My patients have been sorted and advised of the date of my return. For the next while, I’m determined to forget I’m a family doctor. This time is for me. A time to piece together my shattered self after the shipwreck of a marriage of thirty-nine years.
The first evening after our arrival, we sip Greek wine and Ouzo and tantalize our taste buds with eggplant, calamari, cuttle fish, salads, dolmade, tangy tzatziki, and crunchy fried zucchini flowers. This is the first of many sumptuous meals shared over the next week with the wonderful people who bring with them the stories of their life transitions, creative work, loss, and courage.
At ten the next morning, Karen and her partner Robert collect us in a little van. It’s a quick drive, bouncing along cobble stones and rutted roads through the countryside to the Olive Grove. The house is a cool, white bungalow with a glorious porch overlooking wildflowers, herbs, trees, mountains, and the sea. We each choose our muse—a tree beneath which we will settle, move, meditate and write for the next week or two.
In the Olive Grove, we work with our creativity--and dis-ease. Exploring. Poking. Prodding. Even playing. Integrating the hurts and harms until they become part of the past, histories that can safely be carried. My anxiety lessens as I feel acceptance. The urge to share everything bouncing around in my hyperactive brain lessens.
There’s another physical change. For the first time in my life, my usually cold hands become . . . warm! I think of the times my patients screeched when I examined them. “Cold hands, warm heart,” they’d say when they recovered from my icy touch. My ex joked, “You’re dead, you just don’t know it yet.” Not dead, just damaged.
Now my hands are warm. I press my palms against my cheeks and wonder fills me. I have left my husband, finally. But I now have warm hands that hold me.
There is another special moment under Thalia, on the indigo blanket. The abundant joy I feel demands release in speech, too much, certainly for a quiet healing circle. Karen takes my hand, to center me. I grow quiet and gaze into the loving eyes of the women. Then I turn away, burying my face into the cotton. A soft touch on my shoulder brings me to tears.
When I recover, I share, “I’ve never experienced such unconditional love. Such acceptance of me exactly as I am.” Over the next few days in the Olive Grove, I tend to my physical and emotional health without dissociating or ignoring my pain. I’m supported by new and old friends, family, and community. Each time I feel alone, I place my now-warm palms to my cheeks and remember that I can reach the universe.
