Gypsy Bags & Traveling Jackets: A Journey of Sorts

By Mica Rath

Gypsy Bags & Traveling Jackets is a journey of faith chronicled in journals spanning twenty-three years. A miniseries of periods, question marks, and exclamation points arranged in patterns of reflections, answers and awestruck moments that reflect not just collections of recorded events but jumbled thoughts in a soul-searching exercise of discovery.

These are stories tailored in transparency; stories of faith rewarded, hope rekindled and love poured out in ways unimaginable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781449799212

Mica Rath

Mica Rath, is a storyteller and designer who blends an education in fashion design with a career in corporate communication to impart her love of God through art, poetry and puppetry. Sparked by her Hungarian/Italian lineage, she stepped out. In joyous haste. Into the beginning of an awesome adventure. Attired in a wardrobe to fit the occasion.

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Copyright © 2013 Mica Rath.

Artwork - Paper Doll Girl sketched by Mica Rath.

Photograph of the Cross at Ground Zero taken by Mica Rath.

Unless otherwise noted: Scripture quotations are taken from THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 2987 by the Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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WestBow Press

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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1-[phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

All photos depicted are from the personal collection of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9923-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9922-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9921-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013911275

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/1/2013

Contents

The Pearlescent Words

Homeward Bound

The Eve

Paper Doll Girl

Losing My Religion

Convenience Food

I Once Was Lost…

A Mother’s Day Tribute

The Entertainer

My Gift

The Hero

The Hero’s Journey

2 • 0 • 0 • 1

The Crooked E

A Dangling Participle

The Phoenix

Oh, The Places You’ll Go

Bonjour, Oui?

The Book of Jobs - Part I

F O G

Beach Day

The Summer of Exploration

The Mimes

Places Everyone

Sa wat dee & Sues’day

Puppets and Penzey’s

The Doll

Daddy’s Girl

In Passing

Cabbage Rolls and The Broken Finger

Outside the Box Productions

art•His•story•inc.

If The Walls Could Talk

The Color of Courage

The MS 150

2007 MS 150

The Day of the Ride

2009 MS 150

Transition Movement in D Major

The Gypsy Wanderings

On Drowning and Surrendering

The Broken People - Act 1

The Broken People - Act 2

Trouble in the Mine

Goodbye Paper Doll Girl

Dark Chocolate Divas

A Princess in the Kingdom

Voice

The Book of Jobs—W.I.G.

Paper Doll Girl

La Fonda Fireberry

Gypsy Bags and Traveling Jackets

Postscript

Epilogue

Bibliography

for Courtney who taught me

how to love unconditionally

Acknowledgements

To God, the Father who pursued His prodigal daughter; to Jesus who broke through the formidable fortress and rescued me; to the Holy Spirit for guidance and inspiration, conviction and encouragement along this journey.

Special thanks to my sister, Kathy, for showing me the boundless joy of Jesus through her life and persevering in prayer for my salvation. The Hallelujah Puppet team: Cindy, Diane and Marsha for their gifts. The Dark Chocolate Divas: Denise, Janis, Laurie, Marilyn, Sara and Stephanie for their love and friendship. Jill, Liz and Nishta, the awesome women who welcomed me into their writing group and provided encouragement and comments on the material. Linda for incredible generosity and the refuge of her house in Colorado. Mary Jean for the loan of her house in Hilton Head so I could finish this book undisturbed.

To Courtney, for a daughter’s love and the invaluable gift of her time to edit the manuscript with its misplaced modifiers, missing commas and overused exclamation points.

To Mom and Dad for love, laughter and stories.

Reflections

Mirror, mirror

What do you see?

A visual poetry

Of must-have accessories?

Or a multi-layered mannequin,

Designed to conceal

The fragile soul

Hidden deep within?

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1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood [by God].

The Pearlescent Words

Moonlight serenades the pearlescent words,

(not thrown before pigs)

that booklight the pages.

Enlightened ideas whitewash the facts,

(in illuminated truth)

that lie beneath its covers.

Caution: Worn out cliches

(spoken with deceptive grandeur)

designed to distract.

Hold truth firmly.

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Gypsy Bags and Traveling Jackets recounts an epic in personal essays—a mini-series of periods, question marks and exclamation points arranged in patterns of reflection, answers and awestruck moments—chronicled in journals spanning twenty-three years. My journals reflect, not only collections of recorded events, but jumbled thoughts in uncensored compositions and soul searching exercises of discovery.

