A fatal mistake will finish me,

Like Eve’s tragic fall

And people will finally find out

What’s really behind my wall.

(All These Fears, from Fearless Moral Inventory,

by Juliet A. Wright, copyright 2011, all rights reserved.)

I went to visit my sister and her beau on Martha’s Vineyard over the summer. They had rented a pleasant cottage and invited me down for few days. We had a wonderful time walking through Vineyard Haven, visiting the beach, swimming, running, and picnicking while we watched the sunset. This beautiful serene island was the perfect place to decompress before starting back to school in late August.

The day of my departure we headed over to Chappaquiddick so that I could see it before I headed back to Vermont.  My sister had composed a really funny rhyme about the ferry that transports people from Edgartown to Chappaquiddick.  It goes something like this:

If you want to take a nappy on the ferry to Chappy,

you’d better make it snappy or you won’t be happy!

(by Elizabeth H.Wright, copyright 2012, all rights reserved)

When we drove our car up to the docks to wait in line for the ferry, I could see why the nappy had to be snappy.  What a cute, tiny ferry! It only transports 3 cars the short distance of 300 yards from dock to dock. The ferry is a fun ride and I highly recommend it.

Our first stop on “Chappy” was Dike Bridge, the site of the Ted Kennedy Incident, which occurred on July 18, 1969.   I was told the story of the incident as we stood on the bridge staring down into the murky water below.  I immediately became intrigued about the accident, the details of what happened and why.  Thus, upon my return to Vermont, I hopped on Amazon and ordered a couple of used books on the subject and began my research.

This is my typical human fascination with tragedy, shock and disgust showing through. Why are we like that?  Why do we wait with anticipation to be grossed out?  I don’t know, but I do. It reminds me of all of the countless hours I have spent on the freeways of Los Angeles, completely stuck in rage-inducing traffic, waiting to see the blood, guts and gore that caused me to wait two hours to go three miles.  Somehow that moment of “oh my gosh, that’s awful,” justifies the birth of the screaming out of control maniac I become when I can’t go more than five miles an hour in my car.

Anyway, back to Chappaquiddick.  So, according to research I’ve done, Kennedy was driving to the ferry with Mary Jo Kopechne in the car, when he made a wrong turn and ended up on Dike Road instead of Main Street. His car went off the bridge and turned over. Somehow he got out of the car, but he couldn’t get her out, even though he claims to have tried repeatedly.  Instead of immediately contacting the authorities for help, he chose to go back to where his friends were and ask them for help.  They went and tried to get her out too, but couldn’t.  They told him to report the accident.  The accident, however, did not end up getting reported until 10 ours later.

Kennedy stated that he could not explain his actions at all, except to say that he was in a state of shock.  God rest his soul, but he must have been in shock.  Because if I put myself in that situation, I can’t imagine doing anything less than running down the street, screaming at the top of my lungs for help, finding the first person I see and saying, “Please call for help, there is someone trapped, please help me!” It would be automatic for me.  I can’t imagine handling it any other way.  Kennedy had his political career at stake.  He had also lost two brothers in the past six years.  That’s no excuse.  What’s right is what is right. He made a mistake here.

The point is, however, that sometimes our mistakes end up being our saving grace.  This accident marred his reputation and probably cost him the presidency. It also probably saved his life. He probably would have been assassinated just like his brothers.  God gives us what we need, not what we want. I’m sorry for Mary Jo and her family. It was an awful, tragic accident that was poorly handled.

I have always thought that I would make one fatal mistake that would ruin my whole life, just like my lyrics above suggest.  I thought that mistake was losing the love of my life. It was all my fault. Then I thought I made another mistake by getting involved with Brad, my next and last serious relationship. That dysfunctional union nearly destroyed me. (Also all my fault.)  It also led me into recovery from codependency.  This recovery has saved my life in many ways and I am grateful for it.  I have grown as a person and feel like I am doing God’s will by working my codependency program and reaching out to those who also suffer from the disease.  My lost marriage and dysfunctional union with Brad might have been necessary steps towards my recovery.

Nothing happens in this world by accident. It is all part God’s plan. I wonder if Ted realizes that where he is now. I wonder if he is looking down from where he is and it all makes sense.  I wonder if he is sitting there wishing he could take it all back and do it differently.  I’ve been there too.  But I believe, for me, I’m in a better place now.  I hope he is too.

This country puts too much of an emphasis on the physical appearance of women.  One does not have to do much searching to find tabloid news in which some celebrity is being chastised for weight gain or praised for weight loss.

This judgment and public chastising is not only detrimental to the person being judged, but it’s very superficial.  What is important is what is in a person’s heart and soul.  Every person on this planet is a beloved child of God just the way they are. I think God would be much happier with a person with a person who has warmth, compassion and understanding towards others whether they look like a fashion model or not.

Karen Carpenter was the victim of such criticism. I have always been a fan of hers.  I love her low alto voice.  As a kid I spent hours listening to and learning the songs she recorded with her brother. Years ago I watched a movie about her life and struggles with anorexia. Her obsession with her weight was triggered by a review she had read about a recent performance she and her brother had given. The reviewer had referred to her as Richards chubby sister.

