about 10 minutes into my talk and do just that, at which point you couldn't stop them from creating. There were times I would hurry over to photograph what they had just written, and I would have to turn away because the words would cut through me so deeply I felt it necessary to hide my tears. Finally thought I reached the point where I didn't hide how I was feeling anymore, and I wanted them to see that that their words and images had moved me in a profound way.

I begin to tell my story: my adoption by two people who should never have had children. I talk about their divorce, their violence, their addictions. I talk about the abuse that I sustained as a child, my inability to sleep and my first dance with alcohol, and later how I buried myself in my addiction. I talk about being drugged by my father and I talk about his inappropriate sexual behavior towards me. I talk about the years of lost childhood my mind will not allow me to remember. I talk about always searching for love from men who were incapable of giving it to me.

Then it is time to talk about how I met Bill and what circumstances led us to our fated encounters, from our first date to our wedding, and the first time he hit me and sent me across the room.

And then I stop, because his story must be told in order for this history lesson to come full circle and be understood. I talk about the abuse Bill sustained as a little boy, the beatings, the humiliation, the complete and total lack of control, the pain, and the refuge he sought through drugs and alcohol at the tender age of 12.

Then I fast forward again to our marriage with the account of the weekend from hell, 48 hours of non stop mental and physical abuse. I talk about the Sunday morning when I awoke (after finally getting some sleep from the nightmare that had started on Friday night) to Bill swinging his twelve string guitar against the walls, bashing it to pieces and coming after me with it. I jumped from our bed ( he had slept upstairs that night) and I ran to the upstairs bathroom, trying desperately, but to no avail, to lock myself in. He pushed the door open and proceeded to beat me for the next 45 minutes.

I remember something inside of me simply wanting to survive and then it happened, a moment of grace.

I got up off the floor and stood in front of the vanity, and there in the mirror's reflection were Bill and I. Quietly I explained that I thought my jaw was broken and that I needed to go to the hospital. I promised that I would come right back home. At that moment, I watched in the mirror as the horrible monster that couldn't stop bashing me, who wanted me to pay for something that I hadn't done, suddenly disappeared leaving behind a terrified young man shocked at the carnage before him.

It was then, (although I would not realize it until years later) that Bill had been given a reprieve from his anger and rage. Later I was able to look back and realize that it hadn't been about me, I had just been an available and willing victim. In reality, it was the culmination of two histories that had come together creating what I sadly call "The Perfect Storm."

What the audience does not know, up until this moment, is that Bill and I are best friends today.

Our marriage was annulled in 1978 but after years of pain and addiction, other marriages, deaths and tragedy, we both got clean and sober. We both have worked on understanding our shortcomings and character defects. Through sobriety and therapy we have taken the necessary steps to understand our histories, as far back as possible, which has enabled us to become healthy, happy productive members of society. We love each other today. Amends have been made, deep wounds have healed and scars no longer are there to remind us of the pain of our past.

We are both parents, six children among us. We are also grandparents, and it is our deepest wish and desire that our children and their children continue to be healthy, loving compassionate human beings.

I also talk a lot about my two youngest children, who are now 20 and 25. I adopted both of them as a single parent. They are from separate biological families, but both sustained brain damage at the hands of their parents or mother's significant other. They were 6 and 2 when I adopted them, (their adoptions were roughly two years apart.) They will live with me the rest of our lives. I have been blessed with two of the greatest teachers on this planet. Sadly what happend to them happens probably about every hour to other children across the United States.

A huge eye opener for me happened on the first day of the tour in Red Bluff California at the Tehama County Juvenile Hall. (watch the You Tube Video, pretty much says it all) I spoke to a dozen young men and one young woman. When I got done I got in my car and proceeded to audio tape how I was feeling. What I came away with was that we, the women of the world, gave birth to these boys. And we are supposed to be like mother lions, protecting them, feeding them and most of all loving them. We have failed them; we have fallen into the vicious cycle of abuse that has been breeding and escalating for probably thousands of years. We have given birth and only looked inward, caring only about what make us happy, how the rest of the world has pissed in our Wheaties, instead of learning how to focus our attention towards becoming kind, caring and loving mothers to our children.

I heard story after story in the Juvenile Halls about the absence of a father in the home, and mothers who were completely consumed by their drug addiction and alcoholism. When a child comes home from school and there is no food, no electricity and no clothing, it's no wonder they turn to gangs to provide the emotional and materialistic needs sorely lacking in the home.

We have fallen prey to drugs and alcohol, using are children as an excuse and a means for financial gain. We, as the fallen fraction of society, have completely lost sight of the meaning of compassion and truth and what the true definition of a parent is.

