Here I am.

Look at me!

Here I am.

See me!

Here I am.

I’m lonely!

Here I am.

I’m stuck!

Here I am.

I’m not safe!

Here I am.

I’m ashamed!

Here I am.

I’m lost!

Here I am.

I’m bored!

Here I am.

::Exhale::

I inhale. Another new start. Another opportunity to begin again.

I am. I can.

I start with the I am.

Here.

Here I am.

I am rooted.

Here.

I am here.

Here I am.

Rooted.

From a cosmology.

Through a lineage. 

In a collective.

I express myself outwardly to the best of my ability. For that day. For that moment. Under these conditions and based in this present reality. Expectant yet unattached. I allow a voice to come through me and trust the process. I’ll see what happens in the end.

Amò is neopolitan for love (Part 1)

My favorite memory of us is when we were giddily cuddling in bed the first night that we moved in together. We were so happy to be in one another’s arms. I think we knew even then, in that moment, that this would be one of the great loves of our lives…and also not a forever one.

We were curled up in a blue and white bedspread that we picked out together in Chennai when you visited me while I was working there. My students still ask me about you. They met you in Switzerland and then when we were in India. I didn’t know then what a triumph it was for you to get a visa to visit India…better yet a passport. You wouldn’t eat any Indian food, you carried around a miniature bottle of extra virgin olive oil to put on plain rice. You had never really left Italy.

The night we met, I was in your town, in Sorrento, with my friend. We were supposed to only stay a couple nights but the hospitality of the hostel staff was so overwhelming that we stayed a week. On the last night, we hosted a party for them to thank them: la festa della primavera sorrentina. I was behind the bar in a red orange spaghetti strap dress. All of a sudden you, King of Sorrento, walk in and inquire, “Ma chi sei tu, una modella?” “And who are you, a model?” I giggled and drank up every ounce of your attention. Later that night you’d take me to some grotto by the seaside. I was like, “Cosa stiamo facendo qui?” “What are we doing here?” I had no fear with you. You said, “Dobbiamo fare l’amore.” “We must make love.” I said, “Scherzi?!” “Are you kidding?” And then we both laughed until we cried. We were making out against the grotto walls and then I said, “Basta! Io ho una fame da lupo!” “Enough! I am hungry, like a wolf!” An Italian saying.

So you brought me to Marina Piccola. You ordered appetizers. There were 12 little plates of fish. I was completely and totally amazed, subsumed. I was 24 and I had never really had fresh fish besides maybe an occasional lobster - just frozen shrimp or fish sticks. We ate the fish paired with a carafe of peach-infused wine. And then pasta. And then more fish. And then dessert. And then amaro. And then coffee. And then limoncello, one of Sorrento’s world-renowned products. I learned how to eat from you. I didn’t even eat tomatoes before you. I guess I was waiting for the ones grown in the rich volcanic soil of Vesuvio. You said you didn’t know how to cook but your “I don’t know how to cook” was gourmet chef to me. I regularly make the simple and delectable spaghetti ai pomodorini I learned from you and transfer that nourishment I learned from you to people I prepare it for.

My friend and I stayed another couple nights. You and I made love in the hostel kitchen. Sitting up, eye to eye. It was hot. You said, “ti amo” and not the more friendly “ti voglio bene.” Furbissimo! Sly. Cunning. I stayed unattached because the hostel owner told me, “Lui è un pazzo ma un pazzo buono.” “He is crazy but good crazy.” Very exciting.

You cheated on me a lot I’d later find out but you gave me so much love, care and tenderness that I could never stay mad at you. You, the land and the people of la peninsula sorrentina cured much of my type A Americana rigidity. At work, I would not be praised for my competence but praised for taking breaks. “I’m going to get a coffee. I’m going for lunch. I’m taking Friday off.” “Brava, Mattie!” My life in Italy, and with you, woke up my pleasure body in tutti i sensi. And then there’s the exquisite beauty of our last encounter, after being broken up for some time, kissing one another on different parts of one another’s faces but not on the lips…in the rain. Non lo dimenticherò mai.