I write, as Audre Lord stated, What is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. I write because Jesus said, Whatever I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops. Matthew 10:27

Crafted in my peculiar voice, I have stories to tell and experiences to share. Because this collage of words, sentences and paragraphs may appear disarrayed, the reader should be prepared at the outset. The warp threads of Provision and insight combine with the weft threads of family, poetry and little girl dreams to weave the fabric of life’s experiences in a stylistic tapestry.

There are thread-breaking detours along the way. Often argumentative, sometimes expository, the styles vary (in collaged arrangements) to avoid monotony. Shedding layers of clichéd ready-to-wear to create unique couture, battened to ensure strength, traveling jackets cover the heart of the matter, whereas gypsy bags—modified when torn, reinforced when worn thin—carry its dreams.

This is my story, tailored in transparency. A hero’s journey of faith rewarded, hope rekindled and love poured out in ways unimaginable.

Style is the manner in which you navigate your one remarkable voyage.

Carol Edgarian

Homeward Bound

Timeless travelers on a road,

To somewhere over a rainbow.

Protecting precious dreams,

Transported in tattered Gypsy Bags.

Sharing stories along the way,

Life-threads woven into Traveling Jackets.

Vigilant vagabonds on the road,

To adventures in Paradise.

Often stumbling.

Sometimes lost.

Always found.

The flaming fire

Of Radiant Glory

Leads us home

Through the velvet darkness.

The Eve

The sun is rising. The car is packed. In the background, a song is playing:

I’ve packed my bags and hit the road.

I left that town and all its ghosts.

It’s been the longest winding way home. ¹

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September 6, 1998

A journal is an intimate conversation with oneself. Do I want to allow you to invade my most intimate moments? Seems very voyeuristic of you. I’ll have to think about what I want to reveal to a complete stranger. Our only connecting threads are your desire to read along with my desire to write.

For now, let’s leave it at that.

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Paper Doll Girl

In the beginning, God created…

Paper Doll Girl wears a fitted jacket zipped to protect her heart where dreams dwell, safe from exposure to the sharp shards of you-can’t-do-that ridicule that inflict fatal wounds. After all, she is just a little girl, and little-girl dreams are fragile and tear easily.

The tabs envelop her in the make-believe, fresh from the Fashion Institute of Technology, a successful fashion designer in New York City, freed from the invisible chains of a broken-dream lineage.

Disguising her vulnerability, the playful skirt, with its mismatched patterns, hints at the conflict between the outward stripes of responsibility and the call to adventure peeking out from underneath.

Her bag holds the hope of a life equal to her dreams, a 64-box of crayons with the built-in sharpener to color outside the lines when necessary, and a good pair of scissors to fashion the future.

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Once upon a time, in a small Gulf Coast town, there lived a little girl who loved to draw paper-doll clothes. A Sears catalog, the only fashion magazine available to her at the time, inspired her designs. She perfected her craft with a 64-box of crayons as long as they retained their points, which required either buying new boxes often or creating outfits in the less popular colors. She hated tearing their paper, threw out the broken ones and never, ever used the built-in sharpener.

Always well-dressed for any occasion, she was a product of the genteel South (no wearing white before Easter or after Labor Day regardless of the heat index; red pants strictly forbidden) with European roots (regardless of economic status, one must always appear presentable in public). Fashion was in her blood.

In first grade she was often punished for daydreaming, lost in a world beyond listening to her classmates as they struggled to read Dick and Jane. A voracious reader, she lived an adventurous life in her imagination.

In high school, she followed the lives of the models in the teen fashion bible, Seventeen. Colleen Corby was her personal favorite. They shared the same height, the same hair color, and the same birth month. She imagined herself walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City, Afghan hound at her side (no affinity with the dog, but it completed the look) designing clothes for fashionable women like herself.

She kept her dreams to herself. We must guard who we tell our secrets.

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Losing My Religion

It was a very important day. She prayed she would not faint. She hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. Finally it was time to walk down the aisle in her beautiful, white, organdy dress and veil. Clutching a tiny missal in equally small hands, she knelt at the railing. The priest placed the round, tasteless wafer on her tongue. She went back to her seat, letting the wafer slowly dissolve the way she’d been taught. She tasted Jesus for the first time in Holy Communion. She was seven years old.

Seven years later she would excommunicate herself from the fifty-minute ritual of hand-me-down spirituality. Raised to be an independent thinker by a skeptic and a cynic, she could always blame her parents.

