Confessions of a Former Scale Addict

Hi. My name is Beverly, and I am a recovering scale addict. This is my testimony. Although I’ve been in recovery for several years now, it is still difficult to tell my tale. It seems like only yesterday that I was unable to go for three hours without my fix of stepping on a bathroom scale. Now in retrospect, I admit that I would have done almost anything to hop on a scale and weigh myself. Lie, cheat, even endure public humiliation. Oh yes, it had gotten bad. Very bad.

It all started with my first diet. As I started to control my food intake, seeing the numbers of the scale go down gave me a rush. The more they went down, the more I yearned to get on the scale. It was an intoxicating feeling—a high. I was one of those unfortunates who got immediately hooked. It must be a gene I inherited.

I initially kept the addiction under control. I’d weigh once in the morning and once in the evening, and seeing the numbers on the scale progressing steadily downward satisfied my craving sufficiently. But once the numbers stopped moving so quickly, the real addiction surfaced.

In the beginning it was easy to hide my problem. After all, behind bathroom doors, who would ever see. But the problem got worse, and I began to weigh myself any where, any time, any place. Even going to the butcher shop would make me salivate as I watched the slabs of well-marbled meat sitting on the scale. Only it wasn’t the meat causing the craving; it was the scale !

The addiction progressed in severity when my weight loss hit a plateau. My normal ritual was to weigh myself prior to 7:00 A.M. before I ate anything. Of course christening the commode was vital before stepping on the scale to remove as much water weight from my body as possible. I also felt it necessary to be stark naked with pierced earrings removed.

Gradually, my ritual became more exaggerated. Eventually I needed to shave my legs before weighing and forgo my glasses. I had become a contact lens wearer —not for better vision mind you— but because the glasses weighed an ounce, and the contacts didn’t register any weight at all.

How come when you weigh yourself on carpet, the measure you get is heavier than if you measure on solid ground? One Saturday, my boyfriend discovered me ripping out the carpet in the bathroom. I think he didn’t believe me when I lied about finding mold under the carpet. What I really wanted was to place the bathroom scale on a bare, non-carpeted floor so that it would register a lower weight.

I didn’t seem to notice that my regular friends were gradually abandoning me, and I began hanging out with other scale addicts. One shared her secret of success with me. “Try not to anger the scale,” she said. She paid homage to her scale. To her face, I told her she was nuts, but behind her back I knew it was the secret to making that darn scale move again. So I ordered an Our Lady of the Scales candle that she had told me about and counted the days until it arrived. Like a kid at Christmas, I tore open the package. There it was the in the box—the key to success in an eight-inch, seven-day dedication candle.


The candle directions were very explicit. Wash the top of the scale to completely clean it, and sprinkle it with salt to remove any hexes. Brush off all remains of the salt. Place candle on the bathroom scale and light it at midnight on the night of a full moon on a monthly basis. Leave candle burning on the scale for a minimum of eight hours. Chant the verse three times:

I light this candle in honor of Our Lady of the Scale. I dedicate this candle to you so that I may see a steady downward movement of the numbers on the scale. Enable me to stick to my low-carb way of life. Let all doughnut shops be declared illegal by the law. Let he who offers me high carb food products be cast aside. Protect me from the rantings of those who fear the low-carb way of life. Enable me to always see the numbers on the scale that I want to see. Amen.

It seemed to be working! The scale numbers were moving down again. Finally I thought I had found the secret to success but was quickly proven wrong. Soon, the numbers stalled again. My addiction was now a runaway truck.

By then, I was so deep into my addiction that I could no longer function properly. The more I weighed myself, the more I wanted it. I was trying to hang in there, desperately trying to hold it all together. But my strange antics were no longer tolerated. The addiction had taken over my life to such an extent that my boyfriend gave me the ultimatum — he told me it was the scale or him.

I chose him. We put away the scale, and I went cold turkey. But everywhere I went I saw scales, scales, and more scales.

