Abigail Carter's Blog, page 13

Finding Joe

I'm having a Joseph Campbell-y sort of week. It started on Monday with a viewing of the documentaryFinding Joe, a reiteration of Joseph Campbell's writings in Power of Myth and that whole "Hero's Journey" thing.

The movie (and the book) tells the story of an ancient Buddhist village that was about to be invaded. Afraid that their pure gold statue of Buddha sitting in the main square would be plundered, they covered it in mud. The town was invaded, the invaders never taking a second glance at the statue. The invasion lasted years and eventually anyone who remembered the gold statue died off. Finally a young man was praying near the statue and noticed a tiny fleck of gold showing beneath the mud and the pure gold statue was rediscovered.

In myth, we are that gold statue, covered in the muck and detritus of our everyday lives. Often in the business of going about our lives, we forget who we really are beneath all the masks and walls we build around us.

The Hero's Journey is a breakdown into to simple terms, the path we all must take to rediscover the pure gold that is within us. Alchemy in my book, is really just another version of The Hero's Journey which can be broken down into 3 basic parts:

The Call (The blackening)

The Initiation (The whitening)

The Return (The reddening)

There is always a catalyst that turns the hero's world upside down. The hurricane in Wizard of Oz, Luke's childhood home burning down in Star Wars, Fairy tale characters invading Shrek's home. In real terms, it can be the death of a loved one, an accident or a divorce. The hero is forced into a series of trials in an attempt to acquire his "holy grail" which is really the pure gold statue in us all. Replace "Holy grail" with "Enlightenment" and you get the idea. Story and myth is always about a human transformation. Along his journey the hero encounters tools and allies that help him in his quest, until in a final, climactic moment, he must slay a dragon (or some other kind of adversary). The dragon, of course is really the fears, doubts, and obstacles that prevent him from truly being himself. In slaying the dragon, he is, in reality, slaying a part of himself. In mythology, death is never an end, it is always a change that signifies a new beginning.

In "the return" the hero come home and shares all he has learned with his community. It is through this sharing that he finds gold in his adventure, the holy grail.

As widowed people, we live the Hero's Journey on a daily basis.

I had a Skype interview today with a woman who is writing a play about a woman who survived the holocaust and she wanted to interview other women (like me) who have come through trauma and flourished, trying to figure out the secret of becoming stronger after such a trial. What was my secret, she wanted to know.

Sure, my childhood prepared me in some ways – bouncing around as I did between divorced parents, traveling to Europe by myself in high school and to Australia after university – making me tolerant of a fair amount of dramatic change in my life.

But I was hard-pressed to give her any other trait that might have set me apart from someone who might continue to struggle for years with loss. Maybe there is no difference other than time-frame. Perhaps I was just able to realize early that I was on a path of some kind, a road that I sometimes thought must have been laid out by some sadistic landscaper, but one that I saw as far more interesting than a flat, even road.

And somehow I saw the beauty of sharing what I learned through my book, never imagining that I was fulfilling a long-established cycle of human existence.

As I write away at my fiction (yes, I'm back to that), The Hero's Journey guides my protagonist, as it does in every good story, as The Hero's Journey is the same basic structure of every story or movie we read or watch.

We are all on a quest to chip away at that mud that envelops us, all have the potential of finding pure gold within. Widowhood sure knocked off a great big hunk of mine. What a amazing gift it is to know and be able to "follow your bliss."

Basement Ninjas

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Nanda performing "The Jacket"

My basement Ninjas have packed up and moved on. I'm a little bit sad. They were fun to have around. They came for two months while they were producing and performing a show called "The Jacket," which was one of the funniest shows I have seen in a long time. It takes a lot for me to laugh out loud and at this show I did, at both performances that I saw.

Alas, the kids were less pleased with my generosity in allowing a few 20-somethings to live in our basement. They were less than genial which made me sad, but was probably my own fault. There was strife whenever Carter needed to practice his trumpet while Olivia was doing her homework because he couldn't go to the basement to practice. My resolution was to promise Olivia that she could move her room to the basement when the ninjas left. They were even kind enough to move her bed for her. Maybe in the end, she was a tiny bit grateful for those sweet ninjas.

