The Truth of the Lie

“The extent of the fear of the Truth is the truth of the extent of the lie.”

What does the “extent of the Lie” mean?

How much ground does that Lie cover? How many people has it reached and convinced of its veracity? Is it just a few or many? Is it a recent Lie or one of long endurance? How important is the Lie to the person’s life? Is the Lie necessary to support the person’s outward story? Is the Lie a necessary component of the person’s public persona?

The more important the Lie, the harder it will be to discover the truth of that Lie.

Why are we so afraid of the Truth?

People often fear the Truth, but particularly so when the Lie has set up shop in the entirety of a person’s life. If the Truth of the Lie is uncovered, the person fears that the Truth will expose him or her to scorn, derision, and all other sorts of negative emotions from those to whom the Lie has been told over the preceding days, months, or years. The Truth of the Lie will strip the person of his or her carefully created disguise, leaving the person standing in his or her emotional nakedness for the world to see. And judge.

That is when the fear of the Truth most often prevents us from looking at, and accepting, the truth of the Lie.

Scott Peck wrote a book about the People of Lie. People who concocted, nurtured, and promoted a Lie about themselves or their lives – with reckless disregard of the damage done to others – for the sole purpose of serving Self.

I have known one of these people.

When we are fearful of examining the Truth of the Lie, or Lies, we have created, we would be advised to consider the consequences of staying in the status quo, no matter how comfortable or necessary the Lie may feel.

Living the Lie kills. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. But it will always kill.

A Perfect Love

“Why waste time looking for the perfect lover when you can instead be creating the perfect love?”

I’m not sure the perfect lover exists. Certainly at the beginning of a relationship the pheromones and hormones are raging. The lovers think the ecstasy will never end. Desire and lust, those two emotions that can dictate and ruin a life, run rampant and uncontrolled in those early days. “This will last forever” they foolishly think, while unbeknownst to them, the house they are building has its foundation on the shifting sands of sexual attraction, and nothing else.

If all they have is sex, the relationship is doomed to failure.

Is there a perfect love? The odds of finding or creating the perfect love are much better than the odds of finding the perfect – and lasting – lover. The perfect love is based on so much more than physical desire. The perfect love ties the lovers to each other emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Perfect love supports, nurtures, encourages. Perfect love is creative, not restrictive. Perfect love is unselfish but at the same time self-loving. Perfect love can also create the perfect lover, but only in the correct order.

Why do so many of us fail to understand the difference between the perfect lover and the perfect love? I can’t answer that question.  What I do know, however, is that perfect love must be created and birthed first, and if this is done carefully, slowly and intentionally, the perfect lover will simply be a part of a whole, wonderful, fulfilling and soul-enhancing miracle of perfect love.

My Interview on GMAP Broadcast Network

So much fun! This link should take you to the video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQTpRSryiLI

"Live" onAir with Adair Sanders 13 August 2021 GMAP - YouTube

Join Me on GMAP Broadcast Network!

This Friday, August 13, I am doing a live interview as a Featured Author with the GMAP Broadcast Network, which is an internet station. It's set for 2:00 eastern, 1:00 Central. Just go to their website and join! The featured books are Wolf and The Games We Play. I'm excited to share my writing story!

Reconciliation

Tonight was the last session at the writing retreat I’ve been attending. Tomorrow I will have a Healing Touch session at 9:00 and then head back to the mountains. The past two days have pushed me to write in ways that aren’t particularly comfortable for me, but they’ve been wonderful learning experiences.

The last piece, which we wrote just an hour ago, was a letter of forgiveness to ourselves. That letter is way too personal for me to share here. But, the task we were given in the late afternoon - to pick a significant memory and write about it as if we were there- seems a fitting one to share on this blog. It’s about forgiveness of a different kind. So, here it is.

“Reconciliation

It’s mid-afternoon when I am finally able to leave the office and make my way up I-55 from Jackson to Madison.  My parents’ house isn’t far off the exit, nestled in a zero-lot-line neighborhood peopled mostly by retirees.  They moved to Mississippi from Tennessee two years ago for me to take care of them.

It hasn’t been easy. There’s a lot of history, mostly of the bad kind, between me and my dad, and both he and mama had been pretty loud in expressing their displeasure with me just about from the get-go because I didn’t come over to see them every freaking single day. But, things changed three months ago, and not the way either Mama or Daddy anticipated.

