RETREAT DAYS, MOURNING THE LOSS OF A FRIEND, END OF AN ERA, and WARNINGS

RETREAT

This is a potpourri of things I’ve been storing up. Earlier this week, after a therapeutic conversation with my granddaughter, KJ Neun, I decided to take Thursday and Friday of this week as retreat-at-home days, letting friends know that I would be accepting no calls or interruptions. It was such a great thing to do that I’m planning a repeat next Thursday and Friday. It’s amazing what one can accomplish going from one thing to another with time completely under one’s control. I still don’t have my tax information gathered together, nor have I begun “Riding in the Back Seat,” but I can see my way clear. In fact, I can see the surface of my desks. I recommend it. Well, maybe it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was what I needed right now.

MOURNING THE LOSS OF A FRIEND

I did take a call from my college roommate, though, and received the very sad news that one of the husbands in our college friends group died earlier this week. Hale and hearty, he went to the hospital three weeks ago with a mysterious blockage in the abdomen. And now he’s gone. Bob Christensen was one of those men who make one sort of tingle with delight. He had such a subtle sense of humor, sometimes evoking deep belly laughter. He and his wife Rennie were such a loving and caring couple. It was they who arranged our occasional mini-reunions at Craigville on Cape Cod. When I was on the east coast at holiday time, I got to enjoy New Year’s Eve with them and the other east-coasters. It was through Bob that I learned two things: (1) how vicious can be the treatment of a company’s most successful (highly paid) salesman when there is the decision to downsize, and (2) how a cool, calm, collected person turns a defeat into a victory. Bob went straight to the library and took out some books: “What Color is Your Parachute,” and a bunch of books on wood stoves, just ‘cause he was interested. His children are still running his very successful wood stove business. I’m having trouble writing this with tears in my eyes. We will miss him.

THE END OF AN ERA

Bob’s passing is the end of an era, and suddenly what started as a casual little fun booklet I was putting together after our last stay at Craigville has become a kind of testimonial to the joys of our retreats there. For the CCers who may be reading this, it will take time, but it will be coming. I’ve enlisted the aid of someone with a more appropriate Word program than mine. And she’s more talented too.

WARNING

The things I learn from working with clients! Maybe you knew this, but before you let someone move in with you, it would be smart to check local laws. When I read a recent article in the Psychotherapy Networker about adult children moving back home, they recommended telling them to leave if the situation became intolerable. (not, but the way, what they felt was the common situation.) A similar thing happened to a client of mine who let her adult offspring move in – with dog – and found her new home being trashed. But here’s the deal. She can’t just tell the person to get out. I’ve checked this with the local Sheriff who tells me similar laws exist almost everywhere. The law is that you cannot force someone to leave who has used your mailing address as his or her residence for a week. (Probably this varies in different venues.) My client has had to fill out a long form, paying a fee of – if I heard it correctly -- $320 for processing. Now she has to wait 30 days for a judge to decide whether to evict the person. One certainly hopes that not every kind person would be trapped in such a situation, but I think it’s a good idea to be aware.

And so ends my potpourri, with a final farewell to Bob Christensen.

KINDLE AND REASONS TO HOPE

During Christmas-time in Williamsburg, my mind was brimming with blog ideas , a process which continued when I got home. But so many things intervened that I’ve pretty much forgotten what I wanted to say. Oh my, what precious gems may have been lost! Or maybe what icky dross you may have been spared.

At any rate, I’ll plunge in. I received a Kindle for Christmas. My family will tell you that my initial reaction was not enthusiastic. They could read my thoughts, “Oh my, why did they get me this. It doesn’t suit my way of reading, marking places in the book with sticky arrows and later using them as guides to type book notes into my computer. Now I’ll be holding a mechanical device which won’t accept sticky arrows.” And then I studied my new Kindle, and I love it. I don’t need sticky arrows, because I can just highlight interesting places – the ones that would have had the honor of a sticky – and the highlighted piece stays in my Kindle. Not only that, I can adjust the font. The fact is, given any ordinary publication, I can read it fine, but my eyes tend to get heavy and I get drowsy. With the larger font, that doesn’t happen. Hooray! And then the magical fact that I can order a book for $9.99 and as soon as I place my order, it’s on my Kindle, ready to read. My first order was for Greg Mortensen’s “Stones into Schools.” More on that later. My second order was based on Lisa’s recommendation, “Autobiography of a Yogi.” That was only $0.99, and in the search process I discovered that, if I wanted to, I could get Sherlock Holmes for $0.00. Yup! For nothing. Marketing …

Just for the fun of it I looked on the list of available books for my “Mrs. Job.” She wasn’t there. I knew there was an ISBN number for it as an e-book, so I contacted the powers that be at iUniverse and found I could get it listed for a $99.00 fee. I didn’t do that.