And so, she has gained another tiny slice of independence. There are lots of doors to the outside in the basement, so I told her I would be activating the door chimes, the ones that annoyingly chime every time a door is opened and closed. For safety. And my own peace of mind.

On the first school day after her move, I realized that I couldn't just peek my head into her door to wake her up. I was too lazy to traipse all the way down to her lair, so I called her, her groggy voice answering. Later she said, "mama, I have an alarm clock you know. You don't have to wake me up anymore."

Another tiny step towards independence. Another tiny lesson in letting go.

Being a Widow Versus Living Like One: Hanging up the Widow Yoke

[image error]This past weekend, I helped a widower friend clean out his basement where he had compiled a married life's worth of junk. And books. Stacks and stacks of books that he tells me his wife had collected over the years. And I thought I was a book junkie! We filled his Eurovan, his recycle bin, his garbage bin and there was still more. There are more rooms upstairs that I would love to get my organizer bunny paws on, but they will have to wait for another day.

After we unloaded the Eurovan at Goodwill, he got back in to drive away and looked at me with an amazed look on his face. "I feel so free!" he said, throwing his arms in the air. I remembered that same jubilant feeling when I cleaned out my house in New Jersey in preparation for the move to Seattle. I was finally unburdened of more than just physical stuff. I was also free of a difficult-to-name emotion. It was a feeling of rebirth. I rid myself of a portion of what had been my old life with Arron, and was free to create something new in the space left behind.

Sometimes inspiration bounces all over the blogesphere as it has for me today after coffee with a new friend and fellow widow blogger Allison Ellis. We had a very interesting conversation about many things as she mentions in her (incredibly flattering)  blog. Of particular interest to me right now was the conversation we had about being a widow. Although she was widowed 8 years ago, she has gone on to marry and have a second child. We had opposite conundrums. She was grappling with the realization that perhaps she had usurped her widowhood too quickly and hadn't really grieved, where I had certainly done the work of grieving but was perhaps stuck in it, unable to get to the business of getting past being a widow.

As I go through the course I wrote about the other day, it's slowly dawning on me that although I feel like I am in a good place in terms of being "over" Arron (if that makes any sense), I am still struggling with releasing myself from the widow yoke. I have written about this before, with a great debate in the comments, and perhaps it has taken me this long to really see just how ensconced I am in the widow thing. I've written a book, I speak publicly, I blog widowhood. It's hard to get escape the label when it has become a career of sorts. And yet, as I do this course, I am realizing that it's my widowhood and not Arron that's been holding me back from engaging fully in a new relationship. It's an identity that I wear every day that's safe and can be incredibly nurturing and gratifying. I meet the most wonderful people through my widowhood and I would never want to give that up. But it can also be threatening to some, downright terrifying even. The question is, how to find a balance between being a widow and being a single woman.

Thus, I am setting an intention here that from now on, I will be writing less about widowhood and more about other things. I'm not quite sure yet what those other things are exactly, and it will be a work in progress, but it's time. I'm cleaning out the proverbial closet of my widowhood and packing that symbolic black dress away. I will still take them out now and then to remember, but they will no longer be front and center, taking up room in my closet.

I hope you will all understand. Thanks to all who have inspired my mini transformation, (in particular, mum, Theo, Allison, Kristine), though really, you have all inspired me with your comments and friendships.

And have no fear. I will always BE a widow, I've just decided that I don't always need to LIVE like one.

Calling In "The Next One"

[image error]Among the million other things I have on my plate at the moment, I am attempting to follow a seven-week course called "Calling in 'The One'." I mention this sheepishly, since it sounds kind of hokey. Plus, the website is all pink with lots of swirly script-type fonts, which as a web designer, I have to say annoys the heck out of me.

But, seriously? "The One"? Is there really only one? I sure as hell hope not, because if so, then I guess I should just stop where I am right now. I've had my "One." So for me, this course should really be called "Calling in The Next One." Haha.