My father is dying, and today, a windy spring day in late March, 2007, I have left my law office to spend yet another afternoon with a sick, dying, unbending, self-righteous man who claimed me as his daughter, grudgingly, because I wasn’t born with a penis.

I knock on the front door, tentatively, and without waiting for an invitation, enter. My mother, prisoner of her wheelchair since her last stroke, sits in the living room with the sitter I have hired for 24/7 care. I waive, but I’m not here to see my mother. This afternoon is for my dad. And me.

Daddy can’t do much anymore, but he refuses to have a hospital bed. He barely eats anymore, just drinks black coffee at all hours and smokes his pipe. Instead, he lies down on the floor of his home office for afternoon naps, and that is where I find him now.

The office was supposed to be a third bedroom, but my father took it over immediately upon moving into the house. A grey metal desk takes up most of one wall. The last time I was here Daddy was shredding documents he had removed from its various drawers. Today, however, he’s stretched out on the floor sound asleep.

In the corner on a small table rests his old Army blanket. Dark green, made of the scratchiest wool I’ve ever had the displeasure of actually touching, Daddy’s Army blanket has been a fixture in our home for as long as I can remember.  Trying not to awaken him, I lay the blanket across Daddy’s cancer-thin body, and as quietly as I can, lower myself next to him.

His breathing is shallow, slowed by the heavy pain medication he takes for the cancer that is eating him alive. I touch his cool hand, skin mottled by age and disease. I inhale the smell of pipe tobacco that lingers on his body, and moving close to his ear, whisper “I love you.” I won’t have him much longer, and I don’t want to be angry when he’s gone.

He never says he loves ME, but he reaches a hand to grab my own. Reconciliation comes in many forms.”

PS - The accompanying picture is of my father in his younger years before life and disappointment changed him.

My Grandmother's Girdle

Today’s exercise in the writing retreat I am attending was using a technique called a “sprint”. What this meant was that for 7 minutes - and yes, we were timed - we were to write continuously, not allowing our hand to stop moving, and not making any corrections - basically free-thought/association writing. We were to start from either a “sweet memory” or the phrase “I want to write about…”

At first I thought this would be just about impossible, but I discovered just the opposite. And I discovered, much to my surprise, that the exercise took my words in a totally different direction than expected given where I started. From a place of half humor to a really dark place.

So, in the vein of posting my classroom work, here is “My Grandmother’s Girdle”

“I want to write about Grandmother Lucia’s bra and girdle. Of course, it’s not really about her bra and girdle, it’s about why that memory arose in the first place. #1, the visual of watching my grandmother get dressed. For a woman born in the 1800’s she was remarkably open about her body, or maybe because I was a girl, and little, she didn’t need to cover her nakedness in front of me.

I want to write about how shocking her naked body was to me as I watched – with fascination and repulsion – as she stuffed her enormous, flopping breasts into a gargantuan brassiere – and how she squirmed and struggled to pull up a tortuous girdle.

I want to write about how vain my grandmother was;

I want to write about how controlling she was;

I want to write about how she used her money to bribe and threaten me to do her wishes, well into my teens;

I want to write about how my grandmother emasculated my father;

I want to write about the way my grandmother intruded into my parents’ marriage, making it a threesome, emotionally, for the entire three decades she lived while they were married.”

Grits

I’m at a writing retreat for three days. I haven’t done one of those since before I started writing the Allison Parker Mystery series - 8 years ago! This retreat is at a place called the Well of Mercy in Hamptonville, NC. I think Hamptonville must be the Well’s mailing address because the actual location of the Well is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE at the end of a gravel road. Truly, when the pavement went to gravel I worried that the “bitch in the box” had finally lost it. But - as advertised, quietly, the retreat grounds run by the Sisters of Mercy is a lovely, secluded, escape where one can write, walk, rest or search far away from the noise of our everyday world.

At our first session last night the 13 of us attending were asked to choose three words that described each of us, and then from those three words to select one to be used in a group writing exercise. We were told we could use as many or as few of the 13 words that we wanted, but we had 15 minutes in which to create our narrative, which had to begin with “I have always loved _____.”

