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The gift of Dibs...

1/29/2018

I just finished reading Dibs: In Search of Self again. It is my favorite book, ever, and it isn't even a novel. It's the story of a five-year-old boy whose parents and teachers believe he may be retarded or in some way mentally deficient, and of how he discovers the inner strength to be himself with the help of a therapist and the practice of play therapy.

The story of Dibs was written in 1964, and was a Readers Digest Condensed Book selection in 1967, which is where I first found it. Virginia M. Axline, one of the pioneers of play therapy, wrote it, and it has never been out of print in the 50+ years since it was first published.

After only one preliminary session with Dibs, Axline wrote, "I had respect for his inner strength and capacity. He was a child of great courage." The playroom became the place where he could safely explore and express his inner world, and I know that in all of my many readings of this book, I have always learned something about myself every time I've read it.

One of the early conflicts Dibs has to come to terms with is the necessity to leave and go home at the end of the hour. At first, this is wrenching for him, and with Axline's help, he is able to accept it.

He looked so small, and yet so filled with hope and courage and confidence that I could feel the power of his dignity and assurance.

"I come with gladness into this room," he said again. "I leave it with sadness."

And the reader's heart is broken that Dibs has to leave the place in which he is nourished and feels whole. We want to stay there with him, because it makes us feel whole as well.

There are no limits to what Dibs can play with in the playroom. There are paints, and army men, a tea set, a dollhouse, farm animals, and on a very special day, a set of figures and buildings with which Dibs can create his own world. His play with the dollhouse during one session makes it possible for him to express his anguish: "I weep because I feel again the hurt of closed and locked against me," he sobbed.

Axline shares her insights with the reader: His feelings had torn through him without mercy. The locked doors in Dibs' young life had brought him intense suffering...all the doors of acceptance that had been closed and locked against him, depriving him of the love, respect, and understanding he needed so desperately.

Although my life was different in so many ways, on some level I understood how Dibs felt, and felt grateful for the sense of comradeship I experienced with both Dibs and Axline.

By the end of the book I am always filled with awe at the tremendous growth and courage, and inspired by Dibs and his journey. In one of his final visits he recognizes the change: "The little boy is gone now...But big Dibs is big and strong and brave. He is not afraid any more."

Axline puts it in more clinical, though no less powerful terms: In his symbolic play he had poured out his hurt, bruised feelings, and had emerged with feelings of strength and security...He was no longer afraid to be himself.

May we all find the courage of Dibs to be ourselves.

Take care,

Doc

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May I deal with honour...

1/22/2018

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May I deal with honour,
May I act with courage,
May I achieve humility.
Dick Francis in Straight

The motto above, which novelist Dick Francis created for one of his characters, is simple to understand, important to aspire to, and difficult to attain. Every time I've read it, I ask myself how I stack up against those three lines. The answer to that question can be hard to swallow.

I recently read a blog by Steve Haskin on the Blood Horse in which he wrote about one woman's crusade to save racehorses in danger of being sold for slaughter, and asking why so many who could, do so little. He said that he couldn't do his first Derby Dozen of the year without getting that off his chest.

There's been a lot written and spoken about issues of gender, race, sexual harassment, sexual orientation/identification, natural disasters, genocides, the environment, wars, and immigration to name a few. At times, it feels overwhelming trying to figure out how to respond, and where to put your energies and/or financial support. How do you even speak or write about it without causing offense, even unwittingly?

There have been times in my life when I've spoken up, and there have been times when I've hung back. For me, it's always been easier to stand up for someone else than it has been to stand up for myself. There have also been times when I simply blundered ahead, too blind, too naïve to understand what was really at stake. Sometimes that has been effective, just as often, it's been hurtful or offensive.

Dina, the woman Steve wrote about, has found a solution that I've also seen succeed in working with the homeless, with at-risk youth, and with those who feel separate. One being at a time. One step at a time. There are times when focusing on one person, one situation, makes it possible to find a resolution.

That's not to say the larger issues don't need to be addressed on a larger stage. They do. But for most of us, trying to figure out what the heck to do or say, we could do a lot worse than follow Dina's example, and follow the words of Dick Francis.

May I deal with honour,
May I act with courage,
May I achieve humility...

Take care,
Doc

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Dick Francis...

1/15/2018

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One of my Christmas presents was a set of three Dick Francis novels - Decider, Easy Money, and Blood Sport. For anyone who doesn't know who Dick Francis is, he was a champion steeplechase jockey in England who rode for the Queen Mother. After retiring, he became a journalist, then a bestselling writer of suspense novels, all of which had some connection with horse racing.

My first encounter with Dick Francis was via Readers Digest Condensed Books - I read In the Frame, and loved it. Not long after, a friend lent me a copy of Banker, and I was hooked. While each book includes horse racing in some way, each one also focused on some other area - In the Frame had a protagonist who was an artist, and Banker was set in a merchant bank and a thoroughbred breeding operation.

However, what made his books so wonderful wasn't the taut mysteries, or the detailed backgrounds, though those were terrific and exciting. What made a Dick Francis novel a must-read over and over was his understanding of human nature - his tolerance and compassion for humanity.

To give you some idea of what I love about his novels, and I've read every one of them, I'll describe each of the three I got for Christmas. Decider is pictured above, and is unusual in that the protagonist Lee Morris, an architect and builder, has six children and five of them are with him throughout the book. His awareness of their individual and collective needs, balanced against his personal needs and desires, is one of the through lines of the book. Francis shows us Lee's individual relationship with each of them, particularly Christopher, the eldest; Neil, the youngest (of those with him); and Toby, the troubled middle child. Their presence is woven into the plot, and provides a counterpoint to the dysfunctional family that owns and operates the racecourse with which Lee finds himself entangled. The boys are part of the climactic scene in the book, as both victims and heroes.

