12 BEFORE SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON OUR FIRST DATE’S MYSTERIOUSLY LOST DETAIL

 Let’s patiently await my reveal of the lost detail, concerning my first date with Will, by highlighting those remaining so memorable as to reactivate my pleasure center’s smile, right now—

Upon opening my front door to greet and welcome Will into our home for the very first time, I, being barely 5’3”, look way up to connect with twinkling blue eyes smiling down at me from behind black rimmed glasses, making Will look as smart as he will soon prove to be, though the wily side of his nature will remain secreted for many months to come.

Will’s light brown crew cut stands at 5’11” (5” taller than my dad, who’d stood at 5 foot 6).  So he seems really tall to one of my diminutive stature (which is in keeping with both sides of my extended family).

As a nineteen year old youth, Will, being tall, lanky, wiry and spare of so much as one extra pound, is built similarly to most young men of the time who consider basketball their primary sport of choice.  That’s not to say Will’s choice of sports is limited to b-ball, because there’s no sport that his natural athleticism is not inclined to play.  Passionately.  Or actively watch.  My inclusion of ‘actively’ conveys insight into the fact that while watching sports indoors on TV or outside in the stands, Will can’t sit still.

While watching sports seated, his every muscle contracts, thrusting his body this way and that as though inside his head, Will’s physicality is intent upon playing whatever game is on our tv.

While watching, he’s coaching aloud, and if he disagrees with a coach’s fearful choice of safe plays, or easy shots missed or ridiculous judgments rendered by referees—take cover!  Because Will is sure to jump up and pace angrily, back and forth, ranting his impassioned release of combustible energy in a spew of insults directed at coach, player, ref or ump as to stimulate my anxiety to rise.  Whew!

Stewing ‘neath Will’s gentle demeanor, this guy harbors a royal sized temper!  Over the years, we’ve worked to ease reactivity on both sides thus—taming Will’s stormy release of pent up anger while easing my defense system’s instinctive release of subconscious (unnamed) anxiety as if the guilty head that’s about to roll is mine!

By the age of thirteen, b-ball and Will prove an excellent pairing for several sound reasons:

Will’s height and sinewy build are perfectly matched for this sport at his high school.  Why?  Well, being located in a Jewish neighborhood within an urban setting, most of the guys who’d made their local high school’s basketball team are around the same height as Will, give or take an inch or two on either side.

Secondly, during his junior high experience, Will finds himself a loner (as proves true of me).  Being social by nature, Will is not alone after school and on weekends by choice (also true of me as a lonely pre teen).

B-ball is a sport readily practiced on one’s own as the only things needed are ball, net and the impassioned desire to score basket upon basket, day after day, while yesteryear’s friends, being self-absorbed pre-adolescents, have been swept away without looking back to see who is being left behind ... shooting countless baskets, most of which, eventually, clearing back board and rim, are—all net.

Quick footed Will excels at this sport from every angle on the cement driveway leading from the urban alley behind his back yard up to his family’s garage (which houses no car being that neither parent has learned to drive).  Though he has no teammates (as of yet), nothing dissuades young Will from perfecting his shots as seventh and eighth grades pass with his beloved father’s chronic illness worsening, year by year ...

My sport of choice, proving equally solitary during lonely preteen years, is far less physically demanding, far more mentally stimulating, and all I need is a quiet comfy nook in which to curl up with a good book so well written as to present an authentic page-turning, spell-binding tale, titillating my imagination with such immediacy as to hold my impressionable mind rapt for hours on end.

Being that my mom, sister, Lauren and I have enjoyed weekly excursions to the library where we each chose and happily carried home several storybooks since we were little, by twelve, I’ve developed the comforting habit of surrounding myself with walls made of tall shelves exhibiting the colorful works of celebrated story tellers, which is why, upon reflection, it makes perfect sense, many years hence, for me to request of our contractor one whole wall in our spacious family room devoted to built-in bookcases with a sliding white wooden ladder, which climbing up to the ceiling, matches the shelves and contemporary cabinetry throughout the rest of our home, even today—not to say that bookshelves, reaching up to our ceilings do not grace other rooms in our abode, as well, now that our home shelters two avid readers, whose expansive collection of tomes offers an extensive variety of subject matter, which can be seen hoping to be borrowed so as to enrich the minds of family and friends as self awareness proves true of our own.

And as, yet again, I digress—let’s head back to my recollections (circa 1961) concerning my first glance at nineteen year old Will—a young man undoubtedly of the nice guy variety.  Kind and respectful.  How is surety mine at first glance, no questions asked?

Will’s eyes, the windows to his soul, tell me all I have need to know to inspire my smile to introduce Will to my parents, kiss them good bye, slip into my winter gear, throw my skates over my shoulder, accompany Will down our walkway and slide into the back seat of his friend’s father’s four door sedan, where upon being introduced to the couple with whom we are doubling, tonight. I ride off with three people whom I’ve never met, the intuitive portion of my mind, feeling completely secure, and as nothing arouses subconscious (unnamed) angst, my naturally bubbly sense of social self-confidence (free of unknown reason to shy away from revealing my innermost feelings), bursts with enthusiasm natural to my emotional make/up (which I’ve since been told proves highly contagious), so eager am I to challenge myself to stay upright on the ice, wearing my brand new white ice skates—a gift from my parents for my eighteenth birthday, two weeks back.