For me, so unused to writing on demand, this sounded pretty intimidating. However, as often happens - well, maybe I should say always happens - the Muse stepped in and the words simply flowed. What came out was rough, and if I’d had my regular, leisurely, untimed approach, I’m sure I’d have done some editing.

As each of the 13 read her work (all women at this retreat) I was fascinated to hear 13 different voices, 13 different writing styles, 13 different perspectives on the use of words and phrases. There was no right or wrong, just individual voices reflected in beautiful, uniquely individual, creation.

So, for fun, I thought I’d share with you my 15 minute, unedited work product. I used 7 of the 13 words (grits, blunder, parallel, bliss, river, heartbeat, blooms). Enjoy.

“I’ve always loved grits. Even if I blundered into a parallel universe I’d seek out the yummy goodness that blooms in my heart whenever I hear mama say “it’s time for breakfast.”

Grits,  you say? Those are awful, you’d insist – but, no, I’d protest, grits connect me to my past, to memories of those blissful days before the demands of life interfered, those days when grits, steaming hot, with a river of butter dripping off my chin as the overflowing spoon made its way to my mouth – those are the true childhood days of bliss.

I see your face – you simply can’t comprehend how I can love grits. What can I tell you except this – grits are the heartbeat of the South.”

PS- the picture accompanying this post is of the chapel at Well of Mercy.

Enough is Enough

Generally I have tried to keep my opinion on current matters pretty much to myself, although if you’ve seen some of my posts on social media I haven’t been totally successful. I have not taken a public stance on many issues for a couple of reasons but primarily because I didn’t want to negatively affect the sales of my Allison Parker Mystery series.  I’ve always known that was a chicken-shit reason, and after I read the content in the U.S. Dept of Ed’s proposed regulation for public primary and secondary schools I decided the time to be chicken-shit was over.

 Critical race theory is poison for our country.  The Black only, Asian only, LGBTQ only graduation ceremonies at colleges, the Black only dorms, student unions - you name it - it’s segregation all over again. People in my generation fought and died (in some cases) to bring an end to segregation, to pass and enforce civil rights legislation, to acknowledge and fight racism. What we are seeing today with the indoctrination of critical race theory is just as bad as what my generation fought against in the ‘60’s and 70’s.

 Rioting, looting, arson and destruction are deemed “peaceful protests” by an organization whose founders are publicly avowed Marxists and whose violent actions are excused by members of Congress. Corporations are bowing to the woke mob (frankly a minority of Americans who have somehow been able to intimidate everyone else), law enforcement has been demonized, and any white person who disagrees with what certain elements of the “progressive” left scream are called racists, white supremacists and worse.

 Not everything is climate change. Not everything is infrastructure.  Not everything is racism.

 Our southern border is non-existent. Having a border and enforcing immigration laws is not racist. Every sovereign country is entitled to its borders. Throwing money at South American countries will not solve our immigration crisis. Who do you think will get that money? It sure won’t be the poor people who live there.

 People are losing their jobs for voicing opinions that differ from those spouted by the Progressives” (has anyone thought about how ridiculous that title is? “Regressives” is more like it). What country does that remind you of?

 Do we now live in an America where a citizen is afraid to state her opinion for fear of retribution, retaliation, being “canceled”, being ostracized? My husband thinks it’s just a phase the country is going through. I pray he is correct, but I believe he is wrong, and for that reason I can’t be silent any longer.

Not Happy Siblings Day

As is my habit, I perused Facebook this morning to catch up on the goings-on among my friends, as well as to skim news events worthy of more than a second glance.  It took only a few minutes of scrolling my news feed to be told that today was “Happy Siblings Day.” Along with the reminders were pictures of happy siblings who clearly love one another and were glad to have each other as family. And while I enjoyed seeing my friends’ posts and pictures of brothers and sisters, I was also instantly reminded of the absence of that holiday in my own life. It’s not that I don’t have a brother – I do.  One 4 years younger than I who lives in Chattanooga. But we might as well be “only” children.  He and I have been estranged for most of our adult life due, in large part, to diametrically opposed choices each of us has made in this continuing journey called life. 

The last time I saw my brother was when we buried my mother six years ago. Thrown together by necessity over the last two weeks of my mother’s life, and then at her graveside service, our interaction was polite but strained.  Prior to those sad weeks, we had been in each other’s company only once, for less than fifteen minutes, between 2007 when we buried our father and our mother’s last weeks in January 2015.

