A Visit with Ruth Denison

Ruth Denison, 88,  in 2010

 Ruth Denison is one of the pioneers of Vipassana meditation in the West. She was authorized to teach back in the 70's by the Burmese Theravada master, U Ba Khin, who chose her as one of only four Western Dharma-heirs (and the only woman). Another was Mr. Goenka, of the ten-day silent meditation retreat fame. Still going strong at age 90, she is coming to speak this Sunday at Long Beach Meditation. She was actually invited two years ago, when Victor was on retreat in Lumbini. I volunteered to drive to her retreat center in the desert and pick her up and keep her overnight, but the visit was cancelled due to her having broken her shoulder. In April 2010, my husband and I were visiting friends in Palm Desert and I got the bright idea to drop in. This is the record of that little field trip from 7th April, 2010:

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I visited Ruth Denison yesterday! I thought it a shame to be so close and not pay my respects, especially since we had that slender connection of would-be driver and host had she come in March as planned, to speak to LBM. I phoned Tuesday and asked if it would be possible to come say hello since I was in the area, and whoever I spoke with passed on the word and called back a few hours later and said yes, come tomorrow; Ruth has visitors all day today, but they should be leaving tomorrow and she's always up for meeting new people. We arranged I would come between two and three Wednesday afternoon.

Before we left, I checked her website and found a list of things you could bring as a visitor - I wrote them down carefully and promptly forgot the list so had to rely on memory and ended up with bizarre offerings: biodegradable washing powder, Throat Coat tea bags, white vinegar, plus four pounds of strawberries, a KitKat bar and a hunk of smoked cheese for treats. Husband John and dog Snuffy came with me, which was just as well, because above Joshua Tree, you turn off onto rutted dirt roads and I needed a navigator. For all that, it was easy to find, if jarring to drive. Signs began to appear to 'Vipassana' which led us to an outcropping of little houses and huts and odd structures for dogs, stony stupas and Buddhas dotted among the scrawny shrubs and cacti. The place had that deserted air of nobody home - and sure enough there was a note on the door: 'Alison! Ruth and friends have gone out. Make yourself at home. They'll be back shortly.' So we found the outhouses (yay!) and a couple of chairs in the sun and settled in for a wait. It was very windy, and it was hard to tell what was wind, what was airplane or car. Not that there were many planes or cars going by - we were in the back of beyond. Nothing to do but wait. Very peaceful.

We arrived at two. Exactly at three, a big old station wagon pulled up: Ruth and friends. The car seemed stuffed with people: two young Asian girls, a German woman who spoke not a word of English, a Frenchwoman called Katerina and Ruth, who was fast asleep in the back, leaning against the window. I gently opened the door and she woke up instantly, instantly alert too, which was impressive. She bounded out of the car, wearing black stretch pants, a red woolly jacket, colorful sneakers and a beige woolly hat with a huge spider pin on it. You would never guess she is 87 or had ever broken a bone. She looked at me and said, "I am very tired, maybe this was not a good time." I said, "Would you like us to go?" She said, "Give me a few minutes, talk to Katerina..." 

She disappeared into her little hut with the KitKat in her pocket - the other supplies followed the German lady into the kitchen. John took himself around the corner with his book, Snuffy went back in the car and Katerina and I sat in the sun. She was fascinating, this Frenchwoman, slim, elegant, long white hair in a pony tail, one of Goenka's first 15 students back in India in the 70's. Shortly after India, she heard of Ruth and invited her to her house in France to lead a retreat, one of the first Ruth ever led; it sounded like a crazy wonderful time, people sleeping on the floor in this rustic farmhouse in the Pyrenees, come for the teachings of this extraordinary woman... Katerina lost touch with Ruth for some 20 odd years, until five years ago, she was speaking with a Buddhist nun in London and mentioned Ruth's name, who said, "Yes, I know Ruth, I've just come back from a retreat she gave five days ago in the Californian desert!" And Katerina has been coming every April since for the last four years.

At this point Ruth appeared like a tiny little sprite, quick and efficient, and ushered Katerina and me into her little house. We went through her study and her bedroom to a covered porch in the back. She told us to wait, we would see something we had never seen before in our lives. She was right too! A roadrunner came right to the door of her room, demanding food. She gave it a ball of ground beef and it raced away, just like the cartoon. She feeds it a pound of ground beef a week. 