I have really only completed one week of the course, and have managed to outline my past relationship "patterns." Things that came up for me were, overly independent, often the dumper rather than the dumpee, not really into having to "take care" of someone since I do enough of that already. I have always been the fiercely independent type, and I guess as a widow that got ramped up even more.

The next question had me stumped though. After looking at our patterns, we were meant to delve into how we may have felt victimized in past relationships. I have honestly never felt victimized, so perhaps I have missed the point on this one.

But then, the question asked was, how am I co-creating the dynamic of my past relationship patterns? As I thought about this, I began to see that in the past, I have chosen people to date who were not emotionally available, or who needed so much care that I wound up rejecting them out of pure fatigue.

Hmmm.

Next I was meant to set an intention to cause a breakthrough in love. "It is time to recognize that there is no fixed future out there" and that I need to have the power to create the love that I desire. The widow in me, had a little chuckle at the line that we had to recognize that there was "no fixed future." Yeah, got it. But I do get the need to set an intention. It takes you beyond just "wishing" or "hoping" for love. Even beyond "having faith" that love will be bestowed upon us (my usual M.O.). So I am going to work on my intention. We are meant to spell it out and put it in writing.

But here is one piece of the course that I am finding intriguing. I know that it is actually based on Feng Shui principals and involves preparing your home to accept a new love into your life. Yeah, kind of hokey again, but bear with me. You are meant to do things like arranging your things in pairs, like putting pairs of chairs together, matching coffee mugs, two toothbrushes. I'm not sure about the toothbrushes. Honestly, if I found myself at a guy's house who already had my toothbrush waiting for me, I would be seriously creeped out. But you get the idea. Another suggestion is to remove art in your home that reflects images of aloneness, alienation, solitude and replace it with images of union, community, togetherness. Of course, I looked around and I have an Ansel Adams photograph of a graveyard in moonlight (seriously!) and another photo of a single woman leaning against a wall. The rest are mostly kids painting and flower images. I have to say this woke me up a little.

But number 1 on the list was "Remove any pictures of former loves from sight." This stopped me in my tracks. Of course, this one is obvious, but up until this point, I had only removed them from my bedroom. I thought that was sufficient. I am not sure how to remove the rest. I asked Olivia how she might feel if I did this and she said, "Why would you do that?" I explained (very awkwardly) and she just sort of shrugged. "I don't see how they make any difference." But I actually do see how they would. I no longer need the pictures of Arron that are strewn around the house, though they often make me smile. I keep them around for the kids. But I suppose I can remove some of the pictures and try to put the rest in the kids' rooms. Maybe I could try removing them all and see if they notice. But then I have Arron's mother coming to visit. Do I run around replacing them all again when she visits? This is just so much more complicated than it seems, yet I know I have to do this. It's like taking off the wedding ring. When? How? And what does it really mean when it's done? It might take me a while. Or, it might take me a day. I'm not quite sure. In the meantime, perhaps I will take advantage of #6. Clean out your underwear drawer and throw away old undies and replace with new lingerie that make you feel confident and sexy. Why couldn't have this one been #1?

Mind Mapping Made Easy

During my latest bout of writer-procrastination, I discovered the ultimate writer-procrastination tool – XMind. It's a tool that can help writers overcome writer's block, offering a new way of visualizing all those ideas bouncing around one's brain and putting them in one, very pretty, visual layout. You can easily move ideas from one place to another, add notes, create links to websites and documents. It's brilliant and free unless you opt for the Pro version which is $49 and offers the ability to export into Word, resulting in an almost-complete outline of your work.

I found this excellent video on The Mind Mapping Software Blog that shows how this powerful tool can be a boon for writers.

I stared using XMind to map out my new book, helping me come up with a structure, which I was struggling with. For demonstration purposes, I created a map for the first section of The Alchemy of Loss as a way of visualizing the structure that I inadvertently created when I wrote the book (how did I ever do that without XMind???). This is what I came up with:

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Click image to enlarge

 

There is nothing like procrastinating so prettily! Banish writer's block!!