As for Greg Mortensen’s book – How happy I am that it was written and that I read it. What a beautiful example of fighting a war through waging education, and in the process responding to people’s real needs – not the ones we think they should have. I was also thrilled to discover that our military leaders were making “Three Cups of Tea” required reading for our troops. Sometimes I find reason to be hopeful.

The lesson is, I guess, if you can get someone else to pay for it, you can acquire books for lots less. I haven’t yet tried audio books, but it’s supposed to work.

And now I’m home, wearing my tire-tread shoes for the first time in several years. Bumpy ice is everywhere, and there’s no sign that Mrs. Job will hit the best-seller list so I can winter in Newtown in Williamsburg. But then, it was cold there too. I was fortunate flying on December 20 when Washington D.C. and other places were completely closed down because of the snow. My layover was in Atlanta – no visible snow – with ultimate arrival at Newport News – no measurable snow there either. Not like the arrival in Richmond that same day for Doug and KJ returning from the Galapagos. With nothing but their bare hands they had to dig their car out from under the snow. It didn’t seem to bother them much, though. The Galapagos trip is, apparently, magnificently worth any pain encountered on the return.

In Williamsburg, I gave a copy of Mrs. Job to Lisa’s neighbor, basically trapping her into reading it. I learned something from her reaction. She said she loved it, but she’d been scared to read it, ‘cause she thought it would be difficult academic stuff. So now I have to make sure that people know that it’s an easy-to-read love story.

The major thoughts today, after all this stuff I’ve been talking about, are for the folks in Haiti. The destruction is horrible, as is the aftermath. But I’m particularly horrified learning the history of why Haiti is such a poor country. Two factors stand out for me: (1) that the French basically raped the land way back when it was under their control, and (2) that the rebellion of the slaves, setting themselves free and driving the conquerors out, was met with boycotting by the major countries, including the U.S., who still held slaves and wanted not to support slave rebellions. Feel free to Google it and check out what I’ve said here. I hope something positive will come out of this awful event -- like the world pitching in to help the Haitians develop the kind of country and government they want.

I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t remember all the things I wanted to write about, because you must be suffering eye strain by now. Sorry …

My Christmas/holiday gift to myself and you

Last weekend I challenged my son to a discussion in my effort to anticipate what I will see in twenty years when I look back on this period of time. I proposed that we can predict where we are going by the strength of the opposition. I don’t think I made myself really clear. But Dan Brown did, on page 409 of “The Symbol.” So this quote is my Christmas/holiday present to myself, as well as to any of you who tend, like me, to focus on the dark side of today’s events.

“Solomon let it sit for a long moment, then quietly said, ‘In closing, I should warn you that unveiling the truth is never easy. Throughout history, every period of enlightenment has been accompanied by darkness pushing in opposition. Such are the laws of nature and balance And if we look at the darkness growing in the world today, we have to realize that this means there is equal light growing. We are on the verge of a truly great period of illumination, and all of us – all of you – are profoundly blessed to be living through this pivotal moment of history. Of all the people who have ever lived, in all the eras in history … we are in that narrow window of time during which we will bear witness to our ultimate renaissance. After millennia of darkness, we will see our sciences, our minds, and even our religions unveil the truth.'”

Brown, Dan. (2009). The Lost Symbol. New York: Doubleday

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

I realized recently that it was 100 years ago when my father, urged by his mother, came to the United States from Sweden at the age of 19. His mother never saw him again. My father-in-law was 19 when he came to the United States from Italy, pushed by his mother. His mother never saw him again. This was the country offering such opportunity that mothers were willing, even eager, to part with their sons.

My father, already speaking English with facility, came to Forestville, Connecticut, where there was an established Swedish community. His big brother had arrived before him and established a business. Dad rented a room at the home of August Anderson who had been instrumental in establishing the Lutheran Church in town. That’s where he met his future wife, my mother, Jennie Anderson. And it was in Forestville that they spent their lives.

My father-in-law moved to an established community of Italian immigrants, where he was introduced to his future wife, my mother-in-law, Antoinette Navarette. There was a ready market for his family trade, and he was working as a butcher almost as soon as he arrived.

Beyond this point my focus has to be on my father, because – probably for obvious reasons – I know more detail about his history in this country. But the similarity strikes me that communication and transportation were so limited early in the 20^th century that a move across the Atlantic was a very final split from home.

