Music Never Dies

I was confused this afternoon when I started to see posts on facebook bidding REM farewell. I had a moment when I thought, "What did they all die in a plane crash?" but we all know I've got death on the brain. After a little research, I discovered the band called it quits today after 31 years together. Is that even possible?

So, I had this really sad moment, just like everyone else and then I thought, does it really even matter? I mean, they gave us 31 years. They timestamped my youth. They accompanied me on back roads and kept me safe when I drove too fast. They gave me a soundtrack to build my adolescence upon. They sang on the stage while my friend Jed bought my younger sister so much beer that she passed out.

Here are a few of my favorites for a variety of reasons:

My all time favorite - I can pair this song with exact moments in my life. Smells, weather and cigarettes (among other things). Foo Foo say "If you go a million miles away I'll track you down."

Even though most of you know I plain ol' don't like birds, I love this song. It reminds me of that point in my life when I was convinced that music could change the world. Even if it was just by repeating "Standing on the shoulders of giants.... leaves me cold." over and over.

Laying on my bedroom floor with this one blaring. Singing. That's what I remember.

I could just post all of the videos from Life's Rich Pageant.

It's the End of the World As We Know It was a bit of an anthem of our time. Like it or not. It just was. It was the period on that period of our lives. Then we moved out and moved on. But we took the music with us.

You always take the music.

More things to be thankful for....

I highly recommend this exercise in random gratitude. It puts things in perspective when it would be so easy/has been so easy to get caught up in the negative. Among my moments of real sadness, I have had these overwhelming moments of sheer gratefulness that, at times, have hit me out of left field. Maybe it's my mother "knocking me into next week" like she always threatened. Or maybe it's memories of an Oprah episode long, long ago that encouraged the use of a gratitude journal to put your life into perspective. Whatever it is - I like to think about all of the things, however ridiculous, in my life that I have to be thankful for, especially when I'd just prefer to hide under a rock.

1. Silence - I spent most of the day today in silence. I took the day off, slept in, read on my very quiet porch, got a massage, walked in the park and sat here writing this. It has done me a world of good on a day I desperately needed it.

2. Massage Therapists - because somebody has got to want to be paid to rub down stranger's bodies for money.

3. Laughter - there is nothing more wonderful than the kind of laugh that comes from the gut. Kids (especially Max) are lucky enough to do this way more often than we do when we get older. But when we do really laugh, it's one of the most cathartic things we can do.

4. Pepperoni - Let's face it. It's just good.

5. Holding a book in my hands - I inherited my love of reading from my mother. It dawned on me the other day when I stood in line at Borders holding 12 books that the simple act of buying a book brings me as close to my mother as I can get.

6. 48 Hours Mystery - I'm not sure if it's politically correct to put this on a gratitude list but I certainly enjoy watching it.

7. The Moon - especially tonight. It's quite beautiful.

8. Finding the perfect quote - everyone knows I love a good quote. I am moved by words. Words change, inspire and put a period on a moment in time.

9. Dehumidifiers - because without one, my basement would be nastier than it already is.

10. Having traveled to Ireland with my mother many years ago - seeing my mother see the one thing in the world she never thought she would see (because she refused to fly until her late 50's) was, while incredibly stressful (I was the driver), worth every moment.

I'll admit - this was harder than I thought today but I'm impressed that I was able to squeak 10 out. So you should be too.

The Quake of 2011

True Story: I started my morning off at a client's house screening for a PTSD diagnosis. The first question on the questionairre was "Has your child ever been in an earthquake?" The mother hesitated. I responded "I'm guessing the answer is no." Her reply, "I have to think about it. I don't think so, but I've been in an earthquake." Now, I need to go back and reassess....

I've had a shitty week. I haven't been sleeping, have had some ongoing health issues and generally feel like shit. I've been in a bad mood. So I stomped around the office this morning, trying to get all the things I had to get done before my doctor's appointment. I had about 15 minutes to kill before I had to leave, so I plopped down in my friend Mallory's 5 X 8 foot office, intruding up a conversation she was having with Cory, just as our boss walks in to ask a question. Cory stops us all and wants us to listen to a phone message that was supposed to provide some comic relief. I asked her, "Will I think this is funny or will it just piss me off?" She answered, "It could piss you off but let's listen anyway." So as the message starts and Mallory's desk starts to shake.