21 Years

[image error]I try to picture you

Waking up, eyes caressing the coppery landscape

Arms stretching overhead, mouth forming a yawn as you look over at me and smile

A smile of contentment, to which you shake your head in disbelief

Twenty one years, Bird. What do you think of that?

Maybe you would get up and put on a suit, carrying your chestnut Brogues downstairs in your hooked fingers so that you won't wake me with your pony steps

I will hear your silence and smile, as I do now, thinking of that horsehide-shoe trot you used to dance, making me laugh, your greatest pleasure

And mine.

Tonight you might have arrived bearing your one rose, your trademark

Presenting it to me proudly, shocking me with your memory of this anniversary

This twenty one years.

One more year will mark the day that our phantom marriage will have lasted as long as our alive one

And I will wonder which one was more real

When I wake up and look at that coppery horizon and wonder

If you see it too.

A Universe At Peace

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Missing the moment with my iPhone

The bird found himself in my room despite no doors or windows being open anywhere in the house. He flapped around the far window trying desperately to find his way out. I whispered to him. "It's OK. Stay calm," as I moved slowly toward the big window and removed the screen before tiptoeing back to the door so he wouldn't fly out of the room. Within moments he was free and I climbed back into bed for more sleep. I was conscious of the time, that it was 8:47am, the time that Arron called me that morning. These things no longer go unnoticed. I lay in bed both wanting to remember and wanting to forget that terrible morning. Instead I fell into a deep sleep.

Later, I woke up, the sun higher in the sky. I made tea and walked down to the beach to find Kirsty, my cousin, newly relocated to Vancouver from London after her own loss, her own trauma just a year ago. Pep had drowned, Kirsty unable to save him. Now we were together united in loss, each helping the other through our anniversaries, hers 11 days before mine. Elevens continue to haunt me.

I found Kirsty at the beach, lying in the grass playing with Millie. I sat beside her and looked out to the water and spotted a Loon. "A Loon!" I cried, thinking of my last post, shocked to see this bird at this moment. "That's a cormorant," Kirsty corrected me, "but they are so similar." We watched as it ducked under the water, resurfacing a few minutes later a surprising distance down the beach.

On our walk, we bumped into neighbours. Two Margie's and two Patty's. We chatted, and watched Millie chase Crema, a doberman three times her size before continuing on our way. As we neared the point, Kirsty, walking a little ahead shouted and began to run. "Whales!" I looked up and saw them, three black fins curving gracefully through the water, their white collared markings in startling contrast against their smooth black bodies. Orcas. A symbol of calm, connectedness to the spirit, connection to the unconscious mind. Silently we watched in awe. Pep and Arron rising from the depths, water, waves.

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Someone else capturing exactly what they looked like

The Pattys and the Margies arrived, but by then a boat had gotten too close and the Orcas had disappeared. We stood scanning the water, hoping to see them once more. Kirsty spotted them smoothly traversing the wake of the ferry which was making its way back to Seattle. We spotted a nervous looking sea lion sticking close to shore.

When it was evident that the whales had passed, Kirsty and I continued around the point, finding a large rock to sit on, still half-heartedly looking for the whales. We marveled at the rarity of the event. To spot whales on 9/11, on Vashon as we both mourned our lost loves. As we sat, tiny silver fish began leaping out of the water, close to shore, performing an acrobatic show for us.

Our reverie was interrupted by Carter who called, breathless, panicked about a bird in the house. A second bird. "I think its wing is broken," he said. I instructed him to open the exterior doors, close the interior ones and hide in the kitchen till we returned. But when we got back, the bird was gone, hopefully free and not broken.

Olivia, who had stayed in Seattle, burdened already with homework rushed to tell us of her encounter with a hummingbird that remained hovering by a flower despite her getting close enough for it to touch her.

