Grace Odyssey: The Journey is Home

It's all about grace. 

Anneli's backstory. Everybody has one. Right?  What's yours? 

One of very few bona fide Colorado natives, I grew up in Denver before heading east for school. I harbored fantasies of becoming the next Chrissie Evert for a little while, then took up rock-climbing and ruined my ankles while working at a camp at the very base of the diamond of Long's Peak for several summers. To give some perspective, I climbed Long's in tennis shoes, for god's sake, and when we summited there were three of us. That has changed!

I loved the city and its human diversity as much as I had loved the variety of rocks, some 2.5 billion years old, on Trail Ridge Road. Urban vitality is a whole other animal and absolutely as beautiful in its own way as my mountains. My dad had cleared a lot of the land for that camp where I started out and I count it as 'home' almost as much as any patch on earth. But I never stopped falling in love with new homes, cultures so I have come to understand that, most importantly,  "the journey is home."    (Nelle Morton)

My husband and I, whom I married two days before graduating from university, loved living and working and eventually raising two children in Chicago for almost 20 years before moving back to Denver in 1999. The Lakefront was not quite the ocean but it would do. And the Cubs. Well, what can you say about the Cubs?  But the lobster trap is still on the front porch. You just never know. And we have plenty of buoys. (Can you tell, I'm a bit conflicted, still, about where I live?  Even though it is drop dead gorgeous here, too, and I have 78,376 photos to prove it!, Massachusetts still has a claim.) I'm still here.

My great-great-great-grandfather was digging around out here with a pick ax, looking for gold and silver in these mountains decades before Colorado even became a state!  My Swedish ancestors  (how can you tell) came to try their hands at mining, which didn't pan out terribly well, but enough to buy farms, and a few mines, and then try railroad administration, and finally business and law. My parents were both born on farms in the newly irrigated lands north of Denver, and my dad's beloved horse, Silver, lived long enough for me to meet her in her ancient of days. I still want a horse!

From all these Swedish immigrants --- and who goes all the way out to the steppes of Eastern Colorado to farm when there is Swedish-looking land from Connecticut to Iowa in between! good heaven!  ---- I inherited their sense of adventure and courage, their tenacity and resilience, thank God, their rebellious and determined spirits, and from my grandmother, that gene that makes me the family prankster. I love to laugh, most of all at myself. Life is meant to be taken seriously, but frankly, it is so bizarre, you just have to laugh.

History, anthropology, and psychology are great interests. While in grad school, I studied in Poland in 1980, just as Lech Walesa vaulted over the shipyard fence in Gdansk and Solidarity was sprung. I was hooked. How could I not be? When I crossed the Polish-Soviet border for the first time in late November, 1980, we encountered a battalion of the half-million or more Soviet troops poised to invade. We shared a tense waiting room with their officer corps for several hours at the border in Brest. The sight of this multitude of imposing Soviet power, men in gorgeous (it's true) long wool coats with epaulets and many medals, their furry big "Rooskie" hats, actually made me so nervous I began to giggle, uncontrollably. I could not stop.You know those giggles. It went on for a good half-hour. It was not an auspicious introduction. And it didn't help that my buddies, Ed and Harris, kept up a quiet prattle, addressing the gathering, "And I suppose you are wondering why we asked you all here..."  But the Soviets in their great coats and dang-enviable hats stayed on their side of the invisible boundary and the Polish revolution staggered on. No invasion that day.

 As for me, I sold the tennis shoes off my feet to some kid in Leningrad who was desperate for Western apparel. And I sat down by accident in the Archbishop of Moscow's chair at the formal luncheon in the city's most elegant establishment. I was gracious 'redirected.'  (Who knew the person of honor sat in the middle of the table, not at the head?)  Seven forks, four knives, five spoons, four crystal goblets and many vodka toasts later, our motley crew of students, dressed inappropriately for the occasion -- for every occasion -- in flannel shirts and blue jeans, staggered out into an early dusk, into the always waiting Chaika, leaving passersby to wonder what rock band had just had lunch with the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate.

It was hairy times, and my time later spent in Warsaw during Martial Law (what they called war, Poland at war against itself) was utterly heartbreaking. I had no idea if they would come out of it alive. It took nine years then, of war and angst and looming disaster, before, of all things, the Communists, including the Prime Minister, a man I knew!  and members of Solidarity sat down at a Round Table and fashioned a new, post-Communist future. Their first mostly-free elections on June 4, 1989 was the Berlin Wall coming down, for real. That was the real turning point! The dramatic razing of the Berlin Wall several months later, in November, was presaged by the tedious work and remarkable courage of the Poles. But nobody noticed: their elections took place on the very day we were all transfixed by the heart-stopping drama in Tiananmen Square.

Thanks to the vision of the Lutheran World Federation, I spent significant amounts and quality of time in Eastern Europe, especially the Baltics, Poland, and Moscow and Leningrad all through the decade of the 1980's. It was almost an accident, if you believe in such things. You just never know how life is going to go. Dave and I drove out to Washington, D.C. in the Fall of 1981 to a meeting of folks interested in promoting understanding between the East and West, as we called it then.  New and feeling shy, we sat near the back, in a row with just one other person. Before the evening ended, we had met, talked at length, and I had an invitation to join a delegation of Lutheran seminary students going to spend time in the Baltics the next Spring, of 1982. Can I just confess, for the record, I had to go back and look up where Estonia was. Estonia?  A Baltic Republic of the USSR at the time, a tiny but lively culture, lovely people, and kissing cousins to the Finnish. And wow, can they sing! The Estonian Folk Song Festival, of over a hundred thousand singers, should be on your bucket list!

We were about fifteen graduate students, plus our fearless leaders, and we were 'officially' a choir. Gary Bunge could at least play the violin like a pro and Luanne Deckard has the most ethereal operatic soprano: to hear her fill the cathedrals, some turned into museums by the Soviets, was a holy moment I shall never forget. So we were a choir. We had to be; you didn't just go to the USSR in those days. You needed a purpose. Thanks to the formal "Basket Three of the Helsinki Act for Security and Cooperation in Europe," I'm officially a 'Basket Case,' and can put 'Human Contact' on my resume. It was a dynamic time of relationship-building for a future generation of leaders there, so we hoped and so it has come to be. We met around bonfires under the Midnight Sun and snuck through the streets of Tallinn, Tartu, Riga, and Vilnius with young people who, in many cases, risked a very great deal to be with us. They were called in for questioning and I don't even know what other consequences they paid. They gave far more than we did and I got way more than I knew how to offer. And some of us are friends for life. And our children have now met!  We showed up at the oddest places, over the years, in our big red Intourist bus and I can tell you that it went places no Intourist bus had ever gone before, or since. We argued with the Soviet Peace Committee over radar installations in Krasnoyarsk and agreed that we both needed less warheads and more smart minds working on resolving our differences. I saw "perestroika" and "glasnost" in their nascent forms, and I have an address book from Tallinn that has a very very peculiar back story. Later....  I have a KGB file. God only knows what is in it. Shall we try to find out? I've been wanting to. Or is it rotted away in a basement of some warehouse on the outskirts of Moscow?