Over the years I have periodically reached out to my brother hoping that “this time” it will be different, and that he and I can have a normal conversation (whatever that is), that the arguments won’t begin. My fruitless efforts have only reinforced what I already knew – that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result was not only the definition of insanity, it was the perfect description of the “relationship” between my brother and myself.

Some will say it’s never too late to reconcile. But, in our case, I believe it is. The core of my brother’s ill will towards me is a memoir I wrote in 2011. Although our relationship was hanging by a thread already, the publication of that story was more than he could tolerate. The only coming back as far as my brother is concerned, and as he has told me more than once, is for me to “admit” the memoir is one big lie – something I cannot and will not do.

So, there we are.

I am sad that I don’t have a brother, but in reality the fact that he is related by blood to me is insufficient, in and of itself, to form a healthy and loving relationship. I wish him well – he has remarried after years of staying in a terrible marriage, and I hope his remaining years will bring him joy and peace. Perhaps in another life we will have a different relationship.

In closing this essay, I’ll end with a note about the accompanying picture. I had to search online for a current picture of my brother as I have very few of him, and none recent.  Perhaps that little fact says everything.

The Recovering Artist Podcast

I am happy to share an interview I gave about my writing and journey. https://therecoveringartist.buzzsprout.com/1483780/8017961-biologically-bankrupt?play=true

Allison Parker Goes International!

I’ve been writing since 2008. Mt first book, Biologically Bankrupt, was published in 2011, and the first Allison Parker Mystery in 2013. A book of essays went out in 2018. And, the most recent book in the mystery/thriller series - The Games We Play - was published in the fall of 2020.

So, I’ve been at this for a LONG TIME and just this week was notified that I now have fans and readers in Canada and Australia. I am THRILLED with this information and hope that many more people will become Allison fans.

So, a BIG THANK YOU for all y’all!!

What I Read When I'm Not Writing

At book signings I am often asked what kind of books I like to read. Well, the answer may surprise you - I like to read paranormal series. Two of the best are by author Faith Hunter. The Jane Yellowrock Series and the Soulwood Series. While the characters are mainly paranormals of some kind, the stories are really about relationships and various adventures involving a continuing case of characters. Both series are entertaining. I'm eagerly awaiting book 14 in the Yellowrock Series and am unfortunately on the last book currently in the Soulwood Series. Check them out. I bet you'll like them! #FaithHunter#JaneYellowrock#Soulwood.

Another series that I read quite a few years ago that was addicting is the Verkosigan Series by Lois McMaster Bujold. The Verkosigan series is set in the future and follows several members of the Verkosigan family on adventures throughout the universe. Although classified as “science fiction”, again these are stories about relationships and a continuing cast of characters.

These might all be outside your normal comfort zone for reading material, but I’d be willing to bet you’ll be hooked if you start them.#LoisMcMasterBujold

Happy reading in 2021, and look for a new Allison Parker Mystery by year’s end.

The Games We Play - An Allison Parker Mystery

Over the past five years Allison Parker has survived a serial killer, an attempted murder, a terrorist attack, and an international assassin.  How could agreeing to investigate the claims of a confidential informant possibly be dangerous? Answer? When the confidential informant is the little sister of convicted murderer and prison kingpin J.T. Begley. Seizing the opportunity to ensure inside protection for her brother Rice, Allison agrees to take the case.

As with the previous books in the Allison Parker series, author Adair Sanders weaves and intertwines multiple plot and story lines in this fast paced and exciting page-turner.  While Allison works with Nick Showalter, the A.T.F. agent who is Teresa Begley’s handler, her husband Wolf Johannsen and his F.B.I. counterpart Jake Cleveland worry that both the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have been infiltrated at the highest levels by a cabal of powerful men. Frank Martin, Allison’s P.I. cohort in previous adventures, juggles a murder-for-hire investigation for an old client at the same time as he, Allison and Showalter struggle to identify the person who has threatened Showalter’s C.I.

And if that isn’t enough excitement, Frank Martin’s client Sidney Parrish - the same client who hired Frank to find out whether his wife wants to have him killed - finds himself in the middle of a kidnapping and embezzlement scheme associated with one of his Fortune 500 companies.