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Kirsty and I under the September 10th moon

Like the Orcas, the day was filled with calm, slow movements, quiet, peace. A day I couldn't have imagined ten years ago, as I wondered where I might be ten years on – watching the birds and Orcas and fish, things I took as a sign of a universe at peace.

 

PS: Thank you to everyone who sent me their kind thoughts yesterday. It was wonderful to receive so many words of comfort.

 

 

 

My Unintentional Life

A shorter version of this piece ran on September 1st, 2011 in The NY Daily News. This same long version also ran in Hello Grief and Mindbodyspiritodyssey.com

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Arron, Carter and my grandfather on the new dock, Ste. Lucie, August 2001

On that sunny September morning as I was stuffing our daughter Olivia's lunch into her backpack and getting ready to leave the house to put her on the school bus for her second day of first grade, our son Carter clinging to my hip, my husband Arron called explaining carefully that he was at Windows on the World in the World Trade Center. His voice was urgent but not panicked. He asked me to call 9-1-1 because he thought there'd been a bomb. I didn't ask if he was OK. I didn't tell him I loved him. I didn't know that I would never speak to him again.

Just two weeks before, I had watched six-year old Olivia flip-flop her way down a peaty forest path, peeping into an old stump pocked with moss looking for the fairies her grandmother convincingly assured her lived there. Carter, pillowy knees clasped around my waist, pushed away from me determined to hop down and get a look at the sleeping fairies for himself. As we continued down the path, I warned the kids' away from the long line of frayed extension cords that were snaking their way down to the dock from the house, my grandfather's genius at work. From the flimsy bridge, a gap-toothed smile across a tiny stream, I heard Arron running up the path from the beach toward us, warning us of the electric cords.

"Seriously?" I said to him.

"Don't say anything, Ab. You know your Grandfather." He was right. I did know my grandfather, a product of the depression when nothing, not even a dangerous and frayed extension cord was ever thrown away. Perhaps the danger was real, or perhaps Arron just sensed the danger that loomed ahead, a danger I could not yet fathom. I just shook my head and followed him and the kids to the water's edge and the partially constructed dock.

I handed Arron a beer, his dark hair and bare chest peppered with sawdust, a leather tool belt slung loosely around his hips. I gave another beer to my grandfather, a spry eighty-eight year-old in a pale blue cap, clearly the director of the construction operation. He and Arron had spent the last two days building the new dock at our tiny lake in Quebec a replacement for the relic of splintered wood and dangerous rusty nails that had preceded it. "The dock's looking good," I said sitting on the freshly cut floor, its piney smell pungent as Arron helped Carter hammer a nail into it while Olivia peered over its edge looking for frogs. Across the lake I watched a solitary loon dip noiselessly under the water and I inhaled the moment – a perfect peacefulness. Less than two weeks later that perfect moment would become a memory that I cherished like a well-thumbed photograph.

How to explain to a two-year old the death of his father? I spoke of "big boo-boos" and "buildings falling down" until he began pointing at tall buildings asking if daddy was there. Each new developmental milestone required a renewed explanation of his father's death. What I told him at two needed to be explained again at four and with each new piece of information came new fears. Fear of flying, fear of losing his mom. He wouldn't let me out of his sight and I had to unhook his hands from around my waist each morning when I dropped him off at school.

Our daughter refused to speak of her dad, asking when we could go back to being "happy people." She told friends who asked about her dad that he was at a meeting in Florida. If I cried when I tucked her into bed at night, she would look at me with horror, as if my face had just turned purple, a condition that might be contagious. Over the years, I've battled my kids' out of control temper tantrums, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, learning issues – conditions that other, non-grieving families face, but that I had to handle alone as a grieving single mom, constantly questioning what was normal child behavior and what was grief. At times I longed to run away or have a night off when my only option was to sit in a heap on the floor and cry. I forgot what it was like to have someone else to take the garbage out, or to talk to about my day over dinner. I was lonely. I too wondered if we would ever be those "happy people" again. I couldn't see how it would ever be possible.