On day 16 of clean living, I went to a party at a friend’s house. Since I had sworn off weighing and had already gone through the withdrawal process, I thought I had a handle on it. But then it happened— a relapse. It was a festive dinner party with food, drink, and laughter until, unfortunately, I had to make a visit to the bathroom. As I was washing my hands, I noticed a scale tucked next to the wash basin. There it was staring at me, and whammo— the craving hit. What could I do? There was no opportunity to call a sponsor.

Would anyone know? I knew I wouldn’t be able to perform my entire ritual, but one little step on the scale couldn’t hurt anything. Maybe just my foot. At least I could take my clothes off, and I did have my contacts in. Quickly I peeled off pieces of my clothing until I was naked, took a deep breath as I anticipated the rush, and stepped on the scale. In less than five seconds, intense public humiliation ensued. I will never forget it. A very loud female voice boomed out at me.

“Your weight today is *$* !!! ”
It even repeated itself — “Your weight today is *$*!!! ”

Oh my god, it was a talking scale!!

I jumped off that scale so quickly, but it was too late. The whole room full of dinner guests knew what I had done. Shame and remorse wracked my body. Quickly, I dressed and looked for a razor blade in the medicine cabinet to end it all. Death was the only solution. Not finding any, I knew I had to come out of the bathroom and face the group. Sheepishly, I re-entered the dining room. The quiet pierced my heart. No one said a word. My boyfriend got my coat and escorted me out the door. I felt humiliated and ashamed.

The next day I was surprised with an “intervention” by those same friends.

Attempting to overcome the emotionally crippling effects of shame, I heard them out. After hearing their issues and concerns, I saw myself through their eyes, and I began my recovery in earnest. I put away the scales for good. Now I check my weight with a pair of jeans. It is easy to tell if a pound is gained or lost by how they fit.

Each day of my recovery gets easier, and the cravings are just about a thing of the past. I can go into the butcher shop and the post office now without the urge to have meat or a letter weighed while I am busy coveting the scales.

I am told that 80 million women and girls get on the bathroom scale each morning only to see the number and feel negatively about their bodies and themselves.

But the scale is just an assemblage of springs and numbers, not an accurate gauge of either fitness or body composition—and certainly it is not a measure of one’s self-worth.

Scales belong to musicians, not me.


Note: Since writing this, I have once again relapsed. Sigh. . .

The Pathologist

He wore death like a second skin —
an everyday occurrence in his world.
With a firm grip on his scalpel, a frosty breath escaped from his mouth.
As his tool sunk deep into the cadaver’s flesh,
the faded betadine-stained skin parted easily, void of blood.

The prosector was used to dissecting death;
it was the dissection of life that caused him pause.
Proceeding through the routine he performed a hundred times before—
charged with solving the mystery of how someone died—
instead, finding the answers to how they lived.
The body post mortem is a roadmap of life.

He meticulously examined each part of the dead woman's body.
The stomach contained the self-loathing she ate for breakfast everyday.
Calcified self-pity clogged her arteries.
Thanklessness and envy had spread like a virulent cancer
reaching out with claws that grasped and curled around her lifeless shrunken heart, squeezing it dry until crispy.

Parting the skull vault he exposed the brain.
The calvarium was lifted off with the recognizable
sound resembling the rubbing of two halves of a coconut together.
Ah yes, another case like so many others, the pathologist thought.
Layer upon layer of lifelong ingratitude was enmeshed in the meninges.

Her senses failed her in life —
for where there was plenty, she saw lack.
Where there was music, she heard discord.
Where there was sweet, she tasted the bitter.

Her soul was not present during the exam, but if it was,
it would resemble the flesh of a decaying rotten apple.
She cast herself as a victim in life.
The prescription, a simple one overlooked by many.
A healthy dose of gratitude could have saved her soul.

He sewed up the body
and recorded cause of death: Ingratitude killed her.

He finished his task and went out to the garden
with his bagel and a smear,
and washed it all down with a venti- sized cup of gratitude.
He thought about his blessings.
He knew the value of life lies in the appreciation.

The human value of gratitude
has the power to heal,
to recharge the soul.

Some call it naive, but he looks at each day anew,
filling his own soul with awe, bliss, and fascination.

He who deals with death, knows that life is,
indeed,
very very good.

