While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

###

“You’ve always got a disaster up your sleeve.”
———Octavia Butler
——--Parable of the Sower

My brother and I are texting about elections. He says I sound alarmed. Oh yeah, I’m alarmed.

My alarm intensifies with certain headlines that signal the end days are here, and I’m not safe. I’m alarmed, and I will detail the reasons for you, lay them out in outline form, using my top tier PWI education to build a brilliant case for why none of us are safe. I will write a treatise worthy of PBS.

But my headline alarm dissipates as soon as I glance out the window, where the twenty-below wind is whipping the ash tree’s naked limbs around, and the snow is blowing upward. Did you hear me? The snow is falling up. So now, I’ve got a bigger problem. Where is gravity? What hell is this? Election, What election?

But why does weather present an existential threat? With journal, meditation, yoga, and therapy, I dig around in my psyche, excavating useless information, and shaking out bits of potential insight, as I search for the vein that will lead to the mother lode. And there it is, the Aha moment. There is nothing more satisfying than an answer to why.

I need angst to lead me to my moments of satisfaction.

Expressing my opinions in organized paragraphs with footnotes and bibliography exercises my brain. Analyzing the world, this is my work-out, for which pajamas do just fine as sweats. The search for answers to my personality, this is my anthropology. Who is the civilization of Downeys whose culture sourced my idiosyncrasies? My alarm intensifies before it dissipates or trades places with anger or sorrow, never failing to return to calm. Watching my emotions put on their flashy costumes, shout their lines, and then break for coffee; this is my movie.

Stumbling toward the Buddha, my first book, was published in 2014, but The Book began writing itself years before publication, years before I was brought into the process. Through a series of manipulations, The Book That Wrote Itself created the me who would become the author of my life.

MANIPULATION #1

The Book That Wrote Itself lured me into a blind date with the Buddha. It needed to teach me to observe my emotions dispassionately.

My marriage had just ended. I phoned Ask-A-Nurse to find a support group for newly divorced people. I said, “I’m feeling grief, but I’m not depressed, matter of fact it's a relief to have the house to myself, I can breathe. I'm not Christian, so not looking for a church group.” 

The nurse said, “I can tell you’re not codependent, and even though you’re not Christian. There’s a codependent support group that meets at a church on the Plaza. I’ve got a weird hunch you should start there.” 
 
A weird hunch always gets my attention. 

I checked the announcement board at the church. A beige flyer sneaked into my field of vision, tucked into a corner, like it didn’t want you to notice it. “Counseling from a Buddhist Perspective.” 

There was no rationale for the sense of recognition and relief that swept over me. and there was no hesitation when I jotted down the phone number. I abandoned the co-dependents.

The Buddhist counselor led a Wednesday night meditation group and a Sunday morning service.
 
In meditation, he instructed us to watch the breath, feel each inhale at the tip of the nose, followed by a long silky exhale. He instructed us to watch our thoughts, emotions, and sensations, to observe how they materialized and disappeared. Pay attention, your thoughts are always judgements, decisions, or commentary. Week after week. I focused on the inhale … the exhale … the inhale. I became aware of the never-ending narration that ran like talk radio in the background.
 
Every meditation, I waited for this awareness thing to do something. 

Every meditation, I was certain I would die of boredom.
 
Panic smacked me awake. I'd forgotten to pay the electricity bill. Was it too late? Would the power be shut off when I got home? How could anyone be so forgetful and unorganized? I decided to rush home to write a check. But I didn’t leave; I sat, spine straight, feet flat on the floor, eyes closed.
 
Then awareness performed a miracle. I saw that my mind was judging my situation, that my mind was deciding what to do about it, that my mind was composing a movie plot. I saw each thought individually, as arbitrary as an itch that comes and goes. The running commentary faded. Panic evaporated. I felt breezy and light. I was calm.

I journaled, jotting down descriptions of these experiences.

MANIPULATION #2

The Book snatched me out of my dream job. It needed this writer’s full-time attention.
  
I’d worked a lifelong string of miserable dead-end jobs. In my fifties, along came a job I fell in love with—patient advocate at a hospital. I comforted patients and families when the hospital environment overwhelmed them. I helped them gain a sense of safety within the threatening landscape.

