the howling of the soul

the howling of the soul...

...always, it seems, as the wyoming winter wind whips across the prairie, i am drawn to wonder about her...i wonder how she is...what she ended up doing...did she heal...enough?

i remember, one day in a session...she was so quiet, emotionally frozen...weeping softly...it seemed that any movement i did could startle her beyond repair...in her silence, i thought of a scripture story...a jesus story, one that today, eludes me as i am writing...something about gentle compassion, i am sure...something about the yearning and healing of a soul....

so, i quietly say, "i am going to move to my bookshelf...get my new testament and read you a story"...in whispering movements, i walk across the room and take my favorite, wrinkled paperback new testament and let the pages fall open to this now forgotten story...i remember reading to her...wanting her to just stay still and know...what? that she is more than the anguish she feels...that she is accepted just as she feels...that someone, maybe me, maybe jesus, maybe herself most of all, will accept her wounded, yearning soul to become alive again...

that is how she described herself, not alive, but dead...in her self...

and, now in this writing, right now, i suddenly remember the jesus story!!

the story that i was called to read to her! lazarus...the dead guy that jesus rose from the dead, that jesus cried about because, it seems, jesus was a good friend of lazarus, maybe even a cousin, i hear...and, the story goes, that when jesus heard about his friend dying, jesus wept...that's all...

just wept,

simple, painful, beautiful tears...

jesus wept...

"the shortest verse in the bible", we were taught in sunday school...

of course, as the scripture story goes, it does not end here, or there...that jesus broke the rules of life and death...that jesus went to the tomb, perhaps crying...sobbing...

jesus bellows, howling from his soul, his grief...

"lazarus, come here!!"

...and the folks around, family and friends, yelled back, "no! he stinketh! for he has been dead three days!"...and it did not matter...

the rules of death, and the rules of family and friends did not matter...

lazarus came forth, from the howling voice of a loving friend and cousin...

"unwrap him!" jesus yelled...for he was all wrapped up, as a mummy...

unable to freely move...breathe...live...

one deep winter night when she could not sleep, when, even in indiana where she lived, the wind blew fierce through the forests and across the farmlands...she wrote in her journal, "i can't sleep...all i can hear is the howling of the wind...and it feels like my soul...the howling of my soul..."

haunting, haunting...and that was near twenty years ago...

and the howling of the wind blows across this january land...bringing wonders and prayers for her and for all who know what it is like to die and come back again...

before i left indiana to come here to this prairie, she had renamed herself...yes, gave herself a new name...a new life from her tomb...she created a new family, new friends, new rules to live by...she called herself (and this is not her full new name, for her privacy and identity are preserved)

"free"...

yes, free...

and to her, i bow...

Life and Therapy in a Small Town

Life and Therapy in a Small Town

(January 4, 2009)

"Well I was born in a small town

And I live in a small town

Prob'ly die in a small town

Oh, those small communities"

(" Small Town" by John Mellencamp)

and the phone rings at 3:45 am...and i am startled, of course... shocked: my god, has someone died? what has happened? who is calling? am i even awake? dread, cold fear, tightening in my chest and stomach...thick, groggy, crazy thinking...

wait! my daughter, barely 15...just left not quite an hour ago...yeah, she drives at 15, school permit here in nebraska...rural rules...we live out in the boonies, 12 miles to school and she has a "speech meet" with other students in a town 4 hours away...they have to be at the meet by 8 am, so catch her local school bus at 3:30am and the school bus driver drives these students to that far away town...

"dr fitts?", i hear a voice on the phone..."this is officer brian...from the police department..." "what? yes?" i say...fearing..."well, i was just patroling around the high school after the students left to go to their meet and saw your daughter's car and she left the headlights on...i tried to reach in and turn the lights off, but the car is locked...wanted to let you know so you could come in if you wanted and turn them off before the battery died..."

oh my...relief! "officer, thank you...i thought something bad had happened...no problem...(i am laughing, goofy, giddy a bit) i will just let it be...i will be in later and jump it...thanks so much!"...

headlights...crisis of the night...small places where people bump into each other...the goods and bads of small town living...

so, i am driving a hundred miles from my home, in the beautiful sandhills of this land, enjoying the warm spring afternoon and i stop at a tiny village along highway 2...get a pop, maybe a piece of homemade pie at the cafe...i settle in at the counter and the waitress smiles and says "hi dr. fitts!" and i am taken back...oh my, i do recognize her...a client from several years ago...we laugh and she says she and her husband are doing well, along with a new baby! and i feel happy and amazed at this little gift...and the door opens and, honest, a delivery man walks in with supplies for the store and he says "hi royce!" and it is john, from another far away town, working on his saturday route, a client now, and that is the way it is...no pretense, just normal small town stuff...a hundred miles from home...

and i have friends in rhode island who laugh at how "everything is always compared to how small" their state is and i think of the vastness of this western prairie and make a silly joke to my self that this small town, this region that acts like a small town, is 14 times the size of rhode island! and it is still just a "small town"...spread across hundreds of miles...

and, another time, my old chevy van that i insisted on keeping, broke down in town at a restaurant and i left it overnight, deciding i would get it to the mechanic the next day...except he calls me a few hours later and says "hey doc, saw your van downtown and figured it had broken down again, so i just towed it in to the shop...wanted you to know"...

therapy is to be confidential, private...so it is common for clients to sometimes ask to see me in a different office, not in their particular town, but in one of my other offices in another town, even if that means a two hour drive...ok, good idea...and, one day, in my main office, i had just finished a session with a person from another town...she steps out into the waiting room and sees a person, also from even a different town (i had three separate offices then)...she stops and says, "are you...?" and the other person says "yes?" and then they remember that they are long lost friends from high school and hug and laugh and become life long best friends from that day on!

i can't even write most of the other stories because, well, it is about us! and we know each other and therapy is as private as can be...

and johnnie cougar mellencamp is so very right...

small is, not painless, beautiful...