You and No Other
A Memoir
Jane Weiss
Bonnie Zahn
Published by North Star Press at Smashwords
This work is a memoir. It reflects the authors’ experiences over a period of years. Certain names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed.
Copyright © 2010 Bonnie Marsh and Jane Morgan
ISBN: 0-87839-453-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-87839-453-1
All rights reserved.
“The Journey” from Dream Workby Mary Oliver. Copyright © 1986 by Mary Oliver.
Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
First Edition, July 2010
Electronic Edition, January 2012
Published by North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc. P.O. Box 451 St. Cloud, Minnesota 56302
www.northstarpress.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is dedicated to our incredible and cherished eight children, known in this book as:
Andrew, David, Edward, Erin, Lynn, Marie, Michael, and Moira.
PART I
Innocent Beginnings
(1980-1982)
Who Is That Woman?
Bonnie
1981
Mineapolis, Minnesota
President of the United States: Ronald Reagan
Vice President of the United States: George Bush, Sr.
I was thirty-eight years old, had been married almost thirteen years, and my husband and I had four children. Then I met the love of my life.
I entered the hospital cafeteria somewhat later than usual for our group’s morning coffee. There was the routine assortment of hospital breakfast fare: scrambled powdered eggs, blackened bacon, unbuttered spongy toast, pancakes with fake maple syrup, bagels, fresh fruit, juices, coffee, and tea. Anxious patients’ families quietly made their food selections and congregated around isolated tables, speaking in hushed tones. Hospital staff wearing street clothes or uniforms of white, green, burgundy, brown, or blue carried on spirited conversations with cafeteria workers before making their way to tables, where others in like-colored attire were already gathered. Light banter provided welcome relief from the serious work of patient care, and occasional, spontaneous laughter echoed from table to table.
Seated around our table was the usual gang from Education Services and Public Relations. We were the folks who gathered for coffee while direct caregivers were getting reports, serving breakfasts, starting morning treatments, and, therefore, unavailable for non-patient purposes, such as socializing. After toasting a bagel, grabbing packets of cream cheese and orange marmalade, filling a cup with coffee, and adding a dollop of skim milk, I headed for my familiar group at our usual table.
Pulling out a chair at one end, I noticed a newcomer seated midway down the table. She appeared fortyish, wearing a sparkling-white silk blouse, navy linen skirt, and a snappy navy blazer with gold buttons. Her ready smile was the stuff of toothpaste commercials. Soft brunette curls fell across her forehead, and along her cheeks and neck. She was soft-spoken when answering questions, but mostly, she simply smiled or laughed at the group’s verbal antics.
“Who is that woman?” I whispered to Pam, seated next to me. I already had a healthy respect for my intuition, and something inside me was saying, “Notice, notice.”
“Her name is Jane Weiss,” Pam said quietly. “She’s the new gal in Public Relations. She was hired to create a weekly staff newsletter, marketing brochures—that kind of stuff. She must be pretty savvy, ’cause Robin said she was picked out of a whole slug of applicants. Today’s her first day.” Catching Jane’s attention, Pam announced, “Jane Weiss, meet Bonnie Zahn, director of Education Services.”
“Welcome to Methodist Hospital,” I said, leaning around the three or four folks between us. “Good to meet you.”
Jane Weiss ,I said to myself. Then again, Jane Weiss. After more than two decades, I can still replay the scene in my mind as if it just occurred.
Let’s Do Lunch
Over the next several weeks, I only saw or talked with Jane at morning coffee. Nonetheless, I soon began looking forward to seeing her each workday and, if for some reason she wasn’t there, I was disappointed. When the Education Department needed her help to announce ideas submitted for a cost-reduction campaign in the hospital weekly, I grabbed the chance to meet with her on a routine basis. Still, at times other than our formal meetings, I simply found myself headed for her office with hastily made-up reasons to consult with her. I hadn’t done something like that since I was a teen attempting to covertly flirt with my current crush. And after several months of group conversations or business talk, I knew I wanted to know more about her personally.
“Would you ever be interested in having lunch one day?” I impulsively asked at the end of one of our weekly meetings. Good grief. I couldn’t believe my underarms were sweaty just getting up courage to ask the question.
“Sure, I’d enjoy that. What day would work for you?”
I was amazed at my own delight and relief. From those first moments in one another’s company, we delved instantly into deep conversation about husbands, children, past experiences, and other things that mattered to us.
“So . . .” I launched right in at our first lunch. “How long have you and Charles been married, and what does he do?”
“About eighteen years now—I was such a child bride, don’t you know?” she chuckled. “And we have four kids—the boys, Michael and Andrew, are sixteen and fourteen; and the girls, Lynn and Marie, are fifteen and ten. Charles is marketing director for a division of Western Banks, but he’s not very satisfied there—or maybe with his lot in life in general, for all I know. How about you and Brian? What’s his work?”