There shall be more stories from those trips, many stories, oh! the stories! and they're good ones!, and of the impact they have made up to this day, on my life. But they changed me, from the inside out. They also gave my daughters' their names, and honorary godparents. And they made history. At the gracious, and stunning, audacious invitation of the Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in Vilnius, which at the time, 1985, was still just learning about Vatican II (it was so cut off!), I am the first and only woman to preside at a Holy Eucharist inside an Orthodox cathedral. (cf Keston College)  It was a Lutheran liturgy, and the Lithuanian Lutheran Archbishop stood by like a very proud papa as our invited group of Lutheran worshipers celebrated Holy Communion at a prominent side altar dedicated to my favorite evangelist, St. John. The Orthodox women who looked on had to be careful not to get caught smiling, as their priests scanned the crowd. It was an epic moment. Literally.

And so it went, ending for me in 1989, when I came home with an actual Estonian flag! A real Estonian flag. The USSR wasn't quite kaput but it would be soon. And we celebrated early. I cannot overstate the impact of these relationships, while in Eastern Europe and as Russian Orthodox delegations came to visit us in the States. It combined my passions for peace, with justice, and my fascination with people and culture, and just plain friendship. I'm going on about it here because, well, it made me, me, in a most significant way. And besides, my mother was thrilled when it even got me into People Magazine!

It has come to pass, the promise on my ordination announcment, that "You who once were far off have been brought near........ You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens together with the saints and members of the household of God."  (Eph. 2)  Yep. These friends who had reason to be afraid to meet us now chat with me on Facebook. They visit, I visit, my kids visit. We talk. They earn degrees from Princeton. God who is rich in mercy has done this!  Now, about the folks so close yet so far, in ancient Palestine...
Stir up your power, again, and again, O God, and come!  Quickly. Please.


People do fascinate me! All people. I won't live long enough to get to Mongolia and the sweep of the trans-Siberian Railroad is looking less likely every year. It's not looking good for me to make it to South Africa -- the place that first pulled me completely out of my American experience and worldview -- either, but my daughter has been there and is likely to return. She learned to talk by shouting, "Free Mandela!" with us at the South African Consulate every Thursday noon, and learned to sing, "Freedom is Coming!" as she joined me in the anti-apartheid protests I had begun participating in at Princeton in 1976. She's been back to Africa again, this time as part of her medical school work, and she has her feet firmly planted on many continents. Our other daughter is hooked on global education, especially for girls, and was thrilled to be with Malala for "Malala Day" at the UN in 2013. She studied in Geneva at the United Nations in 2013 and is not likely to stay in this corner of the world, either. They have inherited my desire to be out, in the world, to make an impact, to stir things up, to settle things down.

My grandmother is said to have been "in hot water" frequently at her church for speaking her mind, for speaking up for the poor girl who was got pregnant, for the outcast, for the questionable ones. I like to think that we got that gene, too.

Nature and nurture got tangled up together to create the unique complex personality that is me, and I am endlessly curious to see how those dynamics play out in others. And I just love people. Even with my injury-based sense of mistrust and fear, due to an attack several years ago, I am one of those people. I talk in elevators. I chat up the waitstaff at restaurants. I make small talk in line at the movies. And I am terminally doomed to say, "I'm sorry." I once even apologized for the sun.

I am an avid but informal student of Jung and read as much as I can and take workshops when possible. I like to learn, to pick a topic and dig it up. My grandfather was hunched over from picking potatoes. I prefer to sit up straight and dig up history about Palestine, for example, these days, or the Ute people who once inhabited the land I live on now.

I came out of the womb with a passion for justice. Sometimes it boils over into outrage. And my husband gently sits me down and says, "patience, the long view." But sometimes, sometimes, things need to be done NOW. Knowing the difference, and knowing my limits, my boundaries, is a challenge. I grew up in the role of rescuer and have carried it with me lifelong. I am just about as sensitive and tender as they come. This is a good thing and a not so good thing.

I have a collection of posters that help define my spirit.  Try this one:

"There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and its usually a prescription."

"I always mean what I say. I may not always mean to say it out loud, but I always mean it."

"Sometimes my biggest accomplishment is just keeping my mouth shut."

But I also remember my first trip to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. while in college. It is engraved there, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."   And Edmund Burke's word caught me early, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men [sic] do nothing."

Judith Herman wrote in her seminal work on "Trauma and Recovery,"  that all the perpetrator, or oppressor asks of us is silence. The victim, the ones traumatized, the oppressed need us, our voices to speak up, to tell their story, or give them the space and credibility to speak. We are called, always, to bear witness. 

And of course, I learned from the women who went to find a dead Jesus at the tomb, and discovered it empty, one of them encountering the Risen Christ, to "Go and tell......"

So I pretty much do. I pretty much have. Go, tell.  Injury shut me up for a long time but I am finding my voice -- and with a fury, a passion, perhaps feeling the need to make up for lost time.

Another poster, "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is primary among my virtual mentors, thanks to my wonderful teacher, the late F. Burton Nelson (one of the earliest and most careful of Bonhoeffer scholars). DB, as we call him at home, said that ignoring evil was tantamount to collaboration, participation in it. He got me off my butt early on, got me on the picket lines, the editorial page, the soapbox. And did I ever get off? I know what that costs. And I am willing to pay. I almost did. And I knew what I was doing.

That scares my kids sometimes. And my spouse. But it's me. I saw first hand growing up what life was worth. And what it's not. I choose life, and abundantly, as Jesus promised. But that doesn't include the right to keep silent about injustice, abuse, or cruelty. So bug my phone. I'm okay with that. I have nothing to hide.


In all things, over many roads, on many different journeys, I have come to discover that life unfolds as a process that spirals around:  as we gather experiences and insights, friends and enemies, adventures, wisdom and knowledge, by trial and error, with surprises in surplus. And so it moves us forward. Then. Then. It devolves again into chaos, for the same reason it moves us forward --- more new stuff ---  a new mix that requires of us a persistence, tenacity, curiosity, and the application of insight if we are to grow.  And that eventually, or constantly, resolves, moving us onward again, before the cycle begins again. And again. Rinse. Repeat.  

So goes it. 

It is all about grace. 

Grace is everything.

I am delighted by daily treasures --- Colorado has the best clouds, clouds! in the world --- and I love photography, travel, and music of all kinds. Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto is playing through the earphones right now. It often does. The bedroom / writing room radio is set to NPR classical (except on Saturday mornings for "Wait, Wait!"), while the car radio has its presets tuned to rock, KBCO is king. My iPod goes everywhere and has everything from (all of) Chopin to Lady Gaga to Carole King (of course), Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Lina Sandell's gentle Swedish folk hymns, Lauridsen, and massive amounts of sing-along Peter, Paul and Mary, and Marty Haugen. The main thing is that it is LOUD.

Half-measures irritate the hell out of me. But I have had to learn to do with doing less after a traumatic brain injury and continuing complex PTSD. And now, oh joy, I have Parkinson's Disease. I work hard at finding the gift, even the grace in these realities (and most certainly the humor!) and I use them to help me do interesting things like "build character." I don't like having been stopped in my tracks but then again....

My brain injury may have been the best thing that happened to me. It ended my need for perfectionism (see previous post), and taught me the gift of idleness Seriously. Doing nothing is highly underrated.

I love to write and to read, as most authors do. I am a long-time fan of Chicago's own Sara Paretsky and her brilliant and ballsy, witty and unstoppable detective creation, V. I. Warshawski. I live from one new V. I. book to the next. And I firmly, duly believe that V. I. should just run the world. We'd all be better off.