Then we went out on the porch and Ruth fussed over the seating arrangements - we had to be just so, me in a plastic garden chair, Katerina on a cushion on the floor - while Ruth darted about feeding the animals. This porch overlooked a garden fenced in with a low wire fence. Beyond it were more of the scrubby little bushes, more little rock piles and bowls artfully strewn about. Ruth threw birdseed everywhere, and filled an old saucepan with cooked rice then sat in her seat to my left and told us to be still and be quiet and wait and watch. And the animals came! It was 4 o'clock and that's their feeding time. First the little birds, then the bigger ones - quails with their funny little topknots; a rabbit with translucent ears and masses of cute little mice-y things - they were the size of mice but had much prettier tails, more like chipmunks. One of them dived into that bowl of rice and took out a lump bigger than its own head and tottered away with it.  She said, "Why would I want a television when I have this to watch?" I nodded agreeably, to which she said a little sternly, "There is nothing bad about television. There is nothing BAD about anything, as long as you are aware of what you are doing."

Time passed in this way - time being a very loose concept in Ruth's world: she had no clue about date or day although she did know that it was time to feed the animals. She expressed fatigue again, and talked about these annoying people who came back to her three times with questions after she had dismissed them. I told her that when she had had enough of me, she would have to tell me directly to leave, because I was very bad at picking up subtle clues. 

She said, "Well, we eat at five. You and your husband will eat with us and then you will leave." 

I thanked her for the invitation, but said our friends in Palm Springs were expecting us for supper, so we would leave at five. 

"That makes our life easier!" she said. She sent Katerina to the kitchen to tell these plans to the cook, and announced she would show me around. 

First though, she apologized for not coming to talk to us at LBM. It wasn't that she broke her shoulder - it was that she had scheduled a retreat in March that she had completely forgotten about. Her arm is much better now, although she has some arthritis in the shoulder. She said she would like to come sometime to 'redeem' herself. I said that wasn't necessary, although we would love to have her and she just had to say the word and I'd come get her.  She wanted to know what we were doing in Long Beach, was Victor back? She said he had amazing rhythm, he could make music out of anything: "give him two rocks and he could create a tango!"  I said our sangha meets every Sunday, and on Wednesdays too, to study. I told her we'd read the Satipatthana - "a good place to start"; and that we were just finishing up Victor's book. She looked puzzled - Victor's book? I said it was online, and it covered the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold path - thank god we memorized it, because later she took me to see the Eightfold path painted symbolically on a wall and I had to tell her what each picture stood for. Sitting still on her porch, she spoke eloquently and off the cuff about Right Thought versus Right Intention. I had my notebook and couldn't stand not writing it down. I asked if she could repeat what she had just said; Katerina shook her head at me: "She never says it again," she whispered. But she did, and in even more detail. Here is what she said:

"Some people call Right Thought, Right Intention. What is the real interpretation of Right Thought? Right Intention has to have Right Thought before. When you say you want to do something, how can you know it's right? Know your thought - am I angry, do I think I am right, am I being self-righteous - all these are not Right Thought. How do you factor in Right Intention? I try, I investigate my thought, but it has to be more investigated. The Second Factor of Enlightenment is Right Investigation. If you have good intention, you must investigate it. The thought I have will lead me to more anger, more opinion, and then I am stuck. If we use BOTH terms, Right Intention and Right Thought, we can ask ourselves, where is this leading to, this action, where do you intend it to go? It is an issue to investigate - then you get to Right Thought more safely. You cannot justify much when you see have Right Intention but did not have enough contemplation. For example, you have a friend who invites you to go to the bar with him. You say, why not, it will be fun, we'll live it up. Only your friend drinks too much, he comes home and picks a fight and it ends badly - just as it always does when you go out with this friend because he always drinks too much and it always ends badly. You did not fully investigate the effect of karmic reaction: 'when I go with my friend whom I like, I am easily enthusiastic, and I don't give much thought to where this is leading.' So intention is good, but it needs investigating." (Katerina threw in the proverb, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions' which is the same in French and which Ruth liked a lot: it illustrated this point very nicely).