As to what I have left to learn about Will?  A lot!

In addition to being nice, kind and respectful, Will works to excel at everything he enjoys.  And as with most everyone I’ve ever met, he can be so level headed as to be clever or resemble a bull in a China shop if he believes himself about to lose anything of value ...

🙋🏻‍♀️😊Annie

11—DECEMBER 21, 1961 I GLIDE INTO MY FIRST DATE WITH WILL Part 2

One couple has joined us on the ice.  This boy and girl, being the couple with whom Will and I are doubling, can barely be seen skating, holding hands, in the dark. Their laughter shrieks, now and again, as they grab onto each other for dear life.  As they are college friends of Will’s, their identities have spun into the recesses of my memory where neither one’s face or name comes to mind.  Reflection suggests that by the end of our date, both have been deposited within my file of disremembered details as though, during the whole of that auspicious evening, my intuitive spotlight had focused solely upon Will. And then there’s the fact that they made little if any impression on me, because most of our time together concentrated upon balancing in hopes of maintaining an upright stance in the dark, and after that evening, I never saw either one, again.

On the other hand, lots of brightly lit details highlighting my first date with Will flash through my mind as if my memory wants to enjoy an album of colorful snapshots, though one remains so dark as to be seen as a mystery, even today ...

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

10—DECEMBER 21, 1961 I GLIDE INTO MY FIRST DATE WITH WILL Part 1

It is Thursday evening, on December 21, 1961.  The US president, a democrat, is beloved John F. Kennedy. Harold Macmillan (Conservative) is the Prime Minister of the UK.  Pope John XXIII leads the Catholic Church.  And all hope that a bright new year is directly ahead ...

I, being a high school senior, have just turned eighteen to Will’s nineteen.  He’s a college sophomore, who my grandma adores at first sight upon hearing that he’s a pre-med, 

It’s winter break, and we’re enjoying our first date.  Has Will asked me to see a movie?  Are we bowling? Or sharing thin crust sausage pizza sliced into squares? Not by a long shot!

Will and I are ice skating!  In a park!  On a starlit night!  Romantic, right?  Right!

And though I, owning my own skates adorned with pink pom-poms, can make it around the ice rink, Will is skating circles around me while I’m laughing, hopeful of not losing my balance, Will is actually circling me, skating backward so gracefully that I’m supremely impressed when, suddenly, I’m swept into his arms, gliding backward in dance formation as if I have a clue as to how to do this—while staying upright—which I most certainly do not!  In fact, I’m lucky to slide backwards on the ice without humiliating myself by flailing my arms around while my skates, floundering this way and that, see me land on my keester, pulling Will down, as well.  And the only reason that doesn’t happen is because Will’s hold around my waist feels so closely secured that my legs can’t help but follow his self confident lead, suggesting why, as we swirl round and round the starlit frozen pond— magically, two skate as gracefully as one.

Have I mentioned that we aren’t alone?

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

9–A SMIDGIN OF DATING RULES CIRCA 1961

In retrospect, it’s amazing to think that boys, whom we’d never met, would ring the door bell, pick us up, and with nary a care, my friends and I would slide into their cars, which would whisk us away from our parents’ homes without anyone expressing concern for our safety.

On second thought, I can’t speak for my parents’ unspoken concerns; however, my friends and I had no thought for our welfare though considering my history, you’d think my intuition would have thrown up roadblocks with warning signs the size of billboards saying—STRANGER DANGER TILL PROVEN OTHERWISE.  On the other hand, the fact that we’re discussing the dating game during the 1960’s suggests why that’s not the case:

Accepting ‘blind’ dates is a common occurance.

And dating unchaperoned has been the norm for decades.

(For instance, take the night my parents met, during the early 1940’s—My dad’s in his late twenties when he ‘picks up’ my mom at a dancehall.  What Dad’s about to find out is that in addition to being a dark haired, voluptuous beauty, Mom is as straight laced as they come with four strapping brothers at home, whose heights loom over my dad’s head each time he arrives to take this young lady, who’d dazzled his heart at first glance, on a date.  As Mom’s number one dating rule is ‘No chupah no shtupah’ (which aligns with the custom of the times), within ten months of meeting, they are wed.  BTW—the chupah is the canopy raised over the heads of bride and groom, during a Jewish marriage ceremony, symbolizing their very first home.)

As to the late fifties, early sixties, if a good girl is dating a nice guy then his friends must be nice, as well—right?  I mean, birds of a feather flock together.  Or so we’re led to believe, even today.

Before the internet, we are innocent of knowing how many women are actually attacked by guys they know and trust.