Karen lost her battle with anorexia and died at the age of 32. I know we are all responsible for our own feelings and responses to things and I am in no way blaming whomever that review was for her death.  But I do think that people need to be more mindful of the judgments they pass on people in regards to their weight and appearance.  Looks aren’t everything.

Everything I am saying here I say to myself.  I am just as guilty as the next person for judging people for their weight. Last year I discovered a wonderful new folk singer who shall remain nameless.  I found her through a local women’s music festival, fell in love with her voice and bought her CD.  I still play it constantly. Not too long ago I found a video clip of this person on the internet and discovered that they were heavy.

“Oh wow, that’s too bad,” I thought to myself.  “That probably is going to have an affect on her career.  I wonder why she doesn’t lose weight?” I immediately scolded myself for this superficial judgment and did a 10^th step personal inventory on the subject. I was wrong and I knew it.

I myself have struggled with my weight my whole life. Throughout my career in Hollywood it was always an issue and had a negative affect on my job opportunities. Bandleaders were always getting on me about my weight.  It didn’t matter how talented I was.  How I looked was all that mattered.

Part of this has to do with my upbringing.  Both of my parents were always criticizing me for my weight.

One specific incident is stuck in my brain for all time. It has seriously affected how I feel about myself. What I interpreted from this incident was that I was a fat, ugly, unlovable loser.

My Codependency blames this incident. The reality is that I feel this way about myself because this is how I feel about myself. That’s it. My feelings and thoughts about myself are my responsibility.

Anyway, the following incident affected my inner teenager and me for years to come.

We stopped somewhere along the New York Thruway for a snack on the way home from Madison Square Garden, where my sister had been competing in the National Horse Show on her Saddlebred horse. I ordered a corn muffin with butter on it. Dad went berserk.

“You have a weight problem and you have to deal with it,” he roared in front of the whole restaurant.

I spent the rest of the meal staring at the muffin while I tried not to cry, because Lord knows, I would have gotten in trouble for that too. Don’t show your feelings. I was so mortified.

We were traveling in separate cars and I was riding in Mom’s car. When we got in the car to head home, I started bawling immediately.

“I feel so ugly,” I said.

“He never should have done that,” she responded.

People get judged for being fat. We live in a society where looks matter — a lot. I’ve fallen right into it too. I diet like crazy and work out like a fiend. I write down my weight every day and measure every morsel of food. I feel better though, being lean and in shape, and I’m actually as healthy as a horse.

From that day on, my inner child has felt like a fat, ugly loser. I am currently working with a therapist, CoDA, Overeaters Anonymous (OA), Weight Watchers, my sponsor, and in an inner-child workbook to rid myself of these negative beliefs.

That was one of the most shameful moments of my whole life.

I wrote my song “Expectations” about this very subject.

Why aren’t I thin, I overeat

Why aren’t I pretty, long arms, big feet

Shame on me, admit defeat

With your fantasy, I can’t compete

It’s perfect

 After all it’s all about you

 You’re the one who’s good

Why can’t I be who you want me to be

And take care of you like I should

You keep shoving expectations on me

I just keep trying to please you

You keep shoving expectations on me

I’ll lose myself trying to please you.

(Expectations, from Fearless Moral Inventory, by Juliet A. Wright, copyright 2010, all rights reserved.)

Excerpts taken from

Wright, Juliet A. Everything is My Fault. Pownal, VT: Hidden Angel Publishing, 2012. p. 53.

My friend JW Najarian interviewed me for his on line magazine, On Purpose. Follow the link below to listen!

http://onpurposemagazine.com/tag/jw-najarian/

The other day I heard someone criticizing Susan Boyle’s recent performance with Donny Osmond in Las Vegas.  They said she appeared to be so nervous that she looked and sounded like she was going to vomit any minute.  I felt so badly for her when I heard that.  When was the last time this critic got up in front of thousands of people and was Mr. or Mrs. perfect?  What gives them the right to judge?

I can truly empathize with Ms. Boyle because I myself have a history of terrible stagefright. It is such a humiliating experience to get up there in front of everyone and suddenly feel so scared that you’ve forgotten everything you’ve worked so many hours on to prepare.  You look and feel like a fool and a failure.  On top of that, your body is totally working against you.  You are sweating, shaking, and your heart is going a mile a minute.  Then you feel like you want to cry. It’s awful.  I get upset just thinking about it.

My stagefright was at its worst when I attended the Interlochen Arts Academy High School.  I had, during my younger  years, been an avid, fearless performer who was always ready and willing to show off. This all changed when I arrived at this northern Michigan arts school that was full the brim with brilliant, focused, artistic students who were all much more talented and capable than myself.  I was out of my league.

The following excerpt from my book “Everything Is My Fault,” describes this experience in detail.