“Let’s see—we’ve been married thirteen years, and we have four children, too. Our first son, Edward, was two and a half when we adopted David, then eight years old, and Moria, sixteen months. Our little surprise daughter, Erin, came along six years later. Now the kids are two and a half to sixteen years old. Brian’s a coordinator of Special Education at a Minneapolis high school, but at this point, I know he’d rather be doing anything else.” An hour’s lunch was quickly consumed in story moments about our spouses.
On another occasion, as we walked outside around the hospital property, Jane asked, “Are you doing your heart’s work here, or will there be something else in your future?”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way, I guess. I’m thirty-eight, and right now, this education director job seems like a perfect fit for me. I have a master’s in nursing, and my minor is in educational psychology. This position uses all that expertise, so it just feels right. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in it. I do need to do new things regularly, though. So who knows? How about you? What’s it been like to start back to work full time with four kids at home?”
“Well, I broke into it gradually, what with being back in college the last two years, finishing my bachelor’s degree—I’d only had a nursing diploma, not a BSN. And I had done nursing part time in physicians’ offices and long-term care facilities before that. But, yes, this has been a big adjustment for all of us. Charles isn’t really home all that much and, frankly, I don’t know that at some point I won’t need to support the kids and myself. So I’ve got to figure out a way to make all this work.”
Red flags shot up in my mind with her last statements, but I tucked them away for a later conversation. And so, another hour took wings as we spoke of our futures and fears as working women, wives, and mothers. The ease of being with her and the utter fascination with her stories compelled me to ensure subsequent—preferably weekly—scheduled social times.
I arose the morning of our next lunch meeting feeling warm all over— until the thought struck me that Jane never initiated setting the next lunch dates. Was I overly preoccupied with her? Should I test whether my interest in her was reciprocated?
“Why don’t you let me know when you want to do this again?” I finally said, carefully and clearly, at the end of one of our lunches, just as I had silently practiced many times.
“I will,” she answered, and I was convinced my worries were silly.
The next week, Jane was absent from work on Monday and Tuesday, reportedly due to a mild flu. I saw her briefly at coffee on Thursday, but otherwise we had no conversation. I missed her but thought the week had simply been an aberration, and soon we’d get back into our old pattern. The following week repeated the prior—except this time, I was out of work for two days at an educational conference, and only saw Jane once in passing. She said she was facing deadlines, and did not have time for coffee.
Then it was three weeks, and four, and still no invitation from Jane. I was chagrined and somewhat embarrassed that I had invested far more into our relationship than Jane had. I figured she must have felt liberated at not being asked to spend that kind of time with me. Though disappointed and hurt, I pretended nothing was wrong and appeared nonchalant when meeting with her around business or seeing her in the group at coffee.
One day, as she and I were the last stragglers out of the cafeteria, I mustered my courage and said. “I’ve missed our lunches and walks.”
“Oh, so have I! How long has it been? Did I say something that upset you?”
“Heavens, no! I asked you to let me know when you wanted to have lunch again, and you never did.”
“But I thought that was just your way of saying you weren’t particularly interested in continuing. Besides, as a staff person, I really didn’t feel comfortable asking a department director to lunch.”
“You can’t be serious. I’ve worried that our conversations were too intense, or that I was monopolizing your time or something . . .”
Smiling, we scheduled our next lunch date, and I floated through the rest of the day, elated that I hadn’t alienated Jane. I’d be careful going forward, and bridle my intensity—just in case.
For Better, Or Not?
By midwinter, I had known Jane about eight months, and being with her was natural and effortless, especially when talking about personal issues and concerns. I was used to such ease with friends, since over the years, I generally had one or two “best” friends (female), and then a larger ring of “next best” friends (male and female). From my earliest memory, relationships were incredibly important to me. But my friendship with Jane seemed deeper than any of those others. I was struck by the contrast between this friendship and my relationship with my husband, Brian. Shouldn’t marriage be the place where two individuals could most easily and authentically be themselves? Where each could be vulnerable without fear of reprisal? Where deep fears could surface and be safely explored? All this was taken for granted in Jane’s and my relationship. My marriage felt entirely different.
Brian and I said our “I do’s” in August 1967, following my first year of graduate school at the University of Minnesota. I was convinced, after extensive dating, that he was the one I wanted to spend my life with and create a family. I loved him deeply, if not passionately. Seven years earlier, he and I were voted male and female “Best Leaders” by our high school graduating class, and as we stood shoulder to shoulder for yearbook picture-taking, there were wagers among classmates that we would end up together as a couple. Following somewhat circuitous routes to that destination, we finally fulfilled the prophecy. We had been married thirteen and a half years.