The following is a rough approximation of the events as they transpired over the next 30 seconds. Words in italics are the thoughts racing through my mind.

Voice on Answering Machine: "Cory - its Bob (an alias). I just wanted to let you know that I am awesome at my job. And I need you to pat me on the back (an approximation)."

Cory: What is that shaking?

Me: Shut up if you want me to hear what this bonehead has to say.

Cory: Seriously, guys what is that shaking? Mallory are you shaking the desk?

Mallory: (laughing) No, I'm not shaking the desk. Why would I shake the desk?


Me: The desk is shaking. Maybe its the train.

Cory: This is freaking me out. The room is shaking. Could we be having an earthquake?

Me: Earthquake. No. Mallory is starting to kick under her desk just to piss us off.


Mallory stands up and looks out the window yelling: Oh My God. The truck in the parking lot is moving!! The truck is moving!!


Me: What the fuck?


At this point, I walk out of her office, which is caddy corner to mine and watch my computer monitor rock back and forth across my desk. I yell: Oh My God! Look at my computer! I really think this is an earthquake.

Me: What the fuck! Are you kidding me God??? Like I haven't been through enough already, now I'm gonna die in an earthquake?

All those years of watching Dateline, 20/20 and disaster movies finally paid off when I came up with the brilliant idea and yelled "Get in a doorway!"

This is my favorite part (in retrospect, of course) because I grabbed Mallory and we crowded under a hollow door frame in a panic (the building was still shaking, evidenced by watching the drop ceiling tiles move to and fro.) I looked down the hall and everyone is standing there with a look of horror, dropping into position in the hollow door frames. I swore one new employee was going to pass out. And our boss (the only male) in an attempt to remain masculine and therapeutic at the same time kind of just looks around and says, "Ok - I think we need to get in a door frame". But he never did.

Then it stopped. And no one knew what to do. Cuz, those shows don't really tell you what to do once the building stops shaking. I mean we could get caught in a building collapse on our way out the door. 


Apparently, everyone made a mad dash for the door, and down the steps. Of course, I was the last one out because I had to go back in for my phone (I needed to update my FB status). By the time I got out to the parking lot, some man was reporting it was centered in Virginia and measured 5.9. I called Stephen and he confirmed he felt it here in Kennett Square. I went into mom mode and told him he had to go to the camp and check on Max. Which he claims he did. But I'm not buying it.

So I survived my first earthquake. God decided I have enough on my plate right now. And I learned some important lessons:

-The train isn't close enough to cause my building to shake. Never was.
-Mallory kicking her desk would not make an entire building shake.
-Bob (an alias) really does get on my nerves.
-Denial has its advantages and disadvantages.

-Door frames are only useful if they are attached to solid load bearing walls.
-I have a ridiculously old computer monitor (the big boxy kind) and it takes up way too much space on my desk.
-In a natural disaster, I will try to save my friends. (Or at least Mallory). The rest, I'll just yell instructions to.
-There is always time to update your facebook status.

We aren't products of our environment. We are products of our expectations.

My plan was to do a light and jovial blog this time around because I am convinced that my writing can be entirely too morose. But the other day, while I lie in bed, exhausted and flipping through the channels, I happened upon a special on MSNBC focusing on the state of education in this country today. As a behavioral health professional who supervises a large caseload in Chester, PA and a recent adjunct college instructor, I was interested in what the "experts" had to say.

Let's face it. If you are my age or older and have had a recent conversation with a 15-25 year old in the last few years, you have very likely walked away shaking your head, thinking "WTF?". While I'm sure that our parents generation thought similar things about us (minus the texting slang), it has become abundantly clear that our youth are missing some fundamental skills that we took for granted. I was blind sided by this concept when I took on teaching a developmental psychology class this past winter. I learned the hard way that our K-12 educational system is absolutely failing our youth by teaching to benchmarks and standardized tests. Never in a million years would I have asked a professor if he/she would be providing the questions to the test prior to the date of the exam or email my professor to inform them that the grade I received was "unacceptable". But it happened to me multiple times over the course of 15 weeks.