The Artist

Unzipping the skin she wore for the evening,
She hung it to dry.
She, who was once a ruptured-condom baby,
Was yet again unwanted.

Throwing open the medicine cabinet,
She scrounged to find a cure for her pain.
Maybe a few swigs of pink pepto to digest the breakup,
Or perhaps a Band-Aid to tape to her oozing wounded heart.
She sifted through the containers of Prozac and Wellbutrin;
There is no pill to ease the ache of despair.

Tears poured from her eyes,
Yet she had no umbrella to brace her from the storm.
And it rained red rain for days.

Listening to her subconscious,
She sprayed herself with the fragrance of hope.

She picked up her paintbrush and placed it to empty canvas.
Subliminal blueprints moved her forward.
He had no right to jackhammer her soul.


I’ll paint something provocative, she thought.
No more paint-by-number men.

She mixed her own life-altering colors,
And designed her own sympathetic composition.
A manipulation of the brush removed his callous streak.
Another stroke of the brush removed the shoeprint
Where he stomped on her heart.

She sat at canvas using her brushstrokes
Blurring boundaries between acceptance and the realm of rejection.

Her poem was in her brushstroke, stoic and unshakable.
The colored glazes reflected the silken poetry of a whole spirit.

The stroke of the brush and the colors were hers, no one else's.
So she mixed her own colors and painted a new man—
Once again master of her own destiny.

How to Weed a Brain

Of late, my disposition has been about as sunny as a prisoner facing death row. When the alarm blasts at 4:30 AM, I find myself hesitant to throw back the covers to leap out of bed to start the day— my preference being to cloister myself under a fluffy pillow away from the noise of the world around me. Even the most miniscule of things have been irritating me—a slow moving Internet server has been the object of my most contentious curse words, the neighbor’s incessant barking dog has caused me to think of elaborate schemes for revenge, and I’ve even been carrying on cantankerous dialog with talk show hosts on the television like they can hear me and care about my opinions.

These are merely signs for me—like warning signs on the road notifying of danger ahead. These signs tell me that I am out of balance, and that I need to stop, heed the warning signs, and take time out for an attitude adjustment.


There is usually a trigger event that starts a cascade of negative feelings for me. This time it was a situation where I felt "emotionally wounded" by a man I encountered. I could vent about the situation here and go into the he said, she said of it, but actually the content is superfluous chatter. It simply doesn’t matter. What does matter is how I am reacting and handling the discordant music I have been playing in my head.

This man’s action was surely a pebble I made into a mountain. Due to my constant thought about the situation, I was almost encouraging it to grow out of proportion. Like a pimple festering on a teenager's face, I was allowing it to grow red, ugly, swollen and so glaring in my head that I couldn’t think of much else.

Sometimes we do that; we all do. We KNOW we are renting valuable space in our heads to some idiotic situation, but we find it nearly impossible to let go, holding tighter than a flea on a dog. I let this person’s behavior leave me feeling empty , wasted, and drained.

What I need to do is a little weeding. By that, I mean weeding the landscape of my brain. Weeding has been on my mind anyway. The rains have been plentiful in Southern California and lush greenery and flowers have proliferated. But there, nestled insidiously among the floribundas and ranunculas are the oxalis and the artichoke thistles. Weeds often camouflage themselves to look like the loveliest of blooms, yet they are secretly waiting to choke the life out of every pink and white geranium petal and take over the garden.

Most garden books are happy to tell you how to get rid of weeds in your garden, but it is not so easy to eradicate the weeds that take over your brain. Sometimes, the gardening books name the weeds they're talking about, but they don't seem to be very keen to help you to recognize them. They probably assume that everyone knows what a dandelion or a stinging nettle looks like, but in my case they are wrong. As difficult as it is to annihilate the weeds in a garden, getting rid of the metaphorical weeds in my head is no easy task either.

In nature, it is said there are two types of weeds- annual and perennial. The type doesn’t matter much because to me, they are all troublesome. Especially the ones that have long tap roots or root systems that cover several square feet and just keep going sending up shoots over large areas. Let one of those weeds grow in my brain and I will need more than an attitude adjustment.