But, of late, there had been something between us. Finally, I confronted him as we got ready for bed. I just had to know where his head was. “Brian, when are we going to talk through what’s been going on the last couple of weeks?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, since the evening we were at Lori and Bob’s, you’ve barely spoken to me, let alone touched me. What did I do?”
He didn’t meet my eyes. “Who said you did anything?”
“Well, there must be some reason you’re not talking to me.” I didn’t learn anything more, at least not at that point.
Within our first year of marriage, I knew that Brian’s and my styles of communication and managing differences of opinion were polar opposites. I needed to talk through problems to some decent resolution, while Brian withdrew into silence and distanced himself from me, sometimes for days. When I tired of having to be the peacemaker and likewise withdrew from him, the silence often extended for two or three weeks. That also meant no physical intimacy. Many times, I had no idea why he was angry or upset. Periodically, we also shared warm, intimate times, but our differences became more pronounced as our lives grew more complex.
“Brian, I think I’m going to approach my boss about doing leadership development classes for department heads. Of course, that means the administrators would have to come to them, too; otherwise, the department heads won’t take them seriously. But I’m not sure how to get the president’s commitment that he’ll require the administrators’ participation.”
I was thinking and talking out loud, just to hear my own logic.
Surprisingly, Brian was listening, and answered, “Aren’t you ever content in your job? Why do you always have to be starting something new and creating more challenges for yourself ?”
“Because I need to keep growing. I get bored doing the same old things. You haven’t been very fulfilled in your teaching job lately, either. Maybe if you made some changes, you’d feel better, too.”
“We’ve been over this before. There’s nothing more for me to do when I only have a bachelor’s degree.”
“Then why don’t you finish your dissertation? Then you could put the Ph.D. behind your name and pursue any job you’d want.”
Brian had gone straight from his bachelor’s degree to Ph.D. study, without formally completing a master’s degree, though he had finished all required coursework for his Ph.D.
While this was very logical in my mind, it didn’t sit well with Brian at all. “Don’t start that again, Bonnie. I’m not up to it.”
And so most of our conversations went. At regular intervals, I asked if we could see a counselor together, but he refused.
After children came along, Brian and I spent precious little time alone together, except for an occasional evening when we could afford a babysitter. Years passed, and we seemed to grow farther apart.
“The annual department head Christmas dinner is next Thursday, Brian. Don’t forget.”
“Why do you want to drag me to those things? I’m a teacher. You know I’m not comfortable around all those medical people.”
“For heaven’s sake, why not? You have more years of education than most of them.”
“I just feel second class around all of you, and when you start talking about the work you do, I don’t even understand what you’re saying.”
“How about just asking us?”
“Because then someone will ask what I do, and ‘I’m a teacher’ sounds so trite.”
Brian had been a well-liked and highly respected high school social studies teacher in Missouri before we married. From the time we first met in second grade, he had grown from an adorable, curly red-haired Cub Scout (and every teacher’s pet), into a handsome, trim, muscular man (and many a young female student’s heartthrob). Except for the hiatus of his Ph.D. study in Special Education, he had taught high school from his college graduation in 1964. After graduate study, he had become the Special Education coordinator for his school, and implemented several successful innovative programs for getting and keeping special needs kids academically engaged. By any standard, he was a capable, accomplished professional.
Yet as time wore on, it seemed Brian felt diminished by my work accomplishments. As a result, I stopped talking about them and closed off yet another portion of myself to him.
Though the lack of intimacy in our marriage was disturbing to me, Brian was a good father and loyal family man. Sometimes, when we were in the midst of another morbid stretch of silence, I contemplated—and even brought up— ending the marriage. But divorce was virtually nonexistent in my family, even among four grandparents, seven aunts and uncles, and twenty cousins. If we divorced, I had nowhere to go and no idea how I’d manage the kids alone. Thus divorce discussions inevitably resulted in promises to do better—which we both did, until the next episode of silence.
After Erin’s birth in 1978, Brian and I were even more diverted from attending to our marriage, as we grappled with the complexities of raising a newborn, two grade-schoolers, and a high school student. We just kept on keeping on, together—along with our work and as parents of our four children.
Let the Journals Begin
By the spring of 1981 I’d known Jane ten months, and our friendship had settled into a deep, abiding reverence for one another. I was awed by her gentleness, beauty, sensitivity, and spiritual connectedness. The bond between us grew stronger with each interaction. By all indications, she felt equally connected to me. So I was stunned in early March when she confided she was considering leaving Methodist in June, after only a year on staff, because she thought she wanted to get into marketing—or so she said. Her message hit me all the harder, knowing she gave one-hundred-fifty percent to anything she did. I couldn’t imagine she’d find time for me again, with a new job and consuming family obligations.