Kids and young adults today are robbed of the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills that are so vital for our collective long term success. For whatever reason, our educational and political system are so panicked by the idea that we are falling behind that they are forgetting that in order to move forward, there comes a time when it is necessary to stand still. And teach and learn skills that we for so long took for granted because they were imbedded in the individual creativity of the teacher.

Which brings me to the title of my blog which was hijacked from one of the panelists on MSNBC. His name was Wes Moore and he is the author of a book titled "The Other Wes Moore". Two African American men, born two years apart (ages 35 and 33), both grew up in poverty in Baltimore. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar; the other was convicted of the murder of a police officer. When Wes, the scholar asked Wes, the felon what made his outcome in life so different he answered "We aren't products of our environments. We are products of our expectations."

And while I have seen first hand the despair and poverty of a place like Chester, I know that a few do "get out". I work with alot of those who have decided to be a product of expectation and subsequently go back and work in that community to offer hope to people that at times, very often, do not know hope exists. And while I know we can't or won't save all of those who live in abject poverty, I refuse to give up on them. My parents grew up in Chester back when Chester was a thriving town. Both my parents grew up poor but my father had high expectations. He and my mother had 6 children, which required my father to often work multiple jobs so my older siblings never wanted for anything back when they lived in small apartments in Chester before moving out to Chadds Ford in the late 60's.

I had my own expectations to live up to. Remember, I come from a working class family that valued a strong work ethic above any textbook education. My father built a very successful auto body business from the ground up, that later expanded into insurance claims and auto glass sales. He was suspended from school on the first or second day of his senior year for spraying the fire extinguisher. When they told him he could return a few days later, he refused on principal (not sure what his train of thought was) and waited an entire year to go back and graduate. He could have easily not gone back and gone on to do all of the things he succeeded in in life (his occupation didn't require a high school education) but his expectations told him differently.

For me to choose to pursue a college degree, and subsequently a Masters, had nothing to do with environment and everything to do with the expectations I have placed on my self. I will say it is much harder to be a product of your expectations than it is your environment. Your environment allows you to fit nicely in the box you came into this world in. None of my siblings went to college. Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. We were raised to know we could be successful at whatever we chose to do. AND we had a choice.All of my brothers and sisters did well for themselves in their chosen careers. And a few make quite a bit more money than I do. But I wanted to go to college. My master plan was to have my PhD in Psychology by 25.  I mean, how hard could that be???

What I can tell you is for someone who's environment did not include the modelling of higher education, that was a better idea than a reality for me. I honestly think I was a college junior for, like, 3 years. I could not mentally make the jump to senior status in college because in that mind, it implied I knew what to do next. And I definitely did not. What I did know how to do was work. And work hard. So I waited tables, And I bartended. (And I drank...alot....but that's another story). When I finally graduated from my undergraduate program, my master plan had changed to a Masters in Counseling Psychology so I could just get the hell out of school. Both the head of the psychology department and honors program (which I wasn't even a part of) advised against it, telling me I was selling myself short. I told them I was tired.

So I entered Villanova's Masters in Counseling Psychology program with a concentration in...get this...Addictions Counseling. I then proceeded to be bored to tears and partied my face off while bartending on the side. The week before finals I was talking to someone about my program and blurted out without thought "I hate it. I'm dropping out." I called my mother the next day and she said, "I figured you would, You just don't seem happy." Years later, I tracked down my psychology department head from Neumann to tell him that he was right. And he said he knew that too.

So from that point forward, I worked. I bartended, I managed restaurants, I was a bookkeeper. I owned my own business. I bartended. Then I had Max. And it all changed.

Suddenly, I was forced to consider what my own true expectations were. Who did I really want to be? And how was I going to be that person? Not only for me but for my son too. It was at that point that I went back to school and finished my Masters (this time in Clinical Psychology, as opposed to Counseling). I stepped out of my comfort zone and took a job that not only did I work hard at but one that I felt matched up with my true expectations in life.

We are only as successful as we decide to be. And we all define success in different ways. I have always aspired to be the best at whatever I did; mixing drinks, managing someone else's money or helping a family. What changed over the years is how much confidence I had in my overall ability; in my true expectations. And I have pretty high expectations.

