Edge of the Gold Coast Honey & Baby Pink Roses

By Deborah Ann Garcia

Writing you story is the art of healing. Rather than suppressing you wounds, you expose them to the world, heal and deepen connection with many people, especially those who seek recovery. You can achieve peace, know your purpose, and help people. Deborah Ann Garcia is the author of two poetry books. Meditation, prayer, exercise and being out in nature are included in her daily life. She has been a Yoga guide for many people. She has run three marathons, two in San Francisco and one in Honolulu, all for various causes. She has a beehive, grows vegetables, flowers and has small dog named Sweetpea. She lives near San Francisco.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462870172

Deborah Ann Garcia

Deborah Ann Garcia was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Deborah is the author of two poetry books, Forward Motion and More Forward Motion. Meditation, prayer, exercise, Yoga and out in nature are included in her daily life. She has been a Yoga guide for many people. Deborah is the mother of two sons and grandmother of two grandchildren. Deborah received her Master of Science in Nursing. She has run three marathons, two in San Francisco and one in Honolulu, for various causes. She has a beehive, grows vegetables, fl owers and has small dog named Sweetpea. She lives near San Francisco.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Learning Connection

You have come here to find what you already have

Buddha

A million stars twinkled, brighter than any diamonds, in the West Mesa of Albuquerque where I grew up. I remember taking LSD, staring at the sky, it was like a quilt of sparkling glittering diamonds. In the parched, dusty New Mexico desert, where tumbleweeds roll and swirl with the winds, they scraped my bare legs as I ran barefooted. Albuquerque is where I spent my childhood days. Hatch Green or Red chili was the choice for supper along with potatoes, daily fresh pinto beans and freshly made tortillas. Melting butter, on hot tortillas, always dripped down my arms as I savored them.

That was a long time ago. Today, I take pleasure in writing this book Edge of the Gold Coast Honey and Baby Pink Roses. While writing this book, I am currently living in Alameda, California, on the Gold Coast, on Ninth Street at the Beachcomber’s Condominiums facing the lovely lagoon. I am 5’4" and weigh 105 lbs. with a beautiful tan complexion. I am tiny but mighty as Israel, with lots of good energy, and seeking peace. The direction I am going is all about enhancing and embracing the path, even though I do not know what blazing trails lay ahead. I choose to live my life with dignity and continue to set strong boundaries.

People come to California, the edge of the world, they say to find themselves. Finding one’s self is not anywhere but inner enlightenment in the here and now and spiritual development. A good definition of a spiritual journey is a personal experiential connection with the universe, it is larger than me, it is through and around me. I found that out a long time ago, when I started teaching Hatha Yoga after visiting an ashram, Shivananda, in Grassvalley, California. Although I still have issues (as they say in California), I have wishful thinking that I will discover more about what makes me tick, heal and will be able to give more compassion to beings that still suffer. Connecting with people in a real loving, genuine manner is my goal. I believe through writing my story, I will heal my flaws and face my fears.

Today I am unable to get into Microsoft Word on my new PC after numerous attempts, ugh. I like things simple; turn on, off, hit go and that’s it. But it’s not that way—life, people and things, particularly people and technical items. They are so complicated, and so is everything else including and especially relationships. Here is one of my poems to describe my state of mind:

Madness

Unleash the genius

She is mad, mad, mad

Loves to write about beauty beyond madness

beyond defined limits

like tomatoes between gladiolas

Beethoven’s sweet sonata Moonlight

soprano Natalie Dessay in La Traviata

Santa Fe’s outdoor opera house

double rainbows shedding golden light

orange, peach, tangerine, turquoise sunsets

hummingbirds lunching on orange blossoms

buzzing bees creating honeycomb

madness creeps in twisting turning

generating distortions, creating writer’s block

beauty in the written word quiets her madness

Becoming a registered nurse was not easy. I was divorced with one child, Rico. He was one year old when I started school. I was bored at home with my husband who liked to smoke dope, drink beer and watch ball games. I have to say one good thing while being with him, I learned about football. Back to school at local Laney College in Oakland changed the wife scene. There I took basic classes. I loved school, felt young, pretty, and special, while learning about the world. My flaming red hair was long below my waist. I wore hip huggers and sandals and smelled of Patchouli oil. I fit right in with the whole hippie generation and ran with it. The Black Panthers, Angela Davis and Huey Newton frequented the school. Abby Hoffman and John Lennon were on the NEWS. People’s Park in Berkeley on Telegraph Avenue was the place to hang out. Women’s lib was alive.