Series characters Sheriff Toby Trowbridge, computer whiz Pete Pantsari and ex-Navy Seal Bennett Shealey also make an appearance for what Allison Parker Mystery would be complete without them?

The Damage Done

In the fall of my senior year in high school I suffered a deep psychic and emotional wound. For most people, I doubt that what I experienced that October would have had the same effect, but for me – a 17 year old with zero life tools – this one traumatic event started me on a twenty-year road of almost complete emotional and spiritual destruction.  And even though I was eventually able to choose the path of health and to recover myself though years of hard, inner work, fifty years later the effects of that one event continue to haunt me and to cast a pall over my life.

My school, a girls’ school, held an annual May Day celebration. The entire student body participated. One senior girl would be elected as May Queen and one senior girl would be elected as Maid of Honor. As a seventh grader I set my sights on being selected as the Maid of Honor my senior year and spent the next five years being a model student. And I mean a truly model student. I even planned the timing of my senior chapel talk to precede the student body vote so that my name and face would be familiar to the younger students.

That October several of us were nominated for both positions by the senior class. Then the student body voted.  There ended up being a run-off between me and a classmate for the Maid of Honor position. I remember sitting in French class the morning the votes were calculated and hearing screams of congratulations erupt from the adjacent classroom. I remember my French teacher catching my eye with sympathy at the sound, because she and I knew what the screams meant. I remember sitting in the foyer next to the gymnasium using a pay phone to call my mother. I cried and cried making that call. I may actually have had to leave school for the rest of the day. I just don’t remember. I was completely and totally devastated.

Why was that one, seemingly trivial event so traumatic for me? I believe there were many reasons, all of which coalesced into the perfect storm. The conditions for this perfect storm had been building for many years, but unaware of the dangers, I had forged blithely ahead without a life vest. When the storm hit, it took me under.

No one had told me that no matter how hard one works to achieve a certain goal or result, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. It’s no one’s particular fault. It just happens for reasons beyond one’s control. No one had taught me how to handle that kind of disappointment. I, however, had been indoctrinated with very different messages  - that money was the most important goal, that money bought influence, that money and status were what counted the most. So, when I lost that election to a girl whose family was socially prominent and wealthy, I took to heart the lessons I had been spoon fed by my parents.

That year I became seriously depressed. I was one of the photography editors on the annual staff. I did nothing. I was in a select literary club. I never attended a meeting.  I withdrew from all but one or two friends, and even with them I began to build an outer shell. I went through the motions and plastered a smile on my face. Near the end of that school year the assistant principal lectured me, telling me “We are so disappointed in you”.

I went to college that next fall and continued to struggle. I dropped out my second semester with a serious health issue that took months to diagnose. Although I ultimately returned to college, graduated and then completed law school, all of my life decisions were weighed against my new goal of attaining status and wealth by any means possible. The decisions I made in the first ten years after that October day my senior year in high school resulted in terrible and painful consequences that took another ten years of experiencing before I hit a spiritual and emotional bottom.

Next month I will celebrate thirty-five years of healing. The healing didn’t happen all at once. It took years of work, acceptance, understanding, onion peeling, sorrow, forgiveness and reflection.  About 18 months ago I was shocked to experience two PTSD attacks associated with trauma that had happened to me as a result of some of my bad decision-making in the 1980’s. That occurrence reminded me that my healing continues, and that perhaps I will never be completely healed. But that is ok.

Why am I writing about this? The fact that my 50th high school reunion is this year has brought the precipitating event front and center for me, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that, about that young girl, about how badly she hurt, and how I am not that girl now and haven’t been for a very long time. But the first sentence of this essay came to me when I woke up around 2:00 this morning from a dream about the Coronavirus. The dream faded, but the sentence remained, letting me know I needed to write.

The picture which accompanies this essay is my senior yearbook picture. It was taken the summer before school started. That girl had so many hopes for the future. She had no idea how difficult the road she was getting ready to walk would be.

This Too Shall Pass

I have a good bit to say tonight, but I have to start with a confession: I never thought of myself as “an elderly person” until the CDC, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx denoted anyone over 60 as being in that category. Say what? Elderly? That’s what my grandmother Lucia was, or my mother as she approached 90, but not me. And then, of course, I had to remember how old I am. A lot closer to 70 than 60, even if my mind and body refuse to feel or believe it.