My friend Nancy

I put down these memorandums of my affections
In honor of tenderness
In honor of all of those who have been
Conscripted into the brotherhood
Of loss....
~ Edward Hirsch

Those of you who know me, know that I navigate my life through words. Through trying to find the exact sentiment that will convey what may be beyond description. I do this with deep conviction in a world that sometimes simply can not understand. I'll try again today for someone who only entered into my life three years ago but will never leave it.

I met Nancy in August of 2008 on my first day at Devereux. I have limited memories of the actual encounter because I was high as a kite on Vicodin after being on the losing end of a battle with a blender two days before. With 21 stitches in the tip of my finger, I listened as I was introduced to the world of Devereux Human Resources by a woman named Nancy Murphy. You couldn't help but like Nancy. I guarantee there isn't anyone out there that didn't like Nancy. In fact, I'm guessing most of us would go so far as to say we loved her. And she loved us back.

I worked in the community and Nancy worked on campus, so my initial interactions with her were rare but always positive. She emanated joy, even if she walked by cussing under her breath (which I loved about her). Nancy was the type of person you wanted to get to know. You wanted to be her friend.

At my 90 day mark, I made an appointment with Nancy to go over benefits. This was exciting for me, since I really never had a job with these kind of benefits. It was quite ceremonious. But shortly after the appointment began, Nancy and I stopped talking business and started being friends. I found myself seeking her out under the guise of an HR related issue. She'd motion me in, we'd shut the door and talk. It was like I always knew her.

About 10 months after I went to work at Whitlock, my brother passed away of a heart attack. As you all know this just about destroyed me. I started having alot of anxiety about making sure I had my "affairs in order" and scheduled with Nancy to discuss my life insurance policy. When I sat down in her office, I looked at her and began to cry. She started to cry too and told me that she had lost her brother too; young from a heart attack. In that moment, I found someone who inherently knew my pain like no one else. And it bound us. When I felt I had outstayed my welcome in the grief department with my other friends, I knew I could call, email or just show up in her office and we could have a brief cry, followed by a good laugh and move on.

This past winter, Nancy and I again had a parallel experience when our mothers were diagnosed with cancer. We confided in each other in a corner during happy hour and checked in on each other now and again. My mother lost her battle in March and I found myself standing in the door of Nancy's office pretending to have a question about retirement (we must have had 15-20 "retirement planning" meetings before I ever signed a single paper). Nancy listened as I told her the story of losing my mother with tears in her eyes. She gave me the time and space to do what must have been excruciating for her to hear. And then she looked down at her desk, shaking her head and said "Carol, I have to tell you. I feel this special connection with you that only you and I can understand. I know exactly how you feel." And she did. And there are very few people in this world who can say that and mean it. I will never forget that moment.

So, even though we were connected by parallel loss, I will always remember Nancy for "who she was" in the greatest sense of that cliche. She was a joy. She had a laugh and a smile that was infectious. She was lucky enough to have children and a family she absolutely beamed about when she talked about them. She was authentic and real and good and pure.

I will miss my friend.

Shining a Spotlight on....John

With all of my recent entries being of a melancholy nature, I was really looking to write about something or someone fun. When I went back over my entries from the past year, I found my Shining the Spotlight Series to be a fan fav (even though I only did two before now). Anyway – it just so happened that the other night my friend John called me and we got together for a few drinks and from that evening, my latest blog entry was born.

I usually give a bit of a life story on my Spotlighter so here's what I know; John grew up in the Washington DC area but moved up to Chadds Ford when he was in 11th grade. That was in 1970. That's right....BEFORE I WAS BORN, as I love to often point out to him every time we meet. He is one of many (I'm not sure how many) Irish children and they are a close family who genuinely seem to like each other, which at times feels like a novel idea to me, an Irish - Italian sibling. I just think the Irish are a culture that exhibits love through actually treating each other well, while the Italians show it by screaming at each other.

So anyway, I met John a million years ago, when I was about 19, waitressing at the Kennett Square Inn (let's face it, everyone I ever met of any real substance in my life, I met at the KSI) and he was a 38 year old divorcee. That in itself could be cause for scandal but I am sorry to disappoint. John was always a gentleman and we became good friends. I think, and I'd guess he'd agree, there's a bit of a kindred spirit relationship between us. Must be an Irish thing. But for a few years, we carried on platonic relationship that I will always view as a positive part of my life. It's always nice for a young girl to learn the lesson that she can be treated with respect by a man who doesn't necessarily have to treat her that way. 