When I am speaking to women in shelters and young mothers, I reiterate that having a baby doesn't mean you are never going to be alone again or that you will have a best friend for life. It doesn't mean that your child is there to parent you. On the contrary, there will be many times you will feel and be completely alone even with your child standing right by your side. But if we want to bring children into this world, we need to comprehend and acknowledge our history, and be willing to go the distant to change it's course in order for our children to lead healthy, non-violent and compassionate lives.

This tour was entitled "Women in Crisis, Compassion and Change through Conversation." There were many times before we ever left that I thought maybe we should change it to "Women and Men, Society in Crisis", but after traveling 22 days, I am sticking with the original because deep within my heart and psyche I know that it is the Feminine that must help heal this earth. It is the women who must re-open their hearts and seek ways to help others to understand the history of violence and shame. It is the female that must rise up and awaken the consciousness of all around her. In turn, men will find the courage to learn, to heal and to change the course of their history as well. To embrace and trust the feminine within themselves.

October 10th 2009

I want my children to remember me this way...

October 9th 2009

I dedicate this poem to all the young people in juvenile halls across the Untied States of America ( and yes I did mean untied)

Your Voices, your words...

i stepped off the curb
didn’t see you coming
behind the bars,
trapped
like injured butterflies
in old glass jars
your best moment,
easily equaling my
worst nightmare
how could I have been so blind?
oblivious
to your
beautiful design?

i can hear your voices
ascending,
softly in my ear
way down they say,
way down they say,
way down here...

most days
i couldn't even look,
refused to make or take
the time
but now
a power greater then i,
has finally
freed
my mind,
opened my heart,
jump-started my soul,
for you are my child,
little brother,
sweet sister,
never too old

so decide I have
to climb
down
to a depth
way
way
beyond my own,
to a place
so unacknowledged
so completely
far from home

for it is here
that I offer
my hand
to you
with
compassion
love
and
grace

where we can now
stand
and
heal
together
with
the
truth

face to face

October 5th 2009 Monday Night 8:21pm

I am alone in my hotel room in Ogden Utah. Packing things up and getting ready to fly out of Salt Lake to Oakland tomorrow morning. Couldn't sleep last night kept tossing and turning and dreaming about all the things that need to be implemented out there in the world to keep families from crumbling and breaking literally apart.

Beth is on her way to Taos, so this time alone is my decompression, I have seen and felt so much over the past 20 days that it is hard to know where to collectively begin. When I stand before all these women and men, I just let the story commence, I tell my story and then I tell Bill's story, because with out his story, he is instantly despised, the bad guy, and there is so much more to all of this beyond the abuse that I sustained. There is the abuse that was rocketed into his psyche from the moment he could comprehend.

September 29th 2009 The Hope of Milwaukee

In Beth's words...


Milwaukee is a city that will live on in my memory forever. It was my last speaking stop on this tour and I will soon be moving on to other places and experiences. Our day there was for me the most powerful one of the trip so far, if it is even possible to compare each and every one of these powerful days.

Over the course of 11 hours I witnessed more desperation, compassion, active caring and hope than I think I have witnessed in the prior 10 years. What an amazing city and what amazing people we met.


The day began at the Sojourner Truth House, named after a woman who helped so many to freedom on the Underground Railroad. This is a Safe House for women and their children who are themselves now being sheltered and protected on their journey to freedom from lives that I can only begin to understand and spent every moment learning to empathize with.

In a very small dining room, where we all sat shoulder to shoulder, 20 women, residents, staff and others who all share a common goal, we listened as Lani stood and as one resident later put it, represented herself and her journey with rigorous honesty, vulnerability, humor and sometimes tears. To say that all in that room where affected is way too simple.

What I witnessed in utter gratitude once again was how conversation, how sharing who we are with each other from our deepest selves, no matter how different our upbringings, our family histories, our current circumstances, or even, because it still seems to matter so much in this country for reasons that I have never been able to comprehend, the color of our skin, has such an immediate and profound impact on our lives and the lives of those around us.


Simple sharing, simple conversation. Not big corporate programs, not big fundraisers or televised events. Not parades or flags or bracelets or a day or month proclaimed for this or that, but simple honest to god, standing next to each other, looking in each other’s eyes, feeling each other’s pain, conversation. And the women there were the first to admit how strange and powerful it was to hear so much of themselves in a woman who was on the surface so different from them. How much they understood at the end of just 2 hours that they truly were not alone if the problems that threatened to crush them had also been experienced by others who seemed to live in such a different world.