I felt real despair and berated myself for allowing deep feelings to develop for someone I’d known for such a short time. It seemed to me that our relationship couldn’t be all that important to her, if she was considering leaving a job that provided our only contact. But try as I might, I couldn’t talk her out of it.
My confusion regarding who Jane was to me heightened yet again, as I tried to understand why her impending job change left me feeling so abandoned. I couldn’t let her see how deeply affected I was by her decision. I simply couldn’t. Instead, I rallied the Education Department staff around giving Jane a whiz-bang send-off on her last day. We filled her office with colorful balloons and signs. Outside her window, placards were lowered from the balcony above, saying how much she would be missed. We asked her to bring a report to the Education Department and surprised her with a farewell cake and coffee. And one last time, I invited her to a late lunch. I suspected that maintaining my composure might be a struggle, and I needed to steel myself against her excitement for what was next in her life.
I wasn’t prepared for what actually transpired during lunch. After what was mostly small talk, Jane reached into a shopping bag on the floor by her chair. She pulled out a gift-wrapped package, handed it to me, and said it was something very important to her. As I unwrapped a flower-and-leaf-patterned, cloth-covered blank journal, she again reached into the bag and produced another exactly like it.
Placing the journals side by side, she said, “Our relationship and conversations have become essential to me, and I can’t imagine being without them. I bought these journals so we each could write anything we’d like to talk about with each other. Then we could schedule lunches to share our thoughts. This way, I would still feel connected to you and to all the growing I’ve done the last year. Can we do that?”
I was right. Maintaining composure was a struggle. Was Jane really indicating that her leaving Methodist would be as difficult for her as it was for me? And that she was creating the means for us to maintain contact? Whoopee! I could not have been more delighted. My first journal entry read:
Will write in my new journal with my new Mother’s Day pen from the kids—a combination that ought to provide for the capturing of profound thoughts!
So why, just because a relationship changes, do I feel vulnerable again?
How will my relationship with Jane change when she’s not at Methodist daily? Why does that change seem so important to me?
Anne Lindbergh says in A Gift from the Sea, “Nothing is permanent, and only God is forever.” Also, “We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.” Maybe this is all just another lesson along the road.
Oh, yes, talk to Jane about processing/closing relationships.
Watch Out for That One!
Jane
My heart quickened to the energetic click-clickof Bonnie’s high-heeled shoes. As she approached, the familiar sound increased in volume and reverberated through the narrow corridor, which ended in my office. I smiled at the thought of her assertively striding up to my desk, as she usually did.
“Sounds like Bonnie Zahn, doesn’t it, R.K.?”
“You’d better watch out for that one,” my office mate shot back at me in hushed tones. “She’ll just keep trying to get you to do more of her work.” R.K., a senior public relations writer, was overly attentive to how I spent my time as a new staff person. Writing updates for Bonnie’s quality improvement project was not high on R.K.’s priority list. Despite her opinion, I decided it was most appropriate for the employee newsletter to cover the hospital cost-reduction campaign the Education Department was spearheading. After all, I had been hired to develop and write copy for the new Monday newsletter, and article selection was my responsibility and prerogative.
Bonnie had become an important part of every day. Over the past six months, we conferred weekly for me to gather the latest news for update articles about her program’s progress. I saw her daily when our two departments met for morning coffee break. On occasion, she invited me to lunch, where just the two of us fell into effortless conversation about intimate aspects of our lives, which surprised, pleased, and even flattered me. She didn’t seem to notice that I was in an entry position, while she sat on the top-level administrative policy committee. And I tried not to notice. Adding to my delight about our growing friendship, hospital workers often confused us, stopping one or the other of us in the hallways to give a message meant for the other. Perhaps our energy or intensity was similar, even though our physical appearance was not.
What’s more, Bonnie encouraged me in my work, saying I was “unconsciously competent,” an expression she interpreted as a person who knows how to do the right things without being aware of her capabilities or without having been taught to do them. I thrived on and was amazed at her support. I had such a deep hunger to know who else I was. Bonnie seemed able to “see” all the parts of me like no other, and articulate what she observed in a sensitive and credible-to-me way.
This job opened up a whole new life for me—the new life I had prayed for. And to think I almost decided to not even apply for it!
Graduating from college the previous June (at age forty), I hadn’t wanted to begin working immediately. My four children, ages ten to sixteen, would be out of school for the summer, and although Grandma Seltz—close neighbor, dear friend, and babysitter extraordinaire—could hold down the fort, I wasn’t at all sure I was ready to take the plunge into a real job. While I hadn’t worked full time outside my home since our first child was born, I sensed that having to fulfill the obligations of a bona fide workplace position would inexorably change my priorities and require a difficult adjustment for all of us.