Eventually, John went off and fell in love and got married and I did the same. We lost touch for many, many years but occasionally, I would wonder “What ever happened to John?” So fast forward those million years and about four years ago, I get an email from the Unionville Alumni website stating that someone is looking for me. Now this is before I had fully embraced Facebook as a form of connection with people from my past so I really couldn’t figure out who could possibly be looking for me. The best part is when I clicked on the link to connect me I was prompted to pay $25 to find out who was so desperately seeking me out. After weighing the pros and cons, I figured anyone who actually took the time out of their day to “seek me out” was worth the 25 bucks for me to find out who they were. I must say I was completely surprised (pleasantly, nonetheless) to find it was John “seeking me out”. We got back in touch, very occasionally but it wasn’t until my 40^th birthday party this January that I finally saw him face to face after those million years. 

I put this reconnection in the same class as many reconnections I made over the past 2 years. In losing 2 of the most important people of my life since June of 2009, I regained numerous friendships that I really took for granted to simply be “time and place” relationships”. I learned that John, among others in my life, is much more than that. These are people who came into my life long ago for a reason, and came back into my life all these years later for a reason. I have learned that time means nothing when you connect with true friends over the course of a lifetime. And John has been a testimony to that.

But, the spotlight wouldn’t be complete without a story so I leave you with this one that I did not witness but had a profound effect on my life nonetheless. In 1970 (before I was born), John was elected Senior Class President of Unionville High School after a hard fought battle and subsequent runoff election. Given the social climate of the times, it only makes sense that John, as president, would have to enact some change in order to earn his place as president. So, John set up an appointment with the principal, Garland Hoover. Personally, the fact that Unionville’s principal name was Garland Hoover is enough for me but there is more to the story. So John went to the principal with 3 demands. Number one: the student body was demanding a smoking lounge. Number two: the student body was demanding that they be allowed to leave school during last period if they had a study hall scheduled. And Number three: given the previous year’s shooting in the NYC hotel during the senior class trip, the senior class was requesting the trip be changed to Williamsburg, VA. None of John’s demands were met that year but as I said before, his demands affected my life many years later. The following year, the smoking lounge was put in place. This courtyard is where I first spotted my friend Jed Demajistre 15 years later and thought to myself “that dude is a total head” (see Spotlight on Jed blog). I enjoyed many a smoke there myself throughout high school. And eventually, some bureaucratic bullshit put an end to the smoking lounge (although I’m really not complaining). 

The subsequent class was also able to enjoy early dismissals if they were scheduled for a study hall last period; another labor of love for John and his policy makers. By the time I got to UHS, they had done away with that policy but I must admit, I never spent an entire day in school my senior year. It appears that if you park just outside the principal’s office and act like you are supposed to be leaving at 1:30pm, no one questions you. 

The final demand was also eventually succumbed to, but not without a good fight from Mr. Garland Hoover. When John sat down with the principal Mr. Garland Hoover to explain the student concerns about being in a hotel where gunfire had erupted the year before on the class trip, the obviously Republican principal replied,

“You know John, coming from a rural setting like we do, something like that can be of educational value.” John’s senior class enjoyed a gunfire free trip to New York City that year but eventually the trip was changed to Williamsburg per his request. And by the time I made it to UHS, the pansies sent us to the happiest place on earth, Disney World. Talk about a change in social climate.

So thank you John, not only have you affected my adult life. You have affected my youth too. And you didn't even know it.

Two Years Later

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." Soren Kierkegaard

I made a commitment to myself and my brother in the early morning hours after his death. I promised him and I promised myself I would not let him be forgotten. I was panicked by the very idea that there would be a day, even a moment that my brother and who he was would be forgotten. He had no wife. He had no children. Ralph's legacy was fully in my family's hands. And, if you haven't noticed, I take that very seriously.

On what would have been my brother's 52nd birthday, we marked the 3 month anniversary of my mother's death. And in that moment, I realized that the imminent grief I was experiencing needed to be separated from the loss of my brother if I was going to keep my promise. Now, this doesn't mean that I have to parcel out my grief in small packages but the confounding effects of the last few years have left me not knowing which way is up most of the time.