Most weeds are opportunists that take root wherever they can find space. My theory is, when it interferes with growing, it needs to be removed. Removing the weeds from my brain is akin to removing the negativity in my life.

Our mind is like one big garden, and we are the master gardeners. Our goal is to create a botanical masterpiece, and that requires nurturing and care.

I have concluded that human beings have common themes or dramas that play out in their lives over and over again. We are given the opportunities to master these themes through life lessons and experiences.

The particular drama currently playing out in my head is one of my common themes —over-dependence on the approval of others. I have an inordinate need to receive positive reinforcement or approval for what I am, how I look, how I act, and what I do from others, indicating my lack of skill with self-reward. Now to give myself credit, I have improved in this arena, VASTLY, but I continue to be tested with life situations to see how well I am progressing.

In my world, life is a series of lessons and we move from one situation only to encounter a similar situation —but each time from a higher fresher perspective. Of one thing I am certain and that is after the experiences I have had in life, that there is a purpose to all life lessons. Without lessons we stagnate.

So I will treat this situation the same way I do a weed. I don't argue with it, I don’t defend myself against it; rather, I cut it off and pluck it out. My game plan is that the moment I recognize that I’m thinking a negative thought, I simply cut it off ( pluck the weed) and insert a totally different thought into my mind (plant a new seed).

So this is the secret I have learned; this is the key to all that plagues us. Negatives only have power over you if you react to them. It is as simple as that. The key is to remove the emotion and step away from the situation and view it from that perspective. By not reacting to the man's behavior, I take away any power he has over me and his weeds get plucked right out of my mind.

The weeding takes diligence and constant awareness because the thing about weeds is they come back over and over again. They creep in unassumingly, making our garden smaller. They spread out and steal needed nutrients, water, and sun. They reduce the bounty of the garden. If I let the weeds in my brain get out of control, then I become overridden with negativity and my garden smothers, withers, and doesn't produce, while becoming uninviting and unsatisfying.

We all have weeds in our lives. Weeding takes patience, perseverance, time and learning, all of which are lifetime processes. And as with any endeavor in life, a little humor always helps. When driving along the roadside in the country, I saw this sign.

Free Weeds
U Pick 'Em

Thanks, but I’m going to pass on the offer-- I've been weeding my own!




Live by what you believe so fully that your life blossoms

"Blue Nude"- source unknown. Love this one!

The Warp and Weft of Friendship

The other day, I rehung the unfinished tapestry of my life back on the living room wall after completion of my faux finish paint job. Maybe it was the background of the newly golden painted walls that made the intricacies of the tapestry seem to “pop”— I’m not sure. But I decided to examine it closely. In size, it is a fairly large piece but quite a bit of it remains unfinished. I’m not sure exactly how long it will be until it is finally completed.




The process of tapestry weaving involves integrating multiple threads in varying textures and tones. Each thread is involved in adding a new dimension, which in turn can radically transform the finished piece. It is important to carefully prepare the warp, the threads of yarn which run lengthwise along the loom. The threads must be taut enough to stand up to the weft, the threads which run widthwise.

When I first started my life tapestry, I was weaving only black and white colors. As I progressed with the design, I started adding shades of grey, eventually adding in subtle color.

While examining the piece, I traced my finger along the underlying golden weft thread traversing through it. Quite alluring, it made the piece more striking. Continuing on with my examination, I noted the tapestry became embellished with more color— pastels at first, then rich hues of rusts, golds, browns, and sage greens. Like a fine wine, the colors in the piece mellowed with age. The golden thread evolved the more it impregnated the piece; at times it was quite dominant and distinct and at other times more subdued. What rich luminosity it added! The colors surrounding it seemed more pronounced, warm and vibrant.

The golden threads did not always manifest in an identical manner throughout the entire tapestry. Sometimes several threads were woven in at one time making them appear thicker and more textured; at times the thread was thin, barely perceptible, but always there. Sometimes it almost glittered. Other times it was subtle.

No doubt the tapestry would look undeniably different without that golden thread running through it; its value is immeasurable.