They were immigrants who did what immigrants do – join communities of people with similar background. In that sense, today’s newcomers experience similar situations. Do we tend to forget? My father-in-law learned to speak "American." It was essential for a businessman. My mother-in-law learned what English she needed to, but her life was oriented toward her siblings, all of whom spoke Italian, and toward her Roman Catholic Church which operated in Latin for most of her life. It made sense for her to retain Italian as her primary language. Do we forget those things when we criticize people today for not speaking unaccented American English? I am constantly impressed when I hear people from all parts of the world speaking perfect, often accented, English.

My father didn’t like being teased for his accent, so he took off for Upsala College in New Jersey (Lutheran, of course) for two years where he learned accounting and perfectly unaccented English. All that was left of his Swedish was a hint of lilt. One of his favorite language stories was of using the word “nuance,” evoking the comment from a U.S. native that he shouldn’t be using foreign words, whereupon he pulled out an English language dictionary to point out that “nuance” is a perfectly fine word.

What occupies my thoughts as I ruminate about this one hundred year anniversary is the changes that have occurred since Carl Gustafson arrived in Forestville. Two days ago, when we needed a flashlight, my companion pulled out her telephone and shone the light where needed. A week or so ago I asked my daughter what an “app” is. And I think I’m pretty much up on things with my Palm phone and complicated Word program! My Bluetooth has become a part of my left ear, and I have a total of four cordless phones in my home, all operating from one base. I’ll be setting up a small artificial Christmas tree with lights already embedded in it. I’ve done much of my Christmas shopping on line, which is where I check my accounts every day to keep track of bills automatically paid electronically.

Now for the contrast-in-brief. My parents dated in horse and buggy. For entertainment, they gathered around the piano with family and friends to sing hymns and enjoy homemade refreshments. (As a matter of fact, my best friend and I played that we had a radio where we could see a picture.) My Dad was enthusiastic when it was first possible to buy a shower mixer instead of two separate knobs to control hot and cold water. And when I first flew with my parents, we all dressed in our Sunday best. As Treasurer at the Bristol Brass Corporation, my Dad operated his adding machine by pulling a lever, and I don’t know that he ever drove with seat belts. He drove ten minutes to work at 8:00 a.m. every day from Monday to Friday, returning home at noon for a one-hour lunch break, and back to work from 1:00 to 5:00. Weekends belonged to home, family and church. OK, I hope you get the idea. (Oh, by the way, my father-in-law reminisced about the one-hour siesta at noon every work day in Italy.)

The other day a client was reporting to me about a job interview she’d been through. She was asked that standard question, “Where do you want to be in five years?” I always thought that was a stupid question, but today it seems downright idiotic. Who knows what the jobs will be in five years? How many apps will be added? What more will we be able to do without flying, or even driving, to the necessary conferences? Who knows how public transportation will have developed to increase access to work? Who knows?

And I guess that’s the theme we are learning to live with. “Who knows?”

That’s why I plan to hang around for another twenty years to get the clear view of looking back.

Gratitude

The day after Thanksgiving, and I’m wrapped up in thoughts of gratitude. Start with my hosts, Jim and Carol Kane, and their other guest, Carolyn Bevan – a great group to be with, and especially ‘cause we were all willing to talk about our gratitude. I learned so much, especially the effects of survival and loss in the Vietnam War.

Next come my gratitude for my father and mother, and for the fact that I came along last, after my brother, Harvey – eleven years older – and my sister Thelma – eight years older. I know my parents struggled with the depression, but by the time I was aware, things had stabilized and I was spared the worry. My father was fortunate never to lose his job, though, as I understand it, he was paid in scrip for a while. I actually have a piece of that scrip in my “family” file. My father was a generous man, never concerned with accumulating money, but with using it wisely with unadvertised gifts to relatives and friends in need, and contributions to his church and other charities.

As I understand it, he would never have advanced as far as he did at the Bristol Brass if it had depended on him to argue for advancement. It was friends who threatened his bosses that my father might leave if he wasn’t recognized. He was valuable, and they promoted him.

I was the beneficiary of my parents’ belief in education, and their early feminism, when they paid my college expenses and my early years in graduate school. I might not have finished my Ph.D. after I was married if they had not subsidized me then. My appreciation for that also contributes to my annoyance when people who have been similarly fortunate claim that they have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and accuse others of being “lazy.”

My appreciation has to extend to the fact that I began my teaching career at a time when Southern Connecticut State University was hiring and paying. (It was Southern Connecticut State College at the time.) I was fortunate that I was promoted to Full Professor just before the state ran out of money and for years we had no new hires and few promotions.