Even Money is one of the books Francis co-wrote with his son, Felix (who has continued the franchise since his father died in 2010). Ned Talbot is a bookmaker, and his wife suffers from bi-polar disorder and spends a great deal of her life in mental institutions trying to get her medications balanced. There is a tragic secret in Ned's past that reverberates in his present life after a father he thought had died 37 years before shows up at the track.

Dick Francis' wife Mary, who did the research for his novels until her death in 2000, suffered from ill health (she'd had polio when young), and he writes of Ned's wife Sophie with profound understanding of the strains chronic illness can place on a marriage and the healthy spouse's work.

Francis prefers his protagonists to solve their own problems, sometimes in less-than-traditional ways, and generally outside the purview of the law. Often the police are antagonists, as in Easy Money, though sometimes there is a grudging respect between the main character and the law.

I saved Blood Sport for last, because in some ways it is one of the most deeply satisfying novels on many levels. Gene Hawkins is in intelligence work; he clears people for government work - in other words, he looks for spies trying to get a toehold in high security areas. He agrees to investigate the disappearance of a racehorse in the US, though he is supposed to be on a vacation he doesn't want. He is also seriously depressed, to the extent that he longs for the release of suicide.

The mystery itself is one of the most fascinating from my point of view. That part of the story is a mix of ingenious investigation, an ability to make intentional actions look like accidents, and using people's behaviors to get them to do what is needed.

From first page to last, Gene wrestles with his inner demons. Although circumstances bring him close to death again and again, he can't allow himself to give in as long as people are relying on him. He has a code of honor and he follows it, at whatever cost to himself.

Adrian Houston/Idols, photographer

There is a wistful romance for Gene, which illustrates the author's tender respect for the women in his stories. Francis doesn't have protagonist's who assume women will fall all over them. Instead, his heroes are diffident. It may be that because his wife worked so closely with him that he was able to write women as whole human beings, worthy of the same compassion and understanding he gave to his male characters.

We are all moved by different writers, different characters, different worlds. I've often compared or paired Dick Francis with Maeve Binchy, the Irish writer of women's fiction, because they both offer a similar view of the world that doesn't judge the human heart harshly. There is a sense of justice and morality in both, which is tempered with the awareness that few of us are saints.

As a writer, I only hope I can do half as well!

Take care,

Doc

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Nothing to fear but...

1/8/2018

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FDR doing a radio address

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our 32nd president, famously said, "...we have nothing to fear but fear itself." That is quoted often, for many different purposes, by many different people.

The thing is, doesn't fear mean something different to each of us? We aren't all afraid of exactly the same things. So why is fear the thing we have to fear?

I'll admit, I never really gave it a lot of thought until I listened to a talk given by my Buddhist teacher, Teah. She talked about various kinds of fear, then pointed out that fear is always in the future, and always in the mind.

If you're like me, you're saying to yourself, no that's not true. You feel that rush of adrenalin when you're afraid, right? And that is accurate. However, when something happens, you are in that moment. You aren't thinking, I'm afraid this dog will bite me. When the dog bites, you react. It isn't fear, it's response.

The fear comes during your anticipation of what might happen. Your mind runs through the possibilities, evaluates options, plans actions. The fear is about what might happen in the future. The response is how you react to what does happen in the moment.

Why do I bring this up now? Yes, it's the beginning of a new year, so it's always a great time for taking stock of things like our fears. But it's a bit more personal than that.

I decided to re-read the manuscript of my work-in-progress before I went back to revisions. When I did, I felt very unsettled - it took me a while to realize that what I felt was fear.

It wasn't what I'd written that inspired the fear, it was what I imagined might happen when people read it that frightened me. I knew some would like it, some wouldn't, and that didn't bother me. It was the thought that I would be revealing something deeply personal; a kind of statement of how I view the world through my characters and my story.

It was a moment in which I realized that writing a book is a tremendous commitment of one's self. How I proceeded would determine if it was a commitment to the deepest expression of my personal truths, or a commitment to protect myself.

Intrepid snail on the path at Asilomar.

I suppose that each reader will have to determine for themselves what choice I made. I know which one I think I made, and I can only hope that it will translate to the page.

Thank you for your choices, your commitments, your expressions.

Take care,

Doc

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The Novel Approach...

1/1/2018

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I absolutely loved the first workshop I attended in Bristol, Connecticut. It was intense, demanding, and taught me more about how to write a novel than anything I'd read or experienced up until that time. When I came home from that workshop I followed Gary's 14 Steps, and about a year later, I had a complete first draft.

I've learned from Gary, after his death I taught his material at the workshop, and now I'm planning to teach the workshop material in a weekly class for folks who can't take the time or who don't have the money to go for 5 to 10 days.

Gary was one of the most generous human beings I've ever known, and this seemed a great way to share his work, and give writers yet another way to discover the value of the 14 Steps.

The Novel Approach will be offered in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starting in early February, 2018. I'm looking forward to learning from the participants, and working with them on their novels. I'll keep you posted....

Happy New Year!

Doc

The participants of the first workshop I attended in Bristol, CT

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dialogue with doc

The gift of Dibs...

May I deal with honour...

Dick Francis...

Nothing to fear but...

The Novel Approach...

Carol (Doc) Dougherty

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