The current Covid-19 pandemic and its attendant crisis, both here in the U.S. and in the rest of the world, have brought a myriad of emotions to the surface for me. At first I thought I was being over-reactive or silly. Things surely couldn’t get as bad here as in China or South Korea. Nevertheless, and now grateful for the action, we made the hour and half trek down the mountain to the nearest Costco several weeks ago and stocked up. Frankly, I felt like an idiot.

When the news from the Washington State nursing home began to hit I grew a tad more concerned, but I know a lot about nursing homes and their residents (my mother spent her last 8 years in one) so I was saddened, but not surprised, that there were so many deaths there from the virus. But then the virus moved to Italy, and then to France, and then to Spain, Germany and the UK. For some reason, the fact that the virus was so deadly in Europe made more of an impression on me than the deaths in China. Still, although intellectually I was concerned about how the virus would come to this country, and I knew it would come here, I tried not to think about it too much.

Then, a week ago, all of this hit home for me. The virus was indeed here, and it was spreading. Although Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birk “told it like it is” and urged us to wash our hands for 20 seconds, use hand sanitizer and most especially to practice social distancing, way too many people blew off the seriousness of this virus. All one had to do was glance at Facebook and see the comments - “this is just media hype”, “it’s a deliberate ploy to wreck the economy and defeat Trump”, “it’s just a flu, people, get over it.” And on and on.

I guess some of those people who don’t think this is a serious issue for our country aren’t 60 or older. Or maybe they don’t have underlying medical conditions or compromised immune systems. Or maybe they are just stupid. Or selfish. Or, maybe, they are frightened.

I admit - I am frightened some of the time when I look at the havoc this virus is causing in terms of life and death, of what it is doing to health systems globally and what it may do to the U.S. health system if we don’t flatten the curve. I am frightened some of the time when I look at the falling stock market, when I look at the number of people who are being laid off from businesses both big and small. And I know I am not alone in that fear.

Is this the end of life as we have known it? I don’t mean the end of the world. We will pull out of this - there will be recovery of health, of our economy, and most businesses will survive. But there will be losses as well, and a heavy toll on our national conscience and our personal spirits.

As I write this essay, I believe we are just at the beginning of our battle against this unseen enemy in our country. We don’t have a vaccine. We don’t have an effective treatment. Yet. The closures that are currently in place for just 15 days will likely be extended. Life will be changed. It already is. But, it will pass. It will. Our job, our responsibility, is to do all that we can to stay healthy and not to infect others. If this means working from home, not going out, not mingling, then so be it. This is not the time for finger-pointing, blaming, or partisan politics. Covid-19 doesn’t give a flying fuck about who you are, where you live, what political party you belong to, or any of that other puny-ass shit coming out of some people’s mouths right now.

Love yourself. Love your neighbor. Be kind. Share. Meditate. Work in your yard. Read a book. Binge on Netflix. Don’t hoard toilet paper. Bake brownies. Exercise in your living room. Walk your dog. Clean your house. The list of things you can do during this time is endless. And, maybe if we do enough of that kind of stuff, life as we know it will change. For the better.

As for me, I’m doing Pilates and Yoga in my living room, using light weights for some arm workouts, and taking long walks on our mountain roads. I can do all of this without risking being infected, or if infected somehow, without infecting anyone else. My dog Baxter enjoys yoga with me as you can see from the above picture.

Just remember - this too shall pass.

Eve Was Framed

This may be the best bumper sticker I have ever seen. My youngest sports one on her car, a fact which does worry me somewhat since she lives in the South where good Christian women are taught to be seen and not heard, to submit themselves to their husbands and never to question male authority. While not all Southern men adhere to this sort of medieval autocracy, there are plenty of them still around. I was raised by one, have a sibling who fervently embraces this philosophy, and have, sadly, actually worked with a few of them. And in all fairness, this belief and mind set is not exclusive to Southern men.

I think Eve really was framed. Organized religion has demonized that poor woman, blaming her for all of mankind’s woes, from the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden to every imaginable bad event thereafter. But I have to ask this question: Where was Adam in all this? Did Eve force feed him the apple? Get real. Adam was simply the first in the long line of humanity to refuse to accept responsibility for his own actions. I can hear him now. “God, it wasn’t my fault. She made me do it!”