I’m grateful, too, that, when I began my private practice later in my career, managed care had not yet taken over. And now I appreciate my father’s attitude toward money, which I hope I’ve inherited as I adapt to my small, outside-managed-care practice in Minnesota.

My parents chose to live in the not-so-grand suburb of Forestville rather than on the Hill in Bristol with the other “successful” businessmen. I assume it’s because the Gustafson and the Anderson families and Bethesda Lutheran Church were in Forestville. I’m glad they made that choice. All I had to do was cross over into an adjoining back yard to play with my friend Hallie. (Some people suspect our friendship was a model for Dara and Adah’s in “Mrs. Job.”) I’m grateful for the years we stayed connected, though apart, and I’m grateful now for the memories, and the fact that my daughter and I were there several years ago to help witness her move into the next stage of life’s journey – a peaceful move, thanks to Hospice.

I’m happy also that my cousin Eunice was nearby. I remember our playing pick-up sticks, going to Hammonasset State Park with Aunt Gerda and Uncle Everett, climbing in and out the driver’s side window of my father’s car, and being dressed in African clothing when the missionary came to speak. I’m happy I got to see her again in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania a few years ago before she moved on last year.

I guess I’d better stop for now, because the list could go on and on. Someday I’ll delve into all my friendships and mentors after Forestville.

Finally, though, I want to say how grateful I am to the folks who have read and studied “Mrs. Job,” and written reviews on amazon.com.

"HEALTH CARE" INSURANCE EXPERIENCE

I just can’t help myself. I need to talk about my experience as a practicing psychologist dealing with insurance companies. I want to make it clear that this is just a report of my personal recollections of my experience as a provider.

Back in 1978 I completed all requirements to become a licensed psychologist in Connecticut. (Incidentally, In Connecticut, at least at that time, one could use the title “psychologist” only with a PhD or PsyD and the license to practice.) I began my private practice while still working at Southern Connecticut State University. I confess it was hectic. That’s when I learned a few lessons about controlling the schedule of my own life. But when I retired from SCSU in 1986, I was able to devote my time to my practice, and there were weeks when I saw as many as 30 people. I think I helped some of them.

I guess you might say those were my glory days. I set my own time, my own fee schedule, and kept my own records in keeping with the ethical standards as I understood them. Most of my clients were able to pay me full fee at the time of the session, and I provided them with a statement at the end of each month, which they could submit to their insurance company. So bookkeeping was quite easy. And it gave me leeway to see some folks at reduced rates as needed.

Then came managed care. I had to register as a provider with appropriate insurance companies. I abided by their rules, in most cases allowing me to see clients for six sessions without permission. I had to provide the appropriate paper work, accept co-pays, and wait for the balance of my payment. Needless to say, the billing process became much more complicated. I also became aware of what was going on in the offices of the doctors I visited for my own needs. They were hiring more and more people to handle the paper work.

What bothered me most, however, was the process my client and I had to go through to get permission to extend payment beyond the original six sessions. It was a balancing act, really, convincing the reviewers that we were making sufficient progress that it was worth the insurance reimbursement and that my client was still “sick” enough that it was worth continuing to pay. My personal ethics didn’t allow me to talk about my clients behind their backs, so we would spend a session figuring out the most honest presentation that would allow continuation of their coverage – basically losing a session when we might be working on their own growth. (By the way, I confess that in providing completed insurance forms under any circumstances I was buying – with a sense of moral conflict --into the whole “illness” model when I really felt that the folks who came to me were the healthiest who were willing to work at improving their own lives.) I was never happy with the loss of confidentiality.

I confess the people I interacted with at the insurance companies were very pleasant. I think they approved of the way I worked. I do not recall that any of my requests was turned down. I was also pretty sure that the people I dealt with were not licensed psychologists with training and experience similar to mine. It seemed, rather, that they were working with a list of acceptable responses. It was probably an advantage for the economy that their jobs were available, and I honestly respect them as people seriously and ethically doing their jobs.

When I was myself a client things were handled in the old fashioned, pre managed care way. I never felt that someone other than my therapist and I was in the room, looking over our shoulders. But when I applied for disability insurance from – believe it or not a Lutheran organization – they wanted to charge me extra because I had been in therapy. That in spite of the fact that I had never missed a day of work in my college career. (That’s another story, because the college president had made it clear he didn’t like hiring married women with children, so I had to “prove” myself by never getting sick. Even my children chose to save their sickness for school vacation.) Fortunately, I was able to get disability insurance through a company affiliated with my professional organization. (And none of my retirement money went to the care of that Lutheran organization – stubborn Swede, I guess.)

To summarize, in my experience, when insurance companies took over managing health care, there were losses to confidentiality, choice, efficacy, and efficiency.

