I'm On My Way

 

We don’t know where we are going, but we are on our way.

            — Anon (Stephen Vincent Benet’s pioneer sayings.)

HI! Thanks for tuning in. 

I have written a book, and this blog is about my journey to publication. I want to take you along for the ride. My first step will be to find an agent. I’ll keep you posted as I send out query letters and proposals. Getting accepted by a publishing company is a long shot and I’m nervous about sticking my neck out for all to see. But, I’m driven to try.     

The title of my book is ABDUCTED: My Struggle to Remember. I was kidnapped in 1948 and taken to Los Angeles where I was forced into prostitution and pornography. I repressed the horror of my abduction and continued on as if nothing had happened after a approximate four-month absence from home, and my recovery by police during a pornography raid. My life story reveals some of the problems of not remembering a trauma, such as mine. Nightmares led the way to the recovery of my memory at age 50, and dreams are a big part of my story.   

My memory returned on September 8, 1989. I had been having nightmares for many years, but during the summer of 1989, they increased in intensity. I began waking up night after night, gasping for air as I bounced up off the bed. I didn’t understand these graphic dreams and vowed to discover what they meant. My dream images often repeated, and decided that if I cross-referenced them I might be able to better understand the mysterious stories my unconscious was trying to tell me. I have now accumulated a box of files of dreams with similar words and themes I can go to when I want to compare dreams. Here, for example, are the names of a few files: Bugs, Blue Eyes, Cabin, Hanging, Hotel, Mafia, Gun, and Camera. Now, I became even more creative and began to make icons of these repeated themes. I pasted these onto my dream pages, and my nighttime adventures came alive. Here is an example.

 

THE SPIDERS

October 14, 1988. (Eleven months before my memory returned.)
Vacation La Push, Olympic Peninsula, Washington

I am waiting for a man at a local outdoor restaurant. I know he likes blueberry muffins, so I carry some hot ones from the kitchen to the table where we will sit. In the meantime, I am watering green geranium plants on the patio. 

 

Suddenly three spiders attack my face.  I scream and brush them off. One pricks my upper lip where my scar is. I then notice one strand of cobweb around the button on the front of my shirt.  It is attached to the spider now across the room.  I reach down and release it as I wake up frightened. 

This dream foreshadows what is going to happened on the night my memory recovery began. 

  

 

                                                                            ***** 

 

Please invite your friends to read my blog, particularly those who have experienced trauma and or suffer from PTSD.  Dreamers will be interested too. I will give you a look into my life through stories, and tell you about people I have met along the way. I studied in New York City in the 60s to become an opera singer, ran a training program for young singers at San Francisco Opera, and became a social worker for foster children in Riverside, California before retiring. I have had a diverse and exciting life. 

I hope I have whet your appetite. I’ll be publishing more blogs soon. In the meantime, I would love to hear from you about your own experiences. Let’s start a dialogue.  

sallierascal@cox.net

cunninghamalice409@gmail.com  

Onward and Upward!