Writing Therapy Writing therapy is an approach to access the unconscious blocks to the calm we seek. To write one needs to think, meditate, imagine, and consult the senses before writing down the result. Progressively growing research offers data that writing therapy reduces stress, strengthens the immune system, and significantly increases psychological well-being. It is particularly effective in the areas blocked by trauma, loss, mourning, divorce, illness. This process can help anyone with the discipline to keep at the search of what is inside. Writing therapy is done alone at your own pace. Periodic sessions with me can be most helpful in guiding you to and through the blocks; you have developed to protect your pain. For a fuller report on writing’s effectiveness, consult the Wikipedia article under Writing Therapy. In my program, you are taught to write what you feel. You email summaries to me, we have a therapy session to discuss your production and you are instructed how to examine further. The frequency of sessions is negotiated. Experimenting with one session will offer the best instruction as how this unique therapy works. ON SHYNESS If shyness runs in your family or in you, this vignette may help you think about its value. When Billy did not answer the door, we moved to a window and saw him sitting in a wheelchair. He motioned us in. The room was dark, stuffy with stale air and faint odors of rubbing alcohol and urine. My need to say something vanished, replaced with silence from fear of seeing a sick man in his own house, increasing at seeing a hole the size of a quarter in Billy’s throat. A thin piece of gauze protected the wound, which served as megaphone for Billy’s labored breathing. I moved closer to my father on the cluttered sofa and tried not to stare. My father had a two-hand grip on a used brown bag he carried.     “ How be ya, Billy? ”, asked my father, releasing the bag and reaching for Billy’s hand which he moved awkwardly up and down, like he was jacking up a car. Billy’s smile expanded. They pumped for a long time. Then my father turned and opened his hand toward me. I rose and went to the chair. Billy shook my hand then placed his warm hands on mine and held them firmly. His round red face broadened to a grin; the head barely nodding as if he were preparing a response to our contact. Our hand closeness lasted for some time.  When he released then I returned to the sofa. I heard his breathing return. Now his head moved sideways back and forth, as if he were commenting on his condition. My father spoke. “My boy here. Raymond. Raymond. ” “12. 12.” Billy nodded with vigor. “Brought ya these Billy.” The crack of the brown bag echoed in our quiet, as my father, one hand over his heart, bent and handed the bag to Billy. Billy widened the bag open and looked. The jowly face lit. Reaching in, he pulled out a tomato, large, as red as his face, traces of yellow with two dark green crevices breaking the skin. He grasped the tomato in his palm. Head nodding accelerating, he rested the tomato on fingertips and in progressive raises, toasted my father as tears formed in his wide eyes. My father now joined him in the head nodding and so did I. “Christ the King. Christ the King.” My father continued, naming my school, his shyness gaining mileage by repeating words. “Sixth grade. Sixth grade.” The spaces of silence seemed less trouble now. We were enjoying our pace. “ Red Sox Billy. Loves the Red Sox.” “Ice cream. Ice scream. Maple Walnut.” Confident now he increased the volume, nearly shouted, as Billy relaxed in the pleasure of our presence. It was a short visit, the height of fullness making up for width. My father stood. “Be going Billy. Be going.”  I tried to think of something, actually anything, to say. I wanted to comfort Billy, more so my father and me too. However, the richness had magnified my normal shyness to mutism. I grew desperate but no words came, except, “Goodbye Mr. McGetrick."  We did not speak in the car for along time, and then my father spoke. “Billy McGettrick, a fine man.” A long pause. His voice soft and hesitant, he spoke with effort, in phrases barely audible. “Lent me money….on the long weeks….usually a 20, or less, to carry over, you know…a fine fellow…Billy McGetrick.” I was shocked at his words. I knew nothing of my father as borrower. Here he is telling me he borrowed money. The shock was tempered by appreciating his risk of the question, of his trust of this friend, or his trust of me in this revelation. I have walked few steps in this world without my father’s legacy, much of it an aching burden, but not this visit. He used an archaic phrase for thanks, “much obliged”. So, to you, Dad, dead these 30 years, much obliged for taking me with you to visit Billy