Tess Collins's Blog

The 2022 flooding in southeastern Kentucky will go down as one of the worse disasters of the decade. The photos on Facebook are heartbreaking. One of the most touching is of a girl on a roof. She put her dog in a plastic box that would float and swam to a neighbor’s roof where she is photographed huddled, surrounded by water, waiting for rescue, cradling her dog. Floods always strike anxiety in my heart as I remember the damage the 1963 flood did to my Granny’s house and land. I was away at college for the one in 1977 and wrote an article about how unfocused I was feeling so far away from a disaster I knew so well. The University of Kentucky school newspaper, The Kentucky Kernel published it, and I’ve copied it below with a few updates.


Mind Flow… Remembering, wondering and praying…
Published in the Kentucky Kernel, circa 1977
By Tess Collins

The first time it happened was in 1957—the year I was born. I don’t remember it but I do remember the second time in 1963. I was in second grade. I hated second grade, and I hated Mrs. Shoemaker. So I didn’t really care when the water rose in the schoolyard.

I remember sitting in the back room of Granny’s house listening to my cousin, Joddy, tell about the house swaying and shaking the night before. “We had to pile towels at the door,” he said. “I thought we were going to float away.”

Uncle Esridge’s car did float away. It ended up stuck between two trees on the forbidden ground of the Walter’s property. It sat behind that fence like a prisoner with its new lining of mud. Later, I would see Uncle Esridge’s face tighten, his eyes narrow, and his lips pressed as he cursed the insurance company, saying, “I want my money!”

The overflowing creek bed separated into a fork looking like Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken.” The regular creek moved at its regular pace. The newly created creek roared through the backyard amid broken dolls, muddy white shirts and debris.

Now and then as my cousins and I stood along the creek throwing rocks and playing Jungle Man we saw a kitten or a pup bobbing in the water. We watched the body roll up and down with the waves. It hit rocks and bounced off, turned over and over until it was out of sight. Then, with the Jungle Man secret holler, we continued solemnly raiding the Bandit’s campsite.

I remember going to bed those nights, listening to the rain hit the tin roof in little pings. I closed my eyes and prayed and prayed for God not to let the water get up the hill to our house, and not to let my brothers fall into the creek like the little boy who fallen in Stoney Fork Creek.

Drifting off to sleep it seems I woke twelve years later to find myself late for class. Mayor Foster Pettit’s voice comes over the radio asking for funds and clothing for flood victims in southeastern Kentucky. Food and clothing are coming from as far away as Ohio. The sun is shining outside. People are walking to class. The office tower seems a bit too tall this morning. I’m only on the second floor, but I’m still too far from the ground.

I’ll bet the sun shines on Harlan and Middlesboro today. The rain never lasts more than a week. Sunshine always follows but the water stays.

I wasn’t home for the flood this year. I don’t remember the one in ’57—the year I was born and the year my Grandfather died. Granny said he sat listening to the Victrola for flash flood warnings. Each year after that I took his place, listening and waiting, wondering if this year would be the year. Oh Granddad, will I be there for the last one too?

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my cable company offered some free premium TV. How could I not binge a few programs. I got rather obsessed with Helter Skelter: An American Myth about Charles Manson and how he manipulated some very bright people into murdering for him. Manson holds my interest because he grew up in eastern Kentucky where I was also raised. Two other shows, The Vow and Seduced, tell the story of how some really smart and accomplished people were taken in by a man named Keith Raniere and his NXIVM cult. While Charlie and Keith are two different kinds of sociopaths, maybe even psychopaths, with different agendas, they do have a number of manipulative skills in common.

None of us are strangers to the dangers of cults. We’ve watched in horror at the tragedies of Jonestown, Waco, and Heaven’s Gate. These weren’t the first or only cults to end in tragedy but they were the first to be mass marketed over our TV sets. I bet that most of us thought, that would never happen to me, or how could those people be so stupid, and yet the victims of these cult leaders would be the first to tell you that they never intended to join a cult. The common trait I saw in the interviewees was that they all were trying to better themselves and most had an abiding passion for trying to do good in the world. Self-help and altruism are noble goals too often taken advantage of by cults.

The first time I was approached by a cult was in late ’70s. I’d moved to San Francisco the year before and was getting on my feet in terms of a career and a new city. Two friendly-looking guys stopped me on the street and asked if I knew where there might be a nice café where they could get coffee. I pointed in the direction of Polk Street and without realizing it, was led into a non-threatening conversation that I continued for several minutes—being new to the city, I was happy to pass on my limited knowledge to other newcomers.

I learned that they were at an apartment a few blocks away with a bunch of kids like themselves and that they also had a farm house up north that they visited where they mostly made music and had fun. They invited me to join them sometime. I didn’t give it a lot of thought, but thanked them, said my goodbyes and continued into my apartment building.

I must have mentioned my name in that conversation, because the next day there was a knock on my door and one the boys (I couldn’t rightly call them men as they were so young) stood there, smiling like I was his new best friend and again invited me to his building for music night. I made some excuse, wished him well, shut the door and thought, that was weird.

The following Friday, I was in the tub (no shower in that early SF apartment) getting ready for a date when another knock sounded at the door. I cursed under my breath, thinking my date had arrived an hour early. Hair wet, dripping water, I wrapped a towel around me and swung open the door only to meet the other guy. He stood there shocked at the near naked female in front of him. He mumbled something about getting together with his friends, and I let loose on him, telling him if I was interested in his group I’d let him know and to please never darken my doorway again. He didn’t, but I suspect it was my nakedness that scared him off.

Many years later at a writing conference, I had a conversation with a writer who spoke of a similar experience, but she had taken them up on that visit to the farm up north. She ended up having to dig her way under a fence to escape. I’d never considered going with the music boys, as what they offered didn’t interest me. Having arriving in San Francisco with $200 bucks in my pocket, my life was more about surviving than making music. But, had they offered a poetry reading with the chance to read my poetry, well, who knows?

In “Episode 106” of Helter Skelter: An American Myth, clinical psychologist and author, Gary Brucato, Ph.D. outlines five methods cults use to indoctrinate their victims:

1. Usually a cult leader who possesses a certain personality structure seeks out and softly recruits people who are vulnerable.
2. In the initial stages, the vulnerable person is bombarded with love and acceptance so that they feel that everything and everyone in life who has hurt them or made them feel as if they were not good enough is now unimportant. The group will help them achieve their goals, and they have found a place where they matter and outside influences are suppressive to their evolution and success.
3. The recruit is isolated and efforts made to keep the family, friends, and media away from them. If one of them gets through, then the message is that they are lying, and the cult leader should be believed.
4. Then, begins a period of treating the person badly through either forced sexual activity, beating or belittling them, or undermining their previous success. This psychologically causes the vulnerable person to think: “I want to get back to a place to get the perfect acceptance I was getting before.” The recruit will do absolutely anything to get there.
5. All the strengths that create boundaries between recruits and the leaders are disintegrated gradually and what the cult leader does is make people believe that the disintegration of their ego is philosophically driven for their own good when in reality it was only in the interest of the cult leader.

I don’t know that I have any solid advice to keep anyone from being taken advantage of by a cult. Any of us could miss the red flags. The two gents who approached me certainly pegged me as someone new in town who might be vulnerable. But here’s the thing about me. I’m not a joiner. At some point in my life, I realized that at the eighteenth month of involvement, groups encourage you to take more responsibility for that community, often at the expense of your own learning. I’ve observed this to be true of some classes, sports, church, even employment. Now, not all of these are cults, but they can demonstrate cult-like behavior. So if I have any advice, it would be to pick your loyalties carefully, assess the situation at eighteen months, and decide whether this association benefits you or only the leader/organization.

Before I left eastern Kentucky my Aunt Dorothy stood on my grandmother’s porch as I was getting ready to head to college and called after me. “Remember, it’s you. Think of yourself. Take care of yourself. You.” Maybe that’s the advice.

Today, I am posting with permission an essay written by my friend Sylvia Toy St. Louis. She's an artist in all her ways, and like me, worked that interminable day job that seemed like it was never going to end.

Here's what she says about that:

MY FORMER DAILY DESPAIR Sylvia Toy St. Louis August 6, 2017
Yesterday, I told my husband something that I'd never told anyone before. I cried when I told him. I even felt a little ashamed because of a sense of failure.

I am one of those never-half-assed people, 100% effort natured people. We are the people who get on your nerves; whom you call too intense; whom you tell 'you talk too much.' We are the people who dig in no matter what.

There are very few things in life that I have ever wanted to do besides stay in my room and make art. But I am not one of the lucky people who got to do that. In fact, even if my parents had been wealthy enough for me never to have to do anything except stay in my room and make art, they would not have left me to unlimited, unsupervised solitude.

Last month I told a friend who's a college professor that I probably would have been more engaged and fared better as a young person in the days of apprenticeship. I hated school. The best thing about getting a diploma or a college degree is not having to go to school anymore. The best thing about dayjob is not having to go to school anymore.

But yesterday I told my husband my secret. That is, every single day of dayjob, whether good job or bad job, at some point in my day (in bad jobs, all day), I experienced the soul-crushing disappointment that not even giving 200 or 300% was ever going to give me the comfort of satisfaction. In fact, ironically, considering that I'd usually rather be by myself, the only thing that made dayjob bearable was human interaction. This due, perhaps, to my not expecting much from most people and being almost immune to being disappointed by them.

But I have always expected and anticipated getting a lot back from my never-half-assed, 100% labor. And that for me in dayjob was like rowing a boat that always had a leak in it and would inevitably sink.

I read once that the most common characteristic of Americans is vulnerability to disappointment. We are optimistic and often unaware that we're energetically rowing a leaky boat. What I am grateful for at this point is not that I don't have to go to school or dayjob anymore, but that, apparently, in spite of my former daily despair, I am unsinkable.

Ran across one of my Peer Day reviews from when I was working on my Ph.D, and it shook me a little. A lot of it seemed to speak to what we're seeing these days about Tolerance and Intolerance. This Peer Day took place in 1995, and looking back, my, how much we didn't know was going to happen, and weren't we all a little naive back then. I tried to copy the picture of Agnes Lebovics at the end of this, but not sure that it will come across. If you've ever the chance to visit the Simon Wiesenthal Center in L.A., please by all means go. You won't regret it.

Bombs, the "Dream Team," and Everyone's Holocaust

Content and Process Statement of Peer Days: Tolerance and Intolerance
Convenor: NP
Sept. 10th and 11th, 1995
by Theresa A. Collins
Student ID: 11111

In America, we generally tend to believe that the days of intolerance are behind us, and the future holds the promise of everyone across the nation living equally. After all, we declared victory in World War II, the Civil Rights Movement spawned momentous legislation, the Berlin Wall came down. Then urban chaos such as the 1992 Los Angeles riots wakes us up-- points out that it's still here. The plight of people like the Kurds and places like China and Bosnia fill our television screens with images of gassed families, students crushed by tanks, and entire communities displaced because they are not the right bloodline.

Global communications and satellites no longer allow tyrants to control the message or hide the bodies. If "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" then to whom is it dangerous, and does knowledge invent emotion or enflame feelings that are already there? These were just some of the topics explored in two peer days on Tolerance and Intolerance.

A portion of these peer days involved viewing a video of our choice pertinent to the topic. As I had seen most suggested videos on the peer day agenda, I choose an older film, The Bridge On The River Kwai. The setting is a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Siam in 1943 (though it became Thailand in 1939, the movie retains the older name). The film is dated in its portrayals--the Japanese are a bit too stupid, their commander too harsh and cruel, the British prisoners are stoic, even the rogue American finds his heroism in the final scene of the movie.

Briefly, synopsized, the story is about British prisoners expected to build a bridge over the Kwai River. The men have been secretly sabotaging its construction. They are also being worked to death, are starving, sick, and discouraged as the full graveyard attests. New prisoners, commanded by Colonel Nicholson, are brought in to replace the dead. He pleads with the Japanese Commander, Colonel Saito, guaranteeing that his men will work hard as long as they are treated according to the Geneva Convention. One of these terms is that officers will not be forced to do manual labor alongside enlisted men. Colonel Saito discards the Convention booklet and locks Colonel Nicholson in a sweat box, intending to force his submission or kill him.

Meanwhile, the bridge falls farther and farther behind schedule. Now it is Saito who must submit. Nicholson shows him how the bridge can be completed under the command of British officers, but his condition remains the same--that only enlisted men perform the manual labor. Though it is somewhat unbelievable that the Japanese are too incompetent to build a bridge, and the industrious Brits have the right stuff, this conflict does set up the differences in philosophies. Nicholson is a by-the-book kind of person as demonstrated in his dialog, "Without law... there is no civilization," and again when his men try to get him to give in to Saito, "It's a matter of principle. If we give in now, there will be no end to it."
Saito is formal, closed, and determined. He eventually does what he must to build a bridge of strategic importance to the Japanese empire. One scene that shows him sobbing in the quiet of his tent is an emotional hara-kiri. He cannot outwardly admit how much he depends on and admires the British colonial.

In a parallel story, a group of British commandos plans to blow up the bridge. The team includes an American who had previously escaped from Saito's camp and faked being an officer in the hope of better treatment. Work proceeds on the bridge as the commando group work their way through the jungle toward the camp.

In the dramatic conclusion, the bridge that Nicholson is so proud of is dynamited by the commando team. A train about to cross it crashes into the river. All the major characters are killed, except the British commando leader and a prisoner of war doctor who utters the final words as he looks upon the destruction: "Madness.... Madness... Madness."

In this film, there are two main points which are instructive regarding tolerance and intolerance. Saito and Nicholson begin as enemies. Saito has power over Nicholson. What both characters are unaware of is that the bridge they are building is a bridge between themselves. As it comes together, the two becomes equals, and at times, trade places. Nicholson becomes the leader and Saito the follower--even to the point of following Nicholson to the shore of the river and into the path of the commando who kills him. Nicholson also dies by gunfire in this final scene. Dramatically, his death is justified as he has become the antithesis of what his life is about-- by building the bridge he has "aided the enemy."

The second point is what he constructed is destroyed by a third, outside party. Major Warden of the commando team has another agenda which reflects official state policy. If the Japanese build something, it is the responsibility of the British to tear it down. Nicholson took an individual chance and built a bridge between two people. Warden took a societal view that his job is to destroy the enemy regardless of the cost. In the end, all that remains is Warden, representing the state; and the doctor, representing the common man who can do nothing except recognize the madness.

The readings for this peer day consisted of six articles, of which "The Defense of the Century" by Scot J. Zentner received the most attention. His topic was the O. J. Simpson trial. The following conclusions were drawn: Simpson's attorneys, called the "dream team," in using the defense of racism and corruption in the Los Angles police department, have succeeded in victimizing their client and de-victimizing Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. In his adult life, O. J. Simpson has not experienced the life of the typical African-American male living in East Los Angeles, yet he is benefiting from these circumstances. It is very conceivable that the jury has come to see this trial as payback to the police department rather than a murder case. Whether jury deliberations will embrace or dismantle this theory is yet to be seen.

The highlight of the activities was a trip to the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance. It is called an "experiential" museum and is most noted for its high-tech and hands-on exhibits. Its purpose is to explore prejudice and racism, and to preserve the history of the Holocaust.

To enter the "Tolerancenter," you are asked to choose between two doors: one labeled "Prejudice," the other "Not Prejudice." Though no one in our group tried, the second door is locked. Everyone, then, passes through the "Prejudice" door and encounters the words, "all of us have a little of it."

Exhibits display events and communicate information about the 1960s Civil Rights movement, the 1990s Los Angeles riots, gang violence, hate groups, and "every day" kinds of prejudice such as sexism, homophobia, harassment, and language choice. Short films review the history of genocide. Historical accounts include the decimation of Armenians during the Ottoman empire, of Indians in South American, and the Khmer Rouge who wiped out 1/6th of Thailand's population. More current events such as wars in Africa and Bosnia are not part of the museum, but these places do come to mind.

Many exhibits are interactive. Pressing a button or lever brings up a variety of options. This kind of touch-system is particularly good for young adults with short attention spans. I noticed one young boy, who had displayed a resentful attitude at having to be here, take to these as if they were Nintendo games.

We entered a different area of the museum that begins the history lesson on World War II. This area is called "The Holocaust Section." The tour is conducted with lights that shine on a particular exhibit, darken when finished, then light up the next exhibit, thus leading the group of people through dark gray, cavernous tunnel designed like a German street. The exhibits show three figures, a writer, director, and art director narrating through an audio tape. As the tour begins, you are asked to take a plastic card that has a picture, name, date and birthplace of a person who lived during this time period.

The first exhibits give the history of the world in the 1930s and 40s--the political climate, the artistic culture, the world personalities, national, and international economics, and the everyday life of the typical German. These views are intended to show the factors (especially the 1929 depression) that led to the rise of a fringe political group in Germany. One of the members of this group was a man named Adolph Hitler.

Hitler's personal history is examined--his failed political campaign, his prison sentence, and the publication of his book, MEIN KAMPF (My Struggle). The exhibit is set up the way a German of the 1930s would have seen it. Political posters line the wall beside those of Hindenberg. MEIN KAMPF is stacked in a bookstore window. One can't help but think of today's bookshops with displays which look very much the same by presidential hopefuls Ross Perot, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, Rush Limbaugh, Colin Powell. In what would be considered a public relations disaster by today's standards, the political posters show a stern-faced, non-smiling frog of a man. As the attendees listen, it becomes difficult to visualize why the Germans fell under Hitler's spell. The next exhibit explains some of those reasons.

In a sidewalk cafe, spotlights illuminate typical Germans. Their concerns are not unlike the concerns of the average American. What to do about the economic situation, what to do if the Nazis are elected, rationalization of decisions not to immigrate, rationalization of why the Nazis won't be that bad or how they will be good for Germany. Like many Americans, citizens hope for the best and try to go about simply living their lives unhindered.

As the lights dim on this exhibit, behind us lights up a map of Europe. Underneath the name of each country is the number of Jews, and the audio tape lists the reasons for the "final solution." Only one country, Estonia, has the number zero because its Jewish population was completely exterminated. On this map, a dotted red light traces the train routes to the major concentration camps. The light dims and the map disappears. We turn. Before us is a reconstruction of a concentration camp gate. We are told to enter. Again, we are faced with a choice of two passageways: "Able bodied" and "Children and others." Those who faced this choice during the war didn't know what result their decision would bring them.

Our passageway leads to the "Hall of Testimony." On a videotape, Holocaust survivors tell their personal stories of what their lives were like before the war, how they lived under Nazi occupation or in the Warsaw ghetto, how they were taken to concentration camps and how they survived them. When you step out of this section, computers ask for the plastic pictured card you've been carrying. As it is inserted the history of the person is displayed and printed out. I carried the card of the oldest daughter of Mor and Marketa Lebovics. She was five-years-old.

The true genius of the arrangement of the exhibits is it takes the macrocosmic approach which many people need in order to deal with the horror of the history. Each exhibit leads the viewer down to a microcosm--the individual. It is easier to stomach, as we've learned to repeat by rote, that six million Jews and five million others--gypsies, homosexuals, political dissidents, the disabled--were killed in the Holocaust. Numbers don't have faces. When we are confronted by the eyes of a child who looks like our own children or school friends, then the magnitude of the numbers takes on a reality that we kinesthetically experience.

At the same time, the museum deliberately keeps the message comfortable though realistic. What experience is felt is internal and not mass oriented. This is an important decision by the museum because it is difficult to choose to go to a place you suspect will depress you or remind you of times you'd rather forget.

The fourth floor is the "Multimedia Learning Center," filled with artifacts. While most displays are the kind common to many museums--uniforms, utensils, weapons--two are unique. One shows the letters of Anne and Margot Frank to their American pen pal before the girls went into hiding in Amsterdam. The second is a set of black and white photos taken by an American soldier, so convinced that the conditions of the camps would never be believed, that he took it upon himself to preserve this history. Viewers are warned in advance that the photographs are difficult to view.

Also on this level is the interactive media center. Computers operated by touching the screen offers the viewer control over information received. Subjects covered include World War II, the history of the Jewish people, the concentration camps. By indicating an area of interest, the operator can view text and video clips on people, places, historical events, and timelines.

One of the more enlightening incidents of the day occurred when a peer day participant noticed a mistake in a timeline display. It was cited that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin (certainly the way I learned it). The participant said that the cotton gin was actually invented by Eli Whitney's landlady who could not apply for the patent because of her gender. According to the participant, Mr. Whitney not only took credit for the invention but also all the profits.

This participant engaged in conversation with a museum tour guide who surprisingly said that she knew of the error and had pointed it out to the museum's directors. She was told that the error would not be corrected. The participant asked if she could write a letter to someone, and the tour guide gave her the information of whom and where to write, but added, "You won't get anywhere. I didn't. This is a totally patriarchal organization. It's run by men who won't listen to you."

Overall, the museum is satisfying as well as educational. It is not uncomfortable, the exhibits don't leave the attendees devastated or weary. You exit with the sense that some day you will want to return. Some important segments of history are omitted, such as Mussolini, Native Americans, and African genocide. One criticism a peer day participant expressed was that there was no place or room which suggests how to approach the future in view of the continuation of genocide in third world countries.

After the tour, our group adjourned for a discussion. One common occurrence we noticed was that the exhibits would often invoke memories unrelated to the subject we were viewing but did concern some element of prejudice or intolerance. Several times during the day I kept coming back to a vaguely remembered incident that took place my first day of school in 1966 but which had its roots in the Civil Rights movement.

In my hometown, there was a school for the town's black children. When integration was ordered by the Supreme Court, there was no hysteria that rocked some of the south, but the decision did affect an overlooked element. Closing down the black school put most the African-American teachers out of work. One was retained and taught fifth grade at the integrated school. In 1966, I was assigned to her class. Upon arriving I saw my best friend from fourth grade wrapped up in her mother's arms and being carried from the room. Once she moved to another class, our friendship drifted. I never found out what had happened to her.

Looking back on it years later, it seemed obvious her parents did not want their child studying under that teacher. It also seems instructive that the many students in that class were the children of the town's lawyers, doctors, and educators. Mrs. Bryant was, by the way, a great teacher.

From these memory flashes, I and another participant recalled knowing some of the nine African-American students who integrated Little Rock, Arkansas' Central High School in 1957. The woman I knew had been in a novel workshop with me, and what she was writing about was her experience in Little Rock. As she told it, what overshadowed the historical events of this time was that she was still too young to understand what was happening. The jeering crowds, the threats, and harassment, the National Guard--all very overwhelming for a young girl--didn't have a social meaning any more than my best friend being taken out of fifth grade had for me. That my teacher then was African-American, that the woman who integrated Central High School didn't understand what people were jeering about--all of this is information children don't put a value on. From these examples, it is an easy and logical step to draw the conclusion that prejudice is taught--whether by parents or through experience. The true meaning of these events is found in the history they create.

This leads me to conclude my peer day evaluation with the thought that we all have a history of intolerance. We freely remember our family history, our school history, our sporting history, our romantic history--but rarely do we recognize that we also have a prejudicial history. Those events and experiences, separated by time, form our personal history of tolerance and intolerance.

One of the museum exhibits has as a background, words from Deuteronomy 4:9. If any one theme summarizes the intention of the museum and the Peer Day, it is in this Bible verse--here quoted in its entirety. "Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them to thy sons, and thy sons' sons."

Cleaning out some old files on my computer I ran across the folder of evaluations for Peer Days that I did for my Ph.D program. Got a kick out of reading them and wished I had more time for that level of academia. I might never get out of school, but the brilliant people and intellectual stimulation takes my breath away. I may put a few of them up here. I hope you enjoy. This is a summary of a Peer Day on The Old Woman. I was 33 when I did the day--now I'm am an Old Woman.


Crossroads

Content and Process Statement of Peer Day: The Old Woman

by Theresa A. Collins


To think of an old woman most people conjure up memories of their grandmother, an elderly aunt, or perhaps a teacher. Our relationships with these women often influences how we regard the elderly in general and how we view growing older ourselves. In addition to the real life people we have known, there is the archetypal old woman-- the old woman that shows up in our dreams or thoughts. This old woman is sometimes called the Crone. Her mythological association was with the goddess Hekate who is said to rule the Crossroads. In ruling the Crossroads she can see three directions: past, future and present. The Crone degraded through the years and became the witch, but before that she was known as the keeper of wisdom. For the three learners who attended this peer day, our curiosity about the old woman is also one of self-interest. One day, we’ll all be old women.

The convenor divided up this day into four segments: Beginning the Journey - How Society Views Aging; Traveling Further on Our Journey - Images of Old Women In Different Cultures; An Inner Journey - The Image of the Old Woman Within; and Where to Now? - The Future Old Woman. The reading for this peer day ranged from the very mundane to the mythological. Articles such as “Still Vital After All These Years: Older Woman and Personal Growth” by Cecelia Hurwich looks at a group of woman determined to “stay young in mind” despite their ages. “Ageism, Gender, and Racial Minority Status” from The Aging Society by William Cockerham takes a more sociological view of elderhood. He especially argues that woman, as they grow older, will live in worst conditions than men, and that minority woman will bear the brunt of this deteriorating lifestyle. The Crone by Barbara Walker was my favorite book on the reading list. It fully explored the mythological archetype of the Crone and did not ignore her negative aspects. While the peer day, for the most part, focused on the positive elements of being or growing older, I have had a particular interest in the negative or “shadow” side of the Crone for fiction writing purposes. I’m afraid it was lost on my fellow participants when I pointed out that I had not seen any fiction written with an older female character/villain who could be called the equivalent of “Hannible Lector” from The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. I guess it’s up to me to create the Crone/villain.

In the first segment of this day we watched a video presentation called AgeWave. This was a lecture by Ken Dychtwald. Mr. Dychtwald’s company caters to what he believes is the coming wave of the babyboomers growing older. He makes the point that it is going to be much harder to be younger in the world than it is to be older. As the babyboom generation becomes senior citizens, it will be they who rule and dictate to the market economy. Mr. Dychtwald encourages his audience to think of applying the market economy concepts to any endeavor in terms of an older generation.

A curious survey is shown which indicates that younger people tend to think the elderly are poor, unhealthy and in need of being taken care of. This is contrasted against Mr. Dychtwald’s research that the elderly are actually very well off, for the most part healthy, and don’t need to be in the care of guardians. It is even more revealing when he shows the results of when the same set of questions are asked of elderly people. They tended to think the very same about other elderly people.

Our discussion after the video centered around the results of Dychtwald’s information, especially the survey. We also posed a disturbing and open-ended question: if Dychtwald is correct and the elderly are going to be the predominate market in the future, will there be resentment from the younger generation who will have to shoulder the burden of social security, Medicare and other social services for the generation known as the “babyboomers?”

The second segment began with looking at slides of older woman from different cultures. As we looked at them, each of us was to pick a slide that spoke to us and afterwards we would complete a writing exercise. I chose a slide of a very old white-haired woman who gazed at a picture of a young woman in 1920s dress. In the writing assignment we were to answer a series of questions about why we chose her, what we imagined to be her personal characteristics and strengths, and what would she say to us about aging. After completing the assignment the participants took turns telling the answers to those questions. The interesting aspect of this exercise is that two of us chose women that the participant identified with, and one of us (me) chose a woman that I imagined as being totally opposite of myself.

After a lunch break, which for the most part continued our discussion of the morning activities, we listened to an audio taped lecture by Jean Shinoda Bolen. This lecture called “The Wise Woman Archetype” introduced the history of Hekate. This tape was so fascinating I asked the convenor to purchase a copy for me which she agreed to do. While its content was too full to describe here completely, the one concept that stayed with me well after its conclusion was that of blood being held in the body of a younger woman in order to create life, and being held in the body of an older woman (menopause) in order to create wisdom.

We also did a writing exercise in this segment with the intent of looking at an archetypal old woman. The other two participants found them in real life, whereas I found them mostly in my dreams. The only one I found in my real life was a negative witch-type older woman in the person of my second grade teacher. To this day, when I think of her I get chills.

As we concluded into the fourth segment, we all were getting pretty tired. The day had been filled with agreement, disagreement, memories, dreams, poems, and discussion. In envisioning this future old woman, we also came to a confrontation of one day becoming older woman. The concept was very foreign to all of us. Our ages were 33, 38 and 41, yet all of us felt like we weren’t quite our age, even to the point of feeling the same as we did in our twenties. Yet many of our friends who were the same age seemed old to us.

In envisioning our future older self, our convenor had us do an exercise which was the drawing of images into a quilt. I thought this a particularly interesting image-- a quilt, often thought of as feminine and as a gathering of woman who would sew a quilt. (Thank god we were drawing as my sewing is so bad I almost flunked Home Economics in high school.) I didn’t find the images in any of our quilts particularly “old.” Many of them were even masculine: lightning representing power; an eclipse representing hidden knowledge and mystery; red hair as something we give ourselves.

Our peer day concluded with all of us wondering about the archetypal Crone-- would she be visiting us in our dreams? We promised to stay in touch via the bbs to tell each other the stories. So far, I’ve not been visited, but almost daily find myself noticing threes-- Crossroads, past, present and future. Standing at the crossroads is perhaps aptly described in a poem given to us by the convenor by Rainer Maria Rilke and translated by Robert Bly.

A WALK

My eyes already touch the sunny bill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp,
it has its inner light, even from a distance--

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave . . .
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

A few people have asked me what are my favorite books about learning to write a novel. There are many out there. In college I studied with James Baker Hall, Gurney Norman, Ed McClanahan, and missed out on Wendell Berry by one year, darn it! Sorry to say they've not written any writing books, but their writing itself is a primer in learning. When I moved to California, I took classes and Master Classes with James N. Frey (who declares he is not the author of "A Million Little Pieces"). Jim has written books on writing and introduced me to the works of Lajos Egri. So here are my list of Writing Books for those who want to learn.

James N. Frey:
How to Write a Damn Good Novel
How to Write a Damn Good Novel: Advance Techniques
How to Write a Damn Good Mystery
How to Write a Damn Good Thriller
The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth

Lajos Egri:
The Art of Dramatic Writing
The Art of Creative Writing

Christopher Vogler:
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers

I've put my San Francisco thriller DEVIL'S JUSTICE (under pen name Tianne Collins) in the Kindle Scout program. Hope you'll take a look at the first chapters and vote for it. If I'm choose, a free copy will be sent to your kindle. And thanks!!! Here's the voting link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1NQL...

When I was six years old I asked our Baptist minister why we were here on earth. He readily replied, “to serve God.” Then I asked him how he knew there was a God. He sat there for several seconds, staring at me and a bit exasperated, then he drew a breath and said, “Well, I don’t know for sure. I accept it on faith.” I hoped for certainty but if he’d given me any other answer I doubt I would have believed him.
In recent years certain scientists have claimed that they are able to create (or re-produce) religious experience by stimulating parts of the brain. This is an interesting idea although not being a scientist, it’s hard for me to judge its truth. Where is the dividing line between technical “proof” and faith? The Bible describes Jesus in the wilderness, finding not God but the Devil offering temptations. Christ’s successful battle with evil restores his resolve to continue his mission. In addition to having one’s faith tested, another basic issue is raised here: redemption. This kind of salvation is often found in lonely places after everyone has abandoned the person. Writers often put their characters in exactly this situation.
In that I, as an author and fairly non-religious person, contemplated these issues, it seems reasonable that my characters would eventually face them as well. This has been especially true with the main character in a series where readers see more of the character’s life than they might in a stand-alone novel.
In my Alma Bashears trilogy the heroine experiences the hero’s journey within each novel but also throughout the succession of books. THE LAW OF REVENGE introduces her as an ambitious San Francisco attorney on the partnership track who returns to her small Kentucky hometown to defend her brother on a murder charge. Giving up her high-powered job, she chooses to stay and reclaim her heritage. Book two, THE LAW OF THE DEAD, has Alma solving the murder of her cousin while questioning kinship and revealing family secrets. In THE LAW OF BETRAYAL, she solves the mystery of her father’s disappearance and, by the end of the book, has faced death and experienced a spiritual epiphany. To make this kind of character growth believable, I needed Alma to explore her origins—including folklore and legend. I chose to do this by creating a sect of the Melungeon people whose history is fabled to be magical by some and demonic by others. The reader is free to decide just what is magic and what is legend?
The Melungeons are a real people. Their uniqueness lies in the fact that, until recent DNA advances, their blood lines didn’t connect to any specific race—not Native American, not Caucasian, not African. Their features ranged from the ruddy Indigenous complexion to white skin with blue eyes. Rumor had them descended from the lost colony of Raleigh, ancient Phoenicians, even a lost tribe of Israel. They owned rich valley land in eastern Tennessee—and therein lay their problem. In order for white settlers to obtain this land, the Melungeons had to be disenfranchised, disinherited and, in many cases, demonized. They came into this century living on the highest, most remote mountaintops. The isolation kept the legends alive. They were shape shifters, witches and spawn of the devil. The word “Melungeon” is said to have many origins. One of the most interesting links it to the Turkish words “melon” and “can,” pronounced exactly “Melungeon,” and meaning “cursed soul” or “one who has been abandoned by God.”
Having my heroine Alma Bashears become the embodiment of such a people presented a problem. Critics, who readily accept magic realism from Latin American writers will, without much thought, condemn similar usage in an American writer’s work as contrivance. Therefore, my personal rule when writing magic realism is to always layer in a logical explanation for any event that may seem magical or mystical.
Here are examples of how I applied my personal rule in THE LAW OF BETRAYAL. Alma Bashears is lost on Shadow Mountain. Hungry, dazed, pursued, she also probably has a concussion injury and drinks from water that just might be hallucinogenic. Key words here are “concussion” and “hallucinogenic.” This accounts for the logical explanation when it comes to belief. Alma doubts what she sees is real, but when she looks into the face of death, the experience is also of God. Her spiritual epiphany answers the question—For whom do you live? Her response is as much a gestalt of her character as bringing the villain to justice.
In another instance, a mysterious little girl gives Alma a clue. The question arises: is this child ghost? For those who prefer reading the book as magic realism, certainly she could be a ghost. But a careful examination of the text shows that the author never says this. For readers who want their novel logical, there are 2 clues (and granted these are a little more difficult of figure out). Clue 1: When Alma gets directions to Shadow Mountain she is told of a woman who went to live on the mountain and never returned. Clue 2: Two other characters mention a mysterious sect of Melungeons connected to Shadow Mountain. Thus, layered around this mysterious child is the knowledge that her people are hidden in the mountains, and that they know the answers to the mystery that my heroine is trying to solve.
I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. By day, the woods are an array of beauty—ancient oaks, waterfalls, rock formations that tower into the sky. But at night, there are unidentified sounds, the earth seems to breathe, or at least you hope it’s only the earth; every movement could be a small animal, or it might be something else; something bigger than you; something unknowable to the human mind. The beauty is now a danger that spreads terror over your skin and thoughts tumble in your mind—I might not make it through the night, and if I do, it is only by the grace of a generous God or a kind monster. Living with uncertainty causes people and characters to search for meaning in life.
By the end of our days most of us have asked ourselves the question: For whom do I live? I know some people who live for their children. Others spend their lives measuring up to their parent’s image of them. We often can’t seem to live for ourselves, so when the reason is gone—parents pass on, children move away—part of us wants to die. It wasn’t until my father’s death in 1999 that I realized how much of my life I had lived for him. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted to please him. I wanted to be my father’s good daughter. He died just before my second novel came out. My editor, bless her heart, did double-time to get an advance book galley for him. He stayed up all night reading it. Now that’s the kind of father every girl should have. Less than a week later he had passed away. Once he was gone, I floundered and struggled with the question: For whom do I live now?
Ultimately, life is a spiritual journey even for those who don’t believe in God. Since I’m not a hero or a savior, only a humble writer, the only answer that comes to me is the same one that many writers conclude in that dark night of the soul. For whom do we live? I live life with all its struggle and sorrow and messy heartache... I live for the Ages.

**This essay was previously published. I just can't remember where.

I'm always grateful for insightful reviews on Goodreads or anywhere. I especially blew a relief sigh at this one from New South Magazine for NOTOWN.

Here's a link:

http://www.bluetoad.com/publication/?...

I ran across this piece of writing while cleaning out some files on my computer. I'm sure it was published somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't remember where. While a lot of it is still true, I've mellowed with age, I think, but perhaps not. Anyway, I liked it. I was a spunky little girl back in the day.


The Inheritance
by Tess Collins

It is not so much that I choose to write about the south, as it is the south chose me. And it’s not so much a choosing, as it is inhabitation. A little like demonic possession. When you’re from the south you inherit a trainload of baggage that follows you for life. Those suitcases have been packed by William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty and Margaret Mitchell to name a few well-known culprits and by mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, cousins and best friends who in the best-of-intentioned ways make you crazier than you ever thought possible. Once you get off the train and claim your luggage—even as unfamiliar with it as you might be—you end up spending a great deal of your life explaining it to yourself and then trying to explain it to other people.
Life becomes a familiar pattern of trying to please and slowly becoming pissed off. Sometimes this is the reason why I write and, of course, being ticked off filters into my writing. What hero hasn’t tried to do his or her best only to come out taking names and kicking butt when the clues don’t pan out and they’re backed into a corner.
Once a reviewer called one of my plays imitative of Tennessee Williams. Naturally that irritated me because I don’t believe I’ve ever imitated anybody, but the more I thought about it I realized he was on the right track but off by degrees. What is more correct is that I am a Tennessee Williams heroine and, in that sense, Tennessee was writing me. In my forty-five years a few truths have become clear to me. I’m loyal beyond reason to my friends and enemies are usually for life. If I catch a boyfriend cheating, by God, he’s going to hear more that a few words about it and the trampy hussy—well, more fear can be struck with a slight smile that plants seeds of doubt than any hair-pulling knock-down drag out that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few. Family is there for life but it doesn’t mean you have to trust them. Money always makes life easier and the poorer you were growing up, the more money you save. Beauty is a tool and not to use it is a sin. Uncertainty can trip you faster than a protruding tree root so if there’s any uncertainty to be made, make sure you make it. And finally, if at the end of the day the choice is between yogurt and ice cream, ice cream always wins.
Maybe as I get older this simple philosophy will change and perhaps mellow but for now, it fills my books, creates my heroes, my villains and brings spice to my plots. Every time you think you might know where I’m going, please don’t expect me to be predictable because I can’t. It’s an inheritance, you see. In my life I have known the passion of Maggie, the Cat, the fantasy world of Laura Wingfield, the despair of Blanche DuBois. I inherited the makings of theses traits from a long line of sassy women and ferocious men whose relationships were anything but ordinary. I realize I might alarm a few people. Girls might not like me. Boys might get scared off. But let’s face it, what’s worse than wasting time with the bored, boring and weak. Better to fill my days with smart, viral men and women who know how to use it. Anyone who wants to disparage my inheritance—well, do you really want to piss off someone whose books are called THE LAW OF REVENGE; THE LAW OF THE DEAD; and THE LAW OF BETRAYAL?