While staring at the artistic piece, dissecting it thread by thread, I had a revelation. Obviously I had taken it for granted, but that golden weft thread that courses through the tapestry of my life is my best friend, Janet! How had I not seen that before? How could I have missed it?

The golden thread started to emerge in the tapestry about the time I was in sixth grade. That was the fateful summer when Janet and I met; a course that changed the direction of my life. At the time, I was clueless about the roads we were about to travel; I just knew our bond was instantaneous — I had found my best friend.

Later on through the years, I realized the Universe, infinite in its wisdom, intended for us to meet—two old soul mates destined to travel the journey called life together once again. We were simply picking up where we left off last time around swapping our strengths and weaknesses, our joys and pains.

How does one measure the value of a “best friend” relationship? There is a UCLA study, which they call “landmark”, that suggests friendships between women are special. It says,

“They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are.”

I didn’t need a landmark study to tell me what I have known for the past three- quarters of my life; however, the findings about how women friendships help one another cope with stress are fascinating.

The study reports that having woman friend relationships has a strong impact on decreasing daily stress. The study suggests that women have a different response to stress than originally thought since all the previous studies were done on men. The hormone oxytocin actually causes women to maintain friendships with other women. The hormone is released as a response to stress and it encourages woman to tend children and gather with other women while producing an overall calming response. This calming response does not occur in men.

Without benefit of this study, I already knew friendship had a direct relationship to decreasing stress and am grateful my friendship has saved me what would surely have been thousands of dollars in psychiatric therapy and medication over the years.


My friend and I are bound by our similarities, yet in many ways we are as different as vinegar and wine. She likes to shop for purses and I like shoes (luckily many stores sell both together). She loves asymmetry — I am symmetrical. She likes to dress in black, and I like color. She hates to cook; my middle name is Julia Child. (not really, but I like to think so). She can be plunked down in a city and with her sense of direction she can find “anywhere” even if it isn’t located on a map— I get lost in a mall. But in my life tapestry it all works. Our paths are different, yet the patterns and overall life lessons sync our simultaneous lives.

We have an unusual knack for communicating with each other. When we were quite young, we developed our own sign language so we could share our private world with signals. Next, we took German lessons so we could both chat out in the open without others hearing our secrets. It was our bond. We advanced our skills to finishing each other’s sentences, and now we can communicate without speaking at all. But most of all we just love to talk. Women need to talk. It is at the core of women's friendships, and it starts as soon as we learn to put syllables together. Someone said, "We talk. Therefore we are friends." So true.

Women also know when to be quiet. The way women relate to women is so different than the way men and women interact. Women don’t usually try to “fix” the situation as is the tendency for men; women are skilled listeners. More powerful than offering the solutions to problem situations, a woman’s tender ways put a hot pack on our hearts. A woman friend can sit with us when we are powerless, not saying a single word, and share the burden better than a thousand words could ever say.

Janet and I share our secrets, our dreams, our desires, our shoes—but the most glorious thing we share is her children. Her children became my children; I am a second mother to them both. I can’t ever thank her enough for the ultimate of gifts. If women could win an academy award for their performance as mothers, she would win outstanding actress.


Women are often accused of not being able to sustain friendships, ready to “chuck them to the wind” when the first male comes along. Fortunately for me, that didn’t happen. The secret to sustaining our friendship for so long is that testosterone never got between us— we never did put the relationship on the back burner and have always nurtured its growth while cultivating long-term trust.

Dinah Craik said something so poignant-
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.”

That is the beauty of a friendship! There is a mask I wear each morning when I leave the house that covers the REAL me. It is tedious to wear all the time, and I yearn for a safe place to remove it. With Janet, I can do that as she allows me to be completely vulnerable. I can experiment with who I am and even explore my shadier darker sides because she doesn’t judge me. And if anyone has the ammunition to judge, it would be her, for she knows every thread of my tapestry. Every secret I hold, she knows. Best of all, she overlooks my weaknesses. They say, “A good friend forgives your defects. A loving friend doesn't see any.”

