I’ve always hated horror movies, something scary popping out of the darkness when least expected. My wife and daughters love being scared. I’m easily startled. In the morning if I rise first and my wife comes in an hour or so later, she always announces herself when she enters the room so as to not surprise me.

I suspect it began when I was five, and my sister, Christie, who is five years older than me, took me to the movies along with a girl friend of hers. Unbeknownst to my parents, she took me to see two horror films, The Blob and I Married a Monster from Outer Space. In addition, there was a trailer for an upcoming film called, 13 Ghosts. As might be imagined, five-year-old Ronnie was terrified. When my parents found out what films Christie had taken me to, they were furious her. And they told her so.

Being the child I was, with the imagination I had and have, every night when I went to bed, and saw the Sun setting on the horizon, bright red through the LA smog, I knew it was the Blob. How long this went on I don’t remember. However, I do recall this being a turning point in my relationship with my sister. My parent’s admonition had somehow given her license, now, to scare me whenever my parents weren’t around. And she did. It may not have been always, but upon reflection, it felt that way.

The fact was I really respected and looked up to her. She was the smartest girl in all her schools, and then became a performing, professional folksinger at age 14, coming in second at a folk contest at the famed, Ash Grove, in LA. At 16, She graduated high school as valedictorian with the highest-grade point average in the history of the school, and then, entered Berkeley at 17. But it was safe to say, none of these achievements ever stopped her from taking the opportunity to scare her little brother. Somehow, we survive it.

But surviving meant, I never went to a horror film again until I was dragged to Alien. As everyone who saw it will tell you, the film was incredibly scary, and I was in my late twenties when I saw it. I remember hating the feeling I had while watching it. It’s a feeling my wife and daughters seem to love. They watch scary movies all huddled together. And I can guarantee, I’m elsewhere. To be honest, the issue I have is with the unexpected event and not liking the feeling of being scared.

It was the last call I expected on the first day of our vacation in SoCal… “your house has been broken into and there’s glass everywhere.”

It was the last call I expected on the first day of our vacation in SoCal… “your house has been broken into and there’s glass everywhere.” Well, there wasn’t glass everywhere. Just the family room, kitchen and our guest bathroom. The news was first delivered by our gardener – a part of our family to be sure. Matius was near tears when he delivered the news to my brother-in-law, who happened to be in town and who immediately went into action.

The phone calls back and forth from Oregon to LA were disturbing in their detail. The preliminary descriptions were of broken glass in two doors: the one in bathroom and the French door leading from the family room to the outside. This was the one through which the perpetrator – a woman lost in a fugue state – had busted into the house. When she left, she broke the window in the bathroom door, even though it could be easily opened from within. The blindness of the fugue.

We learned most of this from a neighbor who told my brother-in-law he saw it all. He even saw where the woman eventually fled. For some still unexplained reason he decided not to call the police. This was almost as disturbing as the destruction meted to our house and its loss of sanctity.

We heard she had also broken the cover to our toilet and then pulled out the flapper that regulates the water flow. At some point, she must have cut herself from all that glass, because when we were cleaning up the mess, we found little splotches of blood. She then took a shower, ostensibly to wash off the blood, leaving her clothes in the clear-glass guest-bath shower, before running out of the house naked and screaming. This was the frenzied retreat our neighbor saw, but failed to report until questioned by the cops the next day, when my brother-in-law called them.

There were insignificant artifacts broken within the bathroom, but the windows and toilet received the brunt of her rage. Later, in retelling the story to our friends, I would ask, “What would have happened if my wife, Laura, were home alone when the break-in occurred?” Followed quickly by, “what would have happened if I was alone?” Everyone agreed, Laura would have been much better than I under these conditions.

Officer Gates was as precise, as one would hope, as well as calm and compassionate. He explained that they knew the woman who had caused the violation, and she was being hospitalized.

What followed was the saintly ascension of my brother-in-law, and my daughter, who cleaned up the majority of the glass shards and pieces, estimated at about 20 pounds. There were also a number of conversations with Officer Gates from the Eugene police department. Officer Gates was as precise, as one would hope, as well as calm and compassionate. He explained that they knew the woman who had caused the violation, and she was being hospitalized. He let it be known that filing charges against the woman would not be necessary since the woman’s aunt, with whom she lived, had said she would cover any and all expenses.

When we arrived home, a week later, my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and daughter had done their best to clean up the mess. They had taped cardboard over the gaping holes where the broken windows once resided in their respective doors. They repeatedly shop-vacced the floors and vacuumed outside as well. They even ordered the replacement glass from a local glazer. There was still however plenty of tiny slivers of glass in the carpet and outside. We called a contractor with whom we had worked on numerous occasions to get his suggestions as to an appropriate restoration cleaner we might bring in. When we spoke to the owner of that business, we were told this was not the kind of job they were usually called on to perform. They primarily got calls for floods and suicides. It seems tragedy strikes in many unfortunate ways.

Fortunately for us, they could come out that day and give us an estimate on the clean-up, and then do the work the following day. We needed to buy a new toilet, which we did at Lowe’s, since unlike Home Depot, or Jerry’s, our local hardware emporium, Lowe’s had maintained their DEI practices.

When we had collected the invoices for all the work, my wife went across the street to the aunt’s house, kitty-cornered to ours, to talk about payment. They talked about the niece’s condition that caused the fugue. According to the aunt,

…it was an overdose of steroids, and its subsequent roid-rage that sent her out of her mind.

While the aunt believed this story, Laura did not. She was then told by the aunt, that contrary to the report from the police, the woman had not been hospitalized.