Literary fiction is another love, besides biographies, history (need a book about Poland, pick an era, pick a topic, pick a person, I have it) and my favorite novel is the one I just read. I decided a while ago to let the poets Adrienne Rich and Wyslawa Szymborska be my spokespeople: they say what I mean far better than I can.  (Although I certainly seeming to be giving them a run for their money here!)

Learning about different cultures and traditions, and more about my own, is very important to me. We are still very much a Swedish-American family but my own and my family's wanderings around the world have integrated an elephant from Kenya and a goat from Nablus into our Jultide table's tribal gathering of Tomten. Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Russian, other African and Swiss priorities, traditions, and passions have mingled well into our basic Scandinavian sensibilities. For me, meeting friends from Palestine, all the way back in 1985, brought new insights that give purpose to my days. My lifelong (and I mean, lifelong: from baking at age three with my grandmother's Jewish next door neighbor and dear friend, the "ginger woman" I called her due to an exotic fragrance that was far outside the cardamon and cinnamon I knew, the woman with a blue tattoo on her wrist that I had yet to understand), and later living among Shoah survivors, looking out my dorm window onto an Hasidic Yeshiva, and going to temple some Friday nights:   this lifelong affection and respect, honor and love of the Torah, of Jewish teaching, the Prophets passion for justice, and the traditions, rituals and the profound impact of the Holocaust has not diminished at all, but it lives alongside awareness of another narrative, and a kind of prophet's zeal, "Return to me," I hear G-D calling to Israel in these terrible days. Bombs are falling on Gaza as I write this. I woke to pages and pages of posts in Arabic this morning, first person accounts from friends there, of houses destroyed, neighbors killed. I'm not exaggerating. That makes me furious. I know that this a long and complex conflict. I know it will not likely be resolved in my lifetime. But can a woman pray for a ceasefire?  Can a person tell her own government to stop funding this Occupation and brutality, to the tune of  $8 million every day?  If they want my money, now, they will have to come and get it! They'll have to wring it out of me. (And they will.) But I am done. Done paying Israel to kill, to break the commandments, its own sacred Covenant with Yahweh. "Return to the Lord your God, for God is gracious and merciful..."  Pray it be so.

I have done some wild and crazy things in my life, things I will never tell my children, and a few things that even made the history books (again cf Keston College). The mangled sweater I almost bought (it was a set-up) from an Afghani at the Ukraina Hotel in Moscow during their war, the long talks with the daughter of Poland's first post-war Communist leader. The visits I had with Poland's last Communist Prime Minister. Chatting by phone with Allan Boesak, the apartheid leader from South Africa, while he was confined during "house arrest."  Reading his speech, in absentia, to a crowded ballroom.

My days are filled with amazing memories: sitting four feet from Kurt Elling as he sang, "April in Paris" at Martin Marty's house; hearing as if for the first time the haunting words of Lorraine Hansberry's character, "Hope deferred is hope denied."  Reading the prophet Micah from the very pulpit at Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. For that matter, kneeling every night next to my children's beds, singing the medley of lullabies that were as set as a liturgy, "All Night, All Day...  Thy Holy Wings...."   Sacred time. Holy. Being in a stadium as Archbishop Desmond Tutu held the rapt attention of 30,000 high school kids, begging them to be passionate about loving others as themselves.  Singing along with Peter, Paul and Mary -- and my kids!!! --- at Ravinia, "No Easy Walk to Freedom," and celebrating Andrew Tecson's vibrant Jazz Mass every year at Christ the King in the Loop. Sitting at the deathbed of young men dying of AIDS, offering the comfort that their parents were not able to give. Officiating illegally at 'illegal' gay unions. And listening, 'hearing into speech' the anguish of women who had been sexually abused by their pastors. Ah, holy ground. And giving them some measure of comfort, and the promise of payment for counseling, justice, a sincere apology on behalf of the church. Holy ground indeed. And the wondrous joy of Buddettes and "Dimwitted Feminists" as fantastic colleagues for many years.

And family!   Ah!  The joy of a fabulous family that my husband and I fashioned out of naivete, good will, deep love, great respect, and passion. Those private joys and celebrations are cherished more than all else. That is the life that really really matters!  Laughing together, serious talks, shopping for shoes (I'm really kidding about that: I am not aware of ever shopping for shoes with my kids after they outgrew StrideRite.) Introducing them to my mountains, to the wonders of the city, to classical music, driving across South Dakota (you have no idea how big this country is until you have driven across South Dakota in one shot) listening to Beethoven. Meeting Goofy and Minnie Mouse. Meeting the poor. Meeting, each in our own ways, the One who Loves. Singing together all the favorite old Swedish hymns --- oops, never done that. Well anyway, I never aimed for perfection in the whole parenting thing, and a good thing too. But we're good. We love.

Sacred moments. Here, Far off. And remembering these poignant words of promise,  "I do." And we did, we have, we are. Unconditionally.

Sailing on the Atlantic, sunset at the far eastern tip of Nova Scotia's easternmost island, where the light is surreal and the water is pure aqua. Sunrise while crossing over the Baltic Sea. Giggling at the fireworks squiggling like lit-up sperm falling right on your very head!  The gleaming gold domes of the Kremlin. The never-failing awe of the Maroon Bells. Kandinsky's original Improvisation 13. So many moments, awe, and horror. The world holds it all in a single piece. And ours it is to reconcile, to simply behold, to respect. And revel.

Now, after years of injury and feeling much too defined by it, and before that, years of frenetic running -- I find that a simple and very quiet life is perfect. And it's what I'm capable of. I tell my daughter that I need thirty minutes warning if she is bringing boyfriend home because, quite frankly, if it is a writing day like today, I need to put on pants!  I have the best bedroom / writing room in the world: my nest, as I've said, my sanctuary, very simple and full of art and light and books and music. I leave the shades open all the time now. A big step! And no more unraveling socks. Well, hardly.

I am still not "wired to code," and have confrontations with the symptoms of my invisible illnesses all too often. I find myself feeling grateful everyday that my friends are gracious and patient and generous, and have sent quilts and prayer shawls, books, and much love, and would rather just laugh along with me than at me.

It is a screwed up world out there. But also a beautiful one. The growing, healing spiral continues as more light gets in.  And it is all about grace. Life is an odyssey and its beginning middle and end are grace.

Rosie always said,

So goes it.

The journey is home.

Healing and Hope After Traumatic Brain Injury

"Ring the bells that still will ring;
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything:
That's how the light gets in."

                                         ___Leonard Cohen


So, I'm cracked. No illusions of perfection! Not any more.

I used to aim for perfection:  in everything. Being the perfect mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend. The perfect student, then worker, writer, speaker. Playing every note perfectly on the piano, hitting every note perfectly on pitch as I sang -- even alone to myself in the car! Perfect form on the tennis court. I was the perfect neighbor, the perfect cubicle mate, the perfectly affable guest preacher, and for heaven's sake. I did, in fact, as they say in Boston, "use mah blinkeh."

It was exhausting, of course. And impossible. But, oh, I tried. Put a whale of a lot of energy into perfection. And I came close enough to it perfection to get lots of bennies from it -- benefits, perks, fast track, affirmation, attention, promotions, success. I was known. I enjoyed great respect. I knew, as an acquaintance put it once, while showing off, some very high caliber people. There are some private home telephone numbers in my old book that a good reporter would have killed for. It was a life of dignity. It was a great ride! And it lasted about twenty good years.