I still grieve my loss of my brother. Every day. This may make some people uncomfortable but I speak the truth regardless of other's comfort. Mostly, because this is one way I can honor my brother. And also, because its my blog and I can say what I want, when I want to. So there......

Dare I say, the loss of Ralph has had a profound effect on the direction of my life in a way that losing my mother can not or will not. We all expect to lose our mother; as incredibly painful as that may be. And it's been painful. But the loss of a sibling, while expected, unearths deep feelings of pain, sadness and heartache about a person who has stood by your side as you've built your life story. From the very beginning of time, for at least one of you. Ralph was 12 years older than me; but I hadn't ever lived a single day when he wasn't my big brother until the night I got that phone call. That experience of loss changes a person on a fundamental level in a way that you cannot explain, unless you have experienced it.

A few months after my brother died, I wandered into a library desperately looking for a book that would give a voice to these deep feelings of loss I was experiencing. And I was shocked to find them. In a book called  The Empty Room: Understanding Sibling Loss, the sister of the infamous "Boy in the Bubble" (yes - he was an actual person) complied interviews of individuals from every stage of life who had lost a sibling. As I read the book I found a single sentence that has been burned into my memory everytime I think of a way that I can possibly explain what it feels like to lose your sibling. "What he was saying was, how do you describe the way someone fit into your life, if they have always been a part of it?"

In many ways, that sentence has both haunted and sustained me over the past 2 years. In the beginning, I was so desperate to figure out how to define and clarify the deep impact the life and death of my brother had on my life. But it felt like nothing I said was good enough, clear enough or deep enough to give what he meant to me justice. I felt like I was forever failing his legacy. But I'm stubborn so I kept trying. I kept writing. I kept talking. I kept laughing. I kept crying. I just tried to keep him. And it helped.

Last year, as the first anniversary of Ralph's passing approached, I wanted to take that opportunity to write about what I had learned about myself and those around me as I had gone through that difficult journey. And I learned so much. I came out on the other side of 365 days a stronger, deeper, more determined person. Not perfect. But happier in many ways, which sounds bizarre in itself. I had learned to embrace all of those less than perfect things in myself in a way that would have made my brother beam. I have said before, if I knew nothing else about Ralph, I knew this one thing; he believed in me in a way that no single other human being ever had in my life. I have no idea why. I remember knowing this from a pretty young. age. And I paid him no mind. I gave it little thought. But there I was, on the other side of a single year, without that undying support holding me up. And I was still standing. And that propelled me in many ways. I would have never run a 5K after 12 days of training without knowing that my brother assumed I could do it. I would have never taught a college class without knowing that he just assumed that I would someday do it. I would have never pissed endless people off by saying exactly what I thought without knowing that living in my own truth was my brother's expectation. I would have never started this blog.

And then my mother got sick. And then my mother died. And the winds were completely knocked out of my sails. I was devastated and vulnerable. And for a little while I forgot who I was grieving. I mean, of course, I was (and continue to) mourn my mother. Everyday, I think "I'll call Mom." followed by a sinking, empty feeling. But 3 months later, I am standing on the brink of another 365 days since I lost my brother. And I'm left thinking, what have I learned? And, how can I keep his legacy alive?

So most of the day today, I thought about a man who taught me about music, loyalty, truth and family. It was suggested that I spend his birthday, which was Sunday, doing something he loved and the only thing I could come up with was having a few drinks, singing Beatles songs and quoting lines like "Book 'em Dano." I'll admit, I did none of those things but that's what he would have done. And then he'd have spent the next day with us (my sisters, the kids and my mother) eating spaghetti and eating birthday cake. We had this thing we did every year. Every birthday, we would call each other just to say happy birthday. And then we would always have cake at my mom's. Not every one of us 6 kids did this but Ralph and I did, along with a few others. It felt very juvenile in some ways but it was a tradition. And it hurts to know that we can't do this again. And that I can't call him on the phone number that it is still saved in my phone 2 years later.

But this is what I can do....I can continue to talk about my brother. I can continue to write about my brother. I can continue to learn from a life, while short, lived full. I can continue to let him lift me up in the way only he knew how.