A few of the places I’ve called home.

 

2 memoirs— Sunlight on My Shadow + South of Ordinary

 

Sunlight on My Shadow

Perhaps it was grace that compelled me to write the story I had kept secret for forty years. I took up the pen and began with trepidation. I was surprised at how little I could remember about the Home for Unwed Mothers but some of the story was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. I wrote and wrote and as I remembered the horrific predicament I had gotten myself into at the tender age of 16 and laid the words on the page, tears flowed and emotions ran in ever deepening rivulets.

After a few days of writing I read my pages and thought, no way I can ever let anyone read this. I was full of shame and regret and didn’t like that young me-girl who failed on many counts of being a good catholic girl. So I shelved the story but then a week or more later, I picked it up again and wrote some more. My soul knew this was good for me. I was reliving, reworking and remembering the grief that I had stuffed like the glass slipper into the step sisters fat foot. The writing brought feelings up from the depths. I was finally dealing with all the shame and grief from forty years ago.

In 1966 I had a very cool boyfriend named Mick who I admired for his intelligence and sense of humor. One thing led to another and I became pregnant when his condom broke. I spent the next few months saying rosaries and praying for the good red news. It was not to be.


I spent five long months wearing a girdle and sucking in my gut beneath my uniform’s pleated skirt, trying to hide my growing baby and telling no one. When the waist rubberbands reached their limit, I told my best friends and then my parents. Away I went to a Home for Unwed Mothers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 100 miles from home. Afraid I couldn’t let her go, I wouldn’t let myself hold my eight pound beautiful baby girl. The last I saw my baby was from my bedroom window as I watched the social worker set my little bundle in her car, and drive off on the way to her adoptive parents. I came home for school in the Fall, recovered from my so-called kidney disease and never spoke to anyone about it. It was the act of keeping this secret that caused a dark shadow to last for years to come. Forty years later, I came clean and told my story in my book Sunlight on My Shadow.

As I completed the first draft of my book, light entered my darkest places and I was inspired to forgive that young girl for her human failings. Ironically, once I had forgiven myself I was able to share my story without regret or shame.

I loved writing Sunlight on My Shadow. It is a story of redemption and renewal as I look back on those tender years.

I hope Sunlight on My Shadow is a story that urges us to do away with secrets. Bringing our stories to light will set us free.




South of Ordinary

Unlike Sunlight on My Shadow, South of Ordinary was a hard to write. I had mixed feelings about our trip to South America and my marriage to Dave Rodriguez. We had many good times during our twenty-eight years together but as I looked back on our early travels I wondered how much I personally sacrificed to follow his dreams. I was often frightened during our crazy risky adventures.

Nevertheless, it was a journey that built character and taught me how to live in the now. Life was simple with everything we owned in our back packs. We travelled from Acapulco Mexico to Buenos Aires, Agrentina.

As I wrote this story I realized how much I loved nesting, setting up a home, and building community. I craved this desperately. But when you are a rolling stone, this is not possible. So herein laid the tension even though I told myself that this was what I wanted. It was the only way I could get through it. In truth, I was not proud of the outlandish things we did. I couldn’t take credit because I was following Dave. I guess you could say, I was a good wife and doing what I thought was necessary to make this marriage work. In the end, I came up stronger and learned that I could set my mind to something and make it happen. This was one of the blessings of that year and a half long trip.

Excerpt from South of Ordinary
”On our wedding day, we stood in the mountain meadow bordered by the snow sprinkled peaks of the Rockies, and shared not rings, but sips of water. He thought we could be water brothers like the martians in the book, Stranger in a Strange Land.  I might have liked a wedding ring, but that was what everyone did and we were re-inventing ourselves.  

One thing I knew for sure was that we would last forever. How did I know this?  I knew it because I ached for his attention. The chamomile flowers smelled sweeter, their buds a buttery yellow, and the sky more radiant blue when he looked at me.  

We were married on 7-11, 1970. After Mom realized it was going to happen in spite of her misgivings, she called it good luck because it was 7 come 11—the winning throw of the dice at Vegas. 

Our marriage was a crapshoot since Dave and I came from opposite ends of the social spectrum…. “

South of Ordinary tells the story of our life in Fraser Colorado with Grandma Miller and then our trip to South America for some crazy adventures.

After twenty-eight years, I grew tired of trying to keep up with Dave and decided I must follow my own dreams. Together Dave and I have two beautiful children, ran a hang gliding business called Wasatch Wings in Salt Lake City and owned a Sylvan Learning Center where we invented and wrote the Times Tables the Fun Way books that are still being sold after 33 years, nationwide to teachers and parents.