Then Katerina went off on her errand to the cook and Ruth like a child showed me her place. "Here is where the dog sleeps, here is where I sleep, here is my closet, here are my clothes, here is my bathroom, these are my drawers, my things..." I was very moved by this tour. She was so open and guileless. "Look at what I have." She found an unopened package by her desk; she looked at the return address and shrugged, not recognizing the name. Then she shook the box and said quietly, "Sometimes they send me cookies." We walked all around outside, I soon learned I had to be on my toes: when we passed more of the little stone stupas and she said "Isn't it nice?" and I agreed, yes it was nice, sharply she said, "Did you see the Buddha?" Crap! Where was the Buddha?!! I spotted him, but several beats too late and got a slap on the wrist for it: "We say too quickly, "oh! this is nice!" and we haven't looked properly, we don't see anything, we miss everything! Look again!" After that I didn't say a word, and looked around like mad, trying to notice everything. I felt like I could be quizzed on any old random thing. Bit nerve-wracking! Do you know, sometimes she is up there completely alone? I thought there was always someone there, but that's not the case. And it's a big property. And miles from anywhere. And in need of a handy man!!

She has a funny little dog called Bingo, a Boston terrier with one blue and one brown eye. He belonged to a woman Ruth sat with when she died. He was badly treated and misbehaved. But after his owner died, he crept out from under the bed and fixed Ruth with his strange little eyes as if to say, 'What will become of me?' So, as she told me, what choice did she have but to take him? 

Katerina came out to find us, it being well past five o'clock by now, the Asian girls loitering hungrily around their quarters wondering where was dinner? Ruth was unaware of any of it, came to our car and peered in at Snuffy, wanting to know what was wrong with him and saying he's on his way out but liking the way I was treating (read 'spoiling') him. She said, "If you are interested in the teachings, if you are serious about your practice, come to my retreat on the 23rd - it goes on for 10 days? Two weeks?" Everyone was hazy on the details, price, dates, etc. Ruth said, "Come for one day, a weekend, the whole thing, whatever you can manage, it is my hobby and I call it Retreat for Real Life, you come when you can." I asked if it was silent - she said darkly, it was supposed to be, but you couldn't keep a group of women silent, though they were when she told them to be.  She said a bit testily, "I don't know how my retreats here came to be just for women. Anywhere else in the world, they're for men too." She said I could bring Snuffy if I was worried about him - one man came one time with his two cats (!). She said Snuffy was not a problem. 

She offers four retreats a year. Katerina says she is afraid every year it will be the last one, since Ruth has fallen down and broken something every year, for the last few years.  (Ruth had this to say about pain: "Bless your pain. Embrace your pain.") Katerina gave me her address - if ever you're in the South of France and want to meditate -! Hugs all around and we were off, and promptly got lost on those wretched dirt roads. But all was (eventually) well, when we finally found something we recognized as a landmark and we made it back to our friends in Palm Springs just as the oven timer dinged that our supper was ready. 

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Aferword: I never did go on a retreat with Ruth. She was right about Snuffy being on his way out - he died in July 2010. I do know I am lucky to have met her, and feel honored that she spent so much time with me. I'm looking forward to her visit this Sunday (2/26/2012) at Long Beach Meditation. It is anybody's guess what she will do with the two hours at her disposal!

The Joyful and the Worm

Last week, dear Lois of the Cross-Country-Save-The-Pets Odyssey invited me out of the blue to fly to the East Coast next month to celebrate her birthday and mine: if she paid my ticket, would I come? Well, wow!! Would I?!

But something new developed. On the one hand, pure joy at Lois' invitation; on the other, a gnawing, hollow, anxious feeling of "I don't deserve this." As luck would have it, that very same day three of us got together for a practice Voice Dialogue session. I was the last to be facilitated, and my pair of opposites were these two characters: the joyful and the worm. Both of them felt extraordinarily young. Both said they had been with me "forever." There was an interruption during my session, something Martha-Lou had warned us about as being potentially dangerous. I don't know about dangerous, but I did feel somehow split, half the mind tuned deeply inwards, the other listening to doors opening and closing and trying to identify sounds. I felt fragmented and it was a feeling that continued for some days. The presence of the two small children stayed with me: instead of sinking back to wherever they live, they were very much with me at all times, one on either side. I felt I was walking around with my arms around them. A weird feeling.

