Bobble Eyes

One of my now departed friends, Uncle Lem, used to sing a song called, "My girl has some big bobble eyes" in his Hawaiian accent. It was quite humorous, and I used to wonder what was so enticing about a girl with bulging "bobble" eyes.
Well, this morning I awoke with one. Yes--only one.
Here is what happened last night. After my Lasik eye surgery I developed a bad case of dry eye related problems. After two office procedures and one additional surgery, my left eye was rendered an official dry eye. I have to put gel drops in my eyes twice during the night so they don't dry out and diminish my vision. the downside of this, in addition to waking up to put in the second set of drops, is that the gel makes my eyes stick shut. I have to get up and splash water in my eyes to dissolve the gel goo in order to put the next drops in.
Last night I awoke from a dead sleep with the desire to head to the bathroom. Jumping up in the pitch blackness, my eyes were glued shut as I made haste toward the door going into the dressing area. For some reason, I missed the edge of Sam's dresser as a landmark, and I walked straight into the door frame. With my left eyebrow--BANG! I was so tired that I barely realized what had happened, did my business and went straight back to bed.

This morning I woke up with "an egg" over my left eyebrow. Fortunately you can't see it unless you get a profile view. I'm just so grateful that it's not black and blue.

So now I too, have bobble eyes. At least, one of them is.
;)

Looking for Love

Today is the day, some 30 years ago that Trisha, one of my dear friends got married. None of us knew that the marriage would end quite sadly, but it did. One divorce, and several years of healing later, she is finally interested in meeting someone. At this point, it would be great just to have someone to see a movie with or to have dinner with. She'd love to have someone come by and help her work in the yard--a good companion type of person. So this week Trisha joined an online matchmaker service. "If you can do it, Barbara, then so can I."
But Trisha panicked after she launched her profile with her picture. "There are so many wierdos out there. What if one of them is a pedophile or serial killer?" Of course, she is thinking of the most horrible outcomes possible.

I got several anxious phone calls from Trisha the day after she uploaded her material to the matchmaking site. "Would you please go into my profile and look at it to be sure I haven't said anything really stupid? Then, look and see who might be a good match for me. I can't tell."

It is always fun to look through these kinds of ads--if you're married. If not, it is most uncomfortable! I remember only too well, looking at the profiles of guys with another therapist friend who tends to be a bit suspicious, and who said of one guy, "Why would they even let someone like this on the website?" and "This guy looks like an ex-con." There were never any encouraging words from her. So thinking about this, I decided to try to be as upbeat as possible for Trisha. It might be harder than I thought, possibly due to the area where Trisha lives, and maybe because there are a lot of desperate dorks out there. Here are some of the remarks to introduce themselves or state their preferences that men wrote on their profiles:

Please - no heavy smokers, drinkers or heroin addicts, nut cases, recent parolees, broken hearts on the mend (this rides above all others - too much drama likely), women with a voice deeper then Johnny Cash's, cyber pretenders who fudge facts in their profiles, women with ugly tempers, bad table manners, intoxicated by divisive politics or crazed with emotionally based addictions!

Mike writes, I am a gentlemen cowboy. I dont play games and dont want any played on me. I am sincere and honest. I know how to treat a lady. I am trying this again to see if it it will work. Ask me anything and I will tell you. I have nothing to hide or prove. i am the real deal.
Easy for him to claim this, but how can we know this for sure by seeing him sitting on the couch of an obvious bachelor pad, wearing a bright orange shirt, and sticking his tongue out at the camera?

Here's another one: Handsome, secure doctor seeks a happy, intelligent beauty. I am looking for a woman who wakes up smiling. Good luck.

One guy whose moniker is, SailinOut confesses in his profile, My experience on the open seas has been limited to driving over the 14th Street bridge. So much for truth in advertising!

Another man whose online name is LakeHoundDog announces, Lone wolf would like to join pack! He then adds, Someone who can sing.. Out of key its ok. someone who can laugh .. even on a rainy day someone who will make love in the hay.. or keep the wolves at bay. This is a discription of you, this is a discription of me. A poet, he ain't, but I suppose that someone would find these comments appealing.

Then there is "Mr. Breeze looking for the wind." This motorcycle enthusiast is shown sitting on his ginormous bike with a Dick-Deadeye expression. He writes, I have no need for drama or a deep understanding of anyone's past, especially my own. If I could see past the numerous red flags that obscure the rest of his comments, I'd tell Trisha to cut a wide swath around this one.