Walking into an angry patient’s room, puzzling out the source of their outrage, and leaving the patient feeling reassured, I found a sense of safety for myself. I found purpose. I would be a patient advocate until the day I retired. 
 
My boss was a quiet and even-tempered mentor, generous with compliments. He made himself available for informal, impromptu interactions. He made me feel important.

Buoyant from a recent success, I dropped by his office to report my triumph. As my story unspooled, the atmosphere in the room thickened into tension. His eyes narrowed. His expression turned cold. I stopped mid-sentence, nervous.

He glared at me. “When are you going to start doing your job?”

The question knocked the air out of me.

He detailed my failures, but I caught only fragments. “worthless.” My knees buckled. “lied on your resumé.” My legs turned to rubber.

I staggered back to my office and slumped at my desk, too dazed to cry. My safety shattered, my purpose confounded, the only thing left was shame. I was dying; I deserved to die.

In this stupor, I noticed an amorphous cloud appearing like a mirage at the edge of consciousness. As wonder displaced despair, my accidental glimpse turned intentional, and the image crystallized into distinct figures, which transformed mirage into oasis—a wellspring of clarity.

My former employers paraded into focus: Tyrant … cheapskate … persecutor … sadist … liar … narcisist … racist … predator.

I had made unconscious choices that had reeled in bad bosses. I’d played an active role in my own unhappiness.
 
Acknowledgement of this painful truth freed me from victimhood. I was free to discover what the future held, If I led with wonder instead of self-doubt. My boss and I reconciled, but staying would keep me surrounded by reflections of my old self. I resigned.


MANIPULATION #3

The Book hijacked my summer vacation to teach me how to channel stories.

There I was, in my fifties, without a plan. content to be home typing away at bits and pieces of prose. My husband encouraged me to attend a writers’ conference. We couldn’t afford it because I had no job. On the other hand, I had plenty of time, because I had no job.
 
I flew out to the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference in California. My father had taught a memoir-writing workshop there every summer throughout my high school and college years. He died when I was in my forties. 

At the conference, I signed up for a nonfiction workshop, and waited for the class to begin, cowering in the back. Despite my best effort to disappear, the teacher headed straight over to me. His face was wistful. “They told me you were coming. Your papa was a dear, dear friend.” 

I was equally surprised and moved by his tenderness; I didn't know how to respond.
 
His greeting foreshadowed the rest of the week, when reverence for Dad played on repeat. I had expected to run into people who had known my father, but honestly, while Dad was being a revered writing teacher, I was being a self-absorbed teenager. Our paths crossed only when he complained about my attitude. One by one, Dad's former students introduced me to their Bill Downey. 

Between workshops, a pair caught up with me, hugged me tight, repeated his advice. “Your dad told me to write outrageously.” “ … to take a risk with my writing.” “If not for him, I wouldn’t be a published author.”  
Over lunch, a writer who’d been terrified to read her work in front of his class said, “Your dad held my hand and whispered ‘you’re safe here.’”

They held my gaze like they expected to see Dad in there. And maybe they did, because there was a breezy space behind my eyes. Their stories flowed through me, unhindered by my personality. My running commentary quieted. I was meeting a new version of myself, content to bear witness, at peace. Every conversation was a meditation. 


MANIPULATION #4

The Book jolted me into being a good sister, teaching me to listen.

I craved my big brother’s attention, but it was hard to stay in touch with Michael. I called, left messages, waited for a return call, then called again. 
 
During one of the waiting months, while I was cleaning the kitchen, resentment welled up. Michael was a bad brother. He should not treat me like this. Always too busy. Ignoring my calls. I would never call him again. If he wanted a relationship, he’d have to call me. 
 
The anger froze me into a white knuckle grip of the sink. Anger intensified, but deprived of fuel, began to dissipate; my heartbeat slowed. Thoughts fell away.
 
My opinions no longer obscured the truth.

When Michael and I connected after months of me leaving messages, every phone call would unfold in the same way.
 
I would say, “Hello, Michael? This is Dawn.” 