Many who are date raped keep that big bad truth about big bad wolves under wraps, even today, being that traumatized victims feel guiltily grilled ... as in—what did you do to tantalize his lust?  (If you have preteens at home and have not yet seen the film, Thirteen, it’s not to be missed, so you won’t be a parent caught unaware of what ‘prey’ tell is actually happening out there.  In fact, you may consider watching and discussing its relevance with your kids, so they’ll be aware of guarding their health and safety, as well.)

As a teen, my personal history (the traumatized portion of which has remained tightly coiled within a vaccum sealed mental block since years before I came to understand anything of a sexual nature) warns me of nothing amiss unless my intuition catches wind of a guy’s natural adolescent lust threatening exposure at which time I’ll bolt back and flash freeze with no afore or after thought of anxiety spiking, because that’s how mental blocks work.

And now, having offered a brief synopsis of traditional dating rules before The Pill introduces a whole new ballgame, I’ve chosen not to describe teens ‘running bases’, based in this awareness—familiarity with that lingo spreads like wildfire in junior high, and during my teens, rarely do hopeful hormonal guys score home runs ... 

Annie

8—A FRIDAY NIGHT IN DECEMBER 1961

 Before we welcome in the New Year, circa 1962, let’s swing back just a bit to a Friday night basketball game that I’m attending with friends during December of my senior year.  Please don’t ask if my high school team is winning or losing, because my girlfriends and I are too busy socializing to pay mind to whatever’s taking place on the court.  While in the background, a blur of tall, wiry teen-aged guys in tanks, shorts and high tops run, back and forth, making or missing baskets, I’m engaging in a brief conversation with my friend Sally’s current boyfriend, Steve, who, being two years older, is a college man.  Sally has just introduced us when Steve asks—

So Annie, do you have a boyfriend?

With Steve being Sally’s beau, I, feeling safe, smile naturally while replying—No.  I was dating someone, but that’s over.  (That someone, who pops into my mind, is Chuck, who’d, recently, compared me to The Prudential Building, for some unknown reason.) 

Well then, is it okay if I give your number to a buddy of mine?

Without a moment’s hesitation, I reply—Sure, why not. 

Next thing I know, Steve comes up with pen and paper, takes down my number, and that’s that until the following Tuesday evening when the powder blue, push button princess phone on my nightstand rings, and I, leaving my homework on my desk, stand up, cross the spacious bedroom shared with my sister, pick up the receiver and answer with a cheerful, questioning lilt—Hello?—being that caller ID and voice mail prove decades away—

Hi, may I please speak to Annie?

This is Annie.

Hi Annie.  I’m Steve’s friend, Will ...

7—1961 CAPTAIN CRUSH Part 3

  Having absorbed a revelation, mid-story, let’s review just a bit about Captain Crush before going forward—if not for your sake then for mine—

... That doesn’t mean that after Joseph I’d never swooned over a boy, because of course I had.  One in particular.  He had the bluest eyes, the darkest hair, and an authentic athletic swagger that magnetized my attention while scaring me so silly as to shyly swallow my smile and lower my lashes whenever he'd sauntered past my desk toward his own.  Blue eyes, dark hair, male swagger—a unique combination of traits, considering the quartet of crushes who’d come before.

Another attractive feature to me?  Captain Crush earned top grades, conveying self-confident smarts, which translated into leadership skills—he was all over student government—making him another authority figure, so to speak.  Unfortunately, Captain Dreamboat, who'd lettered in football and baseball, had no clue I was alive.  As to winning his attention by batting my lashes while flashing a sparkling, flirtatious smile? No way! Not me! Too shy of exposing any emotion offering a hint of erotica burning hotly inside me that might catch his eye.

Though we’d shared a class, senior year, my secret crush seemed so above my social station that my eyes never failed to lower, reverentially, each time he’d swagger down the aisle, his body passing so close to mine as to make my heart race with such a rush as to cause me to catch my breath and blush.  Truthfully had he ataken note of me, not much would have happened, anyway.  Why?  Because history repeats itself, and as soon as any teen aged guy had closed in on the kiss, or tried to fondle me or pulled my body against his own, fear of any sexual contact flaring up blew out my flame as fast as my body froze up.

Since I was full of mischief when feeling secure, it makes sense that I had lots of second and third dates; however, no one ever got past first base, so none of those guys transitioned into boyfriends.  Makes sense that I’d no clue why not, because in the absence of self awareness I'd remained blind to this fact:  The hotter I’d felt about a guy, the colder I'd reacted, so rather than flirting and cuddling closer, I'd clam up and ice up—until we'd said good night, and not until my front door had closed behind me was my sense of personal safety regained.

Unawaredly, I'd repeated my 'first kiss' experience with Joseph, time and again, with one difference—I didn’t beat my dates round the head, because well, that hadn’t worked very well for me, first time around.

Each time a boy, who’d literally been iced out and pushed away, stopped calling, my spirit felt sadly rejected, because I’d not realized that they’d felt rejected—by me.  So even if Captain Crush, with whom I’d have given anything to cozy up, had noticed me, I’d have lowered my lashes while turning away, blushing furiously, because hiding my impassioned reaction—from myself—was my defense system's way of denying all conscious awareness of sexual chemistry that his nearness stirred into action.