So This has all been quite an interesting romp through singlehood once again. I remarked to Sam last night that I am more pleased than I can ever say that I am no longer single. Seeing that Sam said nothing back to me, I asked, "Aren't you?"
"What do you think..." he smiled at me warmly. "Just like I tell everyone, you are the same as when I first met you. I adore you, Honey!"

I wish the same for Trisha, who for now must swim through the seas of uncertainty. There is land after the many the long swim. Bless her heart!

Mourning Dove

Some months ago I wrote about starting to put out birdseed so Otis would have something to occupy himself with--lurching and swearing at the birds. We have attracted a huge number of finches, sparrows of various types, and now finally, a pair of mourning doves.

They faithfully show up every morning around 7:00, sit quietly on the fence while the smaller birds fight over the sunflower seeds in the birdfeeder, and the sprinklers scare everyone away. But our doves flutter down onto the back patio and seem to find something of interest, because they peck at various bits of things all across the cement.

These birds are quite large compared to the finches that we see here. And they walk with such a funny head-bobbing gait. The male usually shows up first and coos until his wife joins him on the fence. The whistling of their wings tells me that they're fluttering up and down from the fence, then across the back yard, and maybe then up into a tree nearby. They never squabble with other birds, unlike the crows or jays that frequent the yard. Our finches and sparrows have daily fighting matches over the sunflower seeds. No, our doves just go about their business, doing what they need to do according to the Great Black Bird Book in the sky.

Although these birds are sweet looking and shy, they aren't terribly graceful or bright. My father used to refer to them as "disaster birds" since they take off from the ground at wierd angles and a frantic speed, looking for all the world as though they may careen into a building or tree. Our little pair seems to be stricken with panic without warning, as they pick their way across the patio. But they are soon back, their sweet little brown faces looking at me through the wind

Turtledoves are the other name for these birds. Their loveliness has been written about for centuries in poems and music. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a lovely choir melody entitled The Turtle Dove:

Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone,

And leave you for a while;

If I roam away I'll come back again,

Though I roam ten thousand miles, my dear,

Though I roam ten thousand miles.

So fair thou art, my bonny lass,

So deep in love am I;

But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,

Till the stars fall from the sky, my dear,

Till the stars fall from the sky.

The sea will never run dry, my dear,

Nor the rocks melt with the sun,

But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,

Till all these things be done, my dear,

Till all these things be done.

O yonder doth sit that little turtle dove,

He doth sit on yonder high tree,

A-making a moan for the loss of his love,

As I will do for thee, my dear,

As I will do for thee.

It's interesting that in Bible times, a pair of doves could be used for a sacrifice in place of a lamb. There is something innocent and sweet about these peaceful birds that must be like some characteristic of Jesus. So in the mornings when I am reading the Bible and praying, their fluttering wings remind me of the One who was as peaceful and innocent as a dove.

Marking Time

It happened again this week. A 30-something former student came to see me on Wednesday to see if I knew of any job leads for him. Jerry is a slender young man who looked at me so hopefully. I gave him two contacts and he thanked me profusely. As he got ready to leave, I asked if I could pray for him.
After my prayer, Jerry thanked me profusely. Then as he was leaving he said, "The good Lord knew what I needed. Thank you. You are like a mother to me."
You might be thinking, How lovely! What a sweet exchange! But all I could think was, Am I that old?

I well remember the first time I realized that I wasn't as young as I felt. I was running a counseling center at a university when I was 36 or 37 years old and it seemed that I was finally getting to do what I'd gone to school to do. It was a real pleasure to decorate my first office: a couple chairs that I salvaged and reupholstered, a couch from the warehouse, pictures that I bought and framed, and a huge quilt hanging on the wall at the end of the room. This was both to make it more cozy in theire but also to mute our voices and enhance confidentiality.
One day I stepped into the waiting area to call the next client in. She was a youngish looking 18-year old and her intake form said that she was homesick--a typical complaint of the young girls that I saw. Rebecca walked into my office and looked up at the quilt. Turning to me with quiverling lips, she cried out in a trembling voice, "Ohhh! You remind me of my mom! Can I hug you?" and she burst into tears as she reached for me.
I could have collapsed. I had no sense of being old enough to be her mother, but I suppose it could have been possible if I'd had her at age 18. I don't remember much about that therapy session, but the idea stuck with me that I had aged to the point of being old enough to be someone's mother. A teenager's mother. Whew...

