The NW Beaders were playing an intro game at their retreat.  The game was called “I have never”, or “I’ve never been/done/or had”.   It sounded like a drama therapy warm up to me! Each person called out something they had never done, been, or experienced, and if anyone else had done it, they had to put a nickel in the basket.  They obviously knew things about each other, and it was hilarious hearing the dares—like “I’ve never smoked marijuana” or “I’ve never had sex in the back of a car”, or “in a cockpit of an airplane”. I was laughing at all the ones I could hear, and wondering who would put nickels in the basket, because I couldn’t see them at all from where I was giving onsite massages in the next room.  What it made me think about, however, was all of the amazing things I HAVE done, experienced, or received.  I am and have been fortunate, lucky, blessed, and privileged in many ways.

I was tipsy for the first time in Paris when I was 15, I have ridden a camel, I have felt the breath of a tiger on my face as it leaped to grab me, but missed.  I have driven through a city in a sports car with the top down and the wind in my hair, I have been on a sailboat, I have had a giant sea turtle swim beneath me in the wild in Hawaii, I went skinning dipping several times in my twenties—with my mom and a friend on our own beach; on Kauai at a pool along the trail; and on the Washington coast on a late Sunday afternoon after all the other hikers left.  I have been to Venice, I have ridden in a cable car to the top of the Untersberg, I have been to Morocco. I have seen the Mona Lisa, the statue of David, the painting of Venus by Botticelli, I have seen the paint pots at Yellowstone, and the Sequoias in the Redwoods. I heard John Denver in concert, Bruce Springsteen in concert, Joan Baez in concert, and the Von Trapp grandchildren in concert. I have been to a bull fight. I have rescued birds: crows, a flicker, swallows, vireos, a robin; I have felt the presence of God with me, and the presence of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, and angels walking beside me on Phil’s backyard Camino while he was in Spain. I had a wolf cub come to me and lick my hands when I was 7. I have held precious tiny babies, I have cut snowflakes with 8 year old Luke—a long standing tradition from my mom. I have heard loons and eagles on the same day, I had friends who threw me an “appreciation for Deb” party, I have been hot air ballooning, I shucked corn in Illinois for two days on a trip across the country, I have held bear and lion cubs, I have been to the top of the Eiffel Tower, I had a Troubadour in Madrid lay his cape across the sidewalk at my feet, I have seen Loch Ness, I have been mobbed by an audience after getting standing ovations for a play I wrote, I started my own theatre, I had a great relationship with my mom for most of my life, I have been on a pontoon boat, I have paddled a kayak through the mangrove swamps in Puerto Rico on the bioluminescence tour and out to a bay under the stars and the sweep of light from a lighthouse on the point. I have walked the medicine wheel, I have offered prayers in a sweat lodge.  I have made a friend laugh so hard she peed her pants in the rental car in England.  I have presented at conferences, I have served on boards, I have published a chapter in an arts therapy textbook on my theatre work addressing domestic violence, and I have climbed the pyramid of the moon. I have been white water rafting, I have flown in a helicopter, I have danced a waltz with a cute guy in a town square with an orchestra playing, I have flown in a glider plane, I have listened to coyotes singing at night while I was camping, I have walked through bat caves, I learned to ski, (and then stopped skiing!), I have biked on paths where there were alligators, I have walked barefoot on Bell Rock, and I have looked up in wonder at the stars.

There were lots of other things that shaped me—I stood between my parents as my father was yelling at my mother when I was 2, to protect her. I lost a sister to suicide when I was 32 and she was 37, I had a boyfriend who threw garbage at me, I was married to someone who wanted to humiliate me and keep me unhappy, I left both of those guys, I found humor and joy again, I wrote a script which helped women to see what power and control was all about, and I directed it and took it out on tour for three years. I reconnected with the love of my life and married him, I took care of my mom in her last years, and though it was incredibly hard and I was frustrated and not very sweet most of the time, I did it, and she was able to stay in her own home, and we did a lot of fun things, played cards, watched movies, I took her to a baseball game in Seattle, and a trip to Skamokawa and across the little ferry at Cathlamet. I made peace with my dad before he died, did a ceremony to forgive him and let go, and after he reconciled with me I took him on a trip to Utah and Seattle, where I stood up to his friends on his behalf which surprised him, them, and me as well.  I stayed at the cemetery after we laid my brother Jim to rest, and insisted that my cousin Bill stay with me until the dirt was on the box of ashes, even though everyone else had left, and I wept.  I helped scatter Bill’s ashes, too, and threw rose petals in the stream after him, in the mountains in November ten years later.

I have had many regrets and things I failed at, and people I hurt or let down, things I failed to fix or address, and things I didn’t know how to fix or address. I lost friends, through my fault or theirs. I disappointed people, including myself, especially when I lost my temper. I learned that my anger is usually covering up sadness or fear, and that I often spent an extraordinary amount of time sorting out my anger because I was ashamed of anger and was angry at myself for feeling anger, which brought up the need to keep justifying it, when it was probably already justified in the first place.  Whoosh, what a lot of time wasted, and what a hard lesson:  that it is ok to feel, and to look underneath the surface to find the hurt thing and take care of that.

I married the love of my life finally, after letting him get away 25 years earlier.  I have family again.  Although it was always a flip joke I made, that “since I couldn’t have children, I would start with grandchildren”—but now it is happening.  My niece is back in the neighborhood again, and I am a great aunt/grandma figure to her three children, two boys and a baby girl, and my beautiful step-daughter has a new baby boy, nearby, and we are part of his life and getting to know him and love him—  our grandson.  Heart full.  Grateful.

The song Edelweiss is going through my head.