As Beth posted earlier, we’re headed to Mendocino, California, Wednesday. I’m looking forward to another break from urban life in a beautiful place. If it’s anything like our trip to Anacortes, Washington, it’ll be terrific.

City life can wear me down. Sirens, traffic, car horns, construction, brutal homelessness all conspire to sort of dull my senses. Nature restores me mentally and physically.

It can also make me wonder about whether city life is worth it.

It’s a tossup sometimes, but so far, the Magic 8-Ball always answers “yes.” I think it has something to do with exactly where we live in this rugged city of Chicago. As far as I can judge, and certainly I’m biased, we live on the best single block of Chicago. It’s right in the middle of everything, but because Dearborn Street ends at Polk Street, our block is a little cocoon that lives more like Lake Woebegone than downtown Chicago.

Anthony’s telescope always draws people in.

That’s not to say everything’s hunky dory. I wrote about losing our local tavern, Hackney’s, a couple years back. There are new, architecturally bland, high-rise apartments seemingly everywhere around us, blocking formerly gorgeous views. They’re all “lifestyle” joints that have all the amenities stuff, from gyms to coffee shops, which mean residents really don’t need to go out. Which begs some questions, but, whatever. Traffic is worse. Summer festival season is fun on one hand but draws lots of lemmings who walk six abreast, and who stop in their tracks to look at their phones for directions.

But Lake Michigan is still where it’s always been, as are the Art Institute, Orchestra Hall, Millennium Park, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum….

And we’ve established a sort of replacement for Hack’s. It’s called Half Sour. It’s a nice bar and restaurant, but not too nice if you know what I mean. We can always count on seeing one or a half dozen neighborhood pals there. If you get down this way, we’ll meet you there.

We met up with some dear friends there last Friday. They’d gotten some really bad news days earlier, of a heartbreaking loss, the kind that had us thinking about them all week. It was good just to be together, give them hugs—and for me, at least, something of a relief simply to lay eyes on them. We sat outside on a beautiful, temperate Chicago evening—the kind that makes you forget that any brutal weather ever happens here. We talked and talked and talked, some tears were shed, and we took in the fragrance of herbs that the restaurant grows in planters on the patio.

After darkness fell, another neighborhood pal appeared on the sidewalk with his telescope. Yes, on clearish nights our friend Anthony regularly brings out a rather serious instrument, sets it up on its tripod, and aims at the moon, Saturn, Mars, or whatever is good viewing. He and we’ve taken to calling his telescope the “Oh my God” machine. Because complete strangers walking their dogs or simply out for a stroll will stop, Anthony will offer them a look, and verily they shriek “Oh my god!”

Even with the air and light pollution in the heart of the city, looking through that telescope elicits the kind of awe that I felt in Anacortes, Washington, and expect I will in Mendocino. And apparently, others feel the same way.

Certain events, like the ones our friends we spent last Friday evening with endured last week, makes one take stock. They remind both of the pricelessness and fragility of life. And last Friday, as I watched passersby peer at the moon, and we sat with our friends, I realized that Printers Row really is home; now, and for the foreseeable future.

Ah, the things I learn from the memoir-writers in my classes. Until civil rights advocate Regan Burke encouraged me to start up a class of my own here in Printer’s Row, I didn’t know a thing about “bibliotherapy,” the idea that writing memoir can help alleviate both emotional and physical pain. Regan’s guest post today might help you understand why I’ve become a believer.

Thank You, Alcoholic Writers

by Regan Burke

That’s Regan, today’s guest blogger, peeking out of her hood at a Chicago bus stop.

After my first few writing sessions in Beth Finke’s Memoir Writing Class, I asked her why there weren’t more stories about alcoholism. It seemed I was the only one reporting on this particular form of family madness in our weekly writing group. Beth assured me that alcoholism has been a common theme in several of her memoir writing classes over the years.

Ok, so that helped, to know that I’m not the only one. As an alcoholic myself who grew up with two alcoholic parents, I always start from a position of feeling like I don’t belong, like I’m too different to belong. The stigma of alcoholism and addiction doesn’t help. I’ve been sober for 42 years and I still feel like it’s a shameful condition, even after years of knowing it’s a medical condition, a mind-body disease.

Last week Beth sent me an essay by author Leslie Schwartz whose latest memoir is about her relapse and jail time. She writes:

In my case, addiction and the mental illness that follows has been one source of my creativity for a long time. I was able to use my experience of relapse and its devastating outcomes – I nearly lost my life – as fodder for my memoir The Lost Chapters: Finding Recovery and Renewal One Book at a Time.