I have been asked the question over and over, "so how ARE you ten years on?" It's a difficult question to answer. My life is nothing like I imagined it would be when I married Arron almost 21 years ago, thinking we would raise our kids in tandem and grow old and crotchety together. My life is nothing like I thought it might be the day he died and I wondered if I would have to sell the house. And yet here I sit in a beautiful home that overlooks Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains, a published book under my belt, 3,000 miles from New Jersey on a sunny Seattle day, two beautiful children upstairs hunched over computers, a tiny Boston Terrier on my lap and I think, "whose life is this?"

Ten years later I'm baffled that in many ways our lives are better now than when Arron was alive – what I have come to think of as my "unintentional life." If Arron strode through our door today he would walk into a beautiful house in Seattle instead of New Jersey. It was a move I felt was essential – to escape New Jersey and what I was sure would be the persistent recognition of my kids and me throughout Montclair as "that 9/11 family." How could he not marvel that his beautiful daughter now drives, has his knack for languages, his giggle? Or that his son looks like him, is kind and generous and can play Taps on the trumpet? I would laugh at his astonishment that my memoir was published in four countries. He would admire his happy-again family, living their unintentional lives.

There is a heavy debt of guilt whenever I realize that our new life wouldn't exist had Arron not died. Through the pain of our grief, we discovered strength we didn't know we possessed, learned to appreciate the gifts of life and have empathy for others who were themselves in pain. We were awakened into life by death. Experiencing death head-on opened the door to new opportunities in our lives. In my longing to be with Arron, willing him to exist in some new form, I lost my fear of death – something I've come to see as the unexpected gift of grief – a lack of fear that unmasks an entirely new universe of possibility – move across the country alone with two kids? No problem. Write a book? Why not? Teach a class on grief? A fulfilling experience. I stopped worrying what people thought and began thinking almost magically, realizing that the only person standing in the way of, say, writing a book, was myself. I learned to be brave enough to trust my intuition, get help when we needed it, find allies and live with no expectations – a flexibility that invited what I can only express as mindful evolution. Some might call it a growing spiritualism, though I don't want to get all new age-y about it. Certainly, I began to question fate and faith in my quest to make peace with Arron's death.

I muddled through "dad" experiences, like starting the lawn mower, knotting Carter's necktie for a band recital and teaching our daughter to drive. The kids in turn have developed a sense of compassion beyond their years. Olivia, during a trip to Rwanda to help girls affected by the Genocide also learned about the power of forgiveness. Still, we have all had to learn to live with an un-namable absence, always wondering what life would be like if Arron were still a part of it.

This summer at the lake in Quebec, I watched that once pudgy-legged two-year old, now a lanky, tanned twelve-year old, hold the hand of his younger cousin pointing out the fairy's stump, bestowing its magic upon a new generation. Our daughter, a lithe sixteen-year old enthralled the family who were gathered for my grandfather's memorial with her effortless beauty and wit. The snake of extension cords no longer posed any threat as I stood again on the dock that Arron and my grandfather built that August in 2001, now adorned with a carved wooden plaque bearing Arron's name. The family watched quietly as my mother and uncle peddled the paddleboat into the middle of the lake and sprinkled my grandfather's ashes onto the water's glassy surface, a ceremony whose dignity my grandfather would have appreciated. Arron too felt present in the breeze that caressed our hair. Just beyond the boat, a lone loon skimmed majestically across the water until I blinked and he was gone.

The Media Request

They arrived at my door bowing and removing their shoes, the cameraman filming the greeting from the steps. The interviewer looked around the kitchen, exclaiming "Very beautiful home" in a stilted Japanese accent. The cameraman, his accent more American, put his camera down. "Can we do that again? I messed up. So sorry!" The welcome scene was repeated, awkward now, the interviewer unable to capture quite the same tone in his "very beautiful home!" I offered water, tea, but was politely turned down as they went about setting up their cameras and lights in the living room. The interviewer asked me if my daughter was home. He would like to interview her. I found her in her bedroom, still in pajamas. "No, I don't want to. I'm not in the mood." The Japanese crew kept asking, until I found myself begging her, strangely wanting to give the crew what they wanted. But she stood firm. I couldn't blame her. We had already been through a long photo shoot for a magazine. Holding poses awkwardly, the kids rolling their eyes at each request for all of us to walk "naturally" down the path toward the camera. In the end, I reluctantly respected her wishes.