Throughout high school, an ostrich-like sense of invisibility served as my trusty shield.  On the other hand, any flirtatious guy, who’d for the most part acted like my best bud, received a buoyantly bubbly, sunnily funny, mighty sassy string of replies unless a best bud’s eye suddenly smoldered with erotic desire—startling my sassy side to switch off, exposing a scared little bunny, who'd hopped behind a solid wall of shyness, quick as a wink.

In recent years, several ‘best buds’ approached me at our high school reunion.  Upon hearing more than one admit to having crushed secretly on me, I was shocked beyond belief.  So much innuendo is missed as ostriches we all tend to be to some degree.  Believing this true across the board, I work at growing more mindful, every day.  Today, whatever I feel for you will be openly revealed by reaching out in some heartfelt, deeply meaningful way.  Why?  Because clarity, concerning reality, has grown deeply significant to me.

So what changed when I met Will, during winter break of my senior year?  He was the first guy I'd ever dated who didn’t scare me into icy retreat.  Will was so nice that he and Annie seemed as alike as two peas in a pod.  Will gave me no reason to scurry away, scared as a rabbit, seeking safe haven in which to hide my erotic reactions ... from myself.

While other guys were quick to make moves on me, Will was so respectful that I felt SAFE, not only in his presence but in his arms—so safe as to date him steadily for nine months—the length of a pregnancy, no less. 

No matter how consistently I’d resist his advances, he’d call and embrace me tenderly, again.  And that was good.  However as good as feeling SAFE may have felt, the fact that Will proved ‘nice, respectful and offered good, clean fun’ proved not enough to hold my attention, over the long run.  Why not?  Well, though I’d feared guys who’d felt so horny as to stiffen, causing my personality to freeze up like a popsicle on a stick, some natural instinct in need of spice inspired me to crave more than nice—and here’s why I believe that’s true:  Those first five crushes, each of whom had mesmerized my mind, thus magnetizing my attention, had been high spirited, authoritative guys, who’d challenged me, mentally, to stretch past narrow, fear-based comfort zones—suggesting why my spirit longed to engage with spice as well as nice.

Despite fearing my erotic reactions, I’d needed to rub up against sexual spice that matched my own, no matter how deeply repressed my passionate nature proved to be.  Today, I’ve identified 'that spice', which I'd subconsciously craved, as male virility—why?  Because once raw virility calls out to repressed feminine passion—watch out!  Set a charge to TNT and in less time than it takes for sparks to fly free of subconscious restraint, all connection to passive shyness sees denial’s wall explode!

If asked, today, where my thinking process was messed up as a teen, I’d reply:  During dating years, I’d thought to be afraid of whatever those spicy guys had meant to do to me.  Today, I know that my flash frozen state on a date was actually highlighting my inability to distinguish anxiety from excitement springing forth instinctively from a well within me in which unidentified layers of sexual tension had remained so tightly coiled, repressed and unexpressed that, one day, when, caught utterly unaware, repression unhooked its quick spring release, leaving no one feeling more shocked to see my newly unrestrained libido spring into action—like a Jack-in-the-box making up for lost time—as proper, straight-laced, 47 year old conventional me craved interaction as never before!

Think to know your emotional self, through and through?  Think again, my friends, because, upon diving ever more deeply into your subconscious, your intuition, like mine, may touch upon an instinctive spring release that exists within us all ...

Ever since that time of mid-life revelation, I've come to see how often intuition prods me to discover subconscious fears, resulting in narrow mind sets, which had blocked me from exploring and enjoying a woman’s natural erotic desires.  Thank goodness, I've come to understand how traumatizing experiences, early on, had caused specific aspects of my life to grow to be a puzzlement to me … until fate stepped in, causing an earthquake-like shift to take place inside my mind set, body and spirit during my 48th year.  And as personal experience suggests my brain to be my body's most repressed or impassioned sex organ, today's string of insights is certainly in keeping with that which I've read as being scientifically factual.

Amazing how we each think to know what we fear or what angers us or what we feel for each other until layers of defensive denial are peeled away, revealing honest emotion, repressed at our core.  So sad to note that in the absence of self awareness, denial denies us access to delve so deeply into our psyches as to figure out our hang ups, and if we can't recognize the source of our hang ups then instead of offering each other clarity—confusion reigns supreme—indefinitely, causing us to play games that mess with our own hearts as well as with the hearts of those we love or fear or treat with contemptuous disrespect, more often than we consciously know.

Today, as strings of insight, concerning the importance of clarity, continue to march out of the depths of my mind, one truth following another, I've come to see how unmet needs, laced with fear, cause my think tank to feel like a gerbil in a cage on a wheel, running in circles, getting nowhere fast.