It is part of my experience as a childless woman. Having children seems to mark the time in a way that few other things do. Women often mark off time according to the age of their children at a certain time. I have no such internal timing system. There have been no "diaper years" or "terrible two" years, or schoolage years. Paul Rosenblatt, one of my professors at the University of Minnesota, used to mark time by the age of his last daughter. She was a love child of sorts--a second marriage for him, and his other children were much older. He was the primary caretaker for his daughter, Emily. He used to take her to work with him and his graduate assistant would watch her while he taught his classes. Then he'd return to the little cottage where his office was, and Emily would toddle around the place while he worked. It was like that every day for many years, I'm told. So when I asked Paul a question about what year something or another happened, he stood still and stroked his chin, looking into the distance. "Hmmmm. Let's see...Emily would have been about three at the time...and we would have just started swim lessons." I had never heard a man talk like that. There is a reason he was called a feminist, and I liked hearing a man being so unashamedly mindful of his fatherhood in this way.

Mothers can look at young adults and say to themselves, "He's young enough to be my son--the upstart!" I look at the same person and am more likely to see a peer. I can be easily intimidated by much younger people simply because I've never had the experience of having to take a child in hand--be they 7, 12, or 18--and set them straight. I am therefore, easily intimidated by "bad" behavior in younger people, even though by virtue of my education and clinical experience, I have knowledge of why they do what they do, how they are probably thinking, how they got that way, or what their behavior is attempting to accomplish.

I suppose I do have an internal time marking system of sorts. I reckon time according to the places I've lived, and as a single woman, there have been numerous apartments, rental homes, and condos. My home defined me, I think. So did my job.
One of my always single friends lamented after her hysterectomy that she no longer could mark time by her menstrual cycles. (What a loss...)


I mark time by the pets I have had: Barclay during my early 20s, that miserable little Luigi pit bull-terrier mix puppy (whom I was told was a Great Dane!) for one awful week when I turned 29, Tiersa during my Master's program, Zita from 30 - 46, Otis in my late 40s.

My walk with God has also changed according to decade: my teen years were spent yearning and longing after God, reading every religoius book I could get my hands on. 25- 35 were the most painful and tumultuous years for me. During that time my reaching out for God was more for survival than a wish for spiritual growth. My 40s brought a time of learning spiritual discipline and maturity--going back to many of the ideas and practices I embraced as a young person.

Now I am 51 years old. My knees ache sometimes, and I get out of breath when I try to climb hills. My health might be the new marker of time. My 20s saw me climing all the major peaks in Southern California. My 30s saw me through two stints in graduate school. My 40s were when I married and started a new career. And now...I'm not sure what my 50s hold. But I'm walking with God daily, believing that what I'm doing now was worth all the upheaval and questioning of my younger years.
It will be interesting to see how I define my 50s from the vantage point of being an 80-year old.

What is your path?

I teach a practicum class for all doctoral marital and family therapy students in which we explore appropriate, ethical ways to address religio-spiritual issues in therapy. It's usually a really wonderful experience, what with all the religious diversity we have in our program. There is a richness that can only emerge when there are differences to compare your own beliefs against.

Our clinic was in the process of moving to a new location last week, so our practicum class site was in an uproar. we had no DVD player and there were boxes stacked up around the room. Students are required to share at least three videotapes of themselves doing therapy with clients, in which they explore or somehow address spiritual practices or beliefs of their clients. Well, it just wasn't going to happen in that mess of a place we had last week. So thinking quickly and creatively, I asked students if they would be willing to share their own spiritual journey up to that point. There were only six of us present, and it seems that everyone was in the mood for opening up.

One after another stammered through stories that included incredible pain and loss, confusion, family trauma and breakups, and uncertainty about organized religion. There were lots of tears. A student would confess, "I've never said this to anyone before--I've been so mixed up and ashamed..." only to have another student tag onto their comment with a similar story of their own. We all shed tears at one point or another. I found it incredibly moving. Students divulged beliefs that to me are heretical, but that have real meaning for them. Yet somehow, it was clear that they are all reaching forward toward God in one way or another. And everyone present was respectful and eager to hear their stories.

As we were ending class two students pointed out that I had not shared my spiritual journey. Would I be willing to talk about this to the class next week? How could I say no?

Surprisingly (to me), I cried all the way home. As I reflected on my spiritual journey, I could see that the times of the greatest spiritual learning were the times when I was suffering the most. I wonder if that is how it is with most people. There is something about feeling helpless and overwhelmed with pain that makes a person lean on God. Maybe, it makes us cling to God because there is no one else. The review of the losses and disappointments was quite painful.

