{"id":3405,"date":"2015-09-01T12:52:54","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T19:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=3405"},"modified":"2015-11-07T10:58:01","modified_gmt":"2015-11-07T18:58:01","slug":"september-1-2015-my-donna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/september-1-2015-my-donna\/","title":{"rendered":"September 1, 2015 &#8211; My Donna"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fcbkbttn_button\">\n                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/plugins\/facebook-button-plugin\/images\/standard-facebook-ico.png\" alt=\"Fb-Button\" \/>\n                            <\/a>\n                        <\/div><div class=\"fcbkbttn_like \"><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/september-1-2015-my-donna\/\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\" layout=\"standard\"  width=\"225px\" size=\"small\"><\/fb:like><\/div><\/div><div id=\"attachment_3407\" style=\"width: 579px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Donna-and-me.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3407\" class=\" wp-image-3407\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Donna-and-me.jpg\" alt=\"Donna and me at my 50th birthday.\" width=\"569\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Donna-and-me.jpg 880w, https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Donna-and-me-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Donna-and-me-600x405.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Donna-and-me-200x135.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 569px) 100vw, 569px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3407\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donna and me at my 50th birthday.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Listen to this post:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3405-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/20150901-post.m4a?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/20150901-post.m4a\">http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/20150901-post.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>When I was 25 and making plans to marry my first husband, my mom asked me to go see a therapist named Donna. She wanted Donna to talk me out of marrying him. I was marrying an alcoholic and my mom was \u2013 understandably &#8211; pretty much beside herself, that I was choosing to spend the rest of my life like this. I don\u2019t remember anything about that session, except that she ended up connecting me to the musicians, who played at our wedding ceremony and for the dancing later \u2013 <em>and<\/em> she sang a torch song at our reception. So much for changing my mind! I\u2019m forever grateful to my Mama for bringing her into my life. I just talked to Donna on the phone yesterday, which has me reflecting who we are to each other and what she has meant in my life. I can\u2019t imagine how things would have turned out without my Donna.<\/p>\n<p>After the wedding it took me about seven years to circle back. Life had become unbearable and I needed help. It was an hour\u2019s drive to come see Donna, so I thought I\u2019d see if I could find someone close to home down near the San Francisco Airport. I was so alone in my emotional pain living there \u2013 and everyone around me was so asleep in their lives, there wasn\u2019t anyone to ask about a therapist, so I got this guy\u2019s name from the phonebook. One session, I did almost all the talking. I paid him $85 \u2013 a LOT of money back then &#8211; to have him tell me that he\u2019d see me again. Wait, what? No reflection, no encouragement, no nothing. So I made the drive to Marin to see Donna. She helped me find my way through the irrational, but <em>very real<\/em> fear that if I left my marriage I\u2019d die. It was she who helped me see that my panic attacks had a message for me. It was she who asked that day, 20 years ago in August, if I needed a break &#8211; which was the invitation to step through that door to leave. It was she who then told me after I did leave, not to take life one day at a time, but one <em>hour<\/em> at a time. It was she who helped me see my way through the loneliness, when I was single (I love being married.) Then later, it was she who first said I am a teacher.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s impossible to know how many hours I spent, on the salmon-pink velveteen couch in the little partially -underground room behind and beneath a house in Kentfield. I\u2019m so grateful it was <em>that<\/em> kind of space, rather than a generic office, with a doubled door and a waiting room filled with magazines outside. All those sessions, walking in knowing relief was on its way. All the time I spent in that room \u2013 the glimpses out the window through the wooden shutters at the \u201cFirst Prize\u201d rosebush, and the blue agapanthus, her fluid, lyrical watercolors on the walls, the candle flickering on the corner of the old oak desk. I was safe in that cocoon as I awoke, bit by loving bit, with her guidance and cut-through-the-murk clarity. I learned about the process of transformation in that room, by watching myself, my consciousness, grow and expand. Donna has always seen who I am to become \u2013 or who I have <em>always<\/em> been, but not had access to \u2013 before I could. She\u2019s held that vision <em>of<\/em> me, <em>for<\/em> me until I grew able to step up to claim and embody it.<\/p>\n<p>This past weekend, I had some emotional turmoil come up \u2013 relationship challenges. And my first impulse is still to call Donna. If I call her I know that I\u2019ll be heard and gotten, and will see how the situation ultimately serves me. She\u2019s done her work with me, such that I already know what she\u2019ll say and I can mostly conjure it up for myself. This weekend I was able to sit with the pit in my belly and my tears, witness myself and my pain much in the way she has for me over and over, for 28 years.<\/p>\n<p>Donna and I have spent wonderful times together, apart from that sweet space in Kentfield too: we share the watercolor journey and have taken a class or two together; my parents and I prepared all the food for when she and her sweet, funny Allan got married; she did my makeup and put gardenias in my hair when Joe and I got married. And we\u2019ve been to each other\u2019s milestone birthdays and many other family celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>My family is culturally Catholic and as such, I have Godparents who held me as a baby at my baptism. And I have a Goddaughter. When my brother and sister-in-law, Joe and Vernona, asked me to be their daughter Amanda\u2019s Godmother, I said of course, I\u2019d be honored. But then there was a real church ceremony! At her baptism, I was asked to promise that I\u2019d help them raise her as a Christian. Said like this, it seems like I\u2019m agreeing to make sure she\u2019s indoctrinated with the teachings of the church, which felt inauthentic and incomplete. I\u2019d not choose these words, so I consciously translated this promise for myself, privately, in my heart. In being Amanda\u2019s Godmother, I was agreeing to look after her spiritual well-being. I was going to care for her heart, her spirit, her inner-self. I\u2019d be a receptive place for her questioning and struggling \u2013 when she wanted and needed it.<\/p>\n<p>I appreciate this opportunity to re-define for myself, what being a Godmother means to me, because it\u2019s given me a way to hold who Donna is to me. It seems so inadequate to call her my \u201ctherapist\u201d after all this time \u2013 and for her to call me a \u201cclient.\u201d We call each other Spiritual Godmother, Spiritual Goddaughter. Though she didn\u2019t hold me as a baby at my baptism, I have in her what I hold as what a Godmother really is, in the most important and valuable way.<\/p>\n<p>She has two sons, but no daughters, so it\u2019s sweet to think that she holds me in a special way as I do her. I\u2019m certain that she has other long-time clients for whom she is <em>their<\/em> Donna. Remarkable people like Donna, are gifts to the world, to so many of us. I\u2019d never selfishly claim her as my very own! But I can claim who she is to <em>me<\/em>, and in <em>my<\/em> life as special and unique. She\u2019s my teacher and guide, my Spiritual Godmother, my sister Enneagram type-two; she\u2019s bawdy and lusty and girly-girl, just like me!<\/p>\n<p>Getting to mid-life gives us the opportunity to reflect on what has made up our life-so-far. There\u2019s still promise of more to come, but also enough traveled through to have collected treasures. Shining brightly in my collection is my Donna.<\/p>\n<p>My Donna, I thank you, I cherish you, I love you.<\/p>\n<p>Cara<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to this post: When I was 25 and making plans to marry my first husband, my mom asked me to go see a therapist named Donna. She wanted Donna to talk me out of marrying him. I was marrying an alcoholic and my mom was \u2013 understandably &#8211; pretty much beside herself, that I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>September 1, 2015 - My Donna - Life in Full Color<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/september-1-2015-my-donna\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"September 1, 2015 - My Donna - Life in Full Color\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Listen to this post: When I was 25 and making plans to marry my first husband, my mom asked me to go see a therapist named Donna. 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