Like I said, it was exhausting. I was wearing down. Running down. And getting worn down by the antics of a new community I had joined, where deceit and betrayal were routine. I was tired, and I was losing -- or had already lost! --  my bearings in such a fog of lies and meanness. And then it happened. Out of the clear blue.

I don't recommend getting hit in the head, but it worked for me. 

I gave up perfection. I had to. No choice. Crack! And in the cracking open, light got in. Eventually. Got into my head, my brain, my spirit. Light I needed, new light. It has taken a long time.


[This is a more complete version of a shorter account of what happened to me. I feel that I am ready now and the story is ready to be told. There are still some details I cannot write of, maybe some day. A brief version appears in the book described at the end of this post.]


Twelve years ago, in 2002, on a lovely crisp October evening, two days after my birthday, an hour before dark, I drove over to work. I was too tired and distracted to remember the warnings: "Do not go over to the church alone. And don't be alone in the building. Watch your back."  The warnings were serious and warranted. And I tried to remember. But not this night, worn down by a stressful day, anticipating yet more to come. And so I went over to my office alone. I went early, to prepare for a big meeting. I wasn't thinking. I had, frankly, stopped thinking clearly months earlier: subject to a relentless barrage of harassment, sabotage, stalking, massive amounts of malicious gossip, relentless rudeness. Someone hacking into computer, the phone message system. Lots of lies, some so funny and outrageous we made them the subject of family humor. If you didn't laugh, at least a little, all you would do is cry. And I did cry. A lot. But on this night, my perspective warped like that of an abused, battered wife, I was done crying, and done with thinking. I just didn't think. And I went over to the office alone. Got out of my car. Stood, holding my folders for the meeting. And...

I was attacked by a crazed, angry man in a parking lot. My brain stopped working. And my life has forever changed.

A white ram truck flew around a corner and into the parking lot and screeched to a stop. Right next to my faithful old green minivan, virtually penning me in. A man jumped out, screaming words at me I did not understand. His face was red with a rage I could not comprehend. I couldn't see what he was carrying. His arms, I remember, seemed like tree trunks. Swinging. He surged at me.

I don't remember what happened after that.

I quit working. Not only as in, stopped being able to go to my job, but as in, I stopped functioning. The me that was me was gone. She didn't work. She broke.

Gone. When I did wake up, I had no idea where I was. I had no idea who I was. I had, in fact, no idea that I was an I, a being, a creature apart from other creatures, that I was what is called a person.  When I say "I had no idea" what I mean is precise, I had no idea. No ideas. None. I had no sense of anything making any sense at all. I drifted in and out for a long time. Confused isn't even the word for it. Lost. Without bearings. It is, for me now, inexplicable. It was a time out of time. Time out of mind. I was gone.

At some point I became aware of myself as a self, as a body that hurt. Something that was. And that about sums it up. No connection to memory, or identity. And I had no sense about the space around me, what it was, where it was. No associations at all. Not even a sensation of being in a bed.

As this continued, the scariest thing of all came after touching my arms, my stomach, clenching my fist, uncurling my fingers. They were connected, all these parts, and I watched with wonder as the skin held them all together and they moved. I was stunned to take some notice of the impulse I felt that seemed to have the power to will them to move.  But still, I was utterly baffled. What was all this? Some instinct whispered, "this is me." But what was a "me?" Having only this very foggy sense of my own identity was the most frightening of all, not quite understanding this concept of being a person, a being, a body, with skin and parts that moved and weirdest of all, thoughts that kept coming together and falling apart. Who was I?

Remembering back to those dimmest of memories are the very worst of this entire, long ordeal. Not knowing. Anything. Not even me.

Later, when I tried to take in what was around me, I was unnerved once again. There was a vague familiar flash of memory to something. But to what? Where was I?

And then, my husband standing over the bed,said, "good morning." I had no idea. Who was he? Why was he here?  The voice sounded familiar. The face looked like one I had known, but I could not put the face together with a name, or a part in my life.

Of course, at some point I was administered a mental status exam. Several of them.  I did not know who the President was, what day it was (or what season for that matter), or how this day fit in among other days. Not only could I not count backward from one hundred, I could not begin to comprehend what a number even was. It would take months and months and months for that abstract concept, of numbers, to even begin to make the least bit of sense.

When our children came in to visit, I did not know who they were. That is the second most terrifying part of the whole experience:  not knowing. My. Own. Children. What are children? And these are mine? Who? What exactly does that mean?

I was apparently more upset by their noise, which is to say, quiet talking, than interested in them. I feel terrible about this. I kept telling them to be quiet. I'm so sorry.

In the weeks and months that followed, I was not 'working,' that is: I did not recognize faces, voices, places, words written on a board or in a book. I could not comprehend the words people spoke to me. My brain had come unwired, or was rewired. It was not the same one I had had at all.

The borons and protons and neutrinos and boninos -- as I called them because I couldn't remember what their scientific names were -- had been battered out of place, or broken, their wiring sent all haywire (hey! I figured out what that meant!) and things did not fit together as they once had, as I needed them to.

I had never heard the term, TBI. Traumatic brain injury. But it turns out I had had one as a child, too. A concussion from a serious car accident. My head was banged against, and bounced off the sharp curb of the street. I was three. I wasn't treated because my mother and others looked to be in far worse shape. I do remember the ambulance ride: it was cold, silver, just very very cold. With searing bright lights. And I remember being alone in a tiny examination room for what seemed like hours, as the main attention was focused where it had to be, keeping my mother alive. A nurse came in finally and spread stinging orange mercurochrome on a huge ugly gash in my chest. No stitches, no tender loving care. Just the gooey singe of orange and more absence.

For the record, that October night attack was my second concussion in two months, following at least two years of emotional torture and battering, harassment, and sabotage. I had kept on working right through all the misery because I was still bound and determined to be perfect, dammit, and if certain people --- a tight group of about thirty, plus some outside instigators who had their own diabolical agenda ---  couldn't see that, then, surely, if only I were even more perfect, eventually they would recognize and see the good I was trying so desperately hard to accomplish for them.

By the time I collapsed that night, the psychologists have determined that I was already deep in the depths of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,  the consequence of horrible behaviors I experienced during the time I served that congregation. It was a deeply troubled place, with ugly secrets that they feared I would disclose. I had no such intentions, but fear is a powerful motive and when it is fed, it hardens quickly into paranoia and hate. So I was in deep soup!  Nobody had ever hated me before. I was disbelieving. "If I just get this right," I thought. Time would be on my side. And God, of course. I worked all the harder.

 In fact, the treating psychologist and psychiatrists suspect I had completely dissociated months before the final attack, and had become a walking, high-functioning 'zombie.' I do remember feeling as though I was living in a haze of unreality, not altogether present all through those months.  I had lost the capacity to feel either joy or sorrow. I was a zombie. Even the night I was attacked. It was a zombie who drove over to the church on auto-pilot and just stood there as I got nailed.