Tonight on the way home from work, I talked aloud, preparing to tell the students my story tomorrow night. Pain is awful. Yet it is also the vehicle for God to become real to many people. I am grateful, even as I lick my wounds.

We Launch Away

Found here

I have rarely been so taken by song lyrics as I have by these:

There is a land of pure delight,Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,And never withering flowers:

Death, like a narrow sea, dividesThis heav’nly land from ours.
Sweet fields beyond the swelling floodStand dressed in living green:

So to the Jews old Canaan stood,While Jordan rolled between.
But timorous mortals start and shrinkTo cross this narrow sea;

And linger, shivering on the brink,And fear to launch away.

O could we make our doubts remove,Those gloomy thoughts that rise,

And see the Canaan that we loveWith unbeclouded eyes!
Could we but climb where Moses stood,And view the landscape o’er,

Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,Should fright us from the shore.

Written by Isaac Watt in 1707, this song captures the reliance on the forward-looking attitude of the settlers in America. Life expectancy was much shorter than it is today: 35 - 40 at the most. I would be dead by now, were I a Puritan.

Going back through the old cemeteries of New England, the focus of people on the heavenly realm was readily evident. Death was a daily experience. So many women died in childbirth. A simple cold could progress to pneumonia and death, without antibiotics. A puncture wound from a nail would turn into lockjaw and subsequent death. It was not infrequent to sit at the bedside of people who were dying, without the technology that we have today. It was a process of fever, delirium, coma, and death. People could just drift off to "eternal rest." Therefore, these individuals realized that it was important to focus on what came after death in order to survive emotionally.

This is the context of Isaac Watt's lyrics.

It is also quite possibly why I feel closer to God at a funeral than almost at any other time. The current chapter of the story is over. The little soul is resting until the Resurrection, when they shall stand in the sight of God. Or, as our Pilgrim parents believed, "launched away."

I've been driving around singing this along with the recording of Early American hymns that has this on it. Every day, my heart swells and I too, become future-oriented. What we experience here isn't the end of the story. While our Puritan parents were living in the most austere circumstances and dying quickly from now-treatable medical problems, they learned to look forward. We too, gain much for looking for that Great Day. May we not be timorous souls, but hearty lives, straining ahead for that perfect Land.

Say that again?

While I was in Puerto Rico, I ended up having to grade papers for a couple days so I could get my grades turned in on time. As I was reading a paper for my child abuse and family violence course, I came across this gem that cracked me up:

"Doing the web search for news items about elderly persons who abuse children was difficult. I found an article that told about a man who was convicted for fondling his gentiles in front of a minor."

Imagine that!

Relaxation

The view from our 18th floor hotel room at the Caribe Hilton, San Juan

We have been in Puerto Rico these last 10 days or so. I have never needed a vacation like as badly as I did when we came. Can't remember when I've slept so much or so hard, and have been able to do anything or nothing. As I sit here on the balcony of the Rincon Beach Resort and Hotel, I am looking out onto a turquoise ocean, white sand, and beautiful palm trees lazily moving with the ocean breeze. There is an infinity pool, several cabanas, and acres of abandoned beaches stretching in either direction.

We spent six days with Sam's family over on the East side of the island, then three days at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan. I have never enjoyed a place like that hotel and Old San Juan. If you would like to see pictures of our trip, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/HernandezHouse08/PuertoRico2010# and double click on the first picture. You can look through and see where we've been and some of the sights so far. I am just far too lazy just now to try to upload these pictures here.

El Morro sentry tower at the gate of Puerto Rico, Old San Juan

I think that I'm even getting a hint of color in my cheeks and arms. It is rare to find someone more white than I am, so this is gratifying. When I left work at the last day before vacation, the Chair of my department intoned, "You need to be outside more, Barbara." Then Sam's auntie told me the same thing. Of course, the girls have always thought that I'm hilariously pasty-faced, so being outside in the sun may give me an advantage in more ways than I ever considered!
I think we're going kayaking in the ocean today, around the bends and over the backs of fish. The ocean is so clean here that one can look down about 4 feet and see fish swimming around, stones, shells, etc. It is truly beautiful.

One of the things that Sam told me when we bought our house is that he'd love to have it decorated like a Puerto Rican house. I had no idea of what that meant until I got here. But once here, and into several homes and lots of buildings, I am thinking of what would work with our space and belongings...the painting and redesign will really be fun for me. The observation tower in the Rain Forest Preserve

We will be leaving Rincon on Sunday morning, heading back to Levitown to have one last family bash before flying out on Monday morning from San Juan. We are getting weary of life away from the predictability of our own home environment, but it is doing us a world of good to be here. I will truly feel sad as I leave this magical place. We have helped the economy here considerably, and I feel as though I am leaving a pint of blood here--in the stomachs of mosquitoes and no-seeums that have fallen down my shirt and tortured my extremities since I've been here. There is just no lady-like way to rake at a patch of six bites over my "angel bone" on my back!