Seven represents the number of completion.

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My father’s family was Catholic; my mother’s was some denomination of Protestant. My mother was required to convert when my parents married. She took the necessary classes and was married in the Roman Catholic tradition, agreeing to raise her children in this religion. I was baptized as a baby to secure my place in heaven should I die before reaching the age of reason, and educated at Ursuline Academy, a private school for girls. The school’s majestic, Gothic-inspired architecture with its spires and arches resembled a castle. The teachers were nuns from the Order of St. Ursula.

My mother dropped me off into a sea of uniformity—navy blue, accordion-pleated wool skirts with matching sweaters for everyday wear; its off-white replica reserved for special occasions. With so many holy days to keep up with, I had difficulty remembering the special occasions. One morning, as my mother drove through the school’s semicircular driveway to drop me off before heading to work, I spotted some girls in white uniforms. I was wearing blue. Driving me back home (at breakneck speeds), Mom grabbed my white uniform and sped back to school while I changed clothes in the backseat of the car. We arrived on time. However, on this particular special occasion, only the high school girls were required to be dressed in white. I was in first grade. The nuns began sending notes home when special uniforms were compulsory.

Hair adornments adhered to the strict color-coded mandate. Shoes were navy and white saddle oxfords with red rubber soles that looked like the erasers on No. 2 pencils. Marigold ribbons, safety-pinned on the collars of our white, short-sleeved cotton shirts at report card time, permitted variation to the navy and white color palette. This added pop of color identified girls who received all A’s in subject matters. Blue bows rewarded stellar conduct. Blue and marigold striped double bows were reserved for the crême de la crême, those receiving all A’s on both sides of the report card crease. In a knighting ceremony, held during a general assembly in the school’s auditorium every six weeks, two of my classmates and I were double-bow pinned for years—at least through grade school.

In high school, crew socks and velvet slip-ons (the horror of it all to a budding fashionista) replaced bobby socks and saddle oxfords; the more sophisticated beret for First-Friday church attendance replaced the beanie. In the early sixties, the beret perched precariously on top of bouffant hairdos, stiff from a fresh coating of Aqua Net. After the Ecumenical Council, the Catholic Church moved away from requiring hats in the sanctuary. Lace doilies (or a tissue when in a bind) took their place for head coverings. Ironed, straight hair replaced the bouffant.

The cafeteria food reflected the same rigidity as the dress code; the menu never varied from week to week, month to month. Chicken noodle soup on Monday, chili on Tuesday (Fritos sold separately), hot dogs with Tuesday’s leftover chili on Wednesday, meatless spaghetti on Thursday, and fish sticks and leftover spaghetti on Friday.

During recess, we played on gigantic swings and dark green seesaws, the balance of weight distributed evenly for normal play, or unevenly for more exciting mid-air suspensions or board bounces. No child was ever harmed in this play. The large gazebo, or birdcage as we called it, was the perfect gathering spot to share secret thoughts.

Following the mandates of the church, I made my First Holy Communion, after careful preparation, at the age of seven, the age at which a child is considered capable of moral responsibility for thoughts, words and actions.

Dressed in white, organdy dresses and wearing white veils, my second-grade classmates and I walked down the aisle in procession to partake in communion. It was a momentous and solemn occasion. I loved my rosary and missal. I took great care of this little book of prayers and rituals sized to fit in seven-year-old hands. I was a serious, tiny bride of Christ and wanted to be a nun when I grew up.

A wooden crucifix, with its little pewter Jesus, hung on the wall keeping watch over my bed. This icon slid open to reveal two small white candles and a small vial of holy water, should the need arise for protection from evil. One morning I awoke to find the crucifix lying on my desk. Why was it there? Even more baffling was how it landed across the room from its position on the wall. My parents denied taking it down, easily believable since a parent standing on the bed of a sleeping child would have certainly awakened even the soundest sleeper. I couldn’t reach it, even when standing on tippy toes, much less lift the entire apparatus up over the keyhole nail opening (which I had to demonstrate to my skeptical parents). I believed the mysterious event was a sign from God that I was destined to become a nun. Until puberty hit and destiny was replaced by a raging hormonal interest in boys.

Years later, this little pewter Jesus kept watch over my dad in his California bedroom.