Leslie spent her 37-day jail time immersed in reading the work of fellow writers who suffered from alcoholism/addiction (Raymond Carver, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolff). She studied the recent research about the link between mental illness and creativity by Nancy Andreasen and Kay Redfield Jamison.

Plenty has been written about expressive writing as a form of release from mood disorders — James Pennebaker, Dr. Howard Schubiner and others. Indeed, the Fourth Step of Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 steps suggests writing a “searching and fearless moral inventory” as a way to shake the yoke of guilt and shame. It works.

After writing a few Fourth Steps, I continue to write memoirs to be free from the chronic pain of fibromyalgia as prescribed by Chicago doctor John Stracks. Bibliotherapy works for that, too. Writing is my journey to a higher quality of life.

I love that Leslie Schwartz uses the words “addiction” and “mental illness” interchangeably in her essay. “When I write, I feel sane,” she writes. “When I don’t write, I am lost.”

We desperately need addiction/alcoholism and mental illness to be thought of in new ways. Senator Ted Kennedy’s son Patrick (the one who very publicly slammed his car into the U. S. Capitol under the influence) founded the Kennedy Forum in an effort to wipe out the stigma of alcoholism and mental health. By promoting the medical evidence verifying that alcoholism/addiction/mental illness are brain disorders, the Kennedy Forum hopes to reduce the shame induced by the stigma that keeps alcoholics/addicts from getting help, keeps teens from telling their parents, keeps employees from using their medical insurance for rehab.

I’ve been sober since 1976 and it seems to me that the stigma is worse than it was 40 years ago. How do we break this? One way is for people in recovery programs like AA to stop acting like they are in a secret society and to open their meetings to those who are simply searching for information on how it works. Another way is for writers like Leslie Schwartz, Anne Lamott, Mary Karr and Brene Brown to keep writing their stories so people like me feel free to write ours.

This post was originally published on Regan Burke’s Back Story Essays blog.

This time next week Mike, Whitney and I will be on our way to California. Mendocino, to be exact: I was awarded a grant to attend the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference (MCWC) from August 2 to August 5, 2018.

I was flattered – and surprised – to receive the grant. Flattered, since it means I will be in the midst of so many talented writers there. Surprised, because the grant I received is a “Voices of Diversity” grant, and having a disability is not always regarded as an element of diversity.

While I’m in workshops, Mike’s going to get a nice dose of scenery.

I’ve written about the time Court Theater in Chicago asked me to be a consultant for their production of Wait Until Dark – the actress playing the Audrey Hepburn role wasn’t blind in real life, and they needed someone to show them the ropes.

During the first rehearsal we just sat in a circle so I could answer questions. Cast members wanted to know how I do certain things without being able to see, and what it feels like to be blind. When the actress playing the Audrey Hepburn role asked me if I think the friends I’ve made since I lost my sight are different from the friends I made when I could still see, I had to give it some thought. “I think some of the friends I’ve met since I lost my sight were surprised to find out they actually like me,” I finally said. “Some people, I think, were drawn to me because I was a kind of novelty.”

Another cast member added an important detail. “And then, when they get to know you, they’re surprised to find out there’s more to you than being blind, am I right?” I nodded, and the actor laughed. “You’re telling our story,” he said, explaining that he was one of many of the actors in this production of Wait Until Dark who was Black. The woman playing the Audrey Hepburn character was Filipina. A supporting actress was Hispanic.

Who knew?

The Mendocino Coast Writers Conference Voices of Diversity grant is awarded once a year to “writers from an underrepresented group on the basis of age, ethnicity, sexual identity, disability, social or cultural background.” Being around people from different backgrounds exposes us to all sorts of viewpoints, and in the case of a conference for writers, that’s key. Hearing from people with ideas and perspectives we may not have considered before gives us all more to ponder –and to write about. I am grateful to the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference for the honor –and the privilege — of attending the conference next week.

Now, what to pack?

A tangled campaign finance web, indeed.

If you’re a Trump supporter, you think the whole Russian investigation is just sour grapes, a conspiracy of some sort, or that maybe a little of all of it is true but it’s no worse than stuff that’s happened in the past. Or it’s silly paranoia, sort of like the old movie, “The Russians are Coming the Russians Are Coming.” (Very funny movie, BTW, and Alan Arkin is fantastic.)

If you’re a Trump detractor, well, the entire famous dossier is true, the pee-pee tape will eventually play at a theater near you, Trump and most of the GOP are beholden to Russian oligarchs’ cash.

I’m more in the second camp, though I’ve been around long enough to presume that we may never know everything, and that both camps are going to be surprised and disappointed by some revelations.

However the specifics of the Russian meddling play out, I can say that I’m more worried about our country than ever. And the Russians are tangential to my concern.