The next day, I saw HH. I told him about the invitation, my torn feelings and the Voice Dialogue. As a Gestalt therapist, he said, "Let's have them talk to each other here." I was alarmed: in Voice Dialogue the selves don't talk to each other. They don't even know another self exists. He said, rather grimly, "They'll talk with me." I insisted on having the center self present as well: in Voice Dialogue, center is the aware ego; I needed a home base, since both these two were exhausting. They appeared with no trouble at all. Cringing, clinging worm sat to my left, Happy Ali on the right. I sat between them and I could literally feel their presence, these small children, the one pressed up close to me, the other, trying so hard to be cocky and brave, but finally admitting, "I feel as if the sky is falling." I sat between them and mothered them, stroking the fabric of the couch (where I imagined they were sitting) with great tenderness. They cried through me, and I cried for them. As HH said, "All three of you are crying." It was quite a session. What it meant came much later.  I made HH tell me what had happened. He said, "You know what happened." I said, "I know - but she needs to hear it," nodding towards my right. So he addressed that little Ali who has tried so hard all these long years and who now sat there bewildered. What had she done wrong? HH was inspired: he told her, "You're still a part of her. You're not going anywhere. You're the one who can throw a party for forty people with no trouble; you're the one who can cheer people up by making them laugh. She can't do those things. Those things are your gift to her." She smiled then (does it sound mad to talk of 'she' in reference to myself?) and relaxed a little. I said to HH, "Do you remember when I first started coming here, you said I reminded you of the story of Atlas, holding the world on his shoulders? The similarity being that as a child I held my mother on my shoulders, my mother being my world? I feel now as if I have just set the world down. My hands feel so light." It was a cathartic moment. It wasn't that I had set down the burden of cheering up my mother. It was that I had set down the burden of being the Alison who needed to cheer up my mother.

That evening I hosted a meeting at my house. Only a few people from my little sub-committee could come so I had also invited the Advisory Committee. The AC is the committee that does the brunt of the work for Long Beach Meditation. Four people came. Three from my lot: one severely jet-lagged and sleep deprived, one in physical pain, one straight from a long day's work; and one lone member of the AC, up from the desert. Nobody else came from the AC. I was so angry that nobody showed up! Not only that, but nobody had even bothered to RSVP! I thought if THIS group of people can't be bothered to respond or show up, what does that say about the organization? My meeting had nothing to talk about without the others being there. I would have cancelled had I known they wouldn't show up. And so on and so on. Isn't it easy to slip into blame and anger? To get all spitty-faced and self-righteous because after all, look at me, doing the good thing, having my meeting and where were the rest of you... It hit me in the night. Who was it who was getting so bent out of shape? Yet another childish facet, dutiful, responsible, doing everything right according to her sights, in order to be accepted, win a few gold stars, get that pat on the head.

It was all so clear. Who is the one whose hand shoots up to volunteer for any old thing? Nothing is too much trouble, too much work or too time-consuming. And for what? To fill that nagging hole, to silence that wormy voice on the other side, the one that can only cry, "Not good enough!" If I am accepted by the group, better yet, if I make myself indispensable to the group, then I MUST be all right. And all of this chugs along unconsciously, as long as everything goes according to plan. When there's a glitch - when I throw a meeting to which nobody bothers to come, for example, and my reaction is a sort of self-justified muted rage - it becomes glaringly obvious that I have some other agenda going on, some need that isn't being met.

I've been doing this for a very long time. When Victor first invited me to be a member of the AC, my first and honest reaction was to say with a rueful laugh, "But I hate committees!" In the next breath, I hijacked myself with a speedy acceptance, so pleased was I to be a part of the inner sanctum. Thrilled to be chosen, because that must mean I was worth something.

So it has been a hard haul getting to this point two and a half years on. Who wants to admit to themselves that they are not half as good a person as they like to imagine they are? That they have been run for a lifetime by two little kids: one, the pleaser who knows so well how to make herself liked; the other, full of fear, holding all the negativity because the other, so much stronger and  forceful, will allow no part of it in her world.

My first thought was to disband my little committee; my second to detach from the AC. I feel that somehow these two little ones cannot be allowed to run the show anymore - no, 'allowed' is the wrong word. Poor things: they ran it because there was no-one to relieve them of the job. It had worked pretty well, after all - Happy Ali got me a good husband, a beautiful daughter, kind and generous friends, a life with enough leisure time to ponder all of the above. She had no idea that things were not as they appeared on the surface.