For months and months after that night, I simply didn't 'work.' I did not function, did not possess a brain that processed information as a normal brain would. I did not recognize faces, voices, words on a page were indecipherable swiggles and jurls. I couldn't comprehend what people were saying to me. I was still a zombie, though now much more damaged physically, not only emotionally. Both injuries, the TBI and the PTSD damage the wiring, the physical 'stuff' inside the brain. I occasionally tried to imagine the wiring inside my brain and saw a jumble of twisted, broken off, and buzzing strands that went nowhere and regularly shorted-out, sending bursts o uncontrolled,f fiery electricity across the whole massive mess.

And there is another thing. The cortisol. Cortisol is a good thing in proper doses, it alerts us to danger. My regulation system, however, was totally shot. So I had massive surges of cortisol up and down my arms and legs all the time, buzzing through my brain, up my neck, down my back, upsetting my stomach  .ALL THE TIME.  It would not, did not stop for, yes, years. No matter what I tried to calm it. My amygdala was blown up, stuck in one mode: Nuclear Alert! It was awful. Awful. I woke up in a panic, with the unpleasant sense of electricity coursing through my whole body and it did not stop all day. For years.

Sound and light were intolerable. Too much stimulation for my already over-stimulated brain to manage. So I lived a long time in a silent, darkened cocoon. I -- who had always entered my own parents' home and begged to open their blinds, throw open the curtains, let in the light! -- now kept my own shades down and the lights off. This was not me! But it felt safe.

I stayed in bed, curled in the fetal position most of the time. I was stubborn. I was recovering at home. In my own safe space. With my gentle husband and quiet, kind children nearby. Should I have been institutionalized for a long period of rehab? Some would argue, of course. I refused. I wanted to be home. My sanctuary. My nest.

The aspen trees turned golden and fed my soul, even in its absence from my sentient thought, as much as the medicines fed my brain. It was my safe place. I wouldn't leave. Not even to eat. I still spend way too much time, I suppose, up here in this room where I know I am away from the bullies and beasts who hurt me.

I tried at some point to watch television. I couldn't concentrate Opie and Aunt Bea meant nothing to me. I couldn't sleep so I tried to fill my mind with numbing nostalgia, but even that didn't work.

It was almost impossible to interact with my children because I had no idea what they were telling me. Words were sounds were all gibberish. That made me terribly sad. I loved music, their music, their laughter, their stories, their words. And now they were unbearable. Can you imagine, how awful!


At the time of my 2002 attack, and for several months afterward, I did not hear the term PTSD, either. I had no words, no way to understand or put in any meaningful perspective what was happening to me. In fact, it was many many months before the clinical psychologist doing an exam for insurance purposes introduced me to the term, those four words that came along with my TBI, because I had been attacked. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is all too familiar to us now. It is a national disgrace, the suffering our wars have caused thousands of soldiers. And a further disgrace, our failure to provide them the treatment they need and certainly deserve. And that's another blog.

I had begun soon after the attack to work with a therapist who turned out to be clueless and useless. She was worried about the negative impact of her having me as a client, because it turned out ( I later learned) her son's job prospects were tied up with the man who was ultimately responsible for setting me up to be beat up. She didn't 'hear me into speech,' she didn't hear me at all. She was afraid to. She should have recused herself at once but didn't. She was cold and disconnected and didn't seem to understand that I had been terribly injured and was very seriously ill, I suppose because I didn't have huge holes in my head or elsewhere, for that matter. She made me feel as though I was faking it. And a waste of her time. After going for a few months, I finally bailed on her, the first useful decision I was able to make after the attack. One day I just told Dave, don't bother taking me, I'm not going back.

I was also sent for diagnosis to my disability insurance company's chosen clinical psychologist, who said I had "one of the most complex cases of PTSD" he had ever seen. He explained. I wasn't crazy: I was ill. Very very ill.

By the way, the nineteen dollars a month I had paid for that disability policy over the years turned out to be the best money I, or my employers, ever spent. Thank God for that. And I almost forgot all about it!

From that diagnosis, I was able to move on to another therapist, and then on again (it is not a perfect science: finding the right, the best, helpers for your recovery), before finally finding the team that helps to care for me now.I also am a big fan of the right medicines. "Better living through chemistry" is one of my mottos.

I had the benefit of  that good Disability Insurance policy that was up-to-date, an excellent health insurance company, and an advocate who went to bat for me with Social Security. In fact, when that Judge heard my case, he took not the usual month to six-weeks to determine my status. He was so incensed about what had happened to me, he issued a judgment fully in my favor within a week!

This is how it should work. What is happening with our veterans is a disgrace. It makes me furious. And again, another blog.

*     *     *

As I said, I don't recommend getting hit in the head, I really don't!  And I don't make light of it; please believe me. It was hell.

It was hell for months, for years. For years. And years. And more years. Some days it still is. Even today for a few hours, even today. Wow.Is there ever a day when it isn't a factor?

I despaired of ever getting better again, really better, better enough to be functional, to "work" again, by which I mean only to do the simple tasks that we all take for granted. Cutting up celery. Making coffee.

It was hell and it was hard: learning to be me again.  As I noted, that first morning after I woke, it was to a sense of not only not knowing who I was, but to not knowing even what it meant to be an "I" -- a self, a person. I was utterly confused about every single thing. Completely disoriented. Who was this kind man talking so gently to me? He looked familiar, but I didn't know he was my husband of over twenty-five years.

I didn't know where I was, what 'was' was, what it meant for something to 'be,' or especially, what things were, or how to even think about it all, this sense of not knowing, not 'working,' not functional with a brain that did what brains normally do.

Food. What do you do with that?  I had no clue.

I could not stand the sound of, well, sound. I kept telling people to stop talking, or at the very least, to talk very softly. I couldn't tolerate any noise. Machines, voices, all made me curl back into a fetal ball. It was the start of a long process of recovery that continues, in fits and starts.

Over more months...   Learning to speak, to think. Words, what were the words for things? I still stumble over them, I stammer and mumble and look dazed for a moment until my child lovingly, laughingly says, "Mom, use your words."  But which ones?

We did learn to laugh. We had to. It was otherwise too grim. I laughed at myself, my inept and dismal failures to remember what ingredients went into a grilled cheese sandwich. Laughed at my inability to add two plus two, to even know what a "two" meant. We laughed at my complete and utter imperfection. The superwoman had become a parody of her old self.

Was that a good idea? To laugh at me so much?  It seemed so at the time, just as a means of coping. But I have to admit, over time it took a toll on my already bottomed-out self-esteem. We don't laugh at me so much anymore. But it is tempting. Oh the things I can't do!

"What did you just say?"  I heard you but my brain didn't download and compute the information. This happened in a conversation today. I sometimes still have to ask my husband to take the message from the doctor's office because it is just to much for me to take in and process. And phone numbers, oy vey, expect to repeat it nine or ten times. I can get about two numbers at once. And that's an improvement!

At the beginning, it was all new again. Living. Learning to concentrate, to listen, to take in basic information from other people. In fact, for months, it was impossible to tolerate anything but the softest sound, the whispers of my children. No loud talking, no noises. Not even my beloved music. And television was still a cacophony of confusion.

Learning to imagine what a simple thing like a number could mean. Numbers are still impossible, they are entirely -- what do you call it -- conceptual, subjective. (I just asked Dave:  the word I was looking here and earlier, is "abstract."  Numbers are too abstract a concept for my brain as it's rewired.)  You might not think so, numbers look so solid. Everybody knows what a "2" is. Not me. They are merely symbols to me, revealing: nothing. I can't go out without a calculator or the server will get a generous fifty percent tip.

