CONNECTICUT COURT

 

What is past is prologue.

---William Shakespeare, The Tempest.

 

DREAM: Connecticut Court and Connecticut Avenue (October 13, 1993. Four years and one month after my memory returned.)

I just woke up thinking about the words Connecticut Court and Connecticut Avenue.

 

 

Once again, when a few words appeared in my dream, I hadn't a clue as to what they meant. It was many years later before I realized I could investigate places in my dreams. The internet had barely been invented in 1989. Thus it wasn't until 2017, when a therapist, Dr. Dianne Bradley, empowered me by suggesting I could research my dream memories on the internet.

A large section in my book is devoted to my visit to Los Angeles where my brother Stephen. drove me around to look for places in my dreams. We drove to Connecticut street, which turned out to be one short street with an apartment building and parking lots. This building had a court yard, thus, the name Connecticut Court on Connecticut Street.The above picture obtained from Google Earth, shows an overhead view of the building and the central court yard.  

I also found, by looking at maps, that there is a Connecticut Avenue in Washington D. C., where I later learned I had been. More about that in another blog.

 

VOLUNTEER AT A RECEIVING HOME FOR ABUSED CHILDREN

Following my resignation as Executive Director of the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, I moved home to live with my mother. My memory had returned and I was floundering around trying to deal with the rest of my life. In February of 1992, before I began graduate school, I felt the need to contribute in some way, and decided to volunteer at a receiving home for abused children. My first visit was a tour of the facility. Afterwards, at home I wrote about the visit in my diary.

A gentleman showed seven women and me around the building. 

"I'm going to tell you the worst possible scenario so you won’t have any illusions about what it will be like to volunteer here,” he said.

According to him it was a quiet day, there being only a few children in residence. But when I returned home, and thought about what I’d seen, I realized I’d observed some high human drama.

The first thing I witnessed was a young boy quietly sitting in the waiting room after being brought in by police. He was found walking down the middle of the highway carrying a stick.

Next, I saw a thirteen-year-old girl caring for an infant. She and her twin sister were there because she had a pimp and was “tricking.” She’d left the facility earlier, and as we arrived, had just been returned. By the time our tour group left the facility she’d talked her sister into returning with her to the street. “Don’t abandon me like Mom did," was the argument that worked. The social worker was beside herself.

In one room we saw two volunteers holding, patting, and rubbing two infants, and another volunteer combing the hair of a teenager who had a six-month-old child sitting beside her on the floor.

What struck me though was something the guide said. He talked about the immediate bonding the kids have with those working as volunteers.“They are so needy you become their best friend immediately.”

He explained this was not normal because everyone was a stranger. “This bonding will immediately change the minute another person comes on the scene.” He wanted us to know that encounters with the children were artificial.

How did I feel about the day? Excited, but realized I must harden my response to some of the situations and stories I heard. Can I handle that?

To be continued….

 

 

This is a picture of the house my parents built in a canyon outside of the town of El Cajon, California, in the 1970's. As you can see, the isolated house was surrounded by acres of shrub brush. In 1985 my mother went for her weekly volunteer job at the San Diego Museum of Modern Art. When she returned home, the hillsides for miles around were completely destroyed by fire. Luckily, the firemen were able to save the house. I can only imagine what my mother would have gone through if she had been at home.

 

In the spring, the hillsides were completely covered with a blaze of California Poppies.

 

 

  

 

This is a picture of my six year old niece, Beth, enjoying the flowers. Her face and hands reflect the charred ground. Today, Beth is married with three children, and is an accomplished actress.

Onward and upward.