The thing is, knowing now what I know, I cannot continue as before. If there is an adult in this house, it is more than time for her to take charge and let those little ones rest. If things carry on as usual, what was the point of all the pain?

Me in my uniform, being cheerful.

Once upon a time, I decided crying served no purpose, sorrow changed nothing, and took a determinedly cheerful route. And at the time, I was absolutely right. I was a child without a voice and there was nothing to be done but make the best of it in the only way I knew how. To make myself be liked, to fit in, and the way to do that was to be happy because "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." My motto.  I find it interesting to realize that at boarding school, the place where I had no voice, I who was never sick, was sick at least once a term with tonsillitis. I lost my voice for real and as a result, I got to spend a few days in the Infirmary, being looked after as much as any of us were looked after, by the school nurse/nun. She was not in the least a cuddly nun, being the whitest, palest person I have ever seen, in a white habit yet, but she was a cool, competent grown-up, respected and capable, and I, who yearned to be looked after, at least felt safe if not loved with her.

A card I sent home when I was around 12. Pretty much sums up the way it was for six years of my life. In the picture marked 'change' I am changing my stockings and doing up my suspender, in case you're wondering what that black thing is.

Anyway. If I revert to things as before, then that little girl who had no voice way back then will continue to have no voice at 50 bloody 7. How can I, knowing what I know, go on as before? For all of the four previous Beginners' Courses, I have been there every Sunday from 1 to 5pm, doing the registration, the greeting, taking the form back at the end of the day, updating it on the computer, sending it off to the treasurer, printing it out for the following week. Even when my cousin was here on a once in a lifetime visit from Australia, at the same time as my beloved daughter was down from Berkeley, I made sure I took precious time to do that job. It was my DUTY.

I cannot think of anyone who would do that, everyone else seems to have such clear priorities. How did mine get so skewed? I cringe to remember an incident when Helen was in high school and I was teaching: she scarily fainted twice as we were getting ready to leave the house. I had never seen anyone faint before and it scared me to death. I called the paramedics and even though she had come around, they loaded her in the ambulance to take her to the hospital to find out what was wrong. I went back inside to get ready for school. Minutes passed and the doorbell rang. It was a fireman.

I was surprised they were still there. "Um. We're waiting for you. Are you ready?" he asked. "No, no. You go on ahead," I said, trusting them to do their job. Helen was safe. I had to get to school and arrange my classroom for a sub. THEN I would go to the hospital. When I got to school and told them in the Office what had happened, and the principal asked, "But where is Helen now?" "In the hospital," I said. They practically pushed me out the door to go to her. I remember being confused. Surely doing my DUTY - my teacher job - was more important than being a mommy?
Oh God.

The Oh God comes from this. From right this minute, realizing I have internalized both of my parents' opposing voices, only they are playing from an eerily childish perspective. This is how my priorities got skewed. A common scenario: My mother, shy, bookish, intellectual, hating the superficiality of diplomatic social life, suffering from ferocious migraines, begging my father to be allowed to stay home - or if they had to go to some such cocktail party, that he would promise that they would leave early. Dad, so English, so pragmatic, also sociable and charming, would say in disgust, "Pull yourself together, Maryse!" Showing a rare irritation in his voice, "How can we decide now to come home early? We might be having a lovely time. Why are you always so negative!" And she, with her pain and her migraine, like that was dismissed. She would deflate, literally sag, while he scolded her. She became invisible. And I, the quiet onlooker, Daddy's girl, must have determined in some dim corner of myself, that I would do my duty, I wouldn't let the side down - and there, plucky, cheerful, dutiful, all those things sprang into being to counteract my mother's perceived weakness. So that years and years later, I could abandon my teenage daughter in a screaming ambulance going to who knows where, as she was suffering from who knows what. And abandon her again (along with my cousin) to check in the Beginners' class. I wonder how many times I have abandoned her in this way? As many as my father abandoned my mother, I would imagine.

My volunteering to do it all was part of this 'isn't Alison wonderful' campaign being waged by the little girl. It worked too, didn't it? Except that the approval I was really seeking, my father's, my mother's - ah well, I will never get that, will I? In that last week before my Dad died, he told my sister that she was "the best daughter a man could wish for." I loitered around his bedside, hoping he would tell me I was also a pretty damn good daughter too, but he never said it. Words! He died in my arms, but he never said he loved me. I've been searching for my father's love my whole life. I only found that out today.