The last two years of schoolwork to finish a bachelor’s degree had fit fairly well around my family’s needs. I was off summers and holidays. My class and study hours coincided with theirs, and I found I still had enough energy to manage the kids’ requirements and some of their requests, as well as the household chores. Only entertaining and tending friendships had suffered. But my husband, Charles, was more than content to socialize at the country club and, for me, friendships had always taken third place after my family and home duties were fulfilled.
Compounding my concerns about attempting to enter the workforce, I was concerned that I hadn’t developed a strong skill set in any specific area to be able to compete for a position. The non-traditional degree I cobbled together with my student advisor had a concentration in Public Relations, but also included a smattering of marketing, literature, and a little journalism. I had confessed this fear to one of my professors, and his comment was, “No one is ever ready. You just have to take the leap.” But as a middle-aged woman who would probably be starting in an entry-level position, I felt great pressure to be successful.
Nevertheless, during the last two weeks of my six-month internship at the University of Minnesota’s Public Relations’ office, my supervisor said I must apply for this great position at Methodist Hospital. She knew the person hiring for the Public Relations staff writer position, and that it had been open for two months. They still hadn’t hired anyone. She thought I’d be perfect for the job, and she gave me an excellent reference. Public relations positions were hard to find, so it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe waiting ’til fall wouldn’t be wise. I’d lose the momentum I’d built up in school. And I was afraid of falling back into old patterns of being completely absorbed in my family’s needs, so much so, that I would lose myself again—I was even more fearful of that than applying for a job I felt under-qualified for.
So, in the midst of studying for finals, preparing a graduation speech to address my University of Minnesota Class of 1980, and finishing a major article for the University Hospital’s newsletter, I talked to Charles about applying for the position at Methodist. He encouraged me and agreed that I should at least interview. To my amazement, from over two hundred applicants and thirty-plus interviews, I was hired to start June 30—just two weeks after graduation—as staff writer in the Public Relations Department at Methodist Hospital. The start date unfortunately precluded any summer vacation trip with the kids. Even so, I was elated—and terrified.
And there, on the first day of my new job, I met Bonnie Zahn.
There was something special about Bonnie. She was gregarious, articulate, vivacious, wise, and made anyone feel comfortable in her presence. I was fascinated by how perfectly she presented herself. From her stylish hairstyle, down to her polished shoes, she epitomized the classic “dressed for success” attractive woman executive. Professionally, her pioneer accomplishments over the past ten years in the Twin Cities had earned her the reputation as “Grand Dame of Hospital Education.” In her personal life, she read voraciously, had a deep faith, sang in a women’s chorus, and exercised regularly, even as she parented four children with her husband, Brian. Unknowingly, I was setting up Bonnie to be my role model, as I endeavored to reinvent or at least expand upon who I wanted to be in this next phase of my life.
I’m certain I needed the deep level of support Bonnie offered me to offset the stress I was feeling. For I continued to, and wanted to, caretake my family as I always had, in spite of having ten fewer hours in the day to clean, wash, cook, shop, and carpool. My job became a respite where I could focus on only two or maybe three things at once, but my fear level about producing and sustaining acceptable work created a high level of anxiety. Despite these pressures, I was being singled out and rewarded for my efforts. The Monday newsletter exceeded circulation projections. My supervisor submitted the newsletter and a feature article I authored to a national trade association, and both won industry awards.
But the greatest and most unforeseen benefit to working at Methodist was the quality of women friendships I was developing for the first time in my adult life. The camaraderie, laughter, attention, and admiration from my coworkers created a soft container in which I felt safe enough to continue taking risks in my work, and begin to appreciate and explore more of myself.
Alone Together
Without consciously comparing how I felt at work, and especially with Bonnie, I was becoming acutely aware of how unseen and alone I was in my marriage. This was not the first time I felt this way. Charles and I had struggled to reach a satisfactory level of communing for most of our married life.
I met Charles when I was in my second year of nursing school in Chicago, just two days before he had to report to Army boot camp. Our courtship was a series of disappointments. My expectations, typical for that time, were to have a Doris Day-type romance come true: A tall, dark, and handsome, potentially successful man would think I was beautiful, fall madly in love with me, sweep me off my feet with kindness, respect, and caring, and beg me to marry him. In sharp contrast, a clipping Charles had taped to his Blue Ford coupe’s rear view mirror when we were dating reflected his expectations.
“When I was one and twenty,
I heard a wise man say
Give ounces and pounds and guineas,
But not your heart away.”
A.E. Hausman, 1896
Nevertheless, after a four-year, on-again-off-again long-distance relationship, we married in June 1962—against my parent’s wishes and, consequently, with no financial support from them for our wedding. I was twenty-two, and Charles was twenty-nine.