Then I personally got old enough to be covered by Medicare. I have never had any problem choosing my own physician, though I fear the day may come when Medicare fees to providers fall so low that some health care providers will give up supplying care to Medicare patients. That’s a wrinkle in our system that can be cured.

When I moved to Minnesota, where I am also licensed to provide psychological services, I refused to have anything to do with managed care, which means that I now see only the bravest who realize that they are not really limited to the provider list supplied by their insurance company. For me, it means that my profession has changed – more emphasis on writing, though I do so enjoy working with the wonderful folks who give me the chance to work with them.

Why am I writing this today? Because I heard another speech yesterday claiming that a new health care system would deprive us of the “freedom of choice” that we have under our current system, not recognizing that we are currently expensively constrained not by government, but by a monolithic system that grew around us as we hardly noticed what was happening.

I want to repeat, I’m writing from my own experience. I am not a political scientist, or economist, or politician. I just want to share what I personally have seen.

Oh for the good old days of Dr. Frost. They will never return. But I do hope we will reach the point where our debate is honest and informed.

I found Reid’s, “The Healing of American” very helpful, on several issues, but apropos to the current topic, on the issue of choice in other countries with broader health care service than ours.

I hope the blog system will let this link go through, because you might be interested in seeing the reviews of his book.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R16SZ49JA9D9NM/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R16SZ49JA9D9NM

I’d welcome comments on this blog.

TURNING BACK THE TIME? (AND BUY MY BOOKS.)

I just re-read my last blog entry – 28 days ago, and it looks like “time” is still uppermost in my thoughts. Today, though, it is a bit more tangible. As many of you know, I have a watch fetish. I love my collection of colors and styles – even a belt with four watches on it. Guess what I’ll be doing this evening? (In between trick-or-treaters.) I’ll bet I’ll forget some of them when I’m in my turning-back-an-hour frenzy. That’s OK until the day comes that I innocently choose to wear one that’s been overlooked and arrive late at my destination.

It’s not just time-pieces, though, that have my attention. It’s time itself. I had a birthday this week. As usual, I’ve displayed my cards on my mantel, but some of them are upside down. What an unbelievable number on the front of them! – a little upside-down, tangible denial, can’t be too bad a thing.

On October 9, I did get to my high school reunion in Bristol, Connecticut, with a dear friend I hadn’t seen since 1952 (or was it 1951?). At any rate, it was before he collected shrapnel, deafness in one ear, reaction to Agent Orange, and a host of other souvenirs of Korea and Vietnam, and other stops along the career path. Strange it is to converge at this point to share stories of individual careers and families, and to be back home in the Bristol area. (I even got a photo of my mother’s one-room schoolhouse in Southington – kept forgetting to do that while I was living in the area.)

There were 81 people in attendance, 61 one of whom were classmates out of a graduating class of 210. On each table there was a three-page list of those who had moved on to whatever is the next phase in the journey. The “survivors” were obviously a hardy lot –a good-looking bunch. Because they are all local, they see each other often, so recognition was easy. Not so for Martin and me. It was only after our names were identified after the meal that people knew who we were. That part was particular fun.

There’s more about this going back in time stuff. Gail Collins was interviewed recently on Minnesota Public Radio. The name of her book is “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.” I can hardly wait to read it, and to get to writing my own stories in “Riding in the Back Seat.” Remember when there were no women cops, or firefighters, or news anchors, or reporters? No? Just you wait for “Riding in the Back Seat,” or even to read Gail’s book.

It’s not going back that tends to keep me awake, though. It’s my fear that we won’t have health care for everyone this time around either. I’m enjoying T.R. Reid’s, “The Healing of America,” and wondering why we can’t just first accept the morality of health care for all, and then work out the methods by which we might reach the goal. I know. I’m an idealist. I guess if I haven’t lost it yet, I’ll probably keep that painful characteristic. But I wouldn’t part with it for anything.

Oh, one more point about this “time” thing. Recently I was asked to transmit some information via e-mail to surviving relatives on the Anderson (my mother’s) side and the Gustafson (my father’s side.) It went out to a total of seven addresses… a far cry from the big family Christmas parties. That’s what comes of being the youngest of the youngest, with cousins old enough to be my parents. Truly, I wouldn’t trade my spot with anyone, but maybe it will make for some fun reading when I get to my next project.

Finally, please remember that Mrs. Job and my forgiveness books are worth reading and selling. Try copying and pasting the following amazon.com link for the latest in my effort to get myself known “out there.”

http://www.amazon.com/Mona-Gustafson-Affinito/e/B002TXN8D2/ref=sr_tc_tag_2