It was about 25 years ago when I first became acquainted with the music of the Grateful Dead. Unlike many of the other rock bands or mainstream music acts I’d grown to know and love in the 50s, 60s and 70s, the music of the Grateful Dead always had seemed somehow different and less accessible to me. Ironically, my first true introduction to the band came later in my life through my daughter Laura. During that period, I was the new superintendent of a public school in Illinois, and she was … [Read more...]
The Gift of Freedom from Addictions
Even despite 36 years of sobriety, it’s impossible for me to take my freedom from addiction for granted. As someone who struggled for years with alcohol addiction, my heart truly aches for the millions of people who continue to face addictions in all their forms. The sad truth is that each generation faces its own addiction crisis, the most recent being the widespread epidemic of opioid drug abuse in our country. According to The New York Times, in 2015 alone, nearly 33,000 Americans died in … [Read more...]
Storytelling and Life Lessons: Writing to Heal
For many of us, our most memorable stories come from family folklore. These are the stories that inform us about who we are and where we came from. We’ve either lived these moments or had them passed down from other generations, and have filed them in our memory boxes marked, Important Life Lessons. These lessons can be drawn upon throughout our lives, whether we are seven or 70. My very best and earliest storytelling teachers were Ida Mae, my next-door neighbor, and my grandfather, … [Read more...]
Musical Memories: The Long and Winding Road
“The Long and Winding Road” by the Beatles has always been a favorite song of mine. Written by Paul McCartney and released in May 1970, one month after the group broke up, it was the group’s last number one hit on Billboard. Listen to the song here. This poignant song has always resonated with me because of what was going on in my own life at the time. That summer, my husband Larry had just been deployed to Vietnam. My feelings of loss and abandonment at his departure were beginning to … [Read more...]
Binging and Purging Is an Addiction: National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (February 26-March 4)
Eating and purging was one of my addictions after my husband Larry left for Vietnam and when I checked myself into the Menninger Clinic in 1970. It was a ritual that relieved my escalating anxiety and the sense that all the fear building up inside of me would blow off the top of my head. At the time, my fear had a constant cadence like a drumbeat. Not long after being hospitalized during one of our afternoon sessions, Dr. Roberts visited with me about a report from one of the cafeteria … [Read more...]