“I can’t believe you’re going to go through with this.” Mother was exasperated that Charles showed up fifteen minutes late for our wedding.
“He was so absorbed in the Kutztown Folk Festival, that he lost track of time,” I quickly added.
“You’ve made excuses once too often for your not being important in his life. You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“Mother, please let it go . . . at least today.” A wave of tiredness swept over me at having to manage her insecurities, as well as my own.
They didn’t believe Charles loved me and, as I would be moving from Pennsylvania to Chicago to live, they were afraid of how I might be treated in the absence of nearby family. I felt that we needed to experience life together, for better or worse.
Our first five years of marriage were jam-packed with thrill and momentum, created by new experiences. Three of our four children were born during this period. I eagerly and dutifully took on this full-time mothering role, ensuring our babies were well cared for and loved. We were involved in the fundamentalist Christian church Charles had grown up in—even singing hymn duets when asked during church services. Charles’s job, earning a master’s degree, and community commitments fully occupied his waking hours. And so, the foundation of our marriage roles was laid early on. The children, house management, and entertaining his family and our friends became solely mine, while Charles was our arm into the world, separately and autonomously developing his career.
Despite my intense busyness, I began to recognize an emptiness in our relationship. I had thought conceiving and raising children together would create an emotional bond between us.
“Could you stay home tonight?” I asked. “You’ve been gone nearly all week again.”
“A four-room apartment is no place to be able to talk, let alone think. Besides, I’ve promised J.T. I’d beat him at a game of gin.”
I hesitated, and then blurted out, “Charles, do you still love me?”
Before he responded, I knew he’d say what he’d always said when I dared to ask where his loyalties were: “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Charles seemed to think that assuming the role of provider was sufficient involvement and contribution towards our relationship. We didn’t develop a true partnership, where we worked together. However, with each child’s birth, a renewal of my spirit resulted in a recommitment to give my best to nurture our growing family.
Upon Charles’s graduation from Northwestern University in 1967, he accepted a position with Western Bank, and we moved from Chicago to a rental home in St. Paul, Minnesota. I soon discovered that the isolation from family, friends, our church, and even Charles—as he traveled extensively in his new job—the rigors of managing three children under four years old by myself, and my inability to understand that I could not keep giving without tending to my own needs propelled me into emotional turmoil.
My subsequent depression and a short affair with a neighbor shook me to my core. I believed marriage and motherhood had deemed me whole and good, but this incident left me feeling deeply stained and sinful—a familiar feeling from my childhood. In a desperate attempt to relieve my self-disgust and now suicidal thoughts, and to determine how to manage my depression, I voluntarily decided to submit to psychotherapy—not a common practice in those days. Although my short-term therapy was somewhat helpful, this period could have been a time for Charles and me to deepen our understanding of each other. Instead, the affair and my responses to it were buried in silence, along with the rest of his and my needs. We didn’t speak of divorce, although he coldly distanced himself even more.
In 1969, we relocated to Eagan, a suburb a few miles west of St. Paul, Minnesota. The diversion of building a new home and moving took precedence in our lives. I was energized by the opportunity for a fresh start in a brand new neighborhood, and a chance to redeem myself by proving to Charles that I was a good wife and mother. Marie’s arrival in 1970 should have been a clear statement that I had chosen to continue to invest myself in this family of four beautiful, healthy children. I prayed that Charles felt that way, too.
However, when Charles’s salary reached a level where we could manage the expense, he eagerly joined the Minikahda Golf Club, and was absent from the family even more. To compensate for his inattentiveness, I continued to put my children’s needs first, leaving little time for building support for me outside our home.
Awakening
In 1976 at age thirty-six, I reached another emotional crisis point. It seemed related to cumulative years of resentment for being alone in our marriage and feeling unloved, disillusionment with my self-negating life and its lack of rewards, and a shift in my children’s dependence upon me. Over a two-year period, my companionship and close involvement with my three oldest kids (Michael, Lynn, and Andrew) was drastically reduced, as they one after the other entered their teen years and began the horrible—but essential—task of separation and individuation. Even little Marie began to withdraw. I didn’t understand why. Perhaps her intuition was guiding her to a safe place in preparation for changes she sensed in me.
I clearly remember the day when, with all the children at school, I sat alone in our living room and cried out to God to help me change my life. In my journal, I wrote:
My larger self is compressed into a small corner, unbidden by anyone, and unused. I’m in great pain from the limitations I’ve placed on myself. I feel empty, alone, and unconnected to any higher purpose for my life. God help me change my life and make it worthwhile for myself and for others. Or let me cease to exist.