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Before receiving the body of Christ in communion, the church required congregants to confess their sins, repent of those sins, then recite prayers as atonement for absolution. The confessional was the size of a small closet with doors in the middle for the priest and doors on each side for the sinners. Inside the dark box was a place to kneel. Sinners were given a few moments to examine their conscience before the priest slid open a little partition, breaking the darkness without exposing the sinner’s identity. Confession began with a prayer, a statement of how long it had been since the last confession, recitation of the Act of Contrition expressing regret for having committed the sins, followed by a listing of the week’s sins and the number of times each was committed. At the age of seven, my list contained some variation of the following:

I talked back to my mommy (daddy, grandmother, aunt) three times.

I was mean to my friend, Margaret Ann (or other assorted schoolmates).

I told a lie to my teacher.

There were varying degrees of sinfulness. Venial sins, like those of most seven year olds, were considered dark spots on the soul, resulting in a brief stay in Purgatory should death occur before confessed. Mortal sins—like murder, sex outside of marriage, or misusing the Lord’s name—blackened the entire soul, and, if unconfessed before death, resulted in spending eternity in hell. It was hard to keep track. Often, the lines blurred between the two.

Enclosed in the dark closet, the priest listened to each recitation, pondered each sinful act, then pronounced his sentence. The usual penance—three Hail Mary’s (a prayer to Mary, the mother of Jesus) and two Our Fathers (the Lord’s Prayer)—removed the stain of sin, restored reconciliation with God and made communion possible. Sometimes, for the sake of a good confession, sins were made up. In my later years, even though more was withheld than told, my penance required a full rosary.

I have no memories of seeing either of my parents step into the confessional box, only of my mother waiting for me in the church pew while I said my penitential prayers. Since confessions were heard on Saturday, she just added this stop to her errand list—Schmidt’s Meat Market for the weekly meals; D & H Poultry to pick out a chicken for my great-grandmother; great-grandmother’s house to drop off a headless, flopping, newspaper-wrapped chicken; church for daughter to make confession and say her prayers—hoping this last stop didn’t take so long the meat spoiled in the car.

I entered adolescence, a turbulent age of transition, during an equally turbulent time in history: the infamous sixties. Challenging the status quo and questioning fabricated rules in search of my own identity coincided with the cultural environment. I had been raised to ask questions, to think for myself. I’d heard that often-repeated refrain, asked using my first, middle and last name for emphasis, If your friends do it will you follow? The it representative of something like jumping off the seawall or sticking my hands in fire.

On Mother’s Day in 1962, my mother, pregnant with her fourth baby, went into labor. The labor lasted too long and Colleen Elizabeth Mallini died in utero. My mother couldn’t bear to see her. My father didn’t think Colleen was his baby, but my grandmother said she looked just like me.

The Catholic Church taught that, because all are born with original sin, upon death unbaptized babies arrived in Limbo, a peaceful place, but a place without the presence of God. Baptism cleansed our little souls. If a baptized child died before reaching the age of reason, he or she bypassed Limbo on a straight course to heaven. Baby Colleen had absorbed an infection from my mother and wasn’t strong enough to endure the stress of the lengthy labor. My father and I attended her funeral. She was buried in a tiny, white coffin with a pink rose spray in the grave next to her baby cousin, who, managing to live for three days, had been baptized. One baby consigned to Limbo; one baby allowed into heaven because of some water poured on his head.

An argument ensued in my mother’s hospital room between her doctor and her priest concerning birth control. The doctor argued that, due to the extensive, rushed incisions made to remove the dead baby and preserve the life of my mother, another pregnancy could rupture the stitches and possibly kill her. The priest countered that taking birth control pills, forbidden by the Catholic Church, would result in her excommunication. My mother chose life over religion.

That’s me in the corner.

That’s me in the spotlight.

Losing my religion.²

I wrote about Colleen’s death a few years later in my high school English class. I still have the paper. The teacher commented, An experience with so much emotional impact is difficult to grade objectively. You tend, however, to write it quite controlled which makes it a strong piece of writing. She gave me an A-.

She was right about one thing—by then, I was all about control.

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Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

The year of 1962 was the year of death. Mom phoned at 4:00 a.m. to tell me my great-grandmother had passed away, that she had held her arms, telling the nurse who arrived with a dose of pain medication, No more shots, hon, I’ve seen angels.

I remember her as a woman of great faith, perhaps the most God-loving person in my family. Born in Budapest, Hungary, she, along with her husband and four small children, arrived on Ellis Island at the turn of the century. Years later, overcome with emotion while riding by the Statue of Liberty on the Staten Island ferry, I thought of her and the countless others who came through Ellis Island seeking the promised land. I stood on the ferry speechless at their courage and determination.