I don't know why I accepted this interview request. I suppose I have been in the habit of accepting these media requests in an effort to get a positive message out there – that grief isn't all terrible if you make the choice to lean into its awakening properties. I hope to inspire with these interviews, to grasp one person by the hand and show them some light at the end of the tunnel. Japan offers a whole new audience, particularly after the country has suffered such incredible loss. I hoped that my tiny voice might offer solace.

My interview proceeded in the living room, the interviewer sometimes having to repeat his questions because he was difficult to understand. I wondered if they would dub my voice and how ridiculous I might sound. I mentioned that I taught at the Recovery cafe, and I was asked to call to see if we might be able to film there. I was embarrassed to make the call. I had no classes to teach until January, but the program director graciously accepted our last-minute request and an hour later I found myself in the midst of people who did not appreciate the cameras, who had to be assured that their faces would be blurred. An impromptu class was arranged and I found myself in a room with a group of people who until 5 minutes before had been trying to enjoy their lunch. I made the 30 minutes worth their while I hope, inspiring, without really setting out to do so. I spoke of loss, and how loss and addiction were strange bedfellows and could see lights turning on in their eyes. It was a pleasing moment amid a strange day.

Despite mentioning they rarely ate lunch I was treated to a sit down lunch at a restaurant, and we chatted a little about families and living in the US vs. Japan. I learned that the cameraman had lived in Seattle for 30 years.

What I thought would be a 2 hour interview was turning into a day-long event. It was nearing time to pick Carter up from Crew camp where he was enjoying his last day of rowing, a sport he has taken an interest in – a first. We arrived a little early and I suggested that perhaps they could take a shot of Carter's boat coming into the dock. We asked permission from the counselors who suggested the crew go out in a launch to film. "No, no, I don't think that is necessary I said to them. They can just film him as he arrives." The counselor began telling me how much she enjoyed Carter and I didn't see the Japanese crew get into the launch and speed away. They were gone for 45 minutes while I stood on the balcony trying to catch a glimpse and fretting that Carter would find the intrusion humiliating. I wasn't wrong. I watched as his boat of eight got near enough to see and then saw Carter catch a crab, his oar sticking into the water so that every other rower was forced out of sync. How could he not be distracted?

Back on the dock, the camera crew waited as Carter's boat arrived, standing behind me, hoping to catch some bizarre welcome when he saw me standing on the dock – a hug or a wink, I have no idea what kind of delusion they were under. Carter wouldn't even look at me. I knew he was humiliated and I chastised myself for letting this get too far. He was caught off guard, as was I. The happy Japanese-desired reunion between mother and son was not to be. Carter got to the car and slammed the door. I told the crew they wouldn't be getting an interview with him. "I talk to him!" This was the producer, the one calling these intrusive shots. The Seattle cameraman slunked away, embarrassed as the producer knocked on the car door. "Just 3 minutes!" I heard him say.

On the drive home, Carter sobbed as the Japanese crew followed us in their van. "I hate your book! I hate you!" Who could blame him. "I am NOT talking to them again!" Carter dashed into the house the second we arrived, slamming his bedroom door so hard I could hear it from outside. I walked over to the van and told them that Carter wouldn't be doing an interview, assuming they would leave. "We have just one more shot in the house" producer said. My body physically deflated. Perhaps I should have sent them on their way, but I didn't. Instead, I found myself at my dining room table as they filmed me over my shoulder looking at a photo album, something I never do in my natural habitat. They made one Hail Mary request for Olivia and were refused. I was able to coax her down to meet them once the camera had been put away. Soon they were bowing deep before me, putting their shoes back on at the door and I was left to repair the invisible damage.

I am learning that sometimes offering a lifeline to others has its consequences.