And when we emerged from this locked facility, behind doors that are there to protect but also keep the world at bay, I had a much different view of my world and life and how I want to show up and represent myself in it.


After leaving this home, this stop along the way for women who have literally been taken down to the very bottom ground of their lives to be able to start the journey back up again, we drove around the city a bit. On the shores of a lake that creates its own weather patterns, is this very eastern feeling Midwestern town that is creating new patterns of its own for residents and visitors alike. The architecture of downtown is a wonderous mix of every style imaginable, new and old, with beautiful parks and vibrant universities and museums and gathering places where everyone mixes together to share the day. With churches and temples of every kind right next to each other, and two colleges weaving together in the same neighborhood.

It was quite a revelation to me growing up in Southern California where everyone seems to do the best they can to stay ignorant to much of the humanity around them, caught in the overwhelm I assume of too much and too many. Maybe too spread out and disconnected as well. The neighborhood of the Sojourner Truth house would not be described as a good area where I grew up, and probably would be avoided at all costs by the people I grew up with, and yet here it was, woven into the full fabric of a city that seems to me to embrace all.


Later that afternoon we traveled to our second stop, just down the road, where in a gorgeous YMCA complex, people of all ages have found a home ground in which to nourish their body, mind and spirits. And boy are they! We wandered around in awe of the amazing facilities that are available to everyone who needs them, and most importantly for the youth who are in such a transformational time in their lives. A health center bigger than any club I have ever visited. Swimming pool, media center, computer clubs, etc. etc. And most importantly, youth groups where teenagers are mentored by others in the community with respect and courage and more rigorous honesty. Where all of these young and budding adults have a place to share and represent themselves, to set goals for their lives and learn how to problem solve and relate to each other in non-violent and caring ways. It is truly the heart center of an otherwise very challenged community.


Lani spoke to a group of young women whose smiling shining faces were the greatest hope I could wish to communicate to this planet. Young women who are at a critical juncture in their lives where one path could lead to the same Safe House that we had visited just hours before. The program is called Pearls for Teen Girls and the women who run the program are the greatest jewels one could ever have in life. Day in and day out they support these young women as they grow through all that life can throw at them, while also nurturing the girls to stand together and teach and support each other. And alongside them is other extended family, other women in the fabric the girls are weaving at such a tender age, the aunts, the grandmothers, who also stand together to provide strong structures when the basic family unit is not itself healthy enough to do so. And all in an atmosphere of fun and hugs and truth.
And once again, it is all about conversation. About everyone taking the time to turn off the television or the Ipod, to step away from the computer or the cell phone, and talk to each other. To spend time looking each other in the face and seeing ourselves in each other. Laughing together, and playing together, and finding solutions TOGETHER.


I have been so touched by all that I have met along the way, even as a rather quiet bystander and simple witness to the enormous energy and love that Lani has shared unceasingly and unselfishly with all who cross her path. I have watched her grow through this experience in such profound and sometimes subtle ways and it has shown me yet again the gift that we all receive in our own growth and evolution when we can be there and share with others. I know that over the past many years I have attempted to live in service as much as I knew how, to honor others as I would wish to be honored myself, to respect others as I would wish to be respected myself, and the hardest part, to love others as I would wish to be loved myself. And I know at the tender and budding age of 51 that in many ways I have succeeded.



But this trip has also brought home to me in so many other ways that there is so much more that I can do. That there is so much more that I can share of myself with others, not just my time and energy, but of me. That I too can enter into a world of conversation and sharing of my experience that is so much deeper than I have ever allowed myself. And that I too can see so much of myself in others whose lives are so different from mine, on the surface, and learn so much from them.
And for this I will be eternally grateful … and to this conversation I dedicate the next 51 years! Here is to all of us representing ourselves to each other with compassion and respect and truth.


Thanks Lani from the bottom top and middle of my heart, and thanks to all of you along the way who have brightened my world in previously unimaginable ways.

October 3rd 2009 Cody, Wyoming

In five more days I will be home, last stop on the 7th will be Tehama County Juvenile Hall to see everyone and tell them all about the trip. I have seen and heard so much, it is as if 90% the country is sleepwalking and the other 10% is walking through an open door excited to create change which fills my heart with hope and courage to keep doing what I am doing.

September 28th 2009, Least we forget...

In Beth's words...