It’s funny that I hadn’t examined the tapestry more closely until now. So often we are caught up in the day- to- day events that we fail to see the obvious, the transparent. Friendship is that golden weft thread in my life. Mine came to me by chance, or was it by choice?

Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. The study says, “In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidants was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight”.

Looking at the whole of the fabric, I can see my life tapestry is a constant process of creative evolution: birth, death, re-birth; questing, fulfilling, attaining, discarding and seeking to draw upon the multitudinous stories and colors waiting to give definition and texture to my life. The golden weft thread of friendship lends a value to the piece that cannot be measured. A true friend will even help repair the parts of the tapestry that unravel, and there are so many areas on my tapestry that give evidence to this.

For now, my tapestry is ever changing and will remain unfinished. Most likely the tapestry will go through many more plots and stories, have many twists and turns, and have a variety of different patterns and colors added to it. It will showcase life’s ups and downs and the surprises and revelations of my human experience. The golden thread of friendship will continue to give life and substance to the piece and infuse it with love, humor, support and a sense of spiritual connection. Together, my best friend and I will weave our lives together on many levels, therefore becoming richer, more textured, and self actualized as individuals.

Aristotle described it best, simply and sweetly. "What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies." You know us. We are Laverne and Shirley. Oprah and Gail. Thelma and Louise. CC Bloom and Hillary. Bezus and Ramona. Betty Ruble and Wilma Flintstone. Pooh and Piglet.

Never underestimate the power of a friendship. In a world of jagged edges, rough spots, and bumpy highways, my friend is my soft place to fall. In her, I find my place of sanctuary and solace when I am in need. When I am weary, she is a place to rest. She lends me refuge from loneliness, indifference, judgment and apathy. She has been my vessel of wisdom, my cup of inspiration. She pumps life-sustaining energy into me when I am dry, and she feeds my soul when I am hungry. She slaps on the mortar when my walls crumble. She washes me with light when I am melancholy and harmonizes with me when my chords are in tune.


And for all of this and more, I say,
Thank you dear friend…
Thank you oxytocin.

This post is dedicated to you, dear friend, for your birthday. May as many blessing be bestowed upon you on this day as you have bestowed upon others. Happy birthday Janet.

'Aint No Sunshine When He's Gone...

Arriving right on time, he tapped on his car horn signaling his arrival and nonchalantly emerged from his silver BMW, with his carefree, man-child look, with hair that blew in a non-existent breeze. His face held all the smoothness of youth, not yet lined with years of experience, and his eyes ­—hazel and chaste— not yet filled with the weight of worldly things seen. His purity emerged in the way he stood and moved as he doesn’t yet know the underside of life or the whole kaleidoscope of complexity of being an adult. His mouth was drawn gentle and curved with innocence. What beauty I was glimpsing—the slept-on hair, the endearing scar on the upper brow from his water polo accident. His lips formed that bemused wit held by youth who think they know the wisdom of the world, yet do not.

His face had been designed for the word handsome. His chiseled cheekbones, firm chin, and aristocratic features all blended together to create a totally appealing and stunningly sensual appearance. With a thick mop of hair cut long to the collar, it framed his gently stubbled jawline. High, angled cheekbones sloped gently down to a proud delicate chin with his skin, golden brown from his days in the sun. His face was familiar and comfortable to me, yet in other ways, it was completely foreign.

I looked at this young man and once again felt my empty and drained soul fill full with life. How is he able to do that? Every time I am in his presence, when I am dried and withered, his mere presence lights my life and fills me with energy so pure and strong it can last for weeks. He is sunshine to my soul. This love I have for this boy borders on the indescribable. The connection between two souls so pure and so strong— my godson, light of my life.

I looked at this man-child who so proudly walked out of the California DMV with his driver’s license in hand, a knowing grin on his sweet face. All of a sudden I wondered, where did those precious 16 years go? Who is this child ready to drive me in his car?

I think this, but do not say it out loud to him. This child, heart of my hearts—I knew you before you were born! My godchild, my beloved boy, when did this metamorphosis occur taking you from the curly flaxen haired baby to this lean sultry adult who now can drive?