I applied for a Registered Nurses Associate of Arts program at Merritt College in Oakland. I was able to enter the program right away, probably due to being a Chicana. Nursing was job security, so I thought. I started to have big problems during college with booze and drugs. This was the time of my life when I did most of the partying, drinking and taking of psychedelic drugs. I left my husband and got a divorce. I started dating different men who were in college at the time. They admired my beauty, wits and company. I was unable to stay in any relationship because of being loaded most of the time. Drugs and alcohol were the thing to do in college. Psychedelics drugs were everywhere. LSD, mescaline and mushrooms were the most popular as I dived into all of them. I thought I would discover me. I never had a bad trip on psychedelics. To this day, I do not know how I made it through school. My first paper was about The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. It opened my mind and I received an A on this paper. I discovered that I could learn and learn fast. After I passed the Registered Nursing Boards and receiving my registered nurses license, I started my first job at Highland County Hospital in Oakland. I saw conditions I never imagined. I flirted with a married Jewish pulmonary physician and ended up living with him shortly after.

Paying my way through school was not an easy task. I figured that I could make money anywhere with my Registered Nurses license. In my thirties, I managed to finish a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Holy Names College, also in Oakland. My drinking was getting worse. In those days, I drank Boone’s Farm Apple wine and smoked marijuana. I mixed them with prescription drugs. It was really dark times. I hooked up with an Irish Art History professor, Rick, who was married at the time. We drank like fish. Shopping at the Spirits Barn Warehouse in Alameda, that only sold booze, and filling up the shopping baskets with all sorts of booze was amusing to us. I was hitting a very low bottom at that time with ongoing rages and blackouts. I was unable to sleep, no matter how much alcohol and drugs I put in my system. At the age of 39, I surrendered and became sober. There were numerous occasions of humiliation, followed by deathly hangovers. Seeking sobriety was the best thing that ever happened to me. Sobriety started the path of spirituality, growth and true connection with other beings.

Chapter 2

Educating Ms. Deborah

"Make yourself a light, rely on yourself,

do not depend on others"

Buddha

I earned a Master of Science in Nursing degree at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California. I paid for this program by working very hard. School was an escape from grief over the loss of my son Rico. I was four years sober. At school I felt productive and got some relief from the unrelenting, agonizing grief. I have a good logical mind and was able to stick with school in spite of my terrible grief. By pushing it to the limit, I was able finish the program. But . . . it almost killed me. During my last semester, I woke up with a pain that shot through my brain and could barely breathe. I thought I was dying and maybe I was. I had to slow down. But how? Josh, my younger son who was 14 years old at the time, was out of control and in grief too. My grief and troubles put me on hold. I was doing too much. The pain in my brain, I believe, was due to working my ass off to pay tuition, trying to finish this Master’s program and living with a teenager out of control and in grief. It was a very difficult time in my life. I was losing my life but was able to see that this brain pain was an omen. I had to slow down and I did. I pulled back from work.

My thesis project was High Risk Populations, developing and designing programs. I chose Alcohol and Drug Use in the Adolescent as my thesis topic. I guess I was trying to find answers about Rico, my son’s death, and his use with alcohol and drugs. Maybe I could be helpful in some way for all those students who have alcohol and drug problems. This topic also could help parents with severe trauma who have children engaged in alcohol and drugs or losing one from this problem. Maybe I could heal and help heal.

Today I worked as an Administrative Nursing Supervisor at a local small community, Alameda Hospital. The other work I do consists of working in Fremont at a large community hospital, Washington Hospital, as Manager of Health Promotion. How fortunate to be employed with two pieces of work at a time when the economy is so bad. Ugh, to work so hard though is complicated and sometimes very exhausting.

My role as a supervisor in one hospital is resource manager, that’s what I call it. Anything needed, call me. Ugh. Ugh, you will hear this word a lot in my writings. It seems with all the technology, tests and information needed in a day, at any hospital, and the constant change, patients get lost in the shuffle. Compassion, caring and kindness vanishes. There are more errors, infections and death in hospitals today than there ever has been. The paperwork alone can keep nurses busy for at least half of their shift. When I started nursing, almost 35 years ago, we were taught to care for each patient, converse with them and give comfort care. Back rubs and soothing remedies were given to make the patients feel better. That was the name of the game. When I started Critical Nursing, I hypothetically felt like it was a step up. It was not. Only the most qualified crème de la crème nurses make it in this area. In critical care units there are monitors, hemodynamic drips, ventilators and lots of Code Blues and death. I would get lost in caring for patients in critical care. Nurses today have to be highly qualified with new and ever changing technology in any area they work or they will not survive. Nursing as a profession has become fuzzy. The nurse is really a coordinator of care. Patients are sent for various procedures, tests and given enormous amounts of ever changing medications. When all is done, patients are sent home like herds of cattle. Weak, frustrated and still in pain, a home health nurse will visit the patient, they are told, upon discharge. Decreased patient days are the goal of hospitals today. Insurance companies pay for the evidenced based diagnosis, not how many days are spent in hospitals. Thank God for President Obama. People are waking up to the misuse of the health care system. Obama believes in prevention as the