My mother taught her the words to God Bless America so she could sing her blessing as a proud citizen of this country. Tears well whenever I hear the song because, no matter who sings the words, the voice I hear is my great-grandmother’s Hungarian-accented English. I hear her voice in the stories my mother told of their days during World War II when the men were off to war and the women home alone. Stories of the night my great-grandmother chased a man trying to steal the family car. As she ran down the street waving a butcher knife in her hand, she shouted, You bad man. My mother would repeat Big Mom’s words spoken to her whenever she admitted being afraid, The devil in you, you scared Big Sissy.

A few notes on the word big: I called my great-grandmother,Big Mom. She called my mother, Big Sissy to distinguish her from another granddaughter whom she called Sissy. Neither were very big. The usage of the word was not confined to people, we also called an omelet on toast a big-egg sandwich.

Living alone in a housing project, subsisting on the meager railroad retirement of her beloved husband, she had one good black dress for funerals or other occasions where something more than a basic house dress was required. Walking ten blocks through a rough neighborhood to the grocery store, she cooked for some of the poorer people in the project who were unable to care for themselves. When cautioned about the dangers of an elderly woman walking alone by various relatives concerned for her safety, she brushed off their worries by saying, My good God take care of me. Every morning she sat in her tiny kitchen with her Hungarian Bible and her good God, listening to the radio. A woman of few possession, she had an abundance of faith.

According to the teachings of the Catholic Church, upon her death my great-grandmother, a non-Catholic, was denied entrance into heaven. She would not get to be with her good God, or so they claimed.

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I was taught that if I couldn’t accept the dogma, I couldn’t be a Catholic, so I decided not to be one. There was no rite of passage, no unconfirming ceremony. I stopped going to Mass on Sunday mornings opting instead to ride up and down the beach with my best friend. In class, I challenged any nun or priest who continued to spew the rhetoric. Insolence proved to be an effective tool.

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis states, The thoughts, ideas and concepts developed at this period of life [adolescence] greatly influence one’s future life, playing a major role in character and personality formation. To which I would add, Amen.

The turbulence of the times added fuel to my burgeoning disillusionment with the empty rhetoric. The Civil Rights Movement had begun to get the attention of everyone in the deep South. My dad was born in Mobile, Alabama, the home of Governor George Wallace. In my freshman year of high school, Ursuline Academy was integrated, and in true bigoted, Sweet-Home-Alabama fashion, my father threatened to pull me out of school because of the three girls who bravely joined my class. I continued to attend school while he attended the black-robed, secret initiation rites of the Knights of Columbus and men in white sheets burned crosses on lawns in Mississippi and Alabama.

In November of 1963, President John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic President, was assassinated. One short month later, on Christmas Eve, four men carried my father into the house. I thought he was dead. He was, in fact, dead drunk. My trust dissolved in the sludge of bigots, assassins and drunks.

In the old country, as my great-grandmother called Hungary, she believed death came in threes.

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The school-in-the-castle was damaged by a hurricane. Too costly to repair, the school was razed, erasing the footprints of my youth. Its replacement was a one-story, blah-beige institution. In my junior year of high school, I was not-so-politely asked to leave the uniformity of Ursuline Academy. The principal, Mother Gregory, and I tussled one too many times. I completed my education at the public high school. Mother Gregory was transferred a short time later.

And you, you are not me.

The lengths that I will go to

The distance in your eyes.

Oh no, I’ve said too much.

I set it up.³

When I was born, my pediatrician discovered my internal organs were transposed. Organs normally located on the body’s right side are on my left and vice-versa. Conformity, it seems, is not in my genetic makeup.

Surrounded by the hypocrisy of the righteous, with seemingly no one to trust, not even an invented God, I turned inward to the one person I could rely on—me. I started construction on an internal wall that would be years in the making, fortified each time someone disappointed or proved untrustworthy. Inside this protective fortress, I was safe because I controlled the access. I fashioned my life around safe things, things I knew I could control, because out-of-control was not an option. Lucille Ball once said, When life seemed unbearable, I learned to live in my imagination, and to step inside other people’s skins. I understood. Imaginary adventures were harmless.

I shan’t be lonely now. I was lonely; I was afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I’m like a child going at night into a room where there’s always a light.

Edith Wharton

My light in the darkness was music—the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Motown. To drown out the screaming arguments, I would retreat to the sanctuary of my room, turn up the volume of the latest hits, memorize the lyrics, and perfect my dance moves in my full-length mirror. The music of the 60s—Bob Dylan’s angry lyrics, Peter, Paul and Mary, all challenging the status quo—became my mantra.