Although we are on different paths at this point in time, our souls will stay intertwined by memories and moments so intense they are forever engraved in our hearts.

Memories swirled through my head. I recalled the days gone by when I would come to his house and ring the doorbell with my special signature ring. I could hear him squeal with delight at the recognition of the sound, and I could hear his little feet thundering down the steps calling out my name. His chubby fingers would emerge through the mail slot on the door of the house waiting and eager to make flesh to flesh contact with mine. When the door opened, we would embrace like we hadn’t seen each other for years.

Oh the fun we had! Refrigerator boxes became fierce pirate battle ships with portholes. Fabric, ribbons and a bit of thread and duct tape became some of the best outfits that could rival any a costume designer could make. We would bake and decorate cookies until the kitchen was dusted in a thick veil of powdered sugar. With our mutual love of all things Native American, we would go from one Indian event to another collecting our artifacts. We could hunt down the best craft supplies at any craft store and spend happy hours making whatever our imaginations could dream.

He was so much a part of my life but now that he is grown with a life of his own, I ache with the pains of missing him. I yearn for those days again where, in his eyes, I was omnipotent and all- important, and he missed me so much he would cry when my car drove away from his house, while he ran down the driveway waving goodbye.

I stood by silently watching his metamorphosis occur through the years. I observed him pulling away bit by bit as he developed into an individual with a life of his own. His world became school, friends, sports, girls, and secrets we no longer shared.

Today, he is so proud— another marker toward adulthood. Today he got his driver’s license and that opens a whole new world of freedom for him, yet it is one more step away from me.

He smiled and my heart melted. “Get in," he said. “Let me take you for a ride.” When standing, he easily reaches a height of almost 6 feet tall; his body so toned and trim. He seems to emit an air of mystery about the life adventure that is to follow him.

He opened the car door for me and he began to drive. Soon we were stuck in traffic. I liked that the traffic was stalled so I could sit and stare at his finely arched brows— his delicately pointed nose that cuts quite a dashing figure. It was a beautiful night. I had never seen the sky so black... and the stars were like pin holes pushed through tissue paper that’s been wrapped around a light bulb. And I could stare at him while he drove and search his face for the little boy I used to know buried somewhere inside of him.



"Let me take you for a ride," he said… Oh he has no idea the ride he has already taken me on and the ride he will continue to take me on. That ride from babyhood to youth to a man. So much behind us, but so much ahead, for the metamorphosis is far from over...

Click here to see Jonathan's metamorphosis

Metamorphosis of Jonathan- a poem

Time passes-- the hour hand of the clock changes to a sweeping second hand and the little boy with his nose pressed to the window glass waiting for the sound of my door bell ring has evaporated into mists of adolescent fog.

Once dressed in costumes of folklore, those cloaks and masks of childhood heroes are replaced by
the masks of adulthood that the passage of time brings. He lives here and now, not in the past.

Indian artifacts line the lonely shelves of a boy who once knew where he came from,
waiting silently and patiently for that boy to return again.

The onion-layered memories-- I peel them off slowly
each layer of skin so fragile I risk breaking it.
Not too many layers or the smooth vulnerable root underneath
risks exposure.

We’ve shared our most precious thoughts with only the purest of intentions. Knowing you have taught me my own heart
and I yours.
Could it be through our metamorphosis we have found a pristine beginning?

I want to share my life with you. Each moment is only more beautiful when witnessed through your eyes.

Judged kindly based upon its fortitude, never neglecting the bliss of life’s surprises.

Moonlight and wisdom flavor your skin as I taste the
changing evolution of your mind.

I pluck gently at the strings of your instrument and listen
fervently as the chords of your voice play the music I long to hear.

Your smile is red lightening streaking through the sky striking my heart,
while your boyhood silliness dances to a tune played in the whispering trees.

I appreciate your humor, charm, and intellect. Indeed there is truth of you being a superbeing for some how the thought of you can move me beyond natural forces.

Whether you are near or far you are always with me - I know you understand. I love you with all that I am and for all that you are or hope to be.

To glow in your impulses as much as your plans is the most genuine feeling I have ever known.