As a teen, I’d thought to fear hot male hands, which had been warded off by my Ice Queen's matched set of trusty elbows whenever my stiffened body language, stating, “No!” had been ignored in dark movie theaters or parked cars, followed by chastely fending off more than a brief goodnight kiss at my front door.

As a budding young woman, I’d no clue that the sexual arousal I’d feared most had been my own.  I remember thinking … God!—Why can’t we just go out and have fun?  What’s wrong with guys, anyway?  Why can’t they think about anything other than sports, cars and sex—sex—sex!  Never dawned on me to ask if anything was amiss within my thought process, concerning my libido's passivity, until recent years …

Why not?  I was raised before The Pill, Women’s Lib and The Sexual Revolution.

Over most of my life, I'd believed my resistance to male ardor had been due to societal protocol coinciding with traditional values imparted at home.  Not until recent years did the haunting existence of that dark, experiential mystery, which had repressed my natural urge to lock lips with a guy, emerge from one unzipped pocket within my subconscious, and along with this darkly looming awareness came clarity as to why I’d ‘felt’ marked as prey each time male desire closed in on me.  Though the shadowy nature of this darkly cloudy experience had grabbed hold of my mind before high school, that story, buried within a foggy part of my mind, has not yet emerged from its subconscious hideaway with succinct clarity to be told.

During high school, my darkened mind set, which had marked me as prey, was subconscious in nature, meaning that I’d no conscious clue as to why one of my dates, who’d somehow managed to roll on top of me while we were making out, had dropped a confusing comment into my lap after kissing me good night—or should I say—after kissing me off at my front door—and that story, along with others concerning the flash-frozen state of my erotic reactions, will, most likely, appear on your screen before tales of my college days are withdrawn from my memory bank … on the other hand, there’s no telling where our storyteller’s intuitive powers will take us next ...

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

I’M WISHING A HAPPY HEART DAY TO YOU

 As DoorDash

Doesn’t deliver

Valentine cards

This message

Comes straight from

My heart

And if

Less is more

Then I’m sending

More love

In

Less words

Than ever before!

🙋🏻‍♀️💝Annie

6—1961 CAPTAIN CRUSH Part 2

He had the bluest eyes, the darkest hair, and an authentic athletic swagger that magnetized my attention while scaring me silly enough to swallow my smile and lower my lashes, cloaking the blue of my eyes, whenever he'd sauntered down the aisle past my desk toward his own.  Blue eyes, dark hair, male swagger—a unique combination of physical traits, considering the quartet of crushes who’d come before ...  

In recent years the existence of a dark, experiential mystery, which had repressed any natural urge to lock lips with a guy, emerged from an unzipped pocket within my subconscious, and along with this darkly looming, somehow anxious awareness comes intuitive clarity as to why I’d ‘felt’ marked as prey each time male desire closed in on me. 

Though the shadowy nature of this darkly cloudy experience had grabbed hold of my mind via a repetitive nightmare years before high school, the details of that story remain buried within a foggy portion of my memory, even today, (as though my brain harbors a twilight zone where clarity, teasing my conscious awareness, has not yet emerged from its subconscious hideaway, and in the absence of succinct clarity my storyteller feels compelled to withhold details she may have already made note of.  

It’s as if she can whip this true tale out of storage and then just as quickly slip it back into its subconscious pocket, zipping her lips before my conscious awareness can make heads or tails of this childhood experience as if she wants to say:  You’ve developed the maturity to accept that something untoward happened to you during your youth, but the height of maturity necessary to absorb this particular story within your wholesome sense of self esteem requires a ginormous leap of faith on the part of your conscious awareness, and though your power of intuition must feel that readiness is not yet yours, the day will dawn when your storyteller’s lips unzip, freeing that haunting experience to slip out of its subconscious pocket, and rather than feeling overwhelmed by horror, your readiness to welcome insight to redirect it’s spotlight away from the towering nature of the lout who terrified the little girl inside you toward meeting the unmet needs of the traumatized child you once were will be yours ...

                            Deep sigh...

I think I get it.

My conscious fear has been concentrating on whatever the lout did to the child.  Once that fear no longer limits my ability to consciously process the child’s needs, my heart-mind connection will draw forth compassion, which will deepen into empathy as I absorb the fact that the bad guy is long dead while the child within, whose fear of my rejection of her has remained raw within me for all of these years, has been in need of feeling 100% safe and loved by the adult who she grew up to be—in truth, I’d felt compassion for the child while holding her separate from me when all along, she’d longed for the day to dawn when rather than my caressing her wounded self esteem, she’d literally be welcomed to melt into me, and as of today, right now, this very minute, rather than holding the child protectively, yet separately—she and I are one. 

Wow!  Talk about a visceral awareness concerning change for the better taking place in real time—that’s what you and I just witnessed as I placed my iPad aside for several minutes so as to fully concentrate my heartfelt awareness upon palpable change pulsing throughout my body from head to toe.  Wheeew!

She is no longer the child within.  She is me.

All the while I’ve been seeking to develop my sense of wholeness, I’ve been working toward rejecting no part of myself.