From this dark place of surrender, rather than sinking into depression as I had earlier in my married life, this period was an awakening, an epiphany during which I turned to God to redirect my life. Over the next few months, I emerged with a desire to return to school to prepare myself for a career, an occupation that would hopefully create a more visible, respected place for me. And although I didn’t understand this then, I was one of hundreds of women in my era who were bursting out of the self-, church-, and society-confining roles of wife and mother, and desperately seeking how to fit into the world— how to create their place in society. I couldn’t look to my mother, or her generation, for role models to make this an easy transition.
I recall only three times when Mother ventured out into the world to accomplish something on her own: once to work a year in Burton’s Dress Shop, once to work three years in Whitner’s Department Store personnel office during a period when Dad was laid off, and once to serve a term as PTA president for Pine Forge Consolidated grade school. Most of her days were absorbed with solitary activities such as sewing, reading, and decorating our home. My father took over her mother’s role when he and Mother married, and he was chief cook, bottle washer, and shopper. Mother reveled in this relationship, and often said to me, “I just hope you find and marry someone just like your father to take care of you.”
Despite this patterning—and maybe in defiance against it—within three years after my “awakening,” I met my goals of completing a degree, finding a job to launch a career, and finding recognition and deep friendships in my workplace. However, I knew that my relationship with my husband had not changed significantly. Charles was still spending most of his evenings and weekends at the club—at least, that’s where he said he was. I was simply diverted from focusing on his absence or depending on him for companionship or help with managing our family.
Periodically, I was overwhelmed with the responsibilities I carried at home and at work, and wondered how long I could continue to keep up the strenuous sixteen-hours-a-day pace. I was also fearful that one day, Charles would decide he no longer wanted to be married. If I felt increasingly disconnected from him, why wouldn’t he feel the same? How was he meeting his needs?
As an unexpected gift in the midst of these looming anxieties, I had begun an intense exploration of New Age spirituality. I raised lots of questions about what I needed in order to be less fearful, more self-reliant, and happy; and I struggled with reconciling my childhood faith and New Age teachings, and what I required to feel more complete and whole—a search I had been on my entire life.
I was raised, as my parents had been, in the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church, a fundamentalist, God-fearing group of believers. As a child, I was taught and believed that I was bad, sinful from birth, and needed to invite Christ into my heart to save me from going to hell. After I asked Christ in, I needed only to listen and obey His still, small voice to be able to “walk righteously,” be favored by God, and go to heaven. I recall feeling doomed to hell because even though I had invited Christ in, I couldn’t hear His voice. But I didn’t give up trying to hear, despite my mother’s insistence that I was purposefully disobeying. As a teenager, my efforts toward achieving God’s favor were to attend church whenever its doors were open, and to respond to the redemptive, sin-cleansing “altar call” nearly every time it was offered from the pulpit. But because I could not connect to God in the manner my church espoused, I pretended to, which made me feel ashamed, inadequate, and deceitful.
After high school, my mother and I chose a nursing school affiliated with Evangelist Billy Graham’s citadel Wheaton College, so she could be assured that I would remain under the guiding influence of “Bible-believing” Christians. While there, although I longed for a relationship with God, I lessened my expectations for ever achieving it, and instead tried to comply, as much as humanly (and that was always the problem) possible, with the laundry list of Christ-like conduct and expectations.
After Charles and I married, we attended church fairly regularly for the first ten years, until he took up golf with evangelistic fervor. Annoyed at him, and not wanting to manage our four young children by myself every Sunday morning, I sporadically took them to church, until a neighborhood Baptist Church initiated Sunday school bus service. I eagerly gave up the responsibility, but dutifully told myself that I would park the children at this church until I could find a new church home, one that met my emerging needs for a less legalistic approach to God.
Finally, in 1978, I found Burnsville Covenant Church, a social action-minded flock, led by a philosophical humanist who pushed hard against narrow dogma from the pulpit, to my delight. It became our family church. The influence of this pastor—and several professors, during the two years completing my bachelor’s degree at the university—helped to expand my understandings and integrate new beliefs about my own essence, and also about the nature of God. I was beginning to understand that God was within me, rather than an external entity; and that as God was within, I was created in His image, rather than being born sinful. I also learned that I had the capacity to create and, with patience, optimism, and persistence, I could accomplish whatever I needed— in physical form, or mentally.
Eventually, through a self-study of women’s literature, I discovered the beauty and strength of the feminine spirit, as revealed through writings by Willa Cather and May Sarton. In Virginia Woolf ’s Room of One’s Own, I connected with the ancient plight of women to find and make a place for the feminine in society. I questioned why all references to God were male; could God instead be androgynous?
With still so much sorting to do, I often found great relief in talking and sometimes crying with Bonnie, as she listened with an open, non-judgmental heart. In a book she had given me, called When Lovers Are Friends, I underlined: “Some say loneliness is a condition of the soul, but I think it is a yearning to be understood—and that means when we are bad, as well as when we’re good. We all need friends who are there in our less-than-perfect times, as good friends in our pain and in our joy.”