I had to learn again to read. It is still impossible for me to 'get' a double negative; what does that mean? I puzzle over it for minutes until finally giving up. Complex material that used to be easy for me to navigate became gibberish. And some of it still is. I won't be reading Kant or Hegel again anytime soon. Plotinus is off the list, too.  I wrote two books, long ago. It was years before I could read them again.

I had once directed a doctoral program. Taught graduate-level courses, taught Religion to restless and squirrely football players from Marquette, who used summer school to get graduation requirements out of the way. I loved it, loved their energy, joking around, and also loved being able to get them to buckle down and be serious. I had thrived. In another setting, in a former job, I had once asked a room full of Army officers, in a workshop, "What do you need?  What do you really need?"  Let me tell you, that took nerve. Who ever does that?  I told bishops what to do, and they listened. I stared down a Soviet security officer. And won.

Now I was mush. It was humiliating. I hid out. Rarely going out. A trip to Dairy Queen maybe.But I stayed in the car.Taking solace only in my family. Required outings were torture. I couldn't even make small talk. I had been a nice balance before between introvert and extrovert. Guess which one rules the day now.

Going out, and being with other people was physically exhausting at first, and for a very very long time. It still is.I had to physically hold on. For security, for safety, for stamina. A trip to church wipes me out for the rest of the day. I hate to act so stand-off-ish but the truth is, talking to people is just overwhelming. Still.

The stimulation of a trip to the grocery store is more than I can manage. Too much information. Too many stimulii to handle. I left many times in tears, to wait in the car while my husband shopped.
I still don't go grocery shopping. It is simply overwhelming.

Learning again to feel comfortable around people, to talk to them about even the most simple subjects: what might that be?  What to ask?   How to answer?  Even now, groups of people are hard to deal with unless there is someone, something to focus on. Put me in at cocktail party, a graduation party? A potluck? A picnic?   I'll be the one in the corner, scrolling through my email -- and not focusing on that either. And that's rude, so I usually just don't go.

Finding a way to relax, even alone, was difficult. Between my brain injury which made it hard to think, and the attack which made me anxious, I seemed to need to spend hours simply doing nothing. Except be nervous.

After my cuticles had been torn to shreds, I discovered socks. Clean white socks. I unraveled socks for two years. Carefully pulling them apart, from top to bottom, drawing out the threads and meticulously making sure to not tear the string as it came undone. This ended up as a pile of sock thread next to my bed, a full two feet long and as high as the mattress. And eventually, when I felt better, and stopped with the sock thing, we found some beautiful African pillow covers which are filled now with unraveled socks.

A recent major setback just this Spring of 2014, a re-triggering of the PTSD, in full bloom, sent me back to the socks. For two full months I unraveled socks again. I had a sock in my pocket at the therapists' office, to work on, take apart, as we talked. I took clean socks with me to church, on two airplanes, even into a restaurant. And always, always,  had socks in the car. Now I'm back to just shredding my cuticles again.


It is not a line one can draw, an arrow, always leading forward: this recovery business. My brain catches on a branch, so to speak, and acts up. The PTSD gets set off and back I go back down into the depths of despair. The TBI still sends up flares of missed connection.    

Better, I think, to conceive of this recovering process as a kind of spiral, and sometimes we spiral back into the junk we've been in before. The good news in this: the bad periods do seem to last not as long as they once did. Or come as often. And I have skills now to help me cope.

Breathing. Deep breathing. Bilateral sound stimulation: using headphones to alternate the sound, say, of waves or a stream, from left side to right. I listen to Chopin a lot. And the patterns of Bach's Goldberg Variations are very soothing to me.

This is what it like to have PTSD and a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Our returning veterans are all suffering as much and more than me. I pray we learn from stories like mine to be sensitive and gentle with their, also, invisible wounds.


At the start, as I said, I mostly stayed in the fetal position, and cried. Or felt numb. Completely numb. And detached. Disconnected from everything around me. Dissociated, I learned it was. My brain's way of protecting me from the feelings of profound danger and distress.

Who would imagine: it was hard to learn to stand up straight and not hunch into myself, for fear. Learning to not be afraid. I crossed the street one evening, holding onto my husband's hand for security, when a big truck honked its horn (not at us, but that didn't matter to me). It triggered an attack that kept me in bed for the weekend. I curled back up into the fetal position and stayed there a long time.

And I wondered. What would my future be? Would I ever be independent? Drive myself to doctor appointments? Much less anywhere else.

My father died in the first year after the attack and injury. I felt nothing. I was still numb.

The recovering was very slow, frustrating. But I noticed that, hmmm, something was happening. Something would be a little easier, I'd catch myself humming. I'd initiate a chat with the server in a restaurant. Me!

And then eventually came this challenge, learning again to drive. I could not make left-hand turns for several years, for fear of turning in front of traffic, because I couldn't remember after I'd looked right, and then left, if there was a car coming from the right. So I'd have to look again. And again. And again. It was ridiculous.

As I became more conscious of the world around me, the world I lived in, and my relationship to it, I felt only one thing. A failure.

Failing at everything that mattered to me most,  especially, I confess, at being a mom: being there, being present, attentive and giving to my two children. Having to depend way too much on my husband, asking too much of him.

Not only can I not multi-task, I frequently can't even task! It drives me crazy when people try to make me feel better by blaming my mis-functions on "we're all aging, you know. I forget things too."  This is different. Aging or not, this is something else again. I can't do processes that require me to move along from step one to step two, and so on. I get all bolloxed up. I just do. And reading directions: Forget about that!  Not even a chance!

The other thing about all this that really sucked was how angry I got. Angry at the man who came after me,  angry at the people who set him up to hurt me, angry at all of the events and the people involved in them, that led up to the attack. Angry at people I had trusted who dropped me down a chute, on my head -- so to speak. Betrayal, on a massive scale. Cover-up. Deceit like you wouldn't believe, Especially coming from whom it was coming from. Petty, rude, mean behavior. Big, big mean behavior. There was an awful lot of truly diabolical behavior to be very very angry about. And I was.

I fantasized the most bizarre and ruinous pranks. A truck load of manure dumped in a driveway. Posting "for hire" signs for maid service at the market, with 'her' phone number. Calling the "We Buy Ugly Houses" and leaving 'his' phone number. And my favorite: an ad in the newspaper for the Humane Society Garage Sale at 'her' house, encouraging everyone to drop off items to donate for sale. I had visions of an old boat left in 'her' driveway and rows of ugly porcelain statues on a broken down bookshelf. But I did none of those things, or any thing.

It was important to me to keep my integrity, to not collapse into that anger, not sink to their level. To look myself in the mirror every morning and know I was doing my best, to know I was being a person who had kept at least her honor.

Being angry at God was a serious problem. Faith had always been an essential part of my life. I got through a challenging childhood by internalizing the sense of God's unconditional grace and mercy, of comfort and strength in times of trial. And I had always remembered Jesus' promise, "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly." (John 10;10)  That abundance was not about material stuff or even success, but having an internal sense of joy, peace, purpose, knowing it is all about grace, life.