So ‘twas not intuition that thought me unready to absorb the wounded child into my deepest self but rather my conscious mind, which had concentrated its focus upon rejecting the predator rather than calmly removing the bully from inside me so as to absorb the whole of the child I had been ... Geez—

Thank goodness for EMDR Therapy (Google it)

And with insight into which mindset had need to shift and expand comes clarity concerning high school when my darkened mind set concerning guys on the prowl (marking me as prey) was subconscious in nature, meaning that I’d no conscious clue as to why one of my dates, who’d somehow managed to roll on top of my stiffened body and grind away while we were making out at his house, empty of parents, had dropped a confusing comment into my lap after kissing me good night—or should I say—after kissing me off on my front stoop—and that story, along with others concerning the flash-frozen state of my erotic reactions, will, most likely, appear on your screen before tales of my college days are withdrawn from my memory bank, being that during high school, I’d felt completely baffled, after we’d kissed good night, as to why his last words to me (ever) were—Annie, you remind me of The Prudential Building.

Believe it or not, years would pass before the dark secret I’d kept in cold storage defrosted just enough to whisper the meaning of his words into my ear.  And as long as the most painful secret that I’d ever kept from myself remained securely zipped up inside the deep freeze of subconscious storage, I’d laughed at his meaning, being that intuition had offered me no clue of the fact that dark truths concerning trauma had begun to layer up within my subconscious, behind the ever ready smile, which appeared on ‘center stage’ wherever I went feeling utterly oblivious to painful memories, which remained fully anesthetized by defensive denial—this mental block, numbing emotional pain, beginning when I was barely three, continuing throughout the greater portion of my life, and as to missing visceral hints, well—during my childhood, not even the good doctors at The University Hospital had had so much as a clue that the intensity of my need to scratch at an itch so intense that I’d drawn blood, every night, had hinted at a sweet compliant, good little girl’s desperate plight to get a deep dark horrendous secret out from under my skin ...

BTW— if you ask me to ask my storyteller to release that horror story when next we meet, I know she’ll respectfully remind us to glance up at the title of today’s post so as to take note of the fact that she’s chosen to offer us a glimpse of details linking trauma, beginning in 1946 through to 1961, suggesting we have many miles to go before your sense of intrigue and my connection to courage have gained the insight to know when it’s best to muddle our way through connecting details that seem unrelated vs when to identify and then leap over repressed fear in hopes of gaining sound reason to sleep peacefully through the night rather than awakening my husband with nightmarish screams for help, which terror had  silenced during childhood ... and if you ask where our storyteller will take us when next we meet, I’d reply:  Only my power of intuition knows for sure, and so far, that little ‘know-it-all’ has not chosen to clue me in, suggesting why my capacity to muster the courage necessary to satisfy your curiosity requires a whale of patience—on your part and mine ...

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

5—1946-1992 CAPTAIN CRUSH Part 1

Reflection suggests that my first major crush was not bestowed upon a boy.  I was Daddy’s girl, big time.  You see, when I was very young, my father’s unflagging attention saved me from utter loneliness once tragic  darkness hit our home. 

A second major crush saw me more in keeping with my age, mooning over Joseph, who proved to be leader of our pre-teen pack.  Then came seventh grade when I—along with every girl in our class—was smitten with tall, dark, handsome Mr. Mill—our math and science teacher—who was probably no more than twenty-three.  Though, at twelve, I’d no clue as to the meaning of ‘sensuous’, nothing mesmerizes the mind of an innocent maid as does a handsome, well built guy, whose Elvis-like swagger hypnotizes a lass to follow his lead.  

 The fourth male authority figure I’d crushed on taught U.S. History, during my junior year of high school.  Mr. Spat was young, handsome, fair-haired and charming with lively blue eyes.  His claim to fame, setting him apart from all other guys—ever—was this:  He was the first male to refer to me as a woman.  His exact comment (after I’d answered a question that he’d asked of our class) was:  “Leave it to a woman to think like that.”

Upon hearing myself referred to as woman, I, staring up at this male authority figure who—standing in front of my desk was smiling down at me—felt an electric charge surging straight through my body—oh my God, I thought, branding that moment in time into my mind—Mr. Spat sees me as a—woman!  Previous to that moment, I’d just been one of the kids.  Following that heady sensation, a mind shift crowned me—female—through and through. 

Upon reflection, Jack Spat’s comment was premature, because, in truth, my female self-assessment would remain in a suspended state of perpetual girlhood until the seductive words of a fifth male authority figure—teaching yet another class, decades later—thrilled my ears with innuendo, catalyzing all physical sensation (which had frozen into a deep freeze at an earlier time when my psyche had deemed sexual arousal too dangerous to enjoy) to experience a melt down, jump starting my intuitive quest to uncover subconscious secrets, which had scared me so senseless during my youth as to summon my defense system to lock whatever had happened with an uncouth lout out of my conscious mind into my subconscious where denial swallowed the key to that which would have otherwise soiled a child’s natural sense of wholesomeness..  In retrospect, any natural inclination toward exploring my sexuality during my teens had experienced painful reason to remain mentally blocked from conscious awareness during childhood, suggesting why no hot-to-trot teen-aged guy had been able to penetrate the inner sanctum of my mind where words of passionate persuasion had failed to light my fire until forty-seven candles on my cake enflamed my desire. 