He would say, “Sorry I haven’t called you, hon. I’ve been so busy.” (When Michael called me hon, I became a little sister whose big brother would walk from his apartment to mine in the middle of the night to kill a mouse for me. (He did that.)) You would think I’d be influenced by gratitude, maybe say Oh, that’s okay, I’m just happy we get to talk.
 
But no.
 
I would say, “You know, Michael, your busyness sabotages our relationship. You should take a look at that.” 
My opening line would lead to ten seconds of breathing, followed by ten minutes of awkwardness, followed by ten months of communication void.
 
I was the one sabotaging our relationship, by starting every conversation with criticism.

My brother did not have a cell phone. He did not have caller ID, but after my epiphany, whenever I called, he picked up on the first ring.

Whenever the urge to give advice crept up, I swallowed my words and listened to his.


MANIPULATION #5

The Book slammed me back into my childhood to transform me into an adult. 
 
I gathered what I’d been writing down and organized it into chapters, vignettes about my spiritual practice. I emailed the manuscript to a writing coach to find out if it had any potential as a book. 

She said, “This is a beautiful memoir.” 

I said, “No. It’s a collection of essays about spirituality.” 

She said, “It’s a memoir, a story about your family, but I sense you’re leaving something out. Was there abuse? Fill in the gaps. Add more personal information.” 

 I was at a loss. How was I supposed to add details; I didn’t remember my childhood. 
I called Michael—the Wikipedia of Downey family history. 
 
He picked up on the first ring.
 
I listened.
 
Listened, when he said Dad smacked his bottom so hard as a little boy, it lifted him off the floor. Dad threw him onto the sidewalk, because Michael was afraid to fight a bully.

Listened, when another brother said Dad whipped him with a razor strap from the time he learned to walk until he left for college.

Listened, when my sister said Dad gave her a black eye when she was ten.
  
It wouldn’t sink in. I called repeatedly: did you say Dad pushed you onto the sidewalk? Did you say Dad gave you a black eye? I collapsed onto the floor in a wailing snotty heap. After the snot dried up, after I’d screamed until I was hoarse, there were weeks of conjuring up the rage on purpose, followed by weeks of watching it rise and dissipate. Rise and dissipate. Inhale, exhale. A breezy space opened behind my eyes. I went to the laptop and composed “The Doll House,” about the violence I’d grown up with.
 
There was a hole in the book, because there was a hole in my personal story.

The Boook taught me how to observe my emotions dispassionately. Then it eliminated the distraction of a career, to teach me to channel other people’s stories, before it slammed me back into my childhood to channel my own.

The book that was writing itself was writing me. 

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

“I could not at that time yet see this as such—as violation.”
———Ta-Nehisi Coates
——--The Water Dancer

###

In the end, I said no to publishing my nude photos in a men’s magazine, because male acquaintances, especially the ones I didn’t like, leering at my naked body, well … gross.

My first job after college, I was teacher’s aid in a grade school library. Three months in, my boss—a nice lady, diminutive, soft-spoken (what you’d expect in a grade school librarian)—asked if I’d be interested in modeling for her photographer husband who wanted to submit artistic nudes to a new men’s magazine.

I didn’t know why she stammered when she asked, because, whenever I heard anything resembling get your picture taken (subtext: because you’re beautiful and worthy, even though you think you’re ugly and worthless), I was in.

She drove me to her home, spacious and modern, just the kind of home I’d expect a boss live in. Leaning on the kitchen counter, we sipped Cokes and chatted about children’s books, until her husband appeared in the doorway. She glanced at him and then down at the floor. The kitchen got quiet. I didn’t know why; they were nice people, and I loved getting my picture taken.

He led me upstairs into a bedroom crammed with camera equipment. While he positioned lights, I stripped. At his direction, I sat on the edge of the bed, my dancer training taking over, posture straight but graceful. A slight adjustment turned me 3/4 away from the camera, looking back over my shoulder, one foot slid daintily in front of the other.

Even I could tell the pictures were gorgeous, but in the end, about to sign a model release, I imagined the men I knew leering at my naked body, and that’s the only reason I said no, because, really, the rest of the situation was fine.

It was fine for my boss to suggest posing naked for her husband.

To deliver me to him.

To sip a Coke.