Like the Israelites, I wandered for thirty-eight years in my own wilderness, searching for meaning, searching for answers. Wandering, until God used music to make Himself known.

Convenience Food

Instant mashed potatoes—

Ethereal flakes residing in

The depository of Cardboard City,

Awaiting consumption.

Paltry pulp passing as

Food for thought.

The cardboard or the flakes?

Either/or both.

Oh, potato where is thy dignity?

Snatched from fertile soil,

The meat of your substance

Sucked dry by the man-made machine,

Until all that remains

Is a flaky residue of your former self.

Unable to hold the liquid gold

That runs off the plate

In search of something

More substantial.

Instant zealous faith—

Prosperity sermons presiding in

The repository of Spiritual Enlightenment

Awaiting salvation.

Paltry pulp passing as

Food for thought.

The faith or the sermons?

Either/or both.

Oh, Christian where is thy dignity?

Snatched from fertile soil,

The soul of your substance

Sucked dry by the man-made religion,

Until all that remains

Is a ghostly residue of your renewed self.

Unable to hold the liquid Gold

That runs off the plate

In search of someone

More substantial.

I Once Was Lost…

Although my mother-in-law attended a small country church in upstate New York, my husband was not particularly religious so we were married by a Justice of the Peace. However, with the birth of our daughter several years later, we agreed to have her baptized to appease both sets of grandparents, and just in case there was something to that water. It made no sense consigning my daughter to Limbo when, for a few dollars more, heaven could be guaranteed. The priest called me a hypocrite. I didn’t disagree, but defiantly asked him if he intended to baptize my baby. With great reluctance, he agreed to perform the ritual cleansing. Wearing a handmade lace dress, complete with a hooded cape, a gift from one of my dad’s longtime dockhands, she screamed when the cold water was poured on her head. My brother and sister were her godparents. In the pictures taken at the church of this momentous occasion, no one is smiling.

Stopping the legacy of forced religiosity (I had enough for all of us), I determined that my daughter would not be raised in any faith. She could make her own decision when she was old enough.

When Courtney entered her last year in high school, I felt a faint stirring for something spiritual. Maybe it was precipitated by the fact she would soon be leaving for college, forcing us both into new, never-been-played-before roles. Game for an adventure, my daughter accompanied me on my quest.

Beginning at the point I had departed from so many years prior, we found the address for a Catholic church that still held Mass in Latin. We exchanged confused glances when the Easter service began in English, then chuckled when we realized we were in an Episcopalian church. Undaunted to find the elusive spirituality, we continued the search.

We attended the Harmonic Convergence, a time when the planets were aligned in an unusual configuration. This once in a lifetime event was to be held across the globe at the highest point in various cities, the power centers where the spiritual energy would be the strongest. In Houston, the highest points in the city are high-rise rooftops or freeway overpasses, so our event was conducted at the man-made Water Wall (a 64-foot semicircular fountain with water flowing down this sculptural monument’s inner and outer walls) near the Galleria, the power center for shopping excess. The convergence would usher in a time of peace, if 144,000 were gathered in one spot. There were not that many of us.

Sitting on the grass waiting for something to happen, we noticed that most of the people faced east. We faced west. As if on cue, someone stood up in the middle of the grassy area and my daughter remarked, Uh-oh, something’s happening. We watched intently. After a minute or two, he sat back down. False start. Eventually, someone moved the gathering to the water wall to lead us (like sheep) in some deep-breathing yoga and a chant. Then it was over. We all dispersed and Courtney and I laughed all the way home.

On a trip home from attending college in Portland, Oregon, my daughter introduced me to Starhawk, author of The Spiral Dance. This book became my bible. Starhawk’s writings combined the ingredients that made up the essence of me—activism, feminism and interconnection with the power and awe of nature. It made sense to my logical brain and soothed the imaginative, creative parts of my soul. Starhawk did not argue against the Christian God. She removed the image of the austere, accounting God, replacing it with one who sustains and nurtures, stating, Christianity was a new version of Mother Goddess and Divine Child, sacrificed and reborn.

August 15, 1992

My goal—to become a witch. My reason—to be truly happy without bondage. Successful and rich without depending on anyone else. To feel alive again—to bring joy because I am so happy with my life. If I can reach this goal and live happily ever after, I’ll have accomplished something very wonderful. To