Yes, Biblical scholars, I know Eve blamed it all on the snake, so it is also true that Eve didn’t want to accept responsibility for her actions either. But I find it so interesting that the churches, synagogues and mosques - all run by men for hundreds of years - have conveniently ignored or forgotten Adam’s equal role in that ancient story.

Religious texts are full of stories of human failings and frailties, with men in most of the staring roles. But in so many of them, it is the evil woman who is responsible for the man’s weakness - Delilah and Bathsheba just to name a few - and only the man who ultimately finds redemption. What is that supposed to mean?

I have issues with organized religion for many reasons, but certainly the way women have been treated in the name of God ranks pretty high up there. Even today there are many churches where women are excluded from the Deaconate, and are prohibited from teaching adult Sunday School classes. In those religious communities woman are basically seen as the man’s servant. It’s no wonder so many men are conflicted by the Madonna - Whore complex. What other option has religion offered them?

My daughter is a stickler for the First Amendment, and the heart of a feminist beats strong within her, so naturally she loves her Eve Was Framed bumper sticker and thinks it makes a great statement. While I agree with her, I also worry a bit about her safety because the first Eve Was Framed sticker that graced her car bumper was defaced. When one’s religion teaches that original sin originated with a woman and places mankind’s problems at her feet, when one’s religion teaches that women are less than men, and when one’s religion calls a woman a whore and a man engaging in the same behavior just a guy sowing wild oats, is it any wonder that woman are abused? And it’s not much of a stretch from defacing my daughter’s bumper sticker to harming her for daring to place it on her car.

Before you dismiss my thoughts as histrionic, think about what is going on in the world. ISIS and the Taliban kill women for any number of reasons including daring to be educated or showing their faces. In many Arab countries it is illegal for women to drive, and having multiple wives is par for the course. In certain countries female children are left on the hillside to die, or are aborted simply because of gender. And this country is not immune. Go to any fundamentalist or conservative church and see how women are perceived. They are not afforded equal status with their male counterparts, either in church or in the home.

Yes, Eve Was Framed is an amusing bumper sticker. But it’s a frightening one as well.

A note about the picture accompanying this essay: This is a picture of the first varsity women’s rowing team at the University of Alabama. These women worked hard and within the first few years competing at the national level won silver and bronze at the Head of the Charles. My daughter who inspired this essay is on the far right. She coxswained both wins.

When the Student is Ready

I can’t remember when I first heard the phrase when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Most likely that sage advice caught my attention in an AA meeting because that’s where I’ve picked up enough tools to live a fairly healthy life. Wherever I heard it is irrelevant, though, because the truth contained in this small but powerful statement has a universal application, well beyond the four walls of any AA meeting room. I know, I know. When the student is ready the teacher will appear sounds like New Age mumbo jumbo, something a Yogi might offer his rapt students, some pearl of wisdom garnered from fasting or religious ecstasy. And I guess it could be any or all of those things, but for me, the saying is a simple and clear statement of fact. Let me explain.

First of all, I am reminded that I have to be ready. What does that mean? Well, I have to be aware that there’s a lesson I need to learn. I can’t tell you how long that has sometimes taken. More times than I care to admit it’s taken years before the proverbial light bulb came on. I guess I’m a slow learner. Next, having obtained at least a scintilla of awareness that there is a problem, I have to be willing to look for a solution. I have discovered that it is far easier to admit I need to learn a lesson than to be willing to do anything about it, particularly when the solution is one outside my limited understanding. And - here comes the hard part - once I’ve become willing to learn the lesson, and have accepted the fact that I personally do not have a magic wand, I have to actually take some sort of action. If I can get that far, the teacher will appear.

I don’t know about you, but I am very resistant to change. It takes me a long time, lots of teeth gnashing, and usually some amount of discomfort or actual pain before I am willing to take a different route in life. I’m much better nowadays at recognizing my intransigence when I’ve gotten myself in a fix of my own making and need help getting out. I know the teacher will appear, but why I can’t remember that 100% of the time remains a mystery to me. Life would be much simpler if I didn’t have to go through hell each time (or my concept of same) before surrendering.