It is a terrific joke on the part of the Universe, a masterpiece of timing, that today happens to be the day that my self-appointed father/mother figure, poor long-suffering Victor, is signing the lease on a place in Ojai. Which means he will be dividing his time between Long Beach and Ojai, which is about two hours away. I imagine that he will spend more and more of his time in Ojai, leaving us here to get on with it. To the child - the whole bloody kindergarten in me - this is abandonment all over again, except instead of me being sent away to boarding school, Victor as parent is sending himself away. I thought I was okay with it, had become used to the idea, but for him to be signing the lease on this particular day, in this particular time period, seems especially significant.

In Voice Dialogue, every facilitation is designed to strengthen the aware ego. It is not a place one can live out of, apparently, although one can aspire to. My greatest fear is that here I am, deeply aware of the children who at last see a chance to lay their heads down and rest - and is the adult strong enough to pick up the reins? Am I strong enough? Brave enough? Aware enough? So many years of conditioning to work against. So much easier to say 'stuff it' and go back - only, I can't go back! I see creepy motives behind every little thing I say or do, and where once I thought I was wholly good, now I see how dependent I am on others' good opinion. Most of what I do has the aim of pleasing others. And if it's not forthcoming - look out! Krishnamurti asks if it is possible for us "to live with what we actually are, knowing ourselves to be dull, envious, fearful, believing we have tremendous affection when we have not, getting easily hurt, easily flattered and bored - can we live with all that, neither accepting it nor denying it, but just observing it without becoming morbid, depressed or elated?"

Can we live with all that? Can I? I have no idea. What happens now? I do know that my meditation practice has suddenly received an infusion of energy. Perhaps all that energy I was channeling elsewhere is now available for me to use for my own purposes. I have lost three pounds, after spending weeks and weeks on a gentle gain. I am positive that fat is an excellent defense, a way to feel safe, at least for me. I had a dream at the start of this period, that someone was pushing to get into the house and I was pushing on the door trying to keep them out. Trying to scream to my husband , "Unwelcome intruder!" but I had no voice. And whoever it was, pushing from the other side, was winning. Who was that out there? Was it that poor little disowned self, the little worm? No, it felt big, angry, powerful, but maybe it felt like that because I was so afraid of it. Woke up before I saw what it was, heart pounding, sweaty, nightmare symptoms. Perhaps there is simply something in me pushing to the surface that is saying "Enough! I won't be shut away in the dark any longer!"

Snuffy, Spirit Guide aka Circus Dog

I've been crying a lot. Grieving my Snuffy, my little dog who had to be put down 18 months ago. He was twelve years old, but had been sick for five years with a chronic illness. Back in my twenties, I had a blind psychic friend who told me my spirit guide was a black dog. Somehow I imagined a big dog, like a labrador. A couple of days ago, it occurred to me it could have been a small black fluffy dog; my spirit guide could have been Snuffy. Made me cry. I have not cried for him until now, not once, always managing to say with great common sense, "Well, he was in such a bad way. It would have been one thing if he'd been run over, if he'd been young... but you wouldn't have wanted him to live a minute longer than he did, the way he was." Which are - come to think of it - exactly the same words I have used about my father, wasting away with cancer. I haven't cried for him either, once past the day he died.

Everything is related. Everything repeats, until we get it.

I don't think there is a darn thing I can do about any of it except remain open, inquire into everything and be honest with myself. And start saying no, or at least, "Can I get back to you on that?" That would be a start.

I have faith that it is ultimately good: I created a 'Beyond a Vision Board' just a few short weeks ago in my writing class; it's like a collage filled with images and words that appeal to you right where you are, not aiming at some future time. Mine is filled with images of mothers and children, prayer hands and water, and the words 'Open to Change with Heart' and 'You are You. Whole.'

Whoever that is.

My 'Beyond a Vision Board'

P.S. Writing all this out feels like an enormous weight has dropped away. I thought, if Lois rescinds her invitation, it won't matter, because I have learned so much that I would not have learned otherwise. Instead, today a long phone call followed a flurry of emails and together we booked my flights, made plans, became giddy with excitement. Pure joy and gratitude. No hidden worm.