Porta Coeli, ca. 1609. Oldest church in the Western Hemisphere

The next few months will not be as vexing and stressful as the last few have been, so I hope to be more visible here after next week. Thanks for standing by.

A Sabbath day photo shoot

Here are some pictures that I took last week while I was out meandering about with Mother. I hope you enjoy the sights.

This is our city hall, framed by these lovely orange daisies, with Mount St. Bernardino in the background.

This calla lily is in my front garden, just outside the front door walkway.

These ranunculus were delicate and gorgeous, as are the following--all in one huge flowerbed outside our university athletic center.

Here is Mother looking up as she felt the first drops of rain that almost drowned us a few moments later.

Iceland poppies

These palms are famous in the Inland Valley region where I live. They were planted originally (probably a good 90 years ago) on the outside edges of orange groves, just to identify the end of one person's acerage and the beginning of another's. There are many of these rows of silent gians in our area--always aresting to look at, especially against the stormy sky.

Outside Mission Asistencia--one of the old California Missions.

The old mission.

It was a wonderful meander. I hope to go again soon.

Grand Rounds

I have been building a training program for marriage and family therapists who work with people in medical settings. There is a national trend to include mental health providers alongside physicians in clinics, hospitals, and follow up areas where medical patients are seen. This type of collaboration is still fairly new, but research shows that it pays for itself in reduction of unnecessary physician visits and waste of healthcare dollars. At a time when healthcare is a huge debate, it seems important to try to find ways to stretch these monies. Medical family therapy is one such way.

There are now at least four universities nationwide who teach medical family therapy, one offering a doctoral degree in it. In 2001, the former chair of the department called me in Minnesota and asked if I would be willing to come to this university and head up a new medical family therapy program. In fact, I'd never been trained in it and was unprepared to do that, so I declined. My dissertation wasn't yet completed--another reason not to come out to California.

Little did I know that in 2008 I would be placed in the role to fill a vacancy of the woman hired to do this job. Over time this program has grown and through the grace of God, I have been able to set up a sexual dysfunction clinic (physician, physical therapist and medical family therapy intern). I have placed three students in the hospital where they work alongside the psychiatry residents, doing bedside individual, couple, and family therapy, and also with rehab patients. They negotiate issues between volatile couples whose children are dying, assist contentious family members come to decisions about whether or not to withdraw life support, and work with those who are depressed, anxious, or otherwise emotionally compromised.

I have two interns seeing liver/pancreas and kidney transplant candidates as they wait for organs and either get very sick, get an organ, or die. The stories they tell me each week are amazing--I do not know a more needed resource than family therapy for these folks. The stress on their families is beyond anything that I hope I will ever be called on to endure.

I've placed a student in the perinatal palliative care unit, working with high risk moms who recognize that when they give birth, their babies will die due to a number of pregnancy problems. This intern will also be making follow up home visits to try to help the parents negotiate and manage their (typically) very different grieving styles and needs.

Two interns are in our outreach primary care clinic, providing mental health services in exam rooms for the underserved in our region.

Last but not least, one student is now placed in the medical school simulation lab, working with medical students, residents, and specialty fellows, coaching them on death notification and general attending and communication skills.

All of these folks are practicing under the umbrella of my license and supervision (I pray a lot!)

It seems that my program is on the cusp of really taking off. Students are clamoring to get into it (it's just for doctoral students in our department), and physicians are now taking notice of how much improved their patients are after seeing our interns.

One of the things I've been doing is holding medical family therapy grand rounds once per month. Since my interns are largely from non-medical backgrounds, any exposure to medical equipment, language, or phenomena, are much appreciated. Last week we had a sort of medical tube petting zoo for my students. You can see here, that they really enjoyed working on the manikins in the simulation lab.

After they watched me insert a catheter in this manikin who supposedly had an abdominal incision ("eeeouw" all around), I asked them to get him up on a bedpan. It took the whole group several minutes to figure out how to accomplish this for the 250 lb. patient. It was a major production. Good thing it wasn't a real person trying to hold out!

What a lark! I am having more fun than I thought possible. But it has been all-consuming. This is why I haven't been online for almost a month. Thought you'd like to see what has been happening in my world.