That doesn’t mean after Joseph I’d never swooned over a boy, because of course I had.  One in particular during high school ... 🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

4—FORBIDDEN FRUIT

I hadn’t seen him in 19 years, when suddenly, lifting my eyes to meet his which, being as blue as mine, proved deeply penetrating, palpitations warned me (but not until late that evening, upon reflection) that I’d leaped upon the fast track much too quickly, compelling my smarts to dial down whatever could possibly happen between us all the way back toward the safe haven of friendship before the mesmerizing nature of his interest in me could dizzy my thoughts to the point of making haste down a path where eroticism was sure to barrel straight past my level headed attitude, which had set a high value upon marital vows taken, decades past, suggesting the surety of my harboring repressed regrets if thoughts of cruisin’ toward a love affair had no intention of stopping to consider whether my visceral eagerness to follow wherever this enchanting spell of mutual headiness was taking us would end with both crying into half empty cups, which had been full to overflowing before our fiery attraction, igniting a wildly impassioned fling, had burned holes through the peaceful concept of trust within two amiable households until all that was left of lasting love was a pile of ashes swept up into a little black cloud on a cold gust of wind, hanging heavily overhead both abodes where lighthearted laughter had dimmed.  And knowing that Will, Barry, Steven and David did not deserve to experience heart break dealt by their devoted wife and loving mother, I, pulling back on my reins, pulled out diplomacy as seen, directly below, in my reply to his email request that we meet before I flew home:

If in any way I’ve misled you, please accept my apology.  My husband is my closest friend, and in no way would I ever harm him.  The most I could offer is friendship if you’d like to give that a try.  (And while being truthful with him and faithful to Will, that was the first lie I’d had no conscious clue of telling myself in many a year.)

His response:  I thought you were a wonderful person, as soon as I saw you.  Then when you said your friends understand why you devote all of your time to your mother whenever you fly in, I knew I was right.  I think welcoming this friendship would be worthwhile.

And that’s how it began.  The friendship, I mean.  Which was complex, right from the start, being that denial of erotica refuses to be wished way; in fact, erotic sensations denied grow ever more viscerally intense, day by day.

Speaking of my visceral eroticism, those engines had begun to purr at first sight of his swaggering approach when I was all of seventeen.  So with any luck, the storyteller, within—who, being self empowered with the intuitive freedom to retrieve lost keys that unlock secrets, hidden from my conscious awareness within subconscious storage—proves a bit too independent much of the time, so let’s hope that rather than going off on an intuitive tangent as frequently happens, she sees fit to swing straight back to that insecure teen-aged stage of my life so as to highlight a string of inter-related insights concerning the step by step development of my inner self when next we meet ...

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

3—AND NOW, A BRIEF WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

 Now that the kickoff in D.C. has taken place—Love, having won the coin toss over Hate, is bound to gain ground, yard by yard, toward achieving its illusory goal known as Unity, this time for real!  Why?  Because Clarity has opened the eyes of Complacency to acknowledge the extent to which Freedom, Liberty and Equality have been tackled from within our governing bodies where the Disenfranchised have not had a leg to stand on until the line between Love and Hate was clearly drawn during open debate between Biden and trump at which time Love won by a margin so great as not to be denied in more than sixty court cases so that Hate, having been inflamed by its undeniable loss, riled its troops to storm the Capitol where, thank Goodness, Hate lost to Love, Law and Order, yet again.

And now, just as is true of every citizen within our nation, the Commander of all current hate groups must pay stiff consequences befitting his heinous crimes against humanity so as not to remain at large to freely empower his army of rabble rousers to come out of the woodwork, unscathed, weaponry raised overhead, yet again—chanting—Death to Love in 2024.

Will the outcome of this week’s second impeachment trial procure the stable health of our nation’s democracy being that both Democratic and Republican Congressmen know full well that ...

As any course of Inaction would be sheer Lunacy, so, thank Goodness, Bigotry within our national seat of government has no place left to hide in plain sight now that Complacency has opened its eyes to Hate Mongers boiling over on back burners, within our very midst.  And now that the mist has lifted across the expanse of our nation, we, the peace-loving people of The USA thank our lucky Stars and Stripes for the proactive emergence of Democracy’s Deeper Truth, concerning the fact that on-going, generational battles do not arise between North and South but rather between Love and Hate, at long last!

LONG LIVE LOVE!

And when next we meet, back to our story ...🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

2—1990 SWINGING FROM CHANDELIERS

Emboldened as never before, she posed in the doorway until he glanced up at which time she with the dark, glossy, shoulder-length mane sauntered right past him without so much as a glance, and leaning toward the mirror above the sink with lipstick in hand, she refreshed the moist creaminess of ruby red across the fullness of her lips followed by studying her reflection while intuition suggested his eyes had not strayed away ...