The teacher can come in many forms. For me, most often my teacher has been my therapist. I’ve been blessed to find a gifted healer who has helped me through some very difficult realizations over many years of hard work. Sometimes, however, the teacher has been someone who came into my life in only a peripheral fashion, someone who was the most unlikely looking teacher I could imagine. On more than one occasion, the lesson I needed to learn came from the mouth of a paranoid schizophrenic homeless man who frequented an AA meeting I regularly attended in Jackson, Mississippi. Dan, a man who was certifiably crazy by just about any psychiatric or societal standard, who wore disheveled clothing, and whose long hair stood out around his head like a dirty halo - this man taught me not to be deceived by the appearance of the teacher.

As I bring this essay (for it’s longer than a blog) to an end, I find myself reflecting on all that I’ve written. A part of me hopes I won’t need the teacher anymore, but the higher part of myself knows that’s just wishful thinking. May we all be ready

It's Hard Work

Oh Boy! Writing a screenplay is HARD!!!! I finally pulled the trigger (like Allison would do) and just started. I think I've been paralyzed by the challenge of converting Wolf into a visual and audible story! But, I know Wolf and Allison are ready to take their adventure from the book to the screen, so I'm slugging along.

Even using a screenplay formatting tool like Final Draft I find it incredibly difficult to translate the written story of Wolf to a visual and dialogue format. I can certainly see the scene in my head because I am the creator, but it took me a while to realize that adapting a book to a screenplay does not mean an exact translation. To the contrary, it’s almost like writing a completely new story. Don’t worry, Allison fans. The story of Wolf is still the story of Wolf, but it’s going to be different simply because of the way it will be experienced. The written story will be the scaffold upon which an even better tale will be formed.

So, hang in there with me. This is going to be a multi-month process just to get a first draft on paper. If I can get to a real final draft by mid-year I’ll be thrilled.

Finding My Books

There's been a lot of interest about the Allison Parker Mystery series on my Facebook page recently so I thought I'd better tell y'all how to purchase the series. You can find the books on Amazon in Kindle, paperback and Audible formats. Just search for Allison Parker Mysteries by Adair Sanders and you'll see books 1-5. They are, in order of publication: As Sick As Our Secrets; What Comes Around; Ashes to Ashes; Suffer the Children; and Wolf.

If mysteries aren’t your bag, check out my memoir, Biologically Bankrupt, for a deep dive into generational dysfunction, abuse and addiction in a Southern family. It will make the hair on your head stand straight up!

Or, if you like to mix it up so to speak, take a look at Out of the Ashes, A Collection of Essays. It’s a fun compilation of essays on life.

In addition to Amazon, you can purchase my books at Highland Books in Brevard, NC or Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville., NC. You can also purchase signed copies if you are so inclined by messaging me via this website.

Oh - the picture accompanying this blog is a North Carolina mountain sunset as seen from my writing desk. Blessed, for sure.

To Read Adair Is To Be Aware

A friend sent me this rhyming review of my book “Out of the Ashes, A Collection of Essays” and gave me permission to share it. Enjoy!

To Read Adair Is To Be Aware

 I finished a book that was written by Anne.

I read it again just to glean what I can:

 Best to wear life as clothes that are loose.

(Even when rhyming as does Dr. Seuss.)

 If you see a person you think is inept?

That’s you in the mirror that you must accept.

 Food can be comfort, and dogs are the best.

Southerners rock, and it’s fun to get dressed.

 WNC deserves its great fame,

A rose is a rose, because what’s in a name?

 Waxing nostalgic is fun on a spree,

But now is the best time.  Wake up, and you’ll see.

 You are God’s own, and since you’re God’s “tater,”

Has put up your name on a big ‘frigerator. 

You can’t choose your “folks,” but you can choose a friend.

The friends that you make are your peeps in the end.

 My own obligations are what I should do:

They don’t come from parents or family or you.

 Grace and thanksgiving and love are all great

And marked by the holidays we celebrate.

 Rather than say what might cause one offense

Don’t speak, stop the fingers, start making amends.

 Having an empty cup’s just an illusion;

If I’m not the problem, then there’s no solution.

 When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Be accepting yourself that you see in the mirrors.

 There’s more I could glean from these lessons of Anne.

I read her book twice for my weak inner man. 

 Perhaps even better, she reminds me that I

Have a lot more to learn in my life till I die.