I didn't know

I didn't know that freedom meant

allowing grief to strike as it pleases

I didn’t know that freedom meant 

both at choice and surrendered

I didn’t know that freedom meant

staying low in liminality

I didn’t know that freedom meant

not holding onto anything

I didn’t know that freedom meant

continually raw and at risk

I didn’t know that freedom meant

finding security within uncertainty

I didn’t know that freedom meant

recollecting the here and now, in every heartbeat

I didn’t know that freedom meant

sobriety…capability through humility 

I didn’t know that freedom meant

a forgiving open stance

I didn’t know that freedom meant

withdrawing all extrapolation

I didn’t know that freedom meant

keeping faith and trust in the body

I didn’t know that freedom meant

yielding 

to not knowing much of anything

Andiamo! performing the tammuriata at the 2023 NYC Dance Parade

Adversity is not Trauma

Accompaniment is a resonant connection without direct involvement. We often cannot change someone’s life situation but accompanying their experience without reaction or judgment can make a significant difference in their ability to breathe easier and take sustainable steps to safety, freedom and integration.

It can be easier to acknowledge what is when someone is doing it with us. If someone is next to us with their stance of gentle curiosity and patience, not turning away in fear or disgust, we might have more width to acknowledge and feel instead of disassociate and repress. Our vulnerability and their curiosity combine and make an alchemical third witness.

My 1st and 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Coutu, had my brother in her class before me and knew of my parents’ divorce. When she looked at me, I felt her wide and empathetic gaze, as she remembered my context of being a younger sister to a disabled brother and the rupture of my parents’ divorce. As my parents’ court battles ensued, I had aunts and great aunts on both sides of my family reminding me simply that I wasn’t crazy, even when I insisted that “I’m OK! I get two Christmases now!” I was lucky to have people highlighting my strengths and providing playful reprieve. Mrs. Coutu’s gaze and those succinct reassurances made a big difference for me.

Adversity (e.g. loss, neglect, abuse, conflict, violence, illness) does not always become trauma. It is when we experience adversity in isolation that it is more likely to turn into trauma. If we are alone and isolated in our adversity, we might internalize it. We might unconsciously make ourselves wrong or bad for having experienced it, especially if the perpetrator has a position of power over us. We might make a habit of attacking ourselves or sabotaging our successes, punishing ourselves for how we must have been bad to have experienced the adversity. 

Accompaniment provides a spaciousness where adversity can be composted for eventual individuation and societal contribution. In this way, we can serve as co-conspirators to one another’s freedom in acts of accompaniment.

Instead of rescuing one another (and risking drowning with them), we can accompany one other, standing side by side in respect of one another’s essential dignity and capacity.

In Family & Systemic Constellations, facilitator, representatives, and participants create an experience of accompaniment for a person and the adversity. Participants witness the realities in a family system whether disassociation, mental illness, sexual trauma, enmeshment or other physical and psychological violence. The adversity is acknowledged as real. The representatives and parts are felt. Ancestors are brought in showing that it started before and to gladly be acknowledged as the width and resource behind a person.

I Got Rhythm

… I got rhythm

I got music

I got my man

Who could ask for anything more?

John, my babysitter’s husband and Battle of the Bulge veteran, was a musician, a pianist. Leah was supposed to marry the doctor, who her father approved of. At the last minute, she broke off the engagement and married John, her choir director, instead. 

.… I got daisies

In green pastures

I got my man

Who could ask for anything more?

Leah and her girlfriends would intentionally get out of line in the chorus to fluster John. She told me this story probably fifty times and it never got old. 

… Ol'Man Trouble

I don't mind him

You won't find him

'Round my door 

Leah came on Wednesday nights. She would prepare Kraft Mac N Cheese Deluxe, for Justin and I. The story goes that she didn’t want to come more than the one time,  she was older and was done with babies and little kids. However, Leah was hooked when, at age 4, after suggesting that he clean up his toys, my brother replied, “Isn’t it about time for you to go home?”

… I got starlight

I got sweet dreams

I got my man

Who could ask for anything more?

Who could ask for anything more?

I’m five years old, in kindergarten. John invites me to see the high school musical that he’s directing: Girl Crazy. I’m so excited and feel it in my belly. I haven’t felt recognized like this before. I’m not giddy about it. I feel serious in my delight. Maybe all of my steadfastness has paid off. John invites me, just me. And the show is on a school night! Leah picked me up, thirty minutes away from the orange country house that my parents built. She didn’t stay to watch over me. She quickly dropped me off as soon as we saw the doors to the school’s theater.