The last few days have been an incredible melange of sites and sounds and feelings. Our journey to Oklahoma City began with amazing natural vistas as we traveled through New Mexico and all of the peace and serenity and wonder that being in nature can bring. I am always grateful for the reminder, when I drive along the bluffs and crags and pinnacles, that these beings have been standing there for far longer than I have enjoyed and cherished and endured and suffered the diverse slings and arrows of this life we humans create for ourselves, and that evolution takes time. Change comes slowly if it is real change, lasting change, but it does come. Just as the wind and rain carves out new vistas in the rock that a generation or two or three may not notice, still the change happens. And each day allows us another opportunity as conscious human beings to participate in this world. To share with each other in conversation, in compassion, and to carve out a small change ourselves and add it to the whole.


The Oklahoma Memorial was another such reminder for me, an amazing testimony to the resilience and strength that we humans can share with each other. On either end of the site of the bombing are arches that you walk through. One arch is carved with the time 9:01, the moment of innocence before the bomb exploded. And the other arch shows 9:03, the moment after the explosion when all that everyone could hold onto was the hope that the innocence could be regained and that travesties such as this need never happen again. This is itself is an incredible recognition of how one individual moment can change everything, and how it is also all of the individual moments that come after that bring about lasting change.




I expected to feel completely drained and emotionally devastated by the memorial and instead I walked away filled with hope that the violence could end, that it would end. That we could treat each other with respect, and compassion and understanding and acceptance. The bookstore inside is filled with books for children talking about respect; with magnets and stickers that are printed with words of respect and self esteem and honest communication, and with images of hope. Outside there is a wall of tiles that were painted by children and sent to Oklahoma after the bombing. They are loving images to comfort and support those who suffered. And even more important, there are large blackboards embedded in the ground in front of the wall, with buckets of chalk next to them, for the children who visit today to leave messages and speak from their hearts.








The night before the visit to the memorial we had been awakened in our hotel at 2:30 am by a fire alarm, a blaring siren that shocked our entire systems, as we jumped up and threw on clothing and an eight story hotel poured out into the parking lot below. Thankfully there was no fire but the entire next day I felt, as did Lani, that shock in my body that the alarm and rush downstairs had created, all the time knowing that it was maybe one millioneth of the shock that the people involved in the bombing, the survivors and rescuers, felt on that day in 1995. And I could not even begin to imagine what they carried in their bodies still from that horrific event.
And later that day, as we were standing outside the memorial at the wall of remembrance looking at all of the gifts that had been left there, the photos and the stories that had been pinned and tied onto a chain link fence since the bombing 14 years ago, a woman spoke to us who had been part of a medical team across town who responded to the casualties. At the time she was a nursing student, and had not returned to the site since the bombing, and I saw in her face how hard it had been. And still she came with her husband and child because she too wanted to feel the hope again.




Domestic violence comes in all shapes and sizes. What happened in Oklahoma City happened on such a grand and terrible scale that it is memorialized today. What happens in families and relationships across the country is covered up and forgotten, or denied. Why is that, especially when we as individuals have so much more ability to affect the life of one person, to understand and help one another in small ways each and every day, than we can shift something as horrific as a bombing, or 911 or a war? And yet it is those small changes, those small gestures each and every day that will ultimately end the greater violence.

How have we become so numb to the suffering of those around us? During a break from the memorial Lani had a conversation at a health food store with a woman whose family had been severely affected by domestic violence, who told us that Oklahoma City is a hotbed for this issue. And again, even as moved as I was by the message and the energy of peace and non-violence that the memorial stood for, I wondered where was the help for those individuals, for those women and men and children who lived with violence on a day to day basis.
Every person in that city knew about and related to the bombing in some way. And yet, how many of them knew about and related to the violence that surrounded them in their neighborhoods every day? Once again I was struck by the feeling that domestic violence, Including sexual abuse, is the least talked about, most serious issue our country faces.


In Oklahoma City they have memorialized their history so that hopefully it will not be repeated. How many of us know our own family history, or the history of our partners and extended family and friends? Perhaps if we did, perhaps if the issues of domestic violence were not swept under the carpet or buried in the closet, we could all create a living memorial that would finally allow everyone to participate in ending this abuse. Perhaps if we all knew, because the dialog was out in the open and we actively paid attention to it, that we are all capable of violence or disrespect or lack of compassion, then the guilt and shame would finally dissolve and hope could spring anew that change is possible. That the cycles of violence large and small could be broken.



At a memorial in Oklahoma City children are encouraged to speak their feelings, to share their concerns, to look at violence and what it can do to a life, or hundreds of lives. How often do we encourage our children to share with us their thoughts and feelings? How often do we encourage them when they bring home an art project from school, or even better fail a test, or lose a game? How often do we let our children see our fears and sorrow, and hear our questions about our own lives? How often do we let them comfort us?




One thing I do know … we are all here together. Isn’t it time to make that an assumed benefit and not a possible curse?