Ed Powers, My Muse called me today. I have been, for the last several months in a place of not knowing where I should be and what I should be doing. Today in particular was not going well for me on an emotional level. My energy is low from working gruesome days and hours at work with very little down time. I had taken a walk with a friend and shared with her how lately I can’t see a future and how I’m not quite sure what that means. I said, “sometimes I wonder if it means I’m going to die and there is no future.” She asked me if I was taking any antidepressants. I explained to her that I’m not depressed and that since my EMDR therapy over the last couple of years, I am a changed person and that the life I’ve created for myself doesn’t fit anymore with the person I have become. I didn’t expect her to understand and I really don’t expect anyone to understand how that feels to me, but it’s a constant feeling for me. A feeling of not belonging, of not fitting in, of feeling uncomfortable in most places in my life.
I came home from the walk and grabbed my gardening gloves and went outside to plant some bulbs. Digging in the dirt helps calm me and clears my mind. At one point I raised my head to the heavens and said, “please help me. Please give me a sign that will show me what I need to be doing with my life and what my purpose is.” When I came back in the house I let the dogs out to pee and came back into the living room and plopped down on the settee. I picked up my phone and saw that I had a missed call and voicemail from a 310 area code number. I knew it was Ed. Even though the number obviously isn’t saved in my phone as the number I have for him, I just knew it was him. I listened to his voicemail, “Michele, this is Ed Powers calling. I just thought I’d give you a buzz and see how you are. Call me if you want. Thank you.”
When he answered the phone, his voice was that of an aged man. I haven’t spoken to him in several years and clearly he was in a very different place than last time we spoke. His first words to me were, “I’m in a place where there is no-one I can talk to. I don’t know anyone in here.” He is in a nursing home that he said his daughter placed him there. He wanted to know all about me, but primarily he wanted to know if I was writing. “It’s a gift you have Michele and I’m going to encourage you to write.” I started to cry and told him how I have been feeling lost and like a misfit. I told him that I haven’t been able to write for a long time, and I asked, “I don’t know what to write about?” He responded, “you write about your feelings, like all that you have just told me, you write about that. It’s important that you keep writing Michele, you have a gift and I want to really encourage you to just keep writing.” I cried the whole time he was talking and told him, ‘Ed I really needed to hear this today and I can’t believe that I was just out in my garden asking God and the Universe for a sign and you called me.” He got it, just like he got me all those years ago …
I met Ed in 1989 in Scottsdale, Arizona sitting around a pool at a mutual friends home. He was striking in appearance, not handsome, but intense and deep. He dyed his hair and wore a hat. He was quirky and I liked him instantly, and he me. He told me he was an illustrator for a large publishing company in California. I was impressed. We started a very long conversation about my life in England and my incestuous relationship with my Dad and how I wanted to share my story to help others. I left him that day knowing I had met a life-long friend. I took with me his encouraging words, “just sit down and write. Don’t edit it or it will lose its feeling. Just write and write and write and then someone else can edit it.” It’s because of him that I wrote my book. When I had finished writing it, I sent him a copy and he called me the minute he finished reading it. He was crying. “Michele, he said, this book is going to be a movie or a television series, I see it on the screen.” He was so encouraging and I believed in him and his encouragement. I felt lifted in spirit, just like I did tonight when we were talking.
As we were saying our goodbyes tonight, he said, ‘Write Michele, it will lift your spirits. I know it’s hard to feel alone. I feel alone in here. Send me something in the mail. Send me a little of your writing, just please write, I encourage you, it’s your gift.” I responded, “I will Ed, I will. I love you Ed.” “I love you too, Michele.”
It was only in the moment when I sat down to write this that I realize he is my Muse … and so this blog is for Ed. It would make him happy to read it ….