“OK Mattie, John’s in there, have fun!”

… Days can be sunny

With never a sigh

Don't need what money can buy

John introduces me to his students. They did not baby me. In that way, they were kind. I was not greater or less than them. I was impressed by their talent. They were impressed by my sweet and serious self-sufficiency. 

… Birds in the tree sing

Their dayful of song

Why shouldn't we sing along?

After watching the last rehearsal, I found my seat in the audience all by myself. I look down at my shoes and socks. White socks with ruffles. Keds that have rainbow-colored pianos on them. I feel good. I didn’t really like these shoes before but now I do. Because it has all come together now. Not an integration but a convergence. I feel, at once, adorable and a bit more grown up. How did I get here? This is amazing. 

… I'm chipper all the day

Happy with my lot

How do I get that way?

Look at what I've got

an embodied celebration of our collective intelligence

I find ease in facilitating family and systemic constellations because I can trust the field of our collective intelligence to do the work. I don’t have to do anything. My work is to stay out of the way. And I don’t mean just cerebral intelligence. My essence is in the room, all of me is already there. I trust the field to give everyone what they need. And I receive what I need too. 

It’s experimental, I don’t have the answers. I have to listen with wide curiosity in order to attune with respect. 

It’s not completely safe: healing, freedom and individuation. People who were a part of intact cultures risked their lives in rites of passage in order to earn their belonging and individuation. The elders chose for the youth when it was their time. The elders were long-attuned to the field of the village; its needs and its people.

In order to change, we might have to feel scared, frustrated or disappointed. We might have to feel the grief of small and large goodbyes within and without. Change includes all of that.

A family constellation is a celebration. Here we are. We agreed to come together to find freedom from and freedom to. We move around with gratitude, tenderness and respect. We listen. We practice balance and order. When the glimmers are a little bigger than the triggers, we can move.

And the cookies help, too.

Stop Saying That!

Sometimes we just need a moment, a moment to let our full emotionality breathe.

He was 3 years old. We couldn’t bring his scooter. It was too much to deal with in order to escort him and his sister safely around the city. He had just learned how to use the scooter, a new iteration of autonomy. He was proud. 

He put his shoes on diligently while crying…maybe hoping he could just grab it on the way out. “We can’t, I’m sorry.”

He goes down the four flights of stairs by himself still crying.

“Do you want me to carry you down?”

“Stop saying that!”

“Do you want some water?”

“Stop saying that!”

“What can I do?”

“Stop saying that!”

“Stop saying what?”

“Stop saying that!”

“I’m so sorry we can’t take your scooter!”

“Stop saying that!”

Eventually, I listened…I stopped saying that! I stopped adding my anxiety to the mix. In under 3 minutes of peace and quiet, he settled down and was back to giggling down the street with his big sister in jubilant rhapsody. 

He taught me a lot about accompaniment that day. I’m still learning. I mess it up all the time.

The Good Accompanist

My brother can write big shaky letters very slowly and words if someone tells him the letters. He can recognize some words but mostly, he cannot read. What he lacks in these cold intelligences, he makes up for in his warm intelligences of kindness, compassion and magnanimity.

He cannot help me with too much in the sense of problem solving or advice for navigating the weights of worldly responsibility. And yet he is the greatest example of full-being compassion I have ever known. 

One time, after having experienced an abuse of the patriarchy, I decided to really let it out so as to not internalize it. He came to me and asked with a depth of calm-yet-concerned alertness, “What happened?”

I told him that someone had hurt my feelings. He gave me a big bear hug as I was shaking. Next, he played me his John Denver CD and I rested as he sang it to me while making paper chains. Justin has found such great accompaniment in his music, extensive catalog collection and paper chains craft. His long-time embodied dedication to these gave him great confidence that I could find some peace there, too.

I can contain quite a lot. I am good at holding a lot of complexity and intensity without reaction. This competence began when I was born, being born into big adversity and also big accompaniment. I am fortunate to have extensive education, experience and training and at the end, whatever it is, I am always reminded of where I truly learned it all: being Justin’s little sister.