In truth, she was a beginner at seduction and in need of reassurance, so the blue of her darkly lashed eyes slid, momentarily, from the mirror toward the man, sitting beside the sink.  As his stunned expression confirmed the startling effect of her transformation, he, who had shared her bed for twenty-five years, watched her lips curl into a Cheshire grin.

Noting the man staring incredulously at this sensuous, scantily clad, feline creature, she brazenly accentuated the tremulous pout of her full bottom lip as an upsurge of courage—speaking volumes of what lay directly ahead—observed his eyes running up and down her body, taking in three triangles of black, satin lace barely covering the swell of her curves above her graceful waist and below—and as their eyes locked—

His hand shot out to touch till her voice torched the air with:  Not so fast!  Look now, touch later ... and with that tantalizing promise lingering in the air, this cat-like creature, casting a come-hither glance at the man, slipped out of the door so lithely that only the musk of her fragrance lingered when he, tuning into Bolero, made haste as tissue paper began to roll ... And within seconds, a spell binding table dance, captivating his eye, entranced his mind so completely as to ignite a night smoldering with passion beyond compare as not a hint of wife or mother was to be seen in his bed until the next day when, having awakened in their hotel room at high noon, he and she felt as though both had just emerged from the same utterly wanton, enchantingly erotic dream  ... 

If you wonder what catalyzed the woman's libido to fall into a coma, early on, only to awaken many years later, exchanging her white cotton Maidenform Bra for a black laced attitude so sensuous as to compel two bodies to intertwine in a dance proving so naturally provocative as to be just short of swinging from chandeliers—please stay tuned ... 🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

1–2021 INTRODUCTION TO: STRIPPING SNOW WHITE

Every author knows there are as many ways to begin a story as there are versions of that story.  And then there’s me who has known, right from the get go, exactly when, where and why this version of my life story would start on a specific night in the middle of my life followed by going back and forth in time.

Being that it’s taken quite a while to muster the self confidence necessary to begin my story at the exact moment that intuition insists is right on the mark, suggests my need to up my quota of courage, as proved necessary, every day, during my current recovery from open-heart-by-pass surgery followed the very next day by the removal of a significant portion of my right lung.

The fact that the well-practiced scalpels of two renown surgeons had need to cut so deeply into my flesh and bone, the first time through my sternum, the second time through the rib cage of my upper back, all within a 24 hour period of time, highlights why everything that had ever pained or frightened me before these surgeries has paled by comparison, and it’s highly likely that since my husband, Will, and I were injected with our second doses of the Covid vaccine, yesterday (only six months after both life saving surgeries), my storyteller awoke, today, feeling injected with the ‘author-ity’ to be hot to trot having been sequestered inside my mind for fourteen months, starting with the severity of my cancer diagnosis (as if threat of Covid during the time of trump would not have been enough to make my hair stand on end before chemo made it all fall out)—sooo just as my power of intuitive thought combined with courage to guide my mind to rise to the level-headed mental state of positive focus—over most of my adult life—I can feel my story teller’s hand readying its pen to tap into the courageous side of my memory, today, which is why if I were you, I’d stay tuned to see if intuition and courage combined will empower my storyteller (who resides within the self-confident side of my brain) with carte blanche, tomorrow ...

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

THE BARD’S MOST OUTLANDISH FARCE EVER!

Greetings, one and all!

Will and I are going along, day by day, counting our blessings during this crazy time in everyone’s life.  Our second dose of the Pfizer C-19 vaccine is scheduled tomorrow, after Sw which we’ll be deeply grateful to have this life-saving drug working its magic inside us.

Looking several weeks ahead, I may actually feel safe enough to mask up and sit on my patio, six feet apart from friends and family, who Will and I have only seen through our Arcadia door for over a year.  Can’t be too careful while recovering from heart/lung surgery.

Every time I think of Biden, Harris and their team of sane, knowledgable, high principled states/persons at the helm, a sigh of relief is released until the crazies in congress who voice their irrational beliefs come to mind, and then I surmise—better to know these crazies exist so as not to be blindsided by their supporters, down the road.

I feel as though we’ve been living a modernized version of one of Shakespeare’s trilogies, the third act, beginning with Biden’s win, completing not a tragedy but The Bard’s most outlandish farce, ever—penned from on high with quill in hand as this wordsmith extraordinaire, gazing down upon the befuddling muddle that we’ve made of life on planet earth during the aftermath of his demise, inspires the greatest recorder of human nature to chuckle at the fact that so little, other than space travel, has changed since his insightful observations concerning the human condition hit the bulls eye, repeatedly, during his lifetime. 

So having acknowledged that crazies continue to walk amongst us, I hope you’ll take care to remain aware of communal need to stay well, be safe and please take note of my belief that, with patience intact, the arc of The Bard’s three part farce will see our nation land on its feet at the rainbow’s end, and at that blessed time, may The Force (of all that is good) be withIN you and yours and me and mine.

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie