I wrote this poem years ago, about my father, Joseph Serra. Sharing this again today, on his birthday. He would have been 98. We were blessed with his gregarious, loyal and brave presence until he was almost 83. He did a lot of wonderful things in his life – raised by a single mother who did not speak English, after he fought in the war her returned and he eventually became a champion of public education– first to graduate high school, college, graduate school. He was a loving spouse in the face of much adversity, awesome uncle to many nieces and nephews, and most of all, an obsessively devoted devoted father and grandfather. Those early years of four kids under ten, his wife fighting a tough debilitating disease and making it all work on a public educators salary, he must have felt like Cicero. But I have many happy memories of picking basil in the garden, playing in the local pool, camping all over the country and debating everything under the sun at the dinner table. I think we all still miss him, and my mother, daily. But the warm stories take away any lingering sting or grief.

Morning, 1973

My father and his Valiant.

In the driveway, early in the morning, he forces the pedal down.

It coughs, chugs, dies.

And again, until we all hear the car scream and flood, like a horse

crossing a swollen river, but drowning.

My father’s shoes are lost in several inches of snow,

collar is up to the wind,

pale overcoat, just a little too large, hangs past his knees.

He curses at the car. Valiant.

A queer name for this pile of tin, with its weak minded engine, smelly seats and a cracked window.

My father eyes the upstairs window where I wait, still groggy.

He knows he needs to come in and make breakfast for the four children.

That his wife won’t be out of bed this morning – another bad night for her.

Lunches to be made as well.

While he scrambles the eggs he’ll be putting bologna on bread, a streak of mustard across the meat,

a dry slice of aging cheddar.

He’ll place pretzels in small plastic baggies. Grab us each a softening apple.

Yelling periodically for the older ones to get downstairs, to get their boots on, to get me dressed.

The phone rings: the office.

The long kinky green phone cord reaches across the kitchen where he wipes mustard from his tie,

throws a rag for someone to clean up the juice I spilled.

“No problem, chief,” he says to the boss as he kicks the dog out of his way. “I’ll be there.”

Heads back outside to wrestle more with his nemesis.

It reluctantly ignites,

Spews fumes into the frigid Jersey air.

Joe scrapes the ice from the windows and packs us in,

book bags, children, his worn down brief case.

He distributes chap-stick, brown lunch bags, advice.

Drives down the long rocky driveway,

the car sliding in the snow like a drunk.

left, right, then left.

He straightens it out and drives on, turns onto to the snow-quiet road.

He carries all his children, out to the winter day

View at Medium.com

Christmas Sweaters for Congress.

Bah humbug is too strong a word for my feelings about the holiday season. I don’t hate it, I just have a few things I enjoy and a whole lot about it I don’t.

Things that make the season palatable:

Hallmark movies. Stop judging. Actually, I don’t care — go ahead and judge. They’re terrible. And yet so easy to consume. No part of my psyche is challenged in any way. After an hour on Facebook, Instagram, and NPR, I sure as hell need a dose of “nothing about this is real” Hallmark escapism.

Secondly, I like the smell of pine. No judgement now, is there? We all like it. It’s probably an evolutionary DNA thing. Just a thought though- could we just bring a few bows into the house, not chop down thousands of trees? Maybe skip the massive amounts of useless presents underneath? We could still choose a day to gather around the pine boughs, preferably with a few friends and a nice bottle of wine. People who really like being with their families could meet them at church. The rest of us just need to find a cork screw…

Finally, the third thing I like about the holidays is this sweater a friend gave me a few years ago. It’s comfy. and classy — no shiny nosed reindeer or overweight man in red. Just an off white knit garment with the word “joy” in gold, written in pretty cursive handwriting (like they have in Catholic school). I mostly wear it because it matches everything and doesn’t itch, but also, I admit, with the hope that at some point the word might sink in.

If I wear the word “joy” for five out of seven days, all season, perhaps I’ll start to sparkle too? I’ve considered adding others sweaters to the mix, with this absorption theory in mind. “Energetic,” “Organized,” and “Party Girl” all come to mind as good options for me. Possibly, I could address my deeper concerns with sweater sayings. “Small Carbon Footprint” written in black recycled ribbon would be exciting. “Still Optimistic” in candy cane red -so cute, right?

Maybe I’ll send President Trump a Christmas Sweater! Picture the word “Compassionate” in the perfect shade of orange. Melania can have one too. Hers might say, “Actually, I do care.”

Perhaps the entire Senate needs Christmas sweaters by Joanell. “Honest,” “Strong Spine,” or “Got a conscience?” are just a few — off the top of my head. You all can weigh in with some other ideas. “Loves Babies even after they’re born!” “Listens to Women,” “I owe the NRA nothing!” Ah yes, the possibilities are endless.

I’m pretty sure I can sell a crap ton of these by Christmas. I’m off! Setting up the web-site, cutting a deal with Amazon, on the phone to China to get in on their cheapest fabrics with no regard to treatment of workers.

God bless us one and all, I’ve caught that Christmas Spirit!

I recently went on a yoga/writing/living retreat called On Being Human, run by the fabulous Jen Pastiloff.

 

Below is a piece I wrote, reflecting on this wonderful experience.  Photo credit for almost the photos goes to the amazingly talented Barbara Potter, retreat photographer.

 

On Retreating to Tuscany

In Florence, you walk and talk, eat and drink, until everything tight begins to let go. On the Ponte Vecchio it occurs to you for the first time that bridges are really meant to bring people closer. You decide that Aperol is underrated, believe you might start something new in this country that changes everything about you, and hope that it doesn’t hurt too much. You drop three coins into the receptacle in front of the Madonna statue, the change clinking loudly as you light a candle and wonder vaguely what else you could pray for, having arrived here.

In Tuscany, the skies are close. The stars swoop down and brush your cheek when you look up into the night. The red and violet streaks of sunset caress the faces of the women by the pool. The branches of the olive tree catch the early morning fog as it recedes over the thick green hills. Your soul skips over the horizon, gleeful, thrilled to finally see you again.

In retreat, you find your heart opens, bit by bit, until an almost uncomfortable gush of love floods out. Love pumps for everything – for the women you travel with, for your tender feet that traversed the miles of cobblestones, for the dog that pants loudly at your feet during meditation, for the ones you lost who hover nearby – gossamer spirits basking in the scent of lavender and burning wood.

In quiet moments, you lift your pen, but find it dry. You think of home, but can barely recall the declarations you made there. You stretch your neck, trying to sit tall as you meditate, but find the hammock calls to you instead. You wander down the road with the dog and find a creek of bliss, peace pooling at your feet. The hound leaps into the water with abandon. You cry.

Late at night, the wine flows, the chatter grows, you try to invent new ways to say I love you. You laugh so hard your ribs have to stretch wide in a gaping bone-grin, your full belly falling out like a secret you once found embarrassing. Someone rests her hand on your shoulder and you feel the connection down to your toes. I’ll hold on if you do.

In morning yoga your limbs reach up, grasping for understanding. Your toes sink down into the lessons you’ve learned, the Om of many women lifts your heart right from your body, a cardiac transcendence. You stand like a tree, hoping for balance. You giggle as you fall.

In Florence again, we part at the train station like a scene from a Greta Garbo movie. We stand awkwardly in the sun, sticky with sweat, gelato and tears. We press our lips to someone’s cheek, feel arms wrapped tightly around us. We imagine a way we might all meet again. We place one finger to our heart, one to the earth, and bind our souls with love.

We are thinking already of the miles and journeys before us: shaking trains, long walks, airports, taxis, memories, phone calls, missed connections, new connections, the hollowness of being alone again, the power of being known.   Our last wave goodbye is like a ripple in the sea moving across the water, our hearts caught in the current. We set out across the ocean of love, tied to one another, but freer than ever before.

 

 

I was thrilled to offer a guest post on this really beautiful blog today, about combating the stigma of mental illness through fiction writing.

Choices Blog, Madeline Sharples

Fiction: another way to erase stigma

My guest today, Joanell Serra, explores the idea of reducing the stigma of mental illness by openly describing the mental illnesses fictional characters experience. That is to say, being open and communicative about mental illness in fiction and/or real life helps reduce stigma and paves the way to recovery rather than hiding some pretty grotesque characters in corners as was done to Miss Havisham, in Charles Dickens Great Expectations.

“What’s Your Book About?”

I get this question a lot.

I know I’m supposed to have an elevator speech all lined up. At publishing conferences over the years, folks drilled this into me. “Know your pitch! Have your tag line ready!”
But I’m not a tag line sort of person. I’ve never told a story without a few detours, or answered an open ended question with yes or no. If writing were painting, I’d want to be George Seurrat -many tiny points making a tapestry. (See Seurat, above!)
The Vines We Planted is about people who love each other, but fail to do so without flaws. It’s about horses that give them solace, secrets that break hearts. It’s about how quickly depression can steal your will to live, and how healing takes place in surprising ways. It’s about Sonoma, about wine and food, and the intensity of the light in the vineyards on a perfect fall day.
Here’s the good news about being a pointillist writer (I just coined that phrase. What do you think?) Now that it’s time to promote the book, I have many options of the “angles” I can take. I’m being interviewed about mental illness, about horses as healers, about immigration in fiction, LGBTQ characters, and mother daughter relationships.
Wineries in Sonoma are opening their doors for readings, parties, and offering to carry the book. I’ve been invited onto a few podcasts, a videocast, and maybe (hopefully) will get some attention in the local paper. I’m visiting book clubs from Sacramento to New Jersey.
I hope to speak to groups who are working to reduce the stigma of mental illness, to adoptive parents about the joys and woes of being an adoptive family and to new writers about the path to publishing.
So, sorry for no elevator speech. This book reflects a lot of the issues I have lived through, but even more the ones I’ve witnessed as a mental health professional, a friend, and an ally. Those issues are complex and nuanced. We can’t always sum up life in the course of an elevator ride.
But we can try to talk it through over the course of a bottle of wine!

The Vines We planted is available now for pre-order here:

http://widopublishing.com/the-vines-we-planted-by-joanell-serra/

Print launch May 8!

E-book April 25th!
I’ll be announcing events and online interviews etc. here and on my Author Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/Joanellserrauthor/

But to really not missing anything, please join the mailing list!

Yours in writing,
Joanell

 

 

Jennifer Golick’s office held small toys, silly comics, stress balls and board games to put her clients at ease. She said things in a straight forward, I’m–not-kidding kind of way. At the same time she made folks feel people so at ease, they could hear the truth without being knocked down by it. She proudly showed off pictures of her daughter and husband, and evidence of her marathons completed. She laughed easily, which we both knew was absolutely necessary in our field of work, although few do it enough. She made me coffee with extra half and half, and hugged our dogs when I visited.

Jennifer was kind when speaking of her staff, but held people accountable. The boys she treated received the gift of a very wise and experienced clinician with a youthful spirit. The families were treated with respect, with an understanding that they were parents who were hurting, not failures, that raising teen boys is, ironically, like a marathon.  These folks had slipped and found themselves face down in the mud, but Jennifer was all about picking yourself up and brushing yourself off. And moving on.

When I heard the news on Friday that three social workers were being held hostage at a veterans home in Napa, a shiver went up my spine. You cannot do the work I’ve done and not considered this possibility – the angry ex-client, the schizophrenic off his meds, the teenager on meth. As therapists, we get in close to some of the darkest parts of anyone’s soul. We try to walk gingerly, to hold a candle not a spot light, and help the client shrink the shadows lurking there.

But inevitably, there are trip wires. There are spots too tender for a man to maintain his cool, there are secrets a woman is enraged you opened up. And often we are blamed.

It is a dangerous job, an often thankless one, and one in which there is little camaraderie or support. For the most part, few know the areas we traverse daily.

I watched the news on Friday, shocked and saddened when I heard all three hostages were murdered. And in the morning I saw that one was Jennifer. I had not even realized had shifted jobs to the veterans’ program.

I can’t begin to explain or understand the devastating loss her family is facing, the absolute horror they must be feeling, the anger and sadness. The hole she leaves will never be filled for her daughter, her husband, her family.

All I can speak to is my own experience. As an experienced family therapist myself, I find it hard to trust other providers. I know the tricks of the trade, know when they are in over their head, or bluffing.  But I trusted Jennifer. I trusted her intuitively, and that only built as we knew each other longer.  My tears flowed, as did my son’s, as we considered the reality of what transpired Friday, and the loss going forward.  As the atrocious gun violence continues, it shouldn’t be shocking that I know a victim. The numbers are so high, it feels almost inevitable. And that in itself is what is shocking.

The world lost a wonderful, committed, warrior on Friday, who shared her compassion and wisdom to help those who suffer. Lives end so quickly with a gunshot. There is not time to say “wait”, or “goodbye.”  I am grateful that my last email from Jennifer says, “Thank you Joanell, for your kind words.” I had written to her just to say thank you for her presence and focus when it was most needed.

I imagine an enormous welcoming party for Jennifer when she arrived on the other side. The relatives of the people she helped in her short time on earth would make a very large group. I have no doubt that she saved the lives of many of the boys she worked with, and lifted the hearts of their parents in painful circumstances. I pray we can go on with her work, caring for our youth and veterans, the sick and the lost, with her strength as a model in our hearts and minds.  That the painful ending does not over shadow her beautiful soul, and love for life.

Rest in Peace Jennifer, and God Bless your loved ones.

 

Last Thursday, I spent the day at Mt. Zion/UCSF Hospital, for a myriad of appointments (all fine. Diagnosis= aging.)  I’m a well experienced medical appointment attendee: my mother had a chronic illness from the time I was born until she passed when I was thirty, and my daughter also manages (with grace) a difficult chronic illness. In between the years I cared for one or the other, I chose to work for UCSF for five years, so as I wander the hallways, I am strangely at home.

One of my sisters hates hospitals to this day, after years of literally growing up in waiting rooms while my mother had one of her twenty surgeries. I kind of like them.

What?

I know, it’s a strange thing to admit. I think it is a combination of two things. One is enjoying competence – I can advocate like a roaring mama bear, find you something tasty and allergy free in the café, grab the most compelling magazine in the gift shop, and learn the nurse’s life story – possibly in Spanish – all in an afternoon.

Other people know how to navigate cities, political conversations, war zones, and zoning wars. I get hospitals.

The other reason I’m comfortable here, is hospitals have a mission: People are not well, and other people take care of them, and ideally, make them better. In our current socio-political climate, I appreciate the straight-forward purpose, as well as the quiet little spaces we chronic care-takers know.

In any case, I had four hours to kill here at UCSF Mt. Zion.

I settled into the garden area of the cancer center, after my time in the meditation room but before I cave and go buy a cookie and caffeine. A quilt hangs on the wall.  Each square has a nicely crafted symbol, made by various women who apparently attended a women’s health conference in 2006. Looking closer, I see it was hosted by the Center of Excellence in Women’s Health here at UCSF.

I smiled, because twenty-one years ago, I worked intensely for days to help write the grant to create this program. Clinton’s administration had decided to establish six Centers of Excellence in Women’s Health around the country, and I was tasked to help a team of physicians and administrators at UCSF who had decided to take on the proposal, a bear of a federal grant.

I came in to the process shy – I wasn’t a doctor or an administrator. I had been hired at UC as a new therapist a few years before. When I realized my position had an end date, I asked if I could take a crack at writing another grant, to keep the program going.  Four years later, about ten grants funded, I’d risen to a leadership role in a very small pond. But joining the team for this grant was wading into a much larger lake.

The head of OB/GYN wandered in and out of the conference room, encouraging us, as did the head of Psychiatry at one point, while I sat between a cardiologist and an amazing champion for women’s health, Dr. Nancy Milliken.

I frequently wondered how I had gotten to this table, but focused on writing with our small team. People said what they wanted the grant to be about, and we wrote it down. People said they needed this research incorporated, or that concept stressed, and we wrote it in. People’s impressive bios were sent to us in the middle of the night, and in the morning we were writing them in.

“What’s most important here? For women’s health – what matters most?” Dr. Milliken occasionally asked us. I kept looking over my shoulder to see who she was talking to. Me?  OB/Gyn services? Mental Health? Female Physicians, Women of Color in Research? This was a big mission.

What I remember most clearly is eating pizza very late at night, while nursing my six month old daughter, Casey. When I needed to write more, we passed the baby around the table. I had been in this room writing for most of each day for a week, going home to sleep for a few hours and see my four year old, then heading back. Nancy Milliken, then an Ob/Gyn, praised us all continually, but especially cheered me on for being the nursing mother/writer at the table. I told her I was certainly comfortable writing about the importance of mental health services for new mothers.

My daughter called my cell as I was admiring the quilt. She wanted to Face-time so I could see the snow blanketing her campus in Washington State. In turn, I showed her the quilt hanging at Mt. Zion.

“I was there for the first time we held this conference,” I told her. “I ran the teen health portion! I think it was 1996.”

“Awesome! Do you think they have internships available?”

(She is a college senior. All roads lead back to the imminent question of what will happen in May.)

I imagined her resume, already impressive, with this addition for the Center of Excellence application: I was the baby at the table twenty one years ago!

“I’ll check.”

I wondered if her career plan, to write about “Environmental, Immigration and Health Care Justice,” came from early childhood memories of grant-writing binges like that one.

I left for my next appointment, spirits buoyed.

On long writing days, when I wonder how I chose this particular vocation, and whether it makes any difference in the world, I need to remember this quilt.  To consider the Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, still going, which started as an idea, then words on paper. And a group of women, around a table, dreaming.

As so many wonderful things do.