There was a sharp contrast between her understanding and championing of me, and Charles’s indifference toward me. Her friendship assuaged my loneliness; her friendship encouraged me to become friends with myself. I had never before trusted anyone more than I came to trust Bonnie.
Leaving Methodist
So, given the importance of Bonnie’s and my relationship, I’m not certain why I decided to write a letter of resignation from Methodist, a full three months before my last day and first year anniversary. Did I want to leave while I was at the top of my game? Was I afraid that I would be found out—that I had experienced beginner’s luck, and it would run out? I knew I was tired of the tyranny of weekly copy deadlines. And I was worried about how seventy-seven-year-old Grandma Seltz would manage three teenagers and a ten-year-old by herself another summer. This might be the last summer Michael would want to be part of a family vacation, as next summer he would be preparing for college. Would I regret not having time to make this happen?
All these factors played into my decision, but the most profound motivation was that, after months of expressing to Bonnie my deepest longings and fears, I had awakened a part of me that had long been asleep. I now desperately needed to stop my frenetic “doing” to quiet my mind long enough to hear my emerging inner voice. Even though I was afraid of what that voice would say, I realized I had to go deeper to listen.
I had rarely kept a journal prior to leaving Methodist Hospital. The inspiration to reinitiate writing came from a need to keep the momentum of my inner growth moving forward—growth that seemed to have been fostered primarily by Bonnie’s and my workplace friendships.
On my last day and my last hour at the hospital, I climbed the familiar stairs to her office and knocked gently on her door. I wasn’t sure she’d be there, because she had been quite busy all day, staging surprises for me—balloons in my office, signs at my window, a going-away gathering.
“Come on in.” She swung around in her high-backed leather chair to greet me and smile as I entered.
“Are you free to talk for a few minutes?”
“Of course. Have you been enjoying your day?” She burst out laughing. “My staff and I have had a ball!”
“I feel well loved, and am thoroughly enjoying the send-off. Now, will you promise to write in your journal what we won’t be able to share in a day— the events, questions we want to ask about our spiritual journeys, ideas . . . ?” My voice trailed off as I saw her starting to tear up. I walked over and hugged her. “Then we’ll just have to set a regular lunch date and share what we’ve written for the week. What say you?”
We had created this amazing space in our friendship for rich dialogue.
It felt like my lifeline—one that I dare not release. The question I couldn’t even form then about why I was leaving was: Could I be afraid of Bonnie, and what she was becoming to me? Even though many at Methodist had become special to me, Bonnie was the one to whom I gave a journal. It was Bonnie’s voice that I wanted and needed to hear.
Who Could Have Known?
Bonnie
As Jane was no longer down the hall in my daily work world, and I was feeling the need for more time together than our weekly lunch dates provided, I suggested she consider joining Sweet Adelines, a women’s barbershop chorus. I was already a member of the group, and her joining meant adding Tuesday evening practice to our mutual schedules. Being a lover of music and harmony, Jane readily agreed.
I began paying special attention to my clothes and hair as I prepared to head to the church on Cedar Avenue where chorus practice was held. It didn’t escape my notice that I hadn’t done that before. Sometimes, we were already on the risers doing vocal warm-ups when Jane burst into the room, fresh from putting dinner on the table, cleaning up the dishes, and getting her kids started on evening studies. Her face flushed, she’d give a shy, apologetic smile to the director before assuming her place on the second riser. I smiled inwardly, knowing that after the pleasure of singing our hearts out for two hours, and later joining favorites from the group at the Five-Eight Club to devour “Juicy Lucy” hamburgers, we’d still make time for ourselves before finally parting.
After a few weeks of this routine, however, making time for us after practice meant Jane and I sat in one or the other’s parked car and talked into the early morning hours. We were hungry to continue learning about each other in as much detail as possible, and time flew. We were astonished at the similarities in our stories—such as having the same Christmas stockings for our four children—and intrigued by the differences—like Jane’s love of things domestic, and my love of anything to be done outdoors.
Meanwhile, Jane and I were both friends with Felicia, a work colleague and fellow Adelines member. Felicia had been on a spiritual search most of her adult life, and was the Education Department’s “resident philosopher.” Since she and I read similar types of books that Jane had also begun to enjoy, Felicia suggested the three of us form a spiritual study group and meet weekly on Wednesday evenings to discuss our reading. Brian rarely, if ever, had evening commitments, and he routinely participated fully in the children’s care. So I doubted it would be an issue if I were out another night of the week. In addition to wanting the learning Felicia could provide, this meant yet another weekly night spent with Jane. I was thrilled!