Stage Fright

Junior year marked the beginning of a bad case of stage fright. That little six-year-old ham from first grade and the Christmas shows was gone or hiding. The girl that remained was terrified.

Thor, my piano teacher junior and senior year, helped me overcome this stage fright. Thor was a wonderful teacher and had a very gentle manner. He had a lot of great piano majors who were studying with him.

Once a week, on Thursday afternoons, we had studio class. During studio class, all the pianists who were studying with a particular teacher would cram into a tiny piano studio. Then we would play for each other while everyone else sat there staring at every move we made from only inches away. It was very nerve-racking, especially for someone like me.

I’ll never forget the first time I had to play in that tiny room for all those incredible pianists. I walked to the piano with a sense of dread, with my heart pounding, my hands shaking, and my brow dripping with sweat. When I sat down, I couldn’t remember a single note of what I was supposed to play. I had no idea where to place my trembling hands.

Thor was very supportive and told me to shake my hands out. I didn’t even know how to do that. I just kept shaking. The other students were very supportive. I think I ended up playing something that day, something with lots of mistakes. I felt like I was going to die, but I didn’t.

Thor had me read the book The Inner Game of Tennis to help me with my stage fright, and it was very effective for me. What an amazing book! Author W. Timothy Gallwey discusses Self 1 and Self 2 and their impact on one’s performance, which, in this setting, is the tennis game. Self 1 is the ego, the inner critic if you will, always trying to be in control and boss around Self 2. Self 2, on the other hand, is the creative, intuitive self that really knows what it’s doing and will blossom and shine if Self 1 will go the heck away and leave it be.[1]

So the book suggests ways to distract Self 1 so that Self 2 can do what it knows how to do. Focusing on breathing, the design on the tennis ball as it comes at you, and the feel of the ball when it hits your racquet are all activities to distract Self 1.[2] You’ll find more great ideas in this book.

Relating this to the piano, Thor had me feel the keys and imagine what they felt like. Feel them going all the way down to the bottom. What do the keys feel like?

When I would get ready to play, especially in front of an audience, he would have me listen intently to the silence. Very specifically, he would tell me to listen to the atoms splitting and I would. If you listen hard enough, they are quite loud. It totally took me out of my stage fright and into a whole other world.

Then I would listen to my music in my head. I would hear the opening phrase of my music just before I played it. I would listen for what I heard coming up next in the music. If I was still nervous, I would try to take myself to another place, like what I was going to do after I was done playing.

It certainly helped me to stay in the moment and forget that all of those really amazing piano players were staring at me.

My stage fright was due not only to a lack of ability, but a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence affects my performances to this day. It’s one thing for me to play my instruments here by myself. Take the violin, for example. Sometimes I actually sound okay when I’m here by myself. But as soon as I get in front of Marcy, my violin teacher and mentor, I completely choke. Gosh, I hope I don’t do that at my next violin recital. I’d better start practicing those “Inner Game of Tennis” techniques on the violin now.

Seriously, The Inner Game of Tennis is a wonderful book that changed my life and made it possible for me to play in public. I am now studying The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green and W. Timothy Gallwey, a wonderful book that is geared toward helping musicians. It is proving to be very helpful to me in my study of the violin.

Getting back to Interlochen and my stage fright, why couldn’t I just have loved myself and accepted where I was at? So I was a beginner, basically. Who cared?

So give Ms. Boyle a break. She is a beautiful and talented woman who is doing the best she can.  She has my full admiration, compassion and support.

I’ve decided now is the time to truly strive to follow and live my bliss.  Now is the time to make my dreams happen.  You only live once.  It’s or never.  I need to do my best to bring my dreams to live before the corporate, political world of public education swallows me whole.  I’m not saying that there aren’t good things about it – there are.  But what one has to go through to make the good things happen requires quite a bit of grit.  So it goes.  I am very lucky to have a job and am grateful to God for taking such wonderful care of me.

A friend of mine wrote, produced and directed a movie that will be coming out within the next eight weeks.  I had the privilege of co-writing the theme song for him, as well as recording, performing and co-producing the recording itself.

Yesterday we filmed the opening sequence, title credits of the movie, featuring yours truly The song is produced in a 60’s style, a la Nancy Sinatra.  I was dressed in all manner of fringy, frilly, flowery, loud and very, very short attire, with crazy-fun wigs and feathery head dress.  What fun!  I had a stylist, make-up artist, choreographer, director of photography and the director-screenwriter at my disposal.  I felt very pampered.  It was great.  It was really hard work, but I did my best.  What a wonderful experience.  What a great group of people to work with.  If anyone is looking for recommendations for folks such as these, email me and I will put you in touch with them.  They are truly at the top of their game.

I just bought Protools and a new Mac.   I will be starting from square one with my new cds – which were mostly done already on my old system.  Well, thy will be done.

I know blogs are supposed to be interactive, but I haven’t figured out how to do that.  If anyone knows how, please email me and let me know.  In the meantime I’ll try and keep searching.

What a blessed life I lead.  I am truly thankful to God for everything in my life.

In the Light,

Juliet