That abundant life was stolen from me, along with everything else. Precious, unreplaceable times with my kids were stolen. Daily life moments were stolen. Times were stolen that we'll never get back. My delightful relationship with my husband was stolen. I quit going out with him to dinner, to concerts, to fun events. It had all become a chore to get through, my life. My work life was stolen. My love of life, gone.

 I never expected God to protect me even from assholes like I encountered, but still, I felt profoundly let down. How could God let this happen to me, especially when I was doing what God had called me to do? I was haunted by nightmares, by fear my attacker would return.  I was haunted by my failure to have confidence in God's love. This all went on for a very long, long time. A very, very long time.


My life today is a 180% turn around from those perfect old days of airports, public speaking engagements, complex professional relationships, and energetic self-confidence.

Do I always get out of bed?  Dressed?  Can I always count on being able to drive?   No.

I don't have a Frequent Flyers card. I don't run off a few times a month to speak in front of large crowds (though I'm beginning to think I could, now, about this topic, so invite me!), and I don't navigate a two hour commute on three freeways to a lovely modern office with big picture windows overlooking the city. Nobody calls me for advice. I gave up that entire career: (or it gave up on me!)  technical writing, consulting, teaching, speaking, telling people what to do.

I don't own a pair of stockings. I wear make-up only rarely. Do I even have a dress to wear to the wedding tomorrow evening? And shoes?

I gave up being trying to be perfect because it was hard enough to just try my best every day to be.

I try. I try harder. I do healthy, healing things. I see a therapist, and a psychiatrist, and a spiritual director, and two medical doctors -- one for the Parkinson's Disease that may or may not have developed because of my brain trauma. I take a whole lot of pills. Some folks don't want to. My motto is, okay, I gotta be honest:  "better living through chemistry."  I have an unofficial therapy dog. I eat chocolate. In moderation.

I am humbled that I was able to work through the worst of my illness without ever turning to alcohol or drugs (except the ones as prescribed by my doctors, and I never abused them). I did consider suicide on several occasions, which I'm not proud of. We had to hide the knives. And my husband still has sole possession of all my medicines. And I don't know where they are. I am humiliated by this but I owe you the truth. This is what it is.

I gave up some of my hobbies and found new, more simple ones. I never really liked gardening so that's a goner. I gave up being a perfectionist about the house. We keep it neat enough, and clean, enough.

Dusting the house is optional, the option being if company with the rank of aunt is coming. One can bear only so much embarrassment. The silver tea service is in desperate need of polish. I don't clean the baseboards behind the tables in the dining room unless two aunts are visiting. And there is a collection of sweaters on the end of the sofa in the living room that will keep me through the Fall.

The downstairs bathroom is still what I refer to as "an art project." I wince when guests come; it is a redecorating work in progress. I have given up on making my bed every day because the odds are good that, at some point, I'll be back in it, at least for a nap. And besides, the dog loves to burrow into the covers like a crazy goofball.

I have had to give up worrying about getting it all right, whatever "it" -- even this blog post -- is. Much less could I handle the press of outside, professional responsibilities, regular preparation, an actual job with regular expectations, accountability. I do some volunteer work but it's understood that I'm as reliable as the weather forecasts in mountain valleys.

I love my family and give them the first fruits of my energy, my intelligence, my dry wit. And after that, well, who knows

It  -- living -- is still hard. It will never be what it was. But, the best thing is: I started trusting again. First, myself. I began to trust myself. To take care of myself. Trust my instincts. They were working when everything went to hell; but I wasn't listening. I pay attention now. I am learning to trust some other people. Not all of them, and sometimes when I'm not paying attention, I still get burned. But I'm learning to live with that too and move on.

Many survivors / recovering folks with PTSD and TBI's find this a difficult problem, and a sad one. 

It was devastating to discover that some friends didn't want a friend who was 'disabled,' imperfect, even needy at times. I tried out some new friendships, and they didn't go so well. People seem to only want friends who have fully functional brains. I experimented with trusting new folks and that didn't always go very well either. I am also too sensitive, too hyper-vigilant,

Then again, I have ventured out again just recently, with old and some new friends and they are wonderfully fun and stimulating and they accept me as I am. I am filled with gratitude to them.

My good old friends have been unfailing in their grace, their kindness, their hospitality, and their concern. They have allowed me to be me, however I happen to be at the time. It is a legion of faithfulness that gives me hope for the human race.

I found a rather odd new vocation. People need friends. I can do that. Just be a friend.

And about my family -- well, they are darn near perfect themselves. They accept and love and care for me and accept my love and care for them. We're good!  They are fantastic!


I still cry a lot. When I began going out again, somebody in the family always made sure to have tissues along for the inevitable. Over, usually, nothing. Lately, however, I have noticed that I cry more often about things that are moving, deeply true, that catch me at a foundational place in my soul.


I am finding passion again. I came out of the womb with a passion for justice. That is coming back and I feel like doing something about it. And thanks to some healing, I am doing little things. I call it "throwing darts at a board and hoping some stick."

Or I describe myself as a butterfly, per the "Butterfly Effect," flying north, hoping to flap my wings a little and stir things up, that stirs other things up, that creates breezes, and currents, and waves of movement and eventually something good might happen.

I truly do want to be like that butterfly in the story I don't quite remember (so Google, "The Butterfly Effect"), the butterfly who flutters her wings a little and disturbs the air patterns and other air patterns are affected (or is it effected?) and the wind picks up a little and the currents move and circulate and, well, eventually, something interesting and maybe even significant happens.

That is part of what being a friend involves.

Most importantly,perhaps, through these years of healing, I came to see that what happened to me was not my fault --- it is so common for victims of attacks to blame themselves. I gave that up. My logical brain told me that truth the whole time but it takes time to let it into your spirit. I know that there are some deeply wounded people out there. And they are capable of doing tremendous damage, of savagely wounding others, including me. Their behavior is sometimes even deserving of the term, "evil."

It happens. And it isn't God's fault either. I trust Her again too. It was always in me, to trust God. I just had to get out of my own way.


We have celebrated a few Easters over the past several years. Life trumps death. I wasn't sure about that for a while, not for a good long time. But I've been there, to that place, where death is dust and life is abundant again. I know the One who was where death reigns and got up and left. And I saw that happen in others, deeply wounded souls, and finally, I sensed it was happening within me.

And light gets in. through the cracks.

Light gets in. Makes an impact.

It has become possible for me to care again about the wide wide world, to get all energized about the concerns for justice and peace, for reconciliation and dignity  that made me feel passion and determination and that stirred me long ago, and had stirred me for all of my adult life. Until.

I can tell you the date. Of course. Everyone with a TBI can tell you the date.

It is now possible for me to move around some. To engage. To be almost reliable some of the time. But. Then again.

I still stay home, a lot. I am still cracked, still broken. There are streets and entire sections of my town I am afraid to go near. There are days when I am too distracted to drive a car. I fog over. I still dissociate (just sort of 'go away.')  I have irrational fears, nightmares. I don't "do" numbers. I have anxiety attacks. My brain still doesn't 'get' all of the complex ideas and notions I relied on for insight, understanding, and basic function. I get exhausted easily. I can only do so much. It is impossible, true statement, for me to organize anything. That part of my brain is still fried.

So it's safe here. I like this space, this room.The sun comes in early, and now again I let it in.

A Facebook post from the local news station asked this morning, "What was your commute like today?"

