Full Soul Ahead

Earlier this month I went to a Jennifer Lauck writing workshop in Portland, Oregon. My goal was to learn how to get out of my own way. To take a step closer to fully expressing, in my writing and in my life. The workshop wasn't easy, but I'm not in it for easy. I'm writing memoir for God's sake!

In The Seat Of The Soul, Gary Zukav describes a level of consciousness that is "free from the splintered personality aspects we have." Zukav says these beings can't be described as having souls, but rather as being souls. "Full souls." I believe we're all gonna get there.

Full Souls Ahead!

To Go Or Not To Go?

The phone rings and I glance at the caller ID. It’s Michelle D. Now Michelle C. We’ve been a pair of Michelle(s) since second grade, when I picked her for a friend after being wowed by her performance as "little cat" in the school play. Her "little cat" had depth. She’s calling me from work.

“Michelle!” I say into the receiver.

“Michelle! You are NOT going to believe this.” she replies.


We have this little habit of book-ending our dialog with dramatic

“Michelle(s).”

“Do you know where they are having the mixer the night before our reunion?”

“Do I care?” I reply.


I’m still riding the fence about attending our 20th.


“C’mon. You have to go. You had fun at the ten year.”


It’s true, I did. Though I didn’t technically go to the reunion. I just went to the big party at a local hometown bar the night before. I got drunk, then professed my love and undying devotion to my then boyfriend, now husband. I’d been shocked that so many people had kids. How can they have kids? Aren’t you supposed to have all the answers before you go and do something so drastic? The gall!


“So where is it?”

“Huh?”

“Michelle, the mixer. Why did you call?”

“Oh...ahem...cough....well....it’s going to be at.... the Pine Inn.”

“Michelle, no?”

“Michelle.” She says softly.


My mind flashes to a vision of the neighborhood bar exactly one quarter of a mile up the road from my childhood home. My father’s second home. It sits on the edge of the two lane highway, a big solid square building made of cinderblocks. It’s been painted every shade of green. All through my childhood I had fantasies of burning that place to the ground. That place took my Dad. That place took my money for school clothes. It took money that could have been used to fix the broken water pipes so that we could flush the toilet more than once a day. During the bitter upstate New York winters, when our pipes froze, our bathroom morphed into an indoor outhouse, sometimes for weeks at a time. The Pine Inn. My mother walked around for years missing a front tooth. We couldn’t afford to repair it, but the Pine Inn prospered.

“Michelle, you know I can’t go.”

“But its going to be outside, in the big field with the picnic pavilions behind the bar. You don’t even have to go in. They don’t even call it the Pine Inn anymore.”

“Still.” I say.

“I knew you were going to say that. Just check out the website for the reunion, okay?”

“We’ll see.”

I hang up the phone and tell my husband. He jokes, “Hey...you could have a family reunion inside and a high school reunion outside.” Only Todd could say that to me and I laugh. Then I laugh harder because I am actually able to laugh at it.

“You don’t have to go.” he says, kissing my forehead, then hugging me hard.

“I know.”

The next day I get an e-mail from a former classmate with a list of names of people still unaccounted for. As I scroll down the list of the missing, I see faces.

Fred B. Wasn’t he that adorable little guy who never said a peep? Gina S.? God, she always just seemed so competent. Lori K.? I am so sorry for being evil to you in elementary school. It’s not a good excuse, but would it help to know I was going through hell at home? Bill S.? My high school boyfriend? Aw geez.

So many beautiful faces. Hundreds of us, poured into the public school system, shaken, stirred and then released into the world like a batch of confetti at a Spartan football game.

I must say, I would like to see where everyone landed.

But The Pine Inn? The Pine Inn?

I just don’t know if I can go there?