I like to talk politics with our neighborhood buddy Marland, who leans independent with a libertarian streak. We disagree in our leanings but somehow on practical stuff we find more common ground than disagreement.

One of them is campaign finance. He wants full-out public financing of campaigns, as well as time limits. I agree wholeheartedly. And though it seems like an incredibly steep uphill battle, I really don’t know how I’m going to recognize my country again without it.

I was already concerned that, by the misbegotten Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United—rich Americans gained carte blanche in how much they can contribute. But we’ve learned that, partly because of that ruling, rich foreigners who are clever enough can do it, too. There’s a ton of evidence that Putnik oligarchs (really, oligarchs is kind—these guys are more cosa nostra) funneled a ton of money not only to Trump, but to a lot of GOP folks (in office and friendlies).

If you despise Hillary Clinton, still believe Obama wasn’t born in America, and think Mexico will pay for a wall—well even you should be worried about the money problem. Allowing rich people to have more influence in our elections than schmoes like me is already damaging. Allowing those with interests that are opposed to American interests is not going to end well.

I don’t mean to pick on Russia. But truth is, this is an awful precedent—and really, there’s nothing to stop another political party from, say, courting rich people/government figures in another not-necessarily-friendly to American country for financial support—just to balance things out. We essentially get other countries using our levers of government for their purposes.

Some people call for a constitutional amendment targeting the Citizens United ruling. Others think an amendment is either too difficult, or, as Laurence Lessig writes in an op-ed, it simply wouldn’t solve the problem. From the piece:

If the core problem is politicians beholden to their funders, then giving Congress the power to limit the amount spent or the amount contributed would not resolve it. Regardless of how much was spent, the private funding of public campaigns, even with limits, would inevitably reproduce the world we have now.

I lean toward Lessig’s opinion, and he proposes something that might work. I hope you’ll read it.

Spoiler alert: He and I are with Marland.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawling’s home is now part of a Florida State Park.

When I assigned “Traits I Share with my Mother” as a Mother’s Day writing prompt, Bill opted to write about his stepmother. His essay starts decades ago, when he first came up with the expression “Good Betty/Bad Betty” to describe her behavior. Betty is 102 years old now, and Bill says the moniker still fits.
“My stepbrothers and I have used it ever since in our post-mortems on Betty visits,” he wrote. ”As in, ‘Which Betty was it this time?’” He conceded that the bad/good moniker could be applied to most of us. “But Betty’s ‘badness’ has always seemed particularly infuriating,” he wrote, following that statement up with this example:

A few years ago, she and I made a pilgrimage to the woodsy home/museum of Marjorie Rawlings, author of the wonderful book The Yearling. The museum is a few hours north of Orlando, the journey up was uneventful. We both loved the house and grounds, but the return trip was a different story. Betty questioned my driving, claimed I’d made one wrong turn after another, argued we were going in the wrong direction.

I finally snapped at her, and that’s when I noticed the problem. “Betty,” I said. “You have the map UPSIDE DOWN!”

An apology of some kind? No way. “Ok, Bill, you’re on your own. I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when we’re back. And good luck.”

Another Bad Betty example in that essay comes from a conversation Bill had with her recently about the atomic bomb. When Bill mentioned the first target was Hiroshima, Betty insisted the first target was Nagasaki. “No, Betty,” Bill corrected her. “I am pretty sure it was Hiroshima.”

That unleashed what Bill describes as a classic Bad Betty Barrage: “Bill, how would you know? You weren’t born then! I was a war bride, and my husband flew B-29s over Japan. This was OUR war!”

Bill surrendered.

The rest of Bill’s 500-word GoodBetty/Bad Betty essay describes Good Betty. “Happily, there is a Good Betty, too, who is intelligent, curious, adventurous, willing to listen and fun to talk with (okay, as long as you agree with her).”

*********

A week or two ago Bill sent me an email from a visit to Cleveland to see Betty. “I took a lot of my essays with me, figuring I would read some of them to my stepbrother and his wife.” Bill reported that his writing got a positive response. The only part of the “Bad Betty/Good Betty” piece his stepbrother took issue with was the very last line: At 102 she is mellowing a bit.

”No she is not!” he insisted.

Bill hadn’t anticipated reading many of his essays to Betty, but said she did listen to four or five of them with interest. “It’s possible I will not see her again, or that if I do, she won’t be very attentive or with-it,” he said, letting me know how glad he was to be able to share these memories with her now — especially the stories about his father and the trips they all went on together.

“At some point she interrupted me to ask,’ Is this some kind of therapy thing?’” he said. “I told her no. But of course, in a way, it is.”