My 'commute' involves walking downstairs from my bedroom to the kitchen, getting breakfast, then walking back up the stairs to my bedroom where I sit up in bed and write, using the computer.

And true confession: sometimes breakfast and coffee come upstairs, here, to me.

On really good days I drive two miles on city streets and write at a local cafe. The baristas there are the closest I'll probably ever come to having colleagues again; I'm the medium cappuccino in a mug 'for here,' with lots of foam. They know me there, though not by name. It is a small world I inhabit.

Except for the internet. It takes me everywhere.

Even to you.

And there you have it.

That's what I do. Which is to say, on a good day, I can sit up and reflect, read, meditate, and, if it is a really good day, write something.

There are no more fancy lunches with cloth napkins, wine, and clients, no conference calls, no board meetings, and retreats,  and -- who wouldn't want to give this up anyway! -- there are no more meetings to plan meetings to plan other meetings.

I walk up and down the stairs, and maybe, around the block with the dog. Somedays I go for a walk along the canal, just because I can. And I try to go to the gym and ride the recumbent bike (the only one I can ride and not fall off). I'm proud to say they know me there, at the gym, too.

My husband has to beg me to go out, even to fun things. Like a concert tonight. I'd really rather just stay home. I'm safe here. Because I was attacked, out of the clear blue, I am afraid. And even though my therapist is VERY good and I have skills to help me cope with anxiety and panic and outright fear, even so, I am afraid.

 "Do we have to go?"  Of course we do. It's healthy, it's good. And sometimes I even have fun. There are some really good people in the world and I am learning to really enjoy them. And my old friends. I love and enjoy them a lot.

I can do one other thing, still. I can write. I function well enough on my good days, for part of the day, to write stories, reflections, observations, opinions. I write words that share the light that's got in:  some wisdom, encouragement, inspiration. Empathy. Compassion. Challenge, too. And it seems to help sometimes. People like it. It's useful. It has an impact.

I hope. Even a little one.

That's what I hope to do, to be, just a butterfly from the Equator, making a bit of a wave that makes a bigger wave and creates a disturbance in the air currents. And something changes. For the better, is my goal!

So, that's me. For now. For quite awhile now. And it's enough.

*     *     *     *     *     



And then there is this! A new book! I'm happy to be part of it. I believe it will be helpful to many people, even you.

 "Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injuries:  101 Stories of Hope, Healing, and Hardwork"      

It was published on June 24, 2014, from Simon & Schuster, for the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise,  chickensoup.com   400 pages.  I think it costs about $15. Please buy it from your local independent bookstore.

Mine is one of the stories, "I Work."  Don't take that quite literally. I mean simply, I can function at a basic level. Like if you turn on a radio, it will make a sound. How good that sound is, well, that would be another level. I'm not there.

I deeply believe in the mission of this book: to be helpful in both practical and inspirational ways to anyone --- and my heart is especially with Veterans and 'Wounded Warriors' ---  who has suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI.

It is also especially useful, I believe, for the family members and caregivers and friends of TBI and PTSD survivors. Those folks who look at us and live with us and wonder, "what the hell is going on?" "Why is she doing that?"  "Is that normal? It doesn't seem normal?"   (No, it probably isn't normal, except it IS very normal for someone who has had a traumatic brain injury. It is normal for us to look in the mirror and wonder, 'who is that?')

While every one of us who suffers a TBI suffers it and experiences it in our own unique way, with some extremely devastating, others not so much, but all with our own variations of symptoms and quirks, I found reading the book to be a catharsis. There are some things fairly common to us all. And in that way, I felt 'normal,' given that I'm not normal, if you know what I mean. I think my kids would read the book and go, "Oh, that guy is like mom." So I'm just a normal not normal, in the old way, person. That feels good.

Whether you have suffered a traumatic brain injury yourself, or are a caregiver for someone who has, you will find help and encouragement in this new book.

It is not as much about war and veterans as I expected. And, that, I realized, is for a reason. The complexity of those wounds are unique and, I believe, require their own book. And their own communities of survivors who are active in online chat rooms. That's as it needs to be.

However, veterans and their families will see themselves in this book too. So I'm still giving out free copies to the family members of my friends who are Vets.

AND, this is way cool: the Foreward is a very moving story by Lee Woodruff, the wife of Bob Woodruff, the news anchor who was almost killed by an IED in the early days of the Iraq war. His TBI was terrible. She writes about it with great skill and empathy for others who have been in war and experienced similar devastation, and for their families. I highly recommend the Foreward!

PLUS, proceeds from the sales of this book go to the bobwoodrufffoundation.org, a wonderful organization that has already given over twenty million dollars in care for wounded veterans, to make sure they have care for as long as they need it. I'm totally in favor of supporting that!  Buy a book!

If your friendly local retail bookstore doesn't have a copy, you can get them to order one for you and, if you pick it up, you won't have to pay for shipping. And you will have kept someone, maybe a veteran or their spouse, or a recovering survivor of a TBI, in a job in your local economy. Something to think about.

You can even call and order a copy from my very friendly and helpful local bookstore, The Tattered Cover, at
303-470-7050      They can deliver and everything! Perfect! You might have to pay for shipping but it won't cost more than, well, you know. (The book will cost a few dollars more but it's all worth it.)


You will find courage, tenacity, tenderness, deep and abiding love and patience, and great bravery in these stories. I can't wait to read them all!

One of my personal goals is to get this book into the hands of as many veterans who have TBI's as possible.  To that end, I am connecting with local organizations, clinics, and rehab centers. I am able to afford to give some copies of the book away. If you would like to help out in that effort, too, leave a message and let me know.

If you live in the Denver or Front Range area of Colorado, please plan to join us on August 17 for an author event/book-signing at 2:00, at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. It is easily accessible from C-470, exit at either Lucent or Broadway.

I'll post more about that in an upcoming blog. There will be three of us who contributed our stories to the book at that event and we'd love to meet you.

This blog is going to continue, as "Anneli's" blog and it will cover topics related to TBI and PTSD and similar issues.  I also have been diagnosed recently with Parkinson's Disease, so expect to hear about that.

It will also range into the wild blue yonder. But mostly, I want to write about life, about light, about letting it in, living it fully, freely, with hope and energy and power.  Don't be surprised, either, if we go on a few international 'trips.'  It will be me, my style, my quirks.

So, you can find me here, at:

http://www.annelinorrland.blogspot.com       This blog title is  Light Gets In

The most direct way to reach me is at this email:   epfam@aol.com

There is a Google Plus page for Anneli Norrland.   These pages both will link to Google Plus circles and vast amounts of information about TBI, PTSD and related topics. Please join my circles if you use Google Plus, and invite me to join yours.

This is the Google Plus URL:


https://+.google.com/118178100852550516875/post    (Anneli Norrland)

                {you can also get to the Anneli Norrland Google Plus page easily by clicking
                   the hyperlink on the Anneli Norrland blog, on her name, above the sidebar, next to
                   the red G+ logo; that's a lot easier!}


*       *        *         *        *

It's a good thing: life. I have had three TBI's -- the first at age three in a car accident -- so I feel like I'm super lucky to be around to enjoy this world, it's abundance and beauty, and to live in a spirit of generosity and grace. It's all about grace!

I look forward to sharing this journey with you! Be in touch!

 __Anneli