As disturbing as that news was, the story took an even more bizarre turn. I have long posted poems I had written for my wife in various places around the house where I knew she would constantly see them: on the back of hallway doors, around mirrors in our bathrooms, on our bedroom walls. I rarely shared these poems beyond my wife’s eyes. I refer to this practice as “my social media postings.” The aunt then asked my wife, admitting it was a strange question, something her niece had requested. It seemed while the niece was in the process of destroying parts of our bathroom, she had stopped long enough to read some of the poems taped to the wall. Knowing my wife was coming over to talk to her aunt, she asked her aunt to ask my wife if she could have a copy of one of them.

When Laura conveyed this to me, the request blew me away. Had the poem momentarily stopped her mind? Was this art calming the savage beast? The poem she requested was an anniversary poem about our recent trip to Bruges. It seems the aunt and her niece had recently gone there, as well.

Upon receiving this request, I wasn’t sure what to do. The absurdity of it was not anything I could have anticipated. This woman, as unhinged as she had become, had invaded and violated our space. In her rage, she had shattered windows and even destroyed our toilet! But the poem had stopped her, at least for a moment. Having studied and practiced Buddhism for over three decades, compassion is crucial. Of course, there is an aspect of this practice known as idiot compassion. This, on one level, is feeling compassion for someone who is doing harm to others.

As I told this story to others, seeking some sort of clarity, most people suggested I simply give her the poem, with the assurance to stay away from us, and be done with it. While the promissory part of this demand seemed unrealistic, given the madness of the event, the over-whelming response was “just give her the poem.” I then had the errant thought that perhaps the truly compassionate act would be to teach her meditation. The thought created a rift inside of me that was quickly forded by those I mentioned the idea to, and told without hesitation “No. No. No.”

In reality, if there was any to find in this situation, just facing this woman terrified me. Within my practice, we talk a great deal about fearlessness. Not being not afraid, but meeting fear.

Throughout our lives, we have developed all kinds of barriers to protect ourselves from fear, from what scares us most. Going out of my mind has always been one of mine.

Throughout our lives, we have developed all kinds of barriers to protect ourselves from fear, from what scares us most. Going out of my mind has always been one of mine. My dear sister, dead now for over fifteen years, had a psychotic break when she was 19, and in the beginning of that collapse, I was the only one, at 14, she would talk to. She was hospitalized for six months and eventually recovered going on to become a world-renowned jewelry historian.

But the experience of her madness, obviously had a much more profound effect on me than I had ever previously confronted. Now, here was another opportunity to meet the madness, and I found myself, for all my practice, in the grips of a fear I had buried for years.

It felt to me like I was now being led to break-into my own crazy self, to confront the depth or shallowness of my own sanity? The thought filled me with a dread I could not remember ever feeling, before. It made me want to run and hide, to find any excuse I could to avoid this kind of an encounter. It made me feel like I was watching Sigourney Weaver in Alien call out “here, kitty. Here, kitty.” Knowing that the Alien was about to appear.

I then thought of Alan Bennett’s brilliant play and subsequent movie, The Woman in the Van, In which an elderly homeless woman, in this case played by Maggie Smith, parked her van in Bennett’s driveway and stayed there for 12 years, until her death. Because of his own instability, he was unable to tell her to leave and it became one of the most essential relationships of his life. I’m not suggesting this is that, but it does come to mind. I am also not suggesting that offering her meditation instruction was a good idea. It was not. And I was assured by those who know more than I, it was not only a bad idea, it was the wrong idea.

So, I was faced with meeting my own craziness. As I said, I don’t do well with unexpected turns of events, especially those I have spent years keeping buried. I’m pretty sure this was what my friend Alan called “a blind spot.” Crazy or not, here it was.

I had thought that in writing this story it would provide a release from the feeling of being violated by the actions of this person who had lost her mind and acted out of that madness. Needless to say, it did not. My intention was to describe the events as I had learned and experienced them and then end that description with the poem, itself. Now, I am faced with my own long-buried fears of being possessed by an unstable mind.

I have decided I will let my wife give her the poem, and be done with it. Almost.

Here is the poem:

September 5, 2024
An Anniversary in Bruges

We visit beautiful cities and celebrate the breadth of our love
But these famous places never quite measure up
to the towering architecture that arises from my heart, built just for you.
We exceed all the measurable expectations of modern structural strength
without threat to our foundations and integrity,
The joists of our happiness are built to withstand the harshest gales,
allowing us to ride the tempests and turbulence,
and trust in the approaching calm.

Embarrassingly, our love has become the measure among our friends,
Held up as to what defines a marriage and a lasting relationship.
But what they project bares little resemblance to what they think we have.

We laugh, we agree, we poke, we coo, we disagree, we laugh again, we love, we bicker, we charm, we forgive, we laugh some more.

Our references now have references to which we alone can refer.

They are literate, intelligent, sophisticated, naughty, consensual, artful, clever, irreverent, incisive, articulate and invariably filed with a certain je ne sais quoi
They hear the humor, but often miss the funny part.
Our longevity’s sustainability is built on our rarely missing it.

It’s not just the laughter, but the knowing, the willingness, the heart open
Even when the heart breaks, and the pain of the unexpected arrives,
There is a there to catch the tears and hold the other.
It’s that deep embrace, that shared breathlessness, that unbreakable connection.
In touch, in time and in love

Falling through the void, heart in heart, a hand placed gently without grasping,
we hold each other, the desperation held at bay by that simple recognition:
I love you and you love me.