Mcketrick. ON FATHER Below are two essays resulting from writing therapy concerning the emotional legacy of father, one of the most neglected areas of emotional pain. The deepest search in life, it seemed to me, the thing that in one way or another was central to all living was man’s search to find a father, not merely the father of his flesh, not merely the lost father of his youth, but the image of a strength and wisdom external to his need and superior to his hunger, to which, the belief and power of his own life could be united. -Thomas Wolfe The Parking Lot "Your father is not much of a kisser, remember. You go to him now and kiss him goodbye." My mother is saying this as she lavishes kisses and hugs on me in the camp parking lot. With that dutiful compliance peculiar to a 9-year-old embarking on an unpleasant journey, I march to my father sitting in the car. I see the closed door, the rolled-up window. Good, I silently shriek, I can get by with a wave.   Walking closer, my half-raised hand telegraphs my awkwardness. For a moment I hope that he does not see me. But he turns his head, looks at me through the glass. I feel that the eyes of the world are watching, waiting for me--to touch, to speak, to disappear. Shyness inundates my brain, immobilizes my feet. I will kiss him through the window.   Toe-standing, neck-reaching, my escape is shattered by the rolling glass curtain. He knows what I am about. He leans his fleshy face toward mine. I aim for cheek, kiss it gently, now step into the kiss. I am flooded with a warmth so powerful that my uneasiness melts. I might explode. I ache with that rare pleasure of paternal longing meeting fulfillment, a pleasure so full, so rich, I fear I may dissolve.   Then, unlike any movie script, my father straightens his head, looks away from me. I hope he has heard my soul. My tongue is paralyzed. His eyes look at the steering wheel. He speaks.   "William" he speaks my full name with such affection that for once it sounds agreeable. A long pause, then he adds, "don't you get hurt," still looking at the steering wheel.   I look at him not looking at me. I have so much to say. Nothing comes. I try. "You too, Daddy."   As his old car bounces down the camp road, my mother waves. As the car draws out of sight I can still smell my father's face, a pedestrian shaving cream he made with a brush and soap. As the car grows smaller, I make a high wide wave to my out of sight father d as I can: "You, too, Daddy, you, too."   I stayed in that emotional parking lot with my father all my life. Through 30 more years of goodbyes I would find his cheek, zero in on the exact spot, kiss him. He would turn his head and say the same words. "William, don't you get hurt." When I turned adult, he elevated the message, "William, lad, take care of yourself, now." The only time it was different was the final goodbye. I bent over his coffin, kissed his dead face. When he did not pull away, I felt my heart would break in sorrow. I said my part aloud: "You too, Daddy, you too." I smelled the shaving cream. A Woman's Longing for Father On those days I was allowed to meet my father at the corner excitement so engulfed me my body reacted with singing and skipping. Waiting there looking down Park Street my heart beat faster. When he appeared I would run to him and he would picked me up and throw me in the air, saying my name over and over, " Susan, Suzie, Susan my sweet Susan. I missed you sweetheart." And he would put his arm on my shoulder. And I would melt with joy all over, my tongue particularly and began to tell him, speedily tell him with that ease totally devoid of self consciousness that loving listening elicits, about me and my day, what we learned in geography, and what Sally said about Marie and how her brother is mean, and so much more. And he would listen, nod his head and look at me with pride bit one corner of his lips together for emphasis. And then we would walk in silence not because we had nothing left to say but to enjoy the fullness of our presence to one another. And I would hear the sound of sand crunching on the sidewalk under our shoes, hand in hand, arms swinging, my daddy and me turning the world pink with pleasure.   This oceanic feeling ended when I was ten. He took me to a fancy restaurant and had a present for me, a silver necklace. He did not seem so happy that night. He said he loved me and did not want to hurt me, but he did not love "your mother," he called her, any more. He did not want to, but he felt he had to leave. He moved out of the house, out of the state, and out of my life. The good times ended, turned into memories as hurtful as the earlier times had been